The the terrain is flatter and drier, the villages and towns further apart and the police checkpoints more frequent. Welcome to the desolate Provence of Western Sahara.

From here it is a 2 day, 1,000km ride to the Mautanian border. A potentially tedious ride as the road is good and straight and the scenery consistent- flat stony desert with the occasional glimpse of of the Atlantic crashing into the the rocky shore to the right. But rather than than view it tedious i will adopt my uncles philosophy (who is currently sailing from asia to europe). He prefers to think of it as "timeless".

Haakon, the Norwegian finally arrived in Merzouga 4 days ago, and so together we set off for Tagounite. A 240km off road route. For us an introduction to test our riding and navigation skills. Within the hour we had taken a wrong turn, got a little lost and i had dropped my bike down a dry river bank. Fortunately only cosmetic damage. This is me struggling through a deep sandy section. In fact its a river bed.

And this our camp.

I need to go and eat now, but ill try and write more later