Back to Hitching

With the donkeys sold we felt like we were finally free, although I had a bit of a feeling that we had just failed in the computer game, The Oregon Trail. Everything about that trip felt like that game, and we were not that good at it. First of all, we all had different skills that correlated to the trail differently. Susan was a nurse, and could tend to our wounds (which mostly included infected foot wounds). Jonathan was a carpenter/farmboy, so he could repair the cart when it needed and also was good at taking care of the donkeys. I guess that my most relevant skill (which doesn’t exist in the computer game) was translation, since I spoke better French (though still not great) than the other two.
There were occasional sicknesses (yes, sometimes bordering on dysentery) that slowed us down. Injuries (my sprained ankle). A river crossing (do we ford it with the cart full, or do we unload it and carry everything across?). We had to buy plenty of supplies at the beginning because there would be little if anything along the way, and whatever there was would be far more expensive. We broke a wheel, three times. We faced theft from locals. Our wagon weight affected our speed. We occasionally had meager rations. Difficult terrain slowed us down. Probably countless other things, but you get the idea.
So now we were in Tan Tan Plage, camping on the beach and feeling free without our animals. We had arrived in town for the holiday of Eid Al-Adha, one of the most important days on the Muslim calendar. It commemorates God sparing Abraham’s son, and letting him sacrifice a sheep instead. So all across the Muslim world Muslims slaughter sheep for the occasion. A third of the meat is for the family, a third for friends, and a third is given to the needy.
We spent the day wandering the empty streets, enjoying the calm atmosphere, and the friendly nature of the occasional pedestrian. It felt very akin to walking around on Christmas, save for the climate, and the sheep remains strewn about on the sides of the streets. We had very little food though, so we struggled to find any shops open, let alone any place to eat. We found one coffee shop open, so we sat down for a tea and a hookah. As we were relaxing, a guy came in the back door behind us with a plastic bag. He handed it to us and we realized it was meat. 3 pounds of fresh sheep meat. Apparently we were the needy in this town.
When we left the coffee shop, we went down to the beach, near some rocks, and found that there were plenty of mussels to be picked. After about 30 minutes we had collected far more mussels than we could possibly eat for dinner. We were more than blessed on this Eid Al Adha with our choice of two fresh proteins for dinner.
We went back to our concealed spot on the beach and collected wood for a fire. It was slim pickings, but we got enough to cook over and keep the mosquitoes away. We cooked the mussels with some pasta and made a cream sauce. I am not the biggest fan of shellfish, but these were by far the best mussels I have ever had, including at the fancy restaurants I had worked at in Seattle. We had considered cooking the sheep too, but instead decided to leave it marinating in spices until the next day.
On November 18, it was time to leave Tan Tan Plage, and part ways with Susan, as she went to Rabat to get new visas for Mauritania. She volunteered for the mission, and we decided that we would split the cost of the mission evenly. We told Susan it was fine to take a bus and stay in cheap hotels, but she insisted on hitchhiking, so we agreed. She has plenty of hitching experience in Europe, and seemed to have the right attitude to do it here too. We told her that for every 100 km she hitchhiked she would be rewarded with 2 dirhams, and for every night she spent without a hotel she would get 5 dirhams. None of us took this agreement too seriously, though, and she said she would even refuse the money if we tried to give it to her. It was a big mission, and somehow we all treated it very casually. With almost no French, and no Arabic, she would need to get 1700 km north, and get to the Mauritanian embassy and secure visas for the three of us.
Meanwhile, Jonathan and I would hitch south toward the border (1300 km) and wait. We had gotten 15 copies of our passport each, as we knew there would be plenty of police checkpoints.
We were on opposite sides of the highway, and we saw Susan get picked up within 15 minutes, which we were not surprised about. She texted us and said she was with a very nice man from Sudan, who works for the Sudanese embassy. He was driving all the way to Agadir, which is maybe a third of the way to rabat. A very good first ride, though from our experience, Agadir is a sprawling city that is very difficult to hitchhike out of. We later learned that the Sudanese man insisted on buying her the bus ticket all the way to Rabat. So within 24 hours of departure, Susan was already in her destination, and hadn’t spent a cent.
Meanwhile, Jonathan and I waited for two hours before we were picked up by Bubakar, a doctor who lives in Laayoune. He was on his way back home from visiting his family up north for the holiday. He spoke some English, so we were able to chat for hours in a mix of English and French. We talked about Moroccan politics and history, which was very valuable as there was a lot that we were ignorant of. He bought us lunch at a roadside fish shack. This was fishing country, so there was plenty to eat, even though there were almost no villages, let alone gas stations (let alone gas at the few gas stations that did exist). Bubakar was a hobbyist angler, and loved eating fish. The place was beyond basic, but they brought us an extravagant platter. A mountain of fried fish with fries, cooked vegetables, olives, and plenty of bread. We ate until it hurt. Even though we had been eating relatively well for vagabonds, we never miss the opportunity to binge when hitchhiking, because the time of your next meal is never known.
The drive, although only 300 km, took a lot longer than expected. Bubakar took the drive easy, and even stopped at a couple of scenic spots to take in some of the Oceanside. We were now in Western Sahara, and I did not expect our most interesting sights to be of oceanside cliffs instead of sand-covered desert landscapes. In fact, what we saw of Western Sahara is rather undramatic. Just a lot of semi-arid scrubland. Flat.
After dark, we arrived at our first checkpoint, at the entrance of Laayoune. We were nervous, first of all because we didn’t know how they would treat our passport photocopies. Secondly, we knew that a week before there had been huge riots in Laayoune related to the ongoing separation movement of the Saharan people. Of course most countries recognize Western Sahara as its own country, but it is a complicated situation, and most of the region is still effectively controlled by Morocco. During the riots many police were killed, some protesters were killed and many buildings and vehicles were torched. It was the biggest act of violence in the region in over thirty years. In the aftermath, they had kicked out all tourists, and prohibited any foreign journalists from entering.
Bubakar had not mentioned anything about this, although we knew about it. I had carefully hidden any press passes deep in my bag as a precaution, but he gave no indication that we should worry. At the checkpoint, of course he was asked many questions about why we were with him. They seemed displeased with our lack of passports, even though we explained why we did not have them. After a while, though, they let us through. But that was only the gendarmerie checkpoint. A few km later, we had to go through the police checkpoint, which was no easier. He had to get out of his car and talk with them for a while. We apologized to Bubakar, but he said it was no problem. He seemed used to dealing with the situation in Western Sahara.
He invited us to stay at his apartment, and it seemed like the only logical thing to do, as we didn’t want to try to figure out how to camp in this city, or hitchhike out of it at 8 PM. We stayed up late with Bubakar, drinking tea, and chatting.
The next morning, we got up early, as Bubakar had to work at 8. We decided to make our way out of town. We walked past numerous buildings that had been set on fire and a few vehicles that had been torched. Neither of us had ever seen anything like this. Military and police were everywhere. As we tried to catch a public transport or a hitchhike ride out of town, Jonathan discreetly snapped a few photos on his point and shoot camera. I didn’t dare take out my bulky SLR. Within 10 minutes we were swarmed by 6 police and military vans. We played ignorant, and acted like we didn’t speak any French. We gave them our photocopied passports, which they didn’t like this. Eventually they brought in a plain clothes military officer who spoke English. He questioned us about what we were doing in Laayoune, and we answered everything honestly. He told us we had to leave now. We said we were trying to hitchhike, but he said we had to get out of town right now and he flagged a taxi down for us. He told the driver to take us to the taxi station to get us to Laayoune Plage, the beach town 25 km out of town. It was only $1.50 for the two of us, so we didn’t complain. The shared taxi to the beach was also cheap, so we went along with it.
As much as Morocco had been good to us, and many of the police had been saints, we realized that it was not a good sign that it was the third time that police or military had basically forced us out of town.
On the way out of town we had to go through more check points. We knew by this point that the photocopies were sufficient, so were relaxed. The only problem was that they would not give back the photocopies after we gave them to them. 15 seemed like it would be enough, but just passing through Laayoune we were down to 10.
We got to Laayoune Plage around noon and found a good spot to hitch a ride from. It was hot, and we baked in the sun for hours. It was our worst day of hitchhiking. We assumed that the lack of traffic due to the holiday, and the political situation in the region was causing our bad luck.
Worse yet, were the kids. When they discovered us around 4 o’clock, they started with their usual incessant bonjours, which turned into demands for “cadeauxs” and money and candy. We ignored this, as usual, which turned into rock throwing. This is the point that caused disagreement between Jonathan and I. I don’t really know what to do in this situation, but I thought ignoring it was the best. Sure, I got hit by a couple rocks, but they were too small and poorly thrown to cause any pain. Jonathan wouldn’t stand for it, and wanted to throw rocks back. We tried both methods, and neither really worked. If we just ignore them, they get closer and the rocks get more dangerous. So Jonathan went on the offensive. He grabbed a handful of rocks, and chased them through the streets, throwing rocks. I watched and was more than amused by how quickly they spread. The funniest part was the kid who for some reason was wearing a single rollerblade. Even though he never threw any rocks, he was in the most danger, as running with one rollerblade left him in the dust. This tactic seemed like it was working, but of course when Jonathan returned to hitchhike, they slowly crept back. We would experiment in the future with other tactics.
Near sunset, we decided that we should probably head to the beach and find a place to camp. Jonathan scattered the kids with rocks a last time, so that we could leave without them seeing where we went. After leaving quickly, there were two kids that managed to follow us, and were within 30 meters. Luckily an adult stopped them and told them to go home. It didn’t stop them, but it delayed them enough to give us time to get out of sight. There was no real beach in this town, just some scrubland and an industrial area and a military base near the water. We started toward the scrubland, and we heard yelling. Somebody in a military lookout tower, was yelling at us, telling us to leave. We continued on the road along the scrub, away from the tower. When we got a kilometer out, nearly out of sight, we ducked off the road, and hid behind a sand dune, and waited for dark. When it arrived, I ran to town, out of sight of the military base, just to buy some milk and fill our water bottles. Jonathan ran across the road, and scouted for a camp spot. We met back in our hiding spot, and he said he had a spot. We got in our darkest clothes, trying our best not to be seen by whoever was around and walked a km through the scrub toward the beach. The spot was between two sand dunes that concealed our camp from sight from the road, the military base and everything else except for a small shack maybe 500 meters away. Good enough for us. We cooked our mutton, which by now had been marinating in Jonathan’s bag for over 48 hours. It smelled pretty ripe, but we cooked it in a milk sauce, and it was the best mutton I have ever had. In most places that I have had mutton, it has been boring, and, frankly, bad, but this proved to me that it was not the meat, but the preparation that makes all the differences. Also, because Susan was gone, we could make it as spicy as we wanted. And spicy it was, but not so much that we couldn’t taste the mutton and the sauce.
We made it back on the road the next morning at 10:00, hoping for better luck the day before. Sure enough, we got picked up by the third passing car. It was a tiny car, with a sweet young couple. They were also holiday travelers. The woman did not speak much French, but she did speak Italian, as she had lived in Italy for some time. Soon after telling us this, she produced an enormous chunk of Italian Parmesan cheese, that must have weighed at least 6 pounds. When we saw it, we were tongue tied, and giggling like children. She passed us some bread, and piece after piece of delicious cheese. Of course, it had been over a month since either of us had had any sort of real cheese, so this was a huge treat.
They took us to Boujdor, about 160 km. south of Laayoune Plage. When they dropped us off near the entrance of town, they loaded a plastic bag full of dates for us, and wished us a good journey as they continued on home.
We walked the long distance through the concrete, and fairly new, but small town. When we finally got to the other side (after a brief stop by a police officer to relieve us of another passport photocopy), we stuck our thumbs out for a couple of hours. Friendly people passed us on foot and bicycle and smiled and greeted us. No cars stopped for us, though. A little before sunset, Jonathan went to scout for a camping spot, hopefully near the beach. While I waited a friendly police officer on a bicycle stopped to see what I was doing. He seemed concerned, and wanted to help. He said to go farther out of town, near the police checkpoint and it would be better. I told him I would try tomorrow. Half an hour later Jonathan came back with one of the most interesting spots of the trip. He said he had met a guy from Yemen who speaks English who brought him to a security guard that speaks Spanish, and has a place we can camp for the night.
On the long walk to the place, we met the man from Yemen, who we will call Mahmoud. He was short and skinny, wearing a long brown robe. His head was shaved and he had a long, slender beard. Dark, deep-set eyes and a devilish grin greeted me as I shined my headlamp on his face. As we walked, we exchanged our stories about how we came to be in Boujdor. He had crossed the Sahara with his parents when he was young. Their caravan of camels went through Sudan, Libya, Algeria, Mali, Mauritania and eventually they landed in Western Sahara. He now makes his living as a teacher of Classical Arabic and English.
We arrived to our “camp spot”, which was a construction site on a cliff above the beach. The heavyset and jolly security guard spoke to us in his Spanish, that consisted mostly of pleasantries, and a lot of saying “tranquilo, tranquilo”. He offered us a cinderblock hut to sleep in, but it was obvious to us that the tents would be much more “tranquilo” for us.
After setting up, we asked Mahmoud would like to have tea with us. We were very eager to speak with someone from Yemen, and to someone that speaks English. As we made our way to a tea shop, we were assaulted by kids in the usual fashion. By the time it got to the rock throwing, we had stepped into a shop to buy a flashlight, and one of the stones sailed through the door and lazily bounced off one of the folds in Mahmoud’s robe. He didn’t notice, but when I told him, he shrugged it off, and walked through the mob, casually muttering to them in Arabic.
We spent the whole evening discussing a long list of controversial and casual issues with Mahmoud. He was extremely open to address any questions about Islam that we had. He made it very clear that he wanted to have dialogue with westerners and would like to give us any information that we care to have. So we took advantage of this opportunity. We found him to be very religiously conservative, probably more so than anyone else that we had met in Morocco, but it was not shocking, given liberal nature of Morocco. Many of the things that we discussed made us understand more, but some of his explanations of certain things just led us in circles. I wanted to understand about Sharia law. Should a government really be given the power, or obligation, to rule by the Koran? He had said that he liked countries with religious freedom, even Morocco. But for Saudi Arabia, no, the people must abide by these rules. I wanted to know, though, whether Islam has the idea that we will all be judged in the afterlife, and therefore, it is not a man’s place to live by these religious rules, and judge here on earth. He agreed with this. However, he said, in western countries, we have laws that are based on religion, and what the people see as right and wrong. In Spain, for example, it is legal to drink. Mahmoud does not see a problem with this. However, in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and many Muslim countries, drinking is forbidden. Mahmoud explained that these are Arab, Muslim people, and this is how their society is, and therefore the government must stop people from drinking. We put other, more difficult examples to the test, such as women driving, and harsh punishments for adultery. His explanations were similar, and while I did not always agree with his opinion, it made me think about how little respect we have for their culture, and how much he had for ours. I appreciated that he did not see our western lives and culture as wrong, and I think he expects the same attitude from the west.
Meanwhile, Susan was still in Rabat. Because of the holiday, the Mauritanian embassy was closed for the entire week. Luckily she had a good Moroccan friend to stay with in Rabat, and she kept busy learning how to surf with him.
The next morning, at the 7:00 AM shift change, we said our goodbyes and tranquilos to the security guard and walked a long way in the direction of the police checkpoint on the way out of town. The officer the day before had told me it was only one km from town, but it seemed much farther, especially since we were out of practice of walking with our heavy packs. After walking at least 2 km, a man ran across the main road, hollering to us. We stopped, and he explained that he was the officer on the bike that I had met the day before. I hadn’t recognized him in his civilian clothes. He said he wanted to buy us a bus ticket to Dakhla, our destination. We said no, and explained that we preferred to hitchhike. He said he wanted to give us some money. We said we were not in need of money, and he explained that it was his duty to Allah to help us. I said there were other people in his town that probably needed it more than me. He really wanted to help us, so we said that if we didn’t get a ride in a few hours, we would come back and he could give us a ride. He agreed.
We started to hitchhike before even arriving at the checkpoint. This left us vulnerable to an encroaching gang of children. The first couple of them were friendly, but at the first request of cadeaux we prevented hostility by entertaining them. It was a new tactic that seemed to work. We sang, danced, played tin whistle, put flowers in each other’s hair. They loved it, but it attracted at least a dozen more kids. When we got tired of spinning them around in the air, we had to take a rest. This brought the discreet and then the aggressive requests for cadeaux. When we sensed imminent rock throwing danger, we put on our packs and headed toward the police checkpoint.
When we arrived, the officers were too amused by us to even check our papers. They gave us tea and a chocolate croissant, but told us we had to eat behind their post. After the tea, we said our goodbyes and thank you’s and walked a few hundred meters past the checkpoint and put our thumbs in the air, letting them beg desperately to the rare passing car.
After two hours, we were picked up by a stern man in a small car. Jonathan sat up front and was given the difficult task of making friends with our new driver. He is a great conversationalist, but couldn’t even get more than a few words from him. Halfway to Dakhla, he asked if we drank coffee, and we stopped a roadside diner and gas station. He bought us each a cup but still said very little.
All the way to Dakhla, the silence persisted, until he dropped us off near the center of town. It was an awkward ride and we were excited to be in our destination, where we simply had to wait for Susan.
We gathered ourselves as we sat on a bench overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. A young man came over and bummed a smoke off Jonathan. It is not usually the best sign of a good friend, but we made conversation with him anyway. He was young and scrawny, so I was surprised to learn that he was in the military, and was in Dakhla for some sort of training. We asked if there were any beaches to camp on in town, but he said he wasn’t sure, since he was new to the city as well. He said hotels weren’t expensive, only 40 Dirhams ($5) per person. We said we preferred to save the money. He offered to pay for us, but we declined. We knew he didn’t have much money. When we mentioned that we needed to find some charcoal if we were going to camp. He told us to wait, and after 5 minutes, he returned with a big bag of charcoal. He said it was the least he could do, since we wouldn’t take his offer on the hotel. We were grateful, and exchanged numbers, in case we wanted to meet up while we were in town. After he left, we discussed, and decided that we hadn’t slept in a bed in weeks, and with Susan gone, there was not such a need to be money conscious. We found a room and then discussed that we also hadn’t had a beer in a couple weeks. We went to the two places in town that sold alcohol. One was a swanky hotel with huge overlander vehicles and a UN truck in parking lot. The other was a fancy Spanish restaurant. Both charged an outrageous $3 per can of weak Moroccan beer. We were not interested, so we went on the street looking for contraband beer or whiskey. We found the seediest café/foosball joint and asked the jovial boss. He said it was possible, and waved over a couple of young guys, with a glaze in their eyes. They were drunk, so I knew they would know where to get cheaper drink, even though I did not trust them one bit. One stayed, but we followed the other through a series of dark alleys and dirty streets, until, suddenly we emerged on a brightly lit street, right next to the Spanish restaurant. I was relieved to be at our destination, but more than annoyed that we hadn’t found what we were looking for. I knew there was another way, as I knew the guys we met could never afford to get drunk for $3 per beer.
We gave up, and I had already decided that I would have one or two beers. We had our first at the bar, and we decided to have another. Then we decided we should take 2 more each for the road. But then Jonathan made me realize that it would be silly to do that, since we might as well just round out the six-pack. Of course. I know that this was, relative to the cost of living, the largest alcohol purchase I have ever made, and I hope it stays that way.
We wandered the lively market street before heading back to the room. We watched two movies on my laptop, ate popcorn thought we bought in the street, and drank the rest of the beer. I felt guilty when I compared it to how I had been living for the previous month, but it still felt good.