I pedal with my head wrapped in my turban and my eyes sheltered behind my sunglasses. The glow of the incandescent sand in the midday sun blinds me. In this Saharan spot of desolation, where the imaginary line that divides two countries supposedly passes, I search for the border post. Surrounded by infinite monotony, I stop the bicycle to contemplate the surrounding emptiness. There is no traffic or people, just the omnipresent whistle of the wind echoing in my ears. Far away, at the end of the road I'm on, a slight alteration in the landscape exposes an almost imperceptible construction. That is where I suspect that the end of Mauritania will be, or the entrance to Western Sahara for what it’s worth. I get back on the bicycle to continue. As I pedal, I imagine the moment in which the representatives of the European powers, who attributed to themselves the ownership of Africa, sat around a table in Berlin in the late 1800s. It was then when they drew up these lines in the middle of nowhere to divide the continent so they could split the riches between themselves. I find it weird, even apparently arbitrary, that there are actual dividing lines on the sand blanket I am now crossing.
An hour later, I walk out of the border post with my passport stamped wondering why this border has such a poor reputation. I had arrived in defensive mode and badly predisposed. I was ready to deal with the usual hassle of corrupt officials trying to get bribes. Instead, I only found officers anesthetised by the mind-numbing forces of the desert.
As I readjust my turban before leaving, I realise that this is where the road I came from ends while no new one begins. To get out of the confusion, I shout to one officer who is still loitering near the door - 'Ayn Al-maghrib?' (Where is Morocco?). His lethargy is such that he doesn't even attempt to produce a sound. He limits himself to just point forward in the direction I was already looking. Since I see nothing, I guess I have no choice but to hope for the best and find footprints or whatever resembles them. Waving my hand, I shout back at him: shukran! mae asalama! - (Thanks! Goodbye!) -
I have come this far having negotiated some of the most rigorous stretches this continent offers, both in quality and quantity. Thanks to this I can assert that this ‘no-man's-land’ is one of the worst places in all of Africa. Now, struggling in this sea of sand and rubble, I make my way through a collection of car skeletons. Here, they have found the perfect place to rust into oblivion under the sands of the Sahara. The most disconcerting thing is that this is not a remote border like so many others I have already passed. This is no other than the only border crossing along the main commercial route that connects these two countries. Despite its status, its condition is such that I can barely keep my balance while riding. If this border were materialised by a bridge, this is as though its central part had been dynamited. In the sand I get bogged down, while on the rocky patches I am afraid of getting a puncture by riding on the sharp edges of the rocks. Given that the last thing I need right now is to have to take everything apart to repair a puncture under the punishing sun, I prefer to push. But even that is unbearable with the wind spitting sand at me. As on the Mauritanian side, there are no signs of any kind other than a distant point that I suspect could be the building of the Moroccan customs. There is no traffic, there are no people to ask directions. In fact, I can even imagine ending up spending the night inside one of the half-sunken rusty skeletons that surround me. Without a doubt, this is the perfect setting for smuggling operations to go smoothly, and I suppose this is the reason for its terrible reputation. An hour later, after 4km and lots of cursing, I stand at the foot of two towers crowned and flanked by numerous Moroccan flags flying in the wind. A chain of thick concrete blocks and high fences block the space in between them. Nothing resembles a road from where I come, so I cannot help but wonder what these guys think the threat could be. Still, dozens of armed soldiers keep watch from the top of the towers and patrol the surrounding area. It all seems more representative of a prison than of the entry to a country. Welcoming is not the word that comes to mind. After a few minutes of waiting, I finally get a quick passport check by one of ‘robots’ out there. Once across the gate it’s another 50 meters to the office building block and further back, the road reappears, now paved like silk.
The whole procedure goes by fast and has a degree of formality much higher than the African standard to which I am used to. Therefore, I am not surprised that they didn’t want to coerce me to get bribes. As soon as I leave the office, I am officially in Western Sahara, the land of the Saharawis, even though their northern neighbours control it with an iron fist since the end of the Spanish colony in 1975. Since then, Morocco has turned Western Sahara into a brutal police state to ensure the profit of the riches that provide thousands of kilometers of Atlantic coast. From a remote corner of the desert along the border with Algeria, the Saharaui pro-independence rebel group Polisario, fights a lost battle for independence. As lost as that of the Tibetans or the Uyghurs against China. No member of the United Nations to this day validates Morocco's sovereignty of Western Sahara. However, the region is so far back on the list of geopolitical priorities of the world that there is little hope for the Saharawis to regain their land.
Beyond the greater sophistication of the facilities on the Moroccan border, there is something outside that does not change: I am still in the middle of fucking nowhere. Now, past noon, the wind is at the height of its rage. Along the 60 km of absolute nothingness leading to the first town, I endure the first session of harassment in this unknown country. It is the first taste of the wind in western-Saharan flavour. Every day I advance towards the north it increases the intensity of its fury by several knots. During specific stretches, the gusts are so strong, that I am beginning to wonder whether it is even possible to complete this leg of the trip by bicycle. By the end of the day, I barely arrive at Bir-Gandouz. The bulbs that cast some light on the streets dance in the air hanging from the cables. The swirls of sand blur their amber colour. With the sun now gone, the temperature plummets. The force of the wind penetrates my clothes as I wander down the main street. I shiver and shake while I search for a place to eat and sleep. My hands and face are numb from both, the hours of cycling, and the sudden temperature drop. I’m ravenous but there is no open place to buy anything and no sign of accommodation either. The mosque is the only place where I find refuge for the night.
Luckily, no one seemed to mind finding a giant green caterpillar lying next to one of the side walls during the 4 am praying session. Whether It’s because Muslim hospitality allows it or because the men were too deep into their prayers, I don’t know. The important thing is that I could sleep until 7 am without interruptions. I come out as soon as I wake up, driven by starvation, in search of any place where I can find something to eat and stock up. In the first little shop that I come in, I am surprised to find that despite the remoteness of this corner of Western Sahara, there is already greater availability of things to buy. After over 14 months since I left Cape Town, shopping here is like stepping into the future. There are more options and variety in one shop than in any of the ones over the last 10 months since I left Windhoek. The contrast is such that I feel out of place. The combination of my ferocious appetite, the eagerness to stimulate my taste buds and the need to stock up for the next few days, I go shopping as if there were no tomorrow. As I load my panniers, the first tea houses and restaurants open their doors. I have at least 200km of raw desert ahead of me until I get to the sole gas station in which I can buy anything again. I can't afford to leave without eating and being fully stocked up. I must wait for as long as it takes. If I have to wait in the empty room, sipping tea and eating biscuits until the chef arrives, cooks the meals and serves me the dish, I'll do it. A couple of hours will have passed, but I consider myself lucky. Ordering dinner at 7.30 am is as unusual in Western Sahara as it is in Buenos Aires or Paris. Without a doubt, the owner and chef have seen the desperation on my face. By 9.30 am, when I taste the first tagine of my life, everything, absolutely everything, has been worth it. Tagine is the blessing of Morocco.
An hour later, I think I have loaded my stomach with more weight than all the stuff I carry in my panniers. It isn’t the best thing to do before embarking on a 14-hour-day on the bike. Yet I'm won't regret this excess given how much time and energy I've consumed. Besides, my birthday is coming in two days, and I am certain that the conditions will not favour the most pleasant celebration. By mid-morning, while I watch the wind sweep the sand from the streets of Bir-Gandouz, the last piece of civilisation for several days to come, a feeling of reluctance runs through my entire body. I have the bicycle loaded with 20 liters of water and 4 or 5kg of food, adding up to more than 80kg of total weight. Given that I have a pretty accurate picture of what lies ahead, I must admit that I'm not excited at all.
The battle against reluctance
I began to feel the rigour of the famous northerly wind that hits the west coast of Africa shortly after leaving Dakar. It's been almost two months since then and throughout the days, as I head towards Europe, my body and mind feel every daily increase in its intensity. The brief and rare moments in which it ceases or decreases help me recover my sanity and remove the sand that erodes every corner of my body. The problem is that its ever-increasing intensity is the very premise that defines the experience of all of us who dare to undertake the crossing of the western Sahara from south to north. That is the inescapable reality that the worst is always yet to come.
At the outskirts of Bir-Gandouz, just about to start the next section of 200 km of nothingness, the pressure of the wind discourages me. It feels like an intimation to either stay here forever or prepare to face the consequences. As I get on the bicycle, I struggle to balance myself in the blowing wind. This is the omen of an impossible battle, those that begin with the demoralised spirit of the warrior. I don't want to feel this way, but just as I step on the pedal, a gust makes me taste the granular texture of thousands of particles of sand. Neither coughing nor spitting repeatedly is enough to get rid of these grains that now flood my mouth. Some persist in hiding between the teeth, others in clinging to the throat and the ridges around the gums. They defy and resist the constant waves of saliva trying to unglue them. I know that many of them will travel north with me for the rest of the day and who knows if not even longer.
The hours taste like days; the days taste like weeks in this journey that leads me to visit the most distant corners of my mental health. Far away where the unpredictable fields of madness begin. The invisible executioner strikes mercilessly with the power of an impenetrable wall. He punishes me to the point of humiliation, bringing me down to my knees to yearn for redemption for every moment of arrogance I've had in the past. At 4 km/h, there is no physical posture that mitigates the misery of this torment. Hell is neither in my legs, nor in my ass, nor in my lungs, but in the dark depths of my mind. A disgusted mind that judges me, questions me, insults me and condemns me for being right here right now, with every step on the pedal. The wind stirs up the virulence of this destructive internal dialogue I maintain with myself. It stomps on my head, slaps me with its gusts. From somewhere unknown to me, in dark spaces that I hadn't been aware of, I can hear the screams of someone saying: ‘This is horrible! It's boring! An unbearable torture! Bullshit’. Before that train of thought ends, another inquisitive voice jumps in to say: ‘why are you doing this? why ARE YOU DOING THIS!? Why don't you get on a fucking transport to put an end to this misery that you ain’t enjoying? You have nothing to prove, this desert does not deserve it, it is ugly, ugly, ugly! What will you get out of this beyond defending an inflated ego? What do you want to prove by submitting yourself to so much humiliation?’ The noise in my head is so loud that it becomes more unbearable than the buzz of this wind that disintegrates my integrity.
Aeolus's ultra-powerful forces hold me captive in the vastest place without walls I know beyond the sky and space. I try but I fail miserably at finding an optimal position that minimises the surface of resistance. Battered by the turbulence, I fantasise about being fluff, about being a ball, about being a dandelion or being flexible like a palm tree. From time to time, hallucinations appear in which I can invoke the power of transparency of the body to let the wind pass through me without being oppressed. Paradoxically, I conjure energy to build force into the pedals to gain more ground on this ocean of sand, but the more force I exert the tougher the battle. 18km in 3 hours. 36km in 8 hours, 40km in 10 hours, 55km/h in 14 hours. In them, I spend every second trying to bend the violence of my oppressor. I feel like in those nightmares in which I see myself desperately fleeing from someone who is chasing me while my legs do not respond. It's like in the swamps of the Congo where the further I pushed, the more I sank until I was helpless. I have no escape; I have no respite even at night, contrary to what happens in many other parts of the Sahara. This is the place in the world where the wind has the greatest capacity to persist that I know of so far.
Unlike Mauritania, where there were at least abandoned buildings, and even skeletons of vehicles in which to take refuge during a break, Western Sahara offers nothingness itself. 360 degrees of absence of life and objects, beyond some rocks resting on a surface in perpetual motion. A space so vast and open that it is, as oppressive as the confinement between the four walls of a tiny cell. Even when I stop to relieve my muscles and lungs, I strain just for the sake of resisting to stay on my feet and upright. Seeking distraction, I let myself go fully forward, with all my weight and arms outstretched. I play to see up to what angle the wind can hold me without letting me fall. In all my months in the Sahara, I have never got as close to the bottom as here. It's the only thing I can do, and not for long either, because it gets cold too quickly. 18ºC is not cold in the sun in stagnant conditions, but it can feel freezing after hours of exposure to the wind. It's like falling asleep naked on a summer night with the fan on only to wake up later shivering in the cool of the early morning. Of course I can't omit the sand with which I blend every day. By now, it feels as though it is already an intrinsic part of my body. It penetrates each one of my orifices without consent and it digs its way under my skin like the ink of a tattoo. I feel it scratch me in the constant rub between my legs, in my armpits, between my arms and my ribcage, in my neck and ears. It has lived in my mouth for a long time, making my teeth grind when I chew. In fact, if it weren't for my turban wrapped around my head, I think it would be my only food.
It is in this context that I come to my 38 years of age. This time, celebrating the irony of being in a place where there would be nothing more stupid than trying to light a candle. In utter solitude, harassed, humiliated, fought by a force far more powerful than I could ever defeat. Two years ago I celebrated my 36th birthday, exactly on the other side of this ocean of sand, diving into no other than the waters of the Nile. I was happy, with Julia and in way more pleasant conditions than now. Today, I regret to say that I ain't happy at all. In the last few days, the wind has blown away my last bits of energy and obliterated my mood. So much that I can barely crack a smile. However, I'm still standing, and I don't want to give up. Masochism? There is probably some of that. But the adversities of the past have also taught me to be more patient, more tolerant, more focused and resilient, which is why I'm determined to keep going and I will keep going.
In many deserts, including other regions of this one, I would find refuge and repair during the night hours. I not only used them to rest, but to make up for the distance lost during the day. Not here. It is not the case of Western Sahara. Those days are long gone. With a demoralised spirit, entertaining madness, I fantasise about the wind as threads sewing the passage between day and night. Like a loom, with its intertwined fibers giving it enough strength to the point of preventing any chance of tear. How do I decide to stop when I can't even rest when I'm stopped already? Also, where would I stop when there is not a single place that offers enough shelter to light the stove and sleep outdoors? The nights are an even more perverse version of the days. Everything is more hostile in the dark. It's the brutal drop in temperature exacerbated by the wind; it's the lack of shelter; it's the impossibility of cooking; the difficulty seeing and handling things without them flying out of my hands. To all this, I can add the cramps, the sore muscles, the debilitating appetite and the psychological reluctance. No, I'm not having a good time.
When I see the first service station in the distance after about 200 km in these last 4 days, the intensity of the wind once again reveals its brutality. By, again, I do not mean that the wind had stopped blowing and now it has returned. Nor do I want to say that it has increased in intensity. The new brutality is that the mere appearance of the service station on the horizon as a point of reference, brings a new shade of psychological violence to the wind. The paradox is that the absence of any reference made things easier. When I had virtually no place to get to, all left to do was to just keep going. When a partial goal appears, the force of the wind makes it apparently unattainable. Since the service station shows up in my visual field, I experience the progressive distortion, destruction and humiliation of all my internal mechanisms of perception. I feel like a runaway rabbit chasing a carrot that no matter how hard it runs, it can never reach it. The feeling of visualising the desired goal and still need hours of uninterrupted effort to perceive a tiny change in its size is the closest I've got to understand impotence. Soon after, I fall into a destructive dynamic. The impetus to get there leads me to try harder but that same effort forces me to stop more often because of exhaustion. This renders the station virtually unreachable to me. Several hours later, when I finally arrive, all I want to do is park my bike, slump into the teahouse chair, and stay there forever. I don't know why I'm not surprised that I find the people who work here unusually apathetic, especially by the standards I've been used to. I imagine that getting here and staying here is not enjoyable, neither by car, nor by truck, nor by anything else.
As I take short, steady sips of mint tea and eat some sweet biscuits piece by piece, I try to relax. I need to get out of the psychosis that the last 20 km caused me. Nonetheless, I can't help but ruminate on the thought that with this arrival the ‘taximeter’ has been reset. Now, yet another 200 km lie ahead of me until the next sign of civilisation. The mere thought of having to continue with this torment drives me insane.
