Believe it or not, until not many years ago the Adrar experienced a kind of fame among tourists with high purchasing power. Despite being the capital of the entire region, Atar is just a large town in the vastness of this desert. As I pedal through the center dodging men in daraâs and shared taxis, it seems unthinkable to me that direct flights from Paris ever landed here. However, those times are behind us. These days, with all the security ministries of the ultra-powerful countries sowing panic among their citizens, cataloging the Adrar as a region of extremely high terrorist activity, tourists no longer want to come and play at being adventurers. I think I am virtually the only foreigner in these lands. It is no coincidence either, that I feel totally safe and that the most terrorist thing that I feel can happen to me is that a goat makes me fall off my bicycle.
However, I don't have much to do here because Atar is nothing more than a crossing point for merchants who come and go carrying goods and animals to and from the Saharan villages. Nor have I suffered like a convict to get here in vain. For me, this is just the gateway to continue venturing deeper into the Adrar plateau. So, once I managed to get a new gas stove in the town’s bazaar, even if by a miracle, I continue cycling inland to the historic town of Ouadane.
The idea of facing the cruelty of the wind of the previous days does not excite me one bit, but it is not enough reason to bow down and stop continuing to persevere in making my plan a reality. That's why I leave Atar ready to face the elements over the next 180km of absolutely nothing lying ahead of me. What I didn't expect was to come across a mountain pass shortly after leaving.
Not planning too much or obsessing about carrying maps to try to anticipate and control everything that will happen to me along the way is a deliberate decision of mine, although I must admit that many times I would have definitely liked to know a bit more in advance of what would come ahead. However, most of the time, not knowing, or finding out day after day by asking local people, gives me surprises that feed my spirit of wanting to continue advancing over the uncertain. The Amojjar pass is one of those surprises. I really had no idea I'd be spending all morning zig-zagging this way uphill through a canyon whose slopes are striped like the layers of a cake that is giving me a lesson in geology. Unlike the typical mountain pass, reaching its top does not result in a descent but in a plateau where the desert is perpetuated until vanishing into infinity.
The sealed road disappears shortly after finishing the ascent, giving way to a track whose direction and condition it is impossible for me to determine due to the mirages that flood it. I have to pedal very slowly because I can see a lot of sharp stones as part of the gravel and I honestly want to avoid puncturing at all costs. However, there is something that keeps me happy despite the difficulties: the absence of wind. The aversion to it I've developed is such, that I even begin to feel superstitious trying to avoid any manifestation of joy for the mere fact of fearing to wake him up.
Other than the occasional pick-up or two that pass by every few hours, I spend two days in absolute solitude. Not even the horizon shows me any signs of life. The palette of browns once again dominates the landscape and the stones of the same colour that take the place of the sand look like images taken by a space probe on some alien planet. Even the austere 10m2 mosques of the pre-Atar days are gone. Those who stop to pray do so on the ground in semi-circles traced with stones and whose curvature indicates the direction of Mecca. Unlike them, I don't need a religion to experience spirituality, but rather this deep fusion with the world. These days however, my communion with the desert does not occur through violence result of the constant lashes of the wind but through serenity thanks to its absence. Thus, as a result of this truce with Aeolus, I reach the end of the road at the gates of Ouadane, the last stop, in one piece and a good mood.
The ghost town
More than two years ago, I remember arriving at Bawiti, the first oasis I visited, after pedalling the first 400 kilometers in the Egyptian Sahara. It was a feeling difficult to describe, something like a magical sensation of being transported back in time. The very image of seeing myself among dunes and date palms in the middle of the desert shook my body. Farafra, Abu Minqar, El-Qasr and others followed, both in Egypt and Sudan. Each of them offering me a deeper look into desert life. After that first stretch of more than 2000 km in the Sahara, a lot of sand involved, infernal heat and above all, a lot of adrenaline, it’s easy to tend to believe that one has seen it all. Therefore, it’s difficult to think that it’s possible to relive the same level of surprise one already experienced the first time doing something. This notion persisted in every bit of desert until I reached Ouadane where I relived this beautiful feeling of newness.
I don't even know if the term 'oasis' applies in this case. That's maybe why I can feel the impact. Unlike the Egyptian version, here the little green provided by the palm trees and the bushes is muted by a yellowish crust, and there are no visible water sources. Nor do I see animals, neither wild nor domesticated. Ouadane does not stand out in the desert but is one with it, achieving perfect mimesis under an incandescent white sky clouded by trillions of sand particles. In the 11th century, it used to be a city that served as a staging point for trans-Saharan trade. The caravans that transported blocks of salt from the Idjil mines stopped here. Today, it is in theory a tourist attraction, if there is anything even close to it. Surely it used to receive more visits at some point before the times of western paranoia where terrorism is always making an attempt on the lives of the bereft white people. The truth is though, that its ruins are a World Heritage Site, but if it weren't for me and two intrepid Basque guys who arrived at the same time, Outdone looks more like a corner of oblivion where time stands still.
Silence predominates during daylight hours. Only the turbulence of the wind forcefully seeping through the alleys manages to break it. I must imagine that the inhabitants remain indoors sheltering themselves from the harsh weather, because the sound of life does not penetrate the thickness of the stone walls of their houses. Outside, the solitude of the desert reigns. From time to time, I hear the creaking in the space of a wooden door. At that moment, I may see someone emerging, venturing outside the limits of the walls and just as fast he or she appeared, she’d disappear again shortly after a new door creaks in some other distant corner of this maze. No one walks around Ouadane during the day. Its people move from point to point out of necessity, and the fleeting image of the men and women who pass wrapped from head to toe only further reinforces the character of a ghost town.
As is often the case in the desert, the spell is broken as the sun approaches the horizon, in the hours when life begins to spring from the few openings in the walls. People finally come out of their houses, gather in the open spaces and wander around the village. Always segregated, the women gossip on one side while the men gather around the 'board games' on the other, although here they are in effect 'floor games'. Next to a stone wall that serves as a windbreak, I see a group of men gathered around an imaginary board drawn directly on the sand. With the same concentration of two Russian chess players, I see the competitors analyse for several minutes each movement of the pebbles they use as pieces. Around them, the audience is captivated by the tension of the moment. Some whisper comments into the ears of those next to them, while others discuss moves and try to chime in with recommendations. What is clear to me is the seriousness with which they take this game whose name I do not know and the concentration is so great that I go completely unnoticed. In Ouadane I feel as ghostly as its inhabitants.
Beyond the road
After 4 days of being as close as possible to nine centuries ago, I decide to go back to the future. Instead of returning in a DeLorean, at a certain time I need to be at a corner of the oasis where the merchants who supply Ouadane wait. Negotiating a reasonable price with them is harder than getting plutonium for a DeLorean. It is clear to me that hospitality is not the forte of these people and it reminds me of one of the most valuable things about traveling by bike: the independence it gives me so I don't have to deal with the greed of someone who has something you need and decides to abuse it. After two hours of alternating between casual chatter and haggling I finally reach a deal, which while still notably higher than the locals', at least it's no longer exorbitant.
What I do not anticipate when I'm loading the bike in the bed of the truck, is that the trip back would open up a new world beyond the limits of the only road to Atar and the one I took to get here. For it must be recognised, the bicycle is a magical means of travel but it doesn’t go without its limitations, and what two wheels cannot do on a deep sand track is a piece of cake for a 4x4. We set off driving directly on the sands of the desert and with no apparent destination. In this silence, the roars of the struggling engine somehow renders an image of the roughness of the surface on which we travel. For those who do not know, it is difficult to imagine that whoever is behind the wheel knows perfectly the course in this vast ocean where everything around us is the same and there is no visible shape silhouetted against the horizon to serve as a reference. Getting on a vehicle that moves forward leaving a furrow on the virgin sand is more than an act of trust, it is an act of faith towards the unknown.
When the silhouette of a tent settlement finally reveals itself on the horizon, I am simply stunned, with more questions but no answers of any kind. How did we get here? How do they find their way back home? How will we find our way out of hhere? A GPS must grow in the guts of these people throughout life in this barren landscape without electricity, where the only connection to the satellites is by seeing them dance in space at night when we tilt our heads to look at the sky.
Once at the tents, we unload part of the merchandise that we brought with us. The drivers know very well all those who live here, far from what we know as civilisation of the 21st century. While they load and unload, they talk, gossip negotiate and, of course, invite us for three cups of tea. At the fourth settlement where we stop, we pick up a new passenger with whom we continue on our way. I still have no idea where we are, how long this journey will last, or how we will get back, but what I do have very clear is that I do not want it to end. While I enjoy listening to them talk the whole trip in a dialect I don't understand, I look out the window, squinting my eyes and contracting my pupils to see the landscape devoid of any apparent life. Being able to lead a life here is even more incomprehensible to me than the dialect they these guys speak.
Having long since resigned all sense of direction and time, we stop once again, literally in the middle of nowhere upon arriving at a cistern where two Tuareg men and a woman herd a herd of no less than a hundred goats. Like in all previous days, the sky is white, saturated with dust particles that cut off the sun's rays but still allow enough heat through to squeeze the body. The wind has also returned to summon whirlwinds of sand that dance untamed across the surface. Wrapped in black turbans and their robes billowing in the air, the shepherds come forward to greet us. Their dark bitumen-coloured faces are furrowed by the traces of the Sahara. I don't understand any of the language they speak but through their gestures and signs I soon decipher that we have come to buy goats. Immediately, both men and the woman launch a raid to catch some out of the hundreds of them. The goats, for their part, as if they perfectly perceived what is going on, run away terrified trying to escape, bleating dissonantly in desperation. From where I am taking photos I try to elucidate the selection criteria as I watch them run in circles behind them. Regrouped in the shape of a triangle, one throws stones at them to redirect them, the woman waits for them in her corner ready to lash at them with a twig that she uses as a whip and the third jumps between the specimens until finally catching the chosen one by one of its calves. As soon as he gets full hold of it, the others arrive right away to finish subjugating it, at which point its fate is sealed. No matter how much they squirm to resist the holdup, there's nothing they can do anymore.
With four goats tied up at the back of the truck we leave, saying goodbye to the herders and their herd, leaving them in the same isolated patch of desert where we found them. Due to the probably innate talent of the merchants, we turn up an hour or two later on the main gravel road that connects with the road to Atar. Beyond the fact that I would not exchange the bicycle for any motorised means of transport, I must appreciate the value that these can bring to my experience. When we arrive in Atar at the end of the afternoon, after 8 hours of travel, bathed in dust and sand, I unload the bike and panniers at the central roundabout of the town. The market is already closed and few people are left outside. The cold looms quickly over the town after sunset and the streets are left in the half light of the odd bulb hanging from a cable. Despite its precariousness, after the days spent in Ouadane, in Atar I can feel what it's like to return to the future.
It is my last night here but my days in the Adrar are far from over. Now it's time for me to find my way back to the coast. For this, I head for Choum tomorrow, where a journey that I have been waiting for more than two years awaits for me. My thirst for adrenaline is insatiable and I am eager to continue.
