The longest day...

When I woke in my tent by the dunes of Erg Chebbi I had made up my mind that I was going to do the piste as planned. The piste headed off to the west from Merzouga to a place called Tagounite, 239km of varied terrain along the Algerian border. This is the stuff that I had been looking forward to, but I was a bit nervous.

First I had to sort out some supplies. The trip was to take two days so I had to stock up on water and fuel. The auberge owner had advised me against getting fuel in Merzouga, "Bad fuel" were his words, so I had to go to Rissani, 35km in the wrong direction!

With 30 litres of fuel and loads of water I headed back to Merzouga and started the piste.

The first 24km to Taouz was tarmac, a bit of a disappointment, but I needn't have worried. From Taouz the piste proper started. A single, well marked track snaked off into the distance, I was finally off road!

The track was great, easy going and a nice gentle intro to off road with my fully laden bike. I soon passed a rally support truck that, rather ominously, was bogged in some mud up to it's axles. The French drivers were busy digging it out wearing just their underpants (Mmm!), and their guide said that the piste up ahead was impassable due to mud! He offered to show me a different piste (for a fee of course) that would bypass the mud but it would take me 50km out of my way. I told him that I would continue and see what the track was like.

About 10km later I reached a muddy oued (dried up river bed), but managed, without much difficulty, to cross it. "Great!" I thought, "No problem there".

I continued for about another 10km and was flagged down by some locals. They asked where I was going, and once I told them, there was much head shaking with tales of cars and bikes that had not managed to get through the muddy oued that was still ahead of me. "Damn!" I thought, "Perhaps I can't make it through after all."

One of the locals offered to show me to the piste that would bypass the mud, all he wanted was a contribution to his fuel costs for his moped. Seemed reasonable, so off we shot.

Before we had gone very far we came across the first sand of the trip. I had never ridden in sand. The little moped just twitched slightly as my "guide" flew across it with ease. My mighty Dakar, however, seemed to have a mind of it's own. The front end of the bike was all over the place and I fought to keep upright. Everything I had read about riding on sand had said "Open the throttle", but now I was experiencing it first hand my mind was telling me to "slow down!"

The sand went on for about 7km, and by the time we had reached firm ground again I was awash with sweat and totally knackered!

My friendly guide looked pityingly at me and pointed in the direction that I needed to take. With his words of "Toute a droite" ringing in my sweaty ears, he had gone, having refused my offered money (I think he pitied me!).

I was alone once again. I consulted my map, but the piste was not marked. It was however on my GPS, and so I felt confident that all would be OK. Off I went. Sure enough the track was easy to follow, but within 2km I had bogged the bike in trying to get out of a sandy oued.

Suddenly I felt rather vulnerable as I dug and sweated and swore in order to get my heavy bike out of the sand.

20 minutes later I was underway again. The track was mainly good but had frequent bits of sand to keep me on my toes, however with each bit of sand that I crossed I felt I was getting better.

Finally the track disappeared! It started off by not matching my GPS, and then it just disappeared. To say I was disappointed is an understatement! Here I was, by myself on an infrequently used piste that was not on any map, and now the piste had "run out"! I could hear the documentary running in the background: "Lone biker gets lost in the Moroccan hills and is found months later having been eaten by wild dogs".

Nevertheless, I knew that I would not be able to find my way back to where I had started, and just how lost can you get? After all I knew that if I headed north I would eventually hit a main road.

I continued north. After a while I saw a lorry moving about 5km ahead of me. If there was a lorry that meant that there would be a track, and a good one at that. I felt reassured and slightly more confident. Soon I found the promised "track" that the lorry was on. It consisted of the softest sand I had encountered so far, all churned up into foot deep ruts. It was a nightmare. The only way that I could make any progress was to go slowly, slipping the clutch in first gear and paddling along with my feet, always fearing that my legs would be caught on my panniers at any moment. It was not pleasant.

Despite my slow progress I was closing in on the lorry. Soon I was only a few hundred metres away from him. Then I realised that he was heading into the hills rather than sticking to the valleys. Suddenly I had a chilling thought that maybe this lorry, that I had been following blindly for the past 20km or so, was heading into the hills to a quarry to fill up with rocks before returning along the track we were on! I was heading up a dead end! Then it started to rain....