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Published: November 30th 2023
Legzira
Flip-flops in the sand... waiting to get goingIn my last blog I nearly said my goodbyes to Morocco. The truth is, I was and I wasn't leaving Morocco after Legzira. It depends on who you talk to. If you talk to Moroccans, I wasn't, the border extends all the way down to Mauritania. If you talk to the UN, I did leave Morocco when I entered the Western Sahara. By some it's called the last colony in Africa.
For all intents and purposes, I didn't leave Morocco. Because there were no border formalities, and travelling down to Mauritania was no different then travelling anywhere in Morocco. Same buses, same taxis, same everything. Only more military. But as a tourist you notice little of that. Eighty percent of Western Sahara is controlled by Morocco, the remaining by Polisario, the political and military arm of the resistance movement. That remaining part is along the Algerian and Mauritanian border, and since the road south hugs the coast, you never come close to it. The Moroccans have built a fortified barrier, called the Berm, between their part and the rest, a sort of border wall. What's it with humans and their love of walls?
So much for my little rundown
Sidi Ifni
View of Sidi Ifni, a former Spanish enclave in Morocco on the Western Sahara problem. Perhaps the best way to describe my journey through it, is as a long goodbye to Morocco, an extended fade out, if you will. Entering the Western Sahara is entering a land of sand. Of hard sand, and soft sand, of flat sand and sand dunes, of endless straight roads going through endless plains. Every now and again there are tiny fishing villages, consisting of a few run down squat houses and a mosque. The main city and the capital of the Moroccan part is Laayoun, it is modern with wide avenues. I came after a long bus ride, in the night and left before dawn for another long bus ride. The second city is Dakhla, it is on a long peninsula, it has a distinct African vibe. It is here you start to notice you are near, for lack of a better word, 'real Africa'. No insult intended to the Moroccans. But, when us, Westerners think of Africa, we think of the cliché version of it. And the clichés start showing in Dakhla. I stayed a couple of nights in Dakhla, before it was time to end the fade out for good and leave
Sidi Ifni
Was just passing through Morocco.
Another long road through sand, and along coastal cliffs brought me to the official border post, the one where they stamp you out. It's full of fixers and restaurants and money exchangers and banks on the Moroccan side, followed by a rutted track through no-man's land, before coming to the Mauritanian border which is a lot less efficient then the Moroccan one. Here most of us come to a two hour standstill as we battle ourselves through a plethora of Mauritanian border officials, who all ask the same questions, type in the same answers (very slowly, because they invariably choose the slowest keyboard warriors to do all this typing), while fixers try to speed things up with baksheesh, but a man can only type as fast as his two gnarled fingers allow. Only one of those officials that type is actually necessary. The one who gives the visa. And he was surprisingly fast and efficient. If it had only been him... The others would not have a job. Eventually you get through though, don't worry. I got through. And with it I left Morocco and it's sandy southern limbo for good. Au revoir, until we meet again!
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Piet Vogelaar
non-member comment
mooie reis en mooie foto,s
volg je blogs al jaren. . Mijn vrouw Dini Kreuze en youw vader waren neef en nicht.