It is 6 am; the sun rises on the Saharan horizon. I'm curled like a slug, buried deep down in my sleeping bag. A trickle of air seeping up to my neck is the harbinger of a chilly morning. I'm in the only place I found to spend the night. A back corner of the service station, the walls of which offered sufficient protection from the wind. The running engine of a truck stopping to refuel prevents me from getting back to sleep. When I stick my head out of the bag, my pupils contract so fast that I need to close my eyes and bury myself back inside it. After the third try, I managed to open them. The sun is barely rising above the horizon, and I can already feel the wind caressing my face. A caress of the wind sheltered within the backyard walls is a slap outside of them. I realise that there are no longer enough hours of sleep to generate the energy I need to lift my spirits at the beginning of each day.
When I re-enter de cafeteria, it is as empty as the desert that surrounds us. Any noise of crockery in the kitchen echoes within the eating hall. There is only one person on duty with whom I negotiate the most calorie- and protein-laden breakfast possible at this time of the morning. It's hard for him to understand why I want a tagine loaded with meat, potatoes, and carrots for breakfast. Either way, he tells me it's too early for it now. I have no choice but to settle for more modest options. Once I order, I choose the table by the window to sit, as far away from the noise in the kitchen as possible. Sitting down is not an act resulting from a firm decision, but a reflex. It is the passive act of letting the weight of my body fall until it settles on the chair. I fall back on the backrest, stretch my legs, and I lose my gaze in the hypnotic dance of the strands of sand dragging across the surface of the road. I hug my cup of coffee with my hands, seeking the comfort of its warmth. There, under this Saharan spell, I reflect on the gloomy tone that my psyche has taken on in recent weeks. It is clearly not something that has happened overnight, not even over several days. This results from over two months of persevering against an invisible enemy who strives every day to undermine, like a legion of termites, the very foundations of my fortitude. Its fine work has led me to move forward because of inertia and no longer of joy. It doesn't require much introspective work to realise that most of the time I find myself annoyed, jaded and with very little patience. Each activity of the day represents a renewed effort that I no longer feel like doing. When I wake up, I look for any excuse not to get out of the sleeping bag, because I don't feel like getting up to face another day against this evil wind. It's not just riding all day against an invisible wall. Even the most basic task, such as heating water for coffee, is an odyssey in this place where there is a shortage of shelters for hundreds of kilometers around. I feel vulnerable far beyond the effect of the elements. I feel susceptible to breaking down and giving up any time. Yesterday's experience in the truck gave me a sense of peace that I hadn't felt in a long time. During those few hours, I remembered what it was like to feel at ease. Unfortunately, it also showed me how easy it is to put an end to all this madness that I am involved in. As a result, I am much more likely to succumb to the temptation of jumping into a new truck.
However, I decide not to and extend the torture sessions. This implies that I am no longer just going against the wind. I am going against everything my body and mind tell me. When everything is adversity and thousands of internal voices overlap to tell you to put an end to all this stupidity once and for all, silencing them is a titanic job. The wind, instead of helping to silence them, stirs them up like embers under a pile of hot coals. The more it blows, the more they torment me with their screams: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!! STOP THIS NOW! YOU HAVE DAYS AND DAYS OF UNLIMITED MISERY TO GO UNTIL YOU REACH THE END. INSTEAD, YOU COULD EASILY GET ON THE NEXT TRUCK AND END THIS NOW. At this point, I am convinced that the wind is more benevolent than the violence of my own thoughts.
The emptiness of the desert stretching to infinity in all directions continues to give me that same claustrophobic feeling that I felt since I entered Western Sahara. It's the feeling of being locked in a room where two walls are getting closer and closer until they crush me like a cockroach. The difference is that in real life, the walls of this metaphor are invisible. I am in a totally open space that still imprisons me and squeezes me to the point of suffocation. Although I appeal to my stubbornness to rebel against myself and continue to persevere, two days later the wind paralyses me once again. I can't move the bike forward no matter how much I stand on the pedals or push. Therefore, I have no other option but to ask for help again, because there is nothing I can do to reverse this situation by myself.
Shortly before noon, a new truck picks me up, only to drop me off a few kilometers further on in Laayoune. It is indeed the first proper city since I left Nouadibhou weeks ago. After so long of not seeing anything but sand and gravel around me, entering the urban fabric of the city is one of the most intense oasis experiences I have had in a long time. The buildings serve as a shield. They hide the surrounding desert and protect me against the wind. The streets, traffic lights, people walking, teahouses, restaurants, I feel like I'm hallucinating. It's hard for me to assimilate how much I missed this: civilisation, comfort. Laayoune, just a few kilometers from crossing officially into Morocco, is the largest city in Western Sahara, the most populated, and of course the most heavily policed. Once again, I feel I am in a police state. While this doesn’t affect me in the slightest, I despise it for the pain it inflicts on the Saharaui who have to suffer being oppressed within their own land.
After devouring a lunch for four, I do not stay to wait for the end of digestion. The disgust that the police presence makes me feel, with all that it represents, is so great that despite wanting to stay, I decide to continue suffering in the desert. After a few more hours of ordeal, I cross the invisible line. I am already in Tarfaya, Morocco but still in the desert. This is the point where the road comes to the edge of the ocean again. The views are incredible, but direct exposure to the sea a 0 level, with no cliffs to offer any resistance, unleashes the total fury of the wind. It torments me without reservations to the point of recording in my DNA the souvenir of an experience that I will never be able to get rid of in the years to come. 4 more days of hatred, fury, boredom and impotence will have to pass until the point where geography gifts me a 90º turn inland. That's when the wind gets behind me and takes me to Tan Tan in an amount of time equivalent to what I would have needed to pull off 500 meters until now. I’m falling into yet another hallucination. I don't even need to push the pedals, just follow the natural movement of the legs. This is how I get to Tan Tan, where hell officially ends. From now on, I will begin the progressive ascent towards the Anti, High and Middle Atlas mountain ranges.
Bye Western Sahara
I've been through brutal periods of headwinds over the years and the tens of thousands of miles I've ridden. I have felt its strength, its rigour and its viciousness several times, but never with the constancy, consistency or persistence that I experienced throughout the western edge of the Sahara. If only I could combine every headwind period I've experienced in the past and order them one after the other without interruption. I am sure that they would not be enough to complete perhaps even a fraction of what I have lived in these last forty-odd days in hell. It doesn't matter how much other travellers had warned me about it. No matter how much I've tried to psych myself up for this. Nothing, absolutely nothing could prepare me to sustain this level of torment for so long. Past a certain point, it was like living trying to hold my breath at the bottom of the sea. A suffocating feeling, almost claustrophobic. To be honest, I can't say I've enjoyed this. I even risk asserting something worse. Today, sitting in a canteen in Tan Tan, sipping delicious mint tea, I can't even feel the orgasmic satisfaction that usually comes with the end of a challenge of such dimensions. Contrarily, this stage that began in Dakar almost two months ago has left me with a bitter taste. A kind of dark psychological sequel to which I induced myself to by the stubborn determination to finish it on a bicycle. I think it will take me several days to parse the emotions that this brings up in me. For now, I will keep savouring this mint tea, saying goodbye to the Sahara for the second time and looking ahead in search of the Atlas peaks.
