From the coast
Finally on the road from Algiers to the first oasis at Laghouat over the Tel Atlas high plateau and through a valley where the only monkeys north of the Sahara live.
Dense fog in the mountains. Visibility only a few meters. Driving hour after hour hugging the yellow line in the middle of the road.
Continue through the mountains. Steep, hair-pin turns. Raining buckets and we’re soaked. Water cascading down from the slopes fill the dried-up streams and rivers that are temporarily transformed into muddy, frothing torrents.
Stopped in the first village we came to. I’m frozen in place and have difficulty lifting my legs to get off of the bike.
A café. The patron threw a log into the stove and boiled dynamite coffee to warm up the shivering stranger, while Fran went off in search of petrol and a place to spend the night.
Into the deep desert
The 230-kilometer stretch of tarmac has ended. There will only be desert trails for the next 3500 kilometers. The odometer on the bike reads 5757. Passed Fort Mirabel today. Flat landscape. Sand dunes on the horizon.
The track runs straight kilometer after kilometer. As straight as a road can be when it doesn’t have to take detours around houses or forests.
Oasis at Tabaloulet. Need to fill water. There is a hose but we can’t coax any water to come out of it. Must wait until we come to El Golea.
Some distances:
Tadjemout 260 km.
Arak 315 km.
Mirabeau 355 km.
Tamanrasset 694 km.
Circled the monument at Mirabeau three times for good health and a fortuitous voyage.
Difficult piste! Deep sand! Fran had a continual struggle to plow through it and keep the motorcycle upright, but managed.
Completely exhausted after few hours forcing our way through the sand. Not much progress today, only made a dozen or so kilometers.
Camped in the dunes. Starry night.
El Golea
Another difficult day on sandy pistes but eventually reached El Golea. Checked in with the desert police. Gave them our itinerary. They wished us “Bon courage!”
Still filled with optimism.
A steep piste down from the plateau to In Salah. More sand and stone.
Bought petrol. Filled the tank and jerry cans. Filled our containers with briny water. Washed ourselves and some clothes at the petrol station’s tap.
The oasis at El Golea has a small market. No dates or fruit. Bought carrots and potatoes. There wasn’t much else.
I´m noticing a change in the people. They are darker skinned. See an interesting woman in a turquoise colored Tuareg dress, hair covered, very dark skinned almost black. She has an emaciated, skeletal look.
Bought bread from an outdoor bakery. I stuck my nose into the six long baguettes to feel their warmth and breathe in their fragrance.
Drove a hundred kilometers today. No water at the designated well, but luckily found another instead.
Road okay but a punishing washboard. Saw a few vehicles, mostly lorries.
Landscape is changing from sand dunes to stony desert.
Following a dry riverbed lined with pale yellow shrubs. The track is continually shifting color, from white, to yellow, and to brown. Small sand-colored birds fly up as we pass. Saw some that resembled quail.
This morning while we were packing a falcon was gliding in circles over us to see if we left anything edible.
I broke a molar last night when I bit into a hard crust of bread! Fran asked if we should return to Algiers (500 kilometers in the wrong direction) to get it repaired. Not a chance! It feels okay now and hasn’t bothered me so far, and I’ve decided that whatever happens, I´ll put up with it until I can get it fixed farther south.
In Salah
Wind and sandstorm. Cooked dinner inside the tent. It blew down in the night. Got up and secured it with stones.
Saw some vehicles that passed the camp. Spoke to a girl that hitched a ride on a lorry. She paid a dollar a day including food, which she said was mostly cooked from the sheep that they were transporting, and that had died along the way.
See a warning sign. “Suivez la Piste! We are carefully following the stone pylons that mark out the track. Stone after stone. Every ten kilometers there is a distance marker.
Towards Tamanrasset
Road pretty good today. Sand after In Salah and then corrugations. Corrugations difficult at times. Let some air out of the tires to soften the jolts. The corrugations have some benefits though. We drive over them slowly and Fran and I can talk to one another.
Arrive at the oasis at Tadjemout. A few mud huts on either side of the track and two petrol pumps. We fill the tank and then continue onward towards Tamanrasset over volcanic stone trails through the Hoggar Mountains and their highlands.
Looking forward to a rest there.