Before a trip, I invariably read up a little on my proposed destination – it’s a practice I heartily recommend. I truly believe that arming yourself with a few facts beforehand can significantly enhance your peregrinations. But a word of warning: Don’t read too much, especially if you are planning to venture into the Sahara Desert. And here’s for why:-

Before heading east into the sandy nothingness with our guide, Youssef, I desired to know a little more about this fascinating place. Previously, I had learned little apart from that gleaned during my school years. Before digging deeper I knew only that deserts weren’t among the most hospitable places on earth. ‘Grannies’ and ‘Eggs’ springs to mind when I say that desert is without doubt one of the most harsh and demanding environments on the planet. This much is clear.

I now know, however, that – as deserts go – the Sahara Desert is in a league of its own. For one, the Sahara is the largest desert on earth. Covering an area of 3 and a half million square miles, or 8% of the planet, this sprawling mass of nothingness manages to comfortably divide Africa into two regions – North Africa (or at least what’s left of it) and Sub-Saharan Africa. It’s vast. To put it bluntly, if you were to get rid of Alaska (now I’m not suggesting anything here), you could happily fit the remainder of USA into the Sahara Desert without it even touching the sides. As I say, the Sahara Desert is a big ol’ place – but that’s only half the story.

I recently learnt that to be classed as a desert an area must receive less than 10 inches of rainfall a year. Now, with most of the Sahara region receiving no more than a third of this amount, this particular daddy of a desert manages to come in way under the bar. Combine this with its sheer size and you have one magnificently lethal place. It’s a wonder how anything survives at all. Curiously, however, some things do.

Despite this lack of precipitation (and I firmly maintain that most of the Sahara Desert’s share of rain falls instead on the UK) numerous underground rivers run from the Atlas and other mountains – some of which occasionally find their way close to the surface to form naturally irrigated oases. Now, although these partially fertile oases account for only 80,000 square miles of the Sahara Desert – or just 2% of the land mass as a whole – life in these areas is good, or, more accurately, barely sustainable (fact: 15 of the 16 countries with the highest level of hunger are located in the Sahara and Sub-Saharan regions of Africa).

As for the other 98% of the Sahara Desert, well, let’s just say that the area that isn’t quite the land of plenty described above. If you were to parachute in before lunch, I dare say you wouldn’t return to civilisation in time for mint tea and tagines that evening. In fact, unless you either knew what you were doing or bumped into folk that knew what they were doing, you wouldn’t return at all.

So, in short, the Sahara Desert is big, dry and deadly. Should you happen to get lost or stranded in the Sahara – and should you happen to have the desert survival skills of, say, Nathan Richards – you die. It’s a concept unsettling in its simplicity, and one that engenders a modicum of disquiet. Especially if you happen to be Nathan Richards.

As I touched upon earlier, a little boffing up on the facts can be beneficial – knowledge is, after all, a good thing – but too much information may not be. Once armed with these alarming facts you could be forgiven for asking yourself what on earth were you thinking when you chose to sign up for such high adventure. Right now, I thought, ignorance would have been bliss – for it was into this incalculably vast, desiccated wasteland that we were imminently to depart. Anxious? Not even close, mate…and that’s without the scorpions and horned vipers.

Over the next few days we would experience a tour like no other. I should have realised at the time, but for some reason – possibly due to suspicion borne from previous organised tour experiences – I didn’t. We were about to embark on an unforgettable 2 day trip. Soon – in fact sooner than we thought – we would be venturing deep into the Sahara Desert.

Normally our choice would be to go it alone, but on this occasion a tour was the only sane option. In general we would happily trot into the back of beyond on our own homemade, DIY (read low budget) mini adventures without reserve, but doing this in the Sahara would have been tantamount to suicide. I knew little about the Sahara, but what I did know – thanks to Ray Mears and the Discovery Channel – is that it’s one of the harshest environments on earth, and for this reason alone we opted to travel in company. Not, however, with the great Raymondo (I think he may have been wrestling 700lb bears in Alaska at the time), but with one of the real masters of the desolate plain, the Tuareg tribesman.

Arranging the tour proved to be remarkably simple. The Camel Man, as he was known by the guys in the Auberge, pitched up that evening and ran us through our options. I recognised him immediately; he ambled in wearing a white T-shirt with big, red ‘C’ emblazoned on the front. He didn’t really, I just made that bit up…it was blue. In any event, we were absolutely astounded by the range of tours on offer. Did we want to go sand boarding in the dunes? Or maybe stay overnight at a camp a half a day’s camel trek away? Did we want to stay with Berber Nomads? Or just have an afternoon trotting around on a camel closer to home? These were but a handful of our options, the list went on.

After toting up our Dirhams we eventually plumped for the 2 day, 2 night camel trek right across Erg Chebbi. The first night would see us camping among the dunes, and the second night – now beyond the eastern edge of Erg Chebbi in close proximity to the Algerian border – we would stay with a group of Berber Nomads.

The trip sounded incredible, and at around 40 bucks a day for everything – for food, water, camels, accommodation and a guide – it appeared too good to be true. At first, the Camel Man’s claims of unbridled adventure were met with a modicum of scepticism, but for the price (and the chance of an unforgettable experience) it had to be worth a punt. After all, we thought it’s not every day you’re in the Sahara desert – at least not unless you happen to be a North African Gerbil.

“So, what will we need to take?” I asked, naturally assuming that such wild adventure would need specific equipment and a certain degree of preparation.
“Nothing” said the camel man “We have! We have!”
Marvellous, I thought. This was all inclusive in every respect.
I looked around the Auberge, we were the only tourists to be seen. Considering the low cost of the camel trek, I wondered how many days we must wait until enough people rocked up to make a tour worth their while.
“And when do you think we can go?” I enquired eagerly.
“Today! Later! Later! When the sun is low!” He snapped somewhat abruptly, as if I had enquired as to why we weren’t on camels right now. He must have thought impatient b*stards.

Well, this was fantastic news – better than we could have ever expected. I glanced over to Lauren and, trying not to appear overly surprised or excited at this prospect of our own personal tour, gave a quick raise of my eyebrows. She was clearly of accord. Stifling an eager grin, she reciprocated with a look of equal astonishment.
“Well, I guess we’d best get our stuff together then…” I remarked, still somewhat dumbfounded and in a state of quiet disbelief. It was already mid afternoon so we had no time to lose – we didn’t even have time to check the weather forecast for the next two days, though my money was on it remaining hot, dry, and sunny.

With business concluded, the Camel Man turned from us and drifted gracefully back out toward the baking plains. We looked on as the tall, mysterious nomad departed but, much to our disappointment, he had nothing whatsoever on the back of his T-shirt.

Later, just as Mr C had promised, the guys at the Auberge rustled up a pair of sleeping bags, sufficient water and some attire to help protect us from both the fierce Sahara sun and the afternoon sandstorms. Unable to contain our excitement, we immediately went about getting kitted up in our new desert garb. Soon enough, though, we realised there must have been a subtle art to getting these headscarves to sit correctly. We, however, were as yet unable to master it. The result of our first bungled attempts were definitely less Saharan Nomad and more, say, George Formby with severe head trauma. But we didn’t care; these were the real deal and would afford us at least a little protection from the rigours of the desert – even if we did look like we had just failed a first aid course. As far as we were concerned, we were good to go.

Our departure was imminent. Within the hour we would meet our guide and our new best friends for the next two days, and tonight we would be sleeping under the Saharan stars in the dunes of Erg Chebbi. We were in for an extraordinary 2 days, and make no mistake about it.

I have an awakening of sorts, and I find myself in a place like no other. I look north through a most peculiar, shimmering haze and, in an instant, my eye is drawn to a single, verdant strip of irrigation – no wider than a soccer pitch – stretching out into the distance as far as I care to follow. This narrow lifeline appears to be more than a vehicle for survival, though, as it also adopts the arguably less important role of dividing range. It’s the demarcation between 2 completely different yet equally harsh and unforgiving landscapes. And, as I currently stand upon this modest thread of land, it now physically separates all that lay before me and that which I currently shun. I am, literally, standing between a rock and hardest place of all.

Behind me, to the west, I see a barren, windswept wasteland awash with dust and gravel. The vehement, arid wind remains for the most part unchecked, and carries with her anything she finds strength to dislodge. This searing current whips across the desiccated plain with unequalled vigour. Here and there numerous swirling cones of the finest ochre sand begin to dance, but these ethereal desert ghosts do not to approve of my gaze and – as if almost mocking me – vanish as abruptly as they appear. As a child I had been known to use a hair dryer, and on occasion, after my hair had been satisfactorily moulded, I would turn the drier toward my face. With eyes shut tightly and mouth agape I would rhythmically bob my head from side to side and savour the sensation of the hot air as it rushed past my face. This sensation I feel again today, albeit with my mouth firmly closed.

The forbidding, open expanse continues to the horizon; a clear home run but for infrequent interruption. Dotted throughout these badlands I spot the occasional cubic structure – each identical and looking as though it were borne from the earth itself. I conjure up images of immense clay boxes forcefully pushing their way up from the flattened desert plain – for a moment there is nothing, but then after significant terrestrial rumbling, creaking and groaning, another cube rises with a defiant and bold impertinence – it’s like watching motion capture footage from a mushroom farm. These rudimentary single story dwellings – each barely the square footage of a large western bedroom – squat stoically under a fierce Sahara sun. But despite their meagre stature, here they are sky scrapers – for around them is little else. Here, in this landscape so consistently void of feature, even a mud hut stands like a giant. My eyes are all but starved of attraction, yet are feasting upon this vision of nullity. I stand for a moment, wholly paralysed by the sheer scale of it all.To the east it’s a different story. I stand scarcely 200 yards from my final destination; the culmination of a 2 day, 260 mile journey is now within reach. I no longer cower from the dust laden sirocco – as a new and infinitely more powerful sensation urges me to raise my head. As my chin lifts away from my chest I gain instant reassurance – I know at once that the journey has been worthwhile. Looking ahead, I feel the vista being etched into my subconscious. The vista, of course, is the western edge of Erg Chebbi, the formidable network of sand dunes stretching from here to the Algerian Border.

Rarely, I thought, can a person get this close to something so staggeringly beautiful yet exquisitely deadly and still live to tell the tale. But who’s to say that I would survive? Without question, if I were here alone and not in the company of Berber Nomads – the very people whom have forged a sustainable way of life in this area for centuries – I would perish in an instant, and no amount of Dirhams, laptops or fancy walking boots could save me. Over the coming days I would grow to appreciate a completely different set of values, I would learn much from the people that held my fate in their hands. I would soon understand that here, in the Sahara, materialistic principals have no place, and that knowledge and mastery of the land is king.

Today, I might get to see my first Moroccan camel. An exciting prospect, don’t you agree? And, if the postcards in Er Rachidia are anything to go by, it may even be wearing a Fez and sunglasses. Ah, the unacceptable face of Mass tourism – we salute you.

To: The Moroccan Tourism Initiative (Sahara Outpost)

Message: Return to base, boys, you’re work here is done.

From: The guys back at HQ

Ps: We’re having a do back at the office this evening and hope you can join us. Apparently the strippers can’t make it now but we’re still on for the 3 dancing bears. Hurrah!
The dress code is smart/casual or sunglasses/fez. Oh, and feel free to bring your wife/girlfriend/monkey on a leash…

The first leg of the journey took us by Grand Taxi to the small desert town and tout stronghold of Rissani. Before I had even had a chance to get my bag out of the boot we had already been accosted by the first of several guides offering to show us the numerous, incalculable treasures of the Sahara – and all at a very cheap price.

The problem with the town of Merzouga, we were told, is that it’s spread out over a large area. It’s essentially a sparse scattering of dwellings, guesthouses and tour group orientated resorts lining the edge of Erg Chebbi – the vast expanse of sand dune that were heading toward – and none of the guesthouses, we were told on several more occasions, were in walking distance of each other. This may simply have been a ploy to get us on their transport that went to their guesthouse and for us then to take them up on their tours, but if there was an element of truth in to these claims then it would be impossible for us to just rock up (as is usually our way) and check a few places on foot.

Even the mere thought of trudging across vast expanses of nothingness in well over 100 degrees of midday heat, all with a backpack, was enough to get me grasping at the water bottle, so instead we would pick a guesthouse at random and, from our current location, make our way there independently. If upon arrival we found out that the tout’s spiel was unfounded and there was a bit of choice, then we could shift the plan accordingly. As ever, we would remain pretty flexible with our arrangements.

With Lauren taking charge of the bags in the shade of a nearby café, I left her and a mint tea and trotted off to find us some wheels to cover the last 20 Km or so to a small village a few Kilometers to the north of Merzouga called Hassi Labied, and hopefully to a bed for the night at our chosen Auberge.

According to the waiter in the café, I would find plenty of Grand Taxi action just around the corner from where we were sitting. Alas, the waiter’s claims proved ever-so-slightly optimistic. I failed to locate this fleet of glinting Mercedes, all willing and decidedly eager to whisk us away to Hassi Labied, and instead only found another string of cafes, a rather forlorn and scabby looking dog, and a guy in the midst of breaking the current Guinness World Record set for the longest ever pee up against a wall. Seriously, I was expecting to see Norris Mcwhirter and his large, black book appear at any moment. It was incredible.

After talking to a few folk (in itself an act that never fails to showcase my ineptitude at learning foreign languages) I got ever closer to obtaining our wheels. Soon enough I was pointed in the direction of a tall, rather rotund Moroccan guy wearing a red T-shirt covering approximately 2/3 of his belly. As well as being the proud owner of this brown, bulbous, partly obscured mass, he also laid claim to a small, white van and, as luck would have it, he was heading to Merzouga within the hour. We fixed a price, shook on it, and agreed to meet back up in a short while.

I returned to the café and shared the good news with Lauren. We hastily grabbed our bags, made our way back to our proposed ride, and loitered beneath a shady overhang for white van man to return. 3 PM came and he appeared, along with two rangy tribesmen in full desert get-up. Their presence, their clothing, and indeed their most dignified – almost noble – manner did much to impress me. Apart from on the odd documentary back in the UK, never before had I seen people actually wearing this kind of garb for real. These long, flowing robes and intricately wound, white headscarves belonged to the Tuaregs, the predominant Berber group of the Western Sahara. And more about them anon.

After the tribesmen’s supplies had been loaded, one by one we squeezed into the back of the van. Lauren was first in, and by that virtue alone got the far seat next to a small, curtained window, and I climbed in next – and by that virtue I got to tickle her knees. The two Berber men then climbed in and joined the party. And by that I mean the ride to Hassi labied, not the tickling bit.

Contrary to popular belief, desert robes aren’t actually designed and made with the intention of being loose fitting garments. Sometimes, the vast amount of cloth needed to make these garments isn’t so required to make them baggy, but instead to successfully cover all shapes and sizes of human frame. A bit of a ‘one size fits all’, if you like. I’m sure you will be interested to learn that even some of the largest frames will still manage to slip into these robes effortlessly, and the gargantuan wearer is still left looking the same size as, say, a small boy in the same robe – this is particularly the case with the colossal, gangly frames of Tuareg tribesmen, possibly some of whom choose to shop in Rissani on a Tuesday afternoon.

These guys were surprisingly big – way, way bigger than your average Moroccan, if there ever was such a thing. Even more surprisingly, given our current and rather dry location, our fellow passengers (or their cargo, which was in equally close quarter) held a musty odour similar to that of estuarine mullet – it’s a strange observation, perhaps, but it’s quite a distinct aroma and one you don’t forget in a hurry. In hindsight, it must have actually been their cargo as I haven’t had another whiff of mullet since, and I’ve been sniffing Tuaregs for some days now – but just to be certain, you understand.

Anyway, this all led to it being quite a cosy ride. I spent most of the journey looking over my left shoulder, past Lauren’s nose and out of the newly made crack in the curtain; I had little say in the matter. Had I looked ahead, I would have only seen another face, equally as full of anguish and just as wickedly contorted, wincing back in my general direction. It was a tight fit all right.

From what I could glean through the crack in the curtain, I wasn’t really missing much on the odd occasion that I did glance forward and check out my new travel buddy’s dentistry. In short, the whole landscape just appeared to be, well, bare and desolately sterile, or at least so it seemed at the time. Throughout the journey we were privy to a swiftly moving array of sand, rocks, a few more rocks, and then a bit more sand. Apart from the odd (and distinctly lost looking) shrub here and there, it all seemed so completely void of life. I’ve seen more living things in a single squat toilet cubicle. It was absolutely barren. I began to wonder how anyone could even exist in this harsh, forbidding environment. But exist they did, and soon we would meet them and their fez wearing camels with the cool dude shades. I couldn’t wait.

The Moroccan Grand Taxis don’t have any specific schedule to speak of, but leave when full – and by full, I mean full. 2 people in the passenger seat and another 4 shoehorned in the back. The fare is then split equally 6 ways – or 2 ways if there happens to be a tourist on board. I joke, of course. Generally the prices are fixed and we have yet to be fleeced by a Grand Taxista for extra Dirhams, which is more than can be said for the local bus network if previous experience is anything to go by. Hey ho, thems the breaks, I guess. You can travel among fewer bodies if you wish, but just as long as you have extra cash to pay for the empty spaces. This, its worth remembering, is always an option for solo female travellers – instead of running the (albeit slight) risk of getting their knees tickled, they can simply bag the front seat and pay for the space next to them. Another top tip there.

Grand Taxis can generally be identified by their silver or white bodies and black roofs, and by the blacked out rear windshield, funky carpeted dashboards, dysfunctional windows, and wide and varied selection of missing door handles. A Full Grand Taxi, however, can usually be identified by the sea of melancholic, compressed faces, all unforgivingly wedged against the inside of the windows, or, alternatively, by a savvy female ubertramp.com subscriber lounging blissfully in the front seat – her knees remaining, at all times, joyously untickled.

Despite their relative discomfort, these battered workhorses do their job admirably, and truly are a tremendous way to travel. They get you closer to the locals (in more ways than one), they’re no more expensive than the bus, they’re certainly regular throughout the day, and they get you from A to B in a trice. And, if only for these reasons alone, I thoroughly recommend at least one trip in one of these splendid machines.

Sadly, our stay in the oasis was to be brief. We pitched up after dark and after a quick kefta brochette – which is a large, rough and ready burger-and-bap kind of affair – we hit the hay. The following morning would see our early departure and hopefully the completion our intended journey southwest and into the Sahara Desert.

Warning: Shameless Plug Alert

For our one night in Er Rachidia we stayed at Hotel Al Ansar – a budget guest house just a stones throw from the main bus station. We chose it because it was close to the station and I needed to take a dump. Too much info, maybe. Now, never before have I gone into detail about hotel names etc, but this place is noteworthy, and for good reason, too. And no, I’m not pimping out ubertramp.com for free digs – I do have some integrity, I’ll have you know.

Over the last three years alone I’ve spent more time in budget flophouses than I have out of them, and I can honestly say – hand on heart – that Majid, and the rest of his family whom helped run the Al Ansar guesthouse, were among the most incredibly kind and helpful people I have had the pleasure to meet in a very long time. From the moment we stepped into the place they made us feel as if we had just dropped by on old friends. I could go on, but that would even get me reaching for the bucket. In any event, my point is this: Should you find yourselves overnighting in Er Rachidia at any time in the future, you could do a lot worse than stay at the Hotel Al Ansar – failing that, you could just call in and help Majid with his latest round of Suduko. And I’m being deadly serious there – he really does need help with them. Two 9s on the same row…I mean c’mon, really

End of Shameless Plug Alert.