These pesky cats at the camping. While I was preparing and uploading yesterday’s blog last night, one of the camping cats climbed onto Eeyore’s hood and further onto the closed awning. It balanced there above my head, while I was trying to do my work. She would not take a gentle push to get off there. So a harder whack it had to be to get her off there. She jumped off via my spare tire only to come back within minutes the same way she came the first time. And another whack was in order. Off she went agin. This time it took her a bit longer to come back a third time. Once I heard her above my head again, I poked her ribs and she jumped off the awning for a final time. She got the hint to leave me and my car alone.

During the night the same cat also looked for some warmth and sat on Brahim’s head from the outside on his tent. Obviously, he woke up from that unusual source of warmth. As he rushed up and she fled. Obviously he hadn’t slept well during that night.
Still in darkness we got up, showered and dressed. All tents were damp on the outside and inside from the hundred percent humidity. We had to dry them before folding them up to prevent mold. We had our breakfast at first daylight and were packed quickly as Charlotte and Trevor didn’t have a tent to pack in.
We left for the centre of Boujdour. I had to extend my car insurance at a special agency before noon. We waited in front of their office for an hour and a half until the lady showed up. Life has a much slower pace here than elsewhere in the kingdom. In the meantime however, we were able to do some shopping at the grocery shops in the street. Once the insurance was extended, we left later than hoped, but earlier than feared, for our marathon leg of today: 560kms.

While leaving town, at the first checkpoint, a friendly police officer was clearly bored on a Monday morning. With Brahim he engaged in a guessing game of where the officer was from. Clever Brahim got it quite quickly to the surprise of the police officer.
We followed the National Road 1 further south. The road was no longer the nice dual carriage expressway, we had gotten so used to, but a well maintained two lane road. Traffic was noticeable, but not dense. The road hugs the coastline, that is basically one long cliff. Ever so often we got a good glimpse at the beautiful coast. When we spotted a suitable place to stop, we did so and took some pictures. We made good way, despite the late departure this morning and were able to stop for a quick lunch at an incredible spot of the coast where and underground crevice seems to have collapsed a long time ago. Interesting to see this rough coastline at this scale.

Parts of the underlying rock is black and so the cliff has some striking colour shadings to offer.
At the main Dakhla roundabout, from where you access the peninsula, we were checked by the gendarmerie and asked the usual questions, where we are coming from and where we are going to. He also wanted to see my car papers, as he clearly hadn’t seen Ivorian ones before. Good that I had extended my insurance earlier. After a friendly chat, we continued straight, further south. We tried to get a glimpse of Dakhla and the peninsula but the sheer size of the bay in between makes it almost impossible. The city was vaguely visible at the horizon in the haze.
The landscape became even more isolated and barren. No more fishing villages or towns, even the frequency of the army watch posts drastically reduced. One thing I noticed immediately, was that they had started resurfacing and widening the road since I drove on it northbound. Within four weeks, they have managed to widen and resurface a good 10km and re-tar a lot of parts on the remaining 200km stretch that were really worn out. Impressive!
The temperature varied a bit between 23°C and 29°C.
The landscape changed from stony with small hills and a few shrubs to full Sahara desert cliche sand with little bushes dotted in between and back.

We were approaching one of the famous signs most overlanders want to have in their photo collection: the sign indicating that you are crossing the Tropic of Cancer, also referred to as the Northern Tropic. It is the most northerly circle of latitude at which the Sun can be directly overhead. This occurs on the June solstice, usually on the 21st June each year. Similar signs are crossing the Equator or the Tropic of Capricorn. Unfortunately, the sign has already been quite defaced by vandals who think they should stick their sticker on there and so mark their territory. Anyhow, we stopped and took the obligatory pictures. Funny enough, there is only one sign, going South and none going North.
We made it to Bir Gandouz, the second last village before the Southern end of the Kingdom. To profit from the cheaper fuel prices here in the Morocco, we filled our tanks to the brim again in anticipation of the border crossing tomorrow. Last top off will be a couple of meters before we enter the border control area.

Originally, we had planned to camp again tonight. But seeing, that we would have had to camp straight in front of the hotel on the pavement, we opted for a room. It is the only place to stay overnight for about 100km. Although it is the double the price of what we had paid for camping elsewhere, it is easier for us to leave very early tomorrow morning, not having to pack up all the gear.

Over the last beers for a while and to drink up our stock of beer, we all gathered in Charlotte & Trevor’s room to discuss the border and exchange details.

A group of ten Spanish motorcyclists are also in the hotel and have parked their bikes in the inner courtyard of the hotel. After their dinner, they started tinkering on their bikes and the smell of fuel quickly spread throughout the building.
For dinner we ordered tajine with beef or chicken and a salad. Last was so small that it filled two ordinary soup spoons.
Back in the room of Charlotte and Trevor to kill some more stock, while noticing several flies and mosquitoes buzzing around our noses. Trevor went on a hunt to kill them with a towel. If he was successful, the morning will tell.