When we arrived at Camping Le Pyramids (no pyramids in sight) we found the road to be covered in sand – hardly surprising as the Sahara begins here with some huge dunes and we both had visions of last time we took Taffy in the Sahara and had to dig her out twice. Not fun, though it did result in Linda not speaking to me for a few hours which was peaceful. The owner of the campsite saw us dawdling and not wanting to lose a customer came out and merrily waved us through. I asked him if he’d dig us out if we got stuck and he happily said yes so we ploughed through the mini dune that had eaten up the road with no problems. Obviously he knew a lot more about dunes than us.
The site was right on the edge of the dunes and camels grazed next to the van, camel trains passed us and it was a perfect place to sit and look at the desert as the sun set. The last time we did this we were in Libya looking toward Algeria and it’s hard to imagine that everything for the 1000’s km between there and here is just sand and, if you believe the Daily Mail, Al Quieda training camps.
You can’t just sit around all day, well you probably could if they served a decent cocktail but they don’t, so off we cycled into the town, a run down ramshackle end of the road, frontier type town, full of 4×4’s and oddly enough hippys. There’s no point coming here and then not trying to fall off Tilly in a sand dune so We headed to the desert and spotted loads of police and Army trucks, ah! we thought, so The Daily Mail is right so cycled to investigate. By the time we reached the throng we found we had cycled over the finish line of the Marathon du Sables 4×4 rally where hundreds of Toyota and broken down Land Rovers were all parked along with Police and Army trucks. The rally had just finished and the crews were busy standing around comparing dirt stains on the vehicles and saw us on Tilly and all started clapping and cheering! We hadn’t the heart to mention we’d just cycled from the campsite round the corner so took the applause and headed off to a cafe for a drink.
The way back we passed the 4×4’s all leaving and saw in the distance a Twister churning up the desert sand and dust. It was quite spectacular, but relatively small despite going 100’s of metres up into the sky. It was about the size of a van and it vanished behind the house as we cycled along the main street before reappearing just as we entered the main square lined with cafes full of the obligatory dozens of men drinking coffee and promptly hit us amidships. Poor Linda, who’d had a bad time with the bee attack recently, proceeded to get a sand blasted head as her hair wipped around like a wailing banshee whilst we vanished in a cloud of dust before emerging right in the calm centre of the Twister for just long enough to say “What the..” before Linda’s hair was reverse spun (just to make sure the sand go to all those hard to reach places) as we plunged into the other side. We both spat out sand sandwiches and were about 2 kilos heavier, unharmed and had just had a free Exfoliation. The Twister continued on its way looking for more tourists to roughen up as the coffee sipping audience looked on impressed. We definitely needed showers that night when we got back and Tilly needed a good clean and desanding. She was Green when we went in to the Twister and yellow when we came out, perhaps it’s time to change her as she seems to have a soft spot for Norwich….
Ha ha I knew you’d see the light, the future is yellow and green!