10 Morocco: Guelmine, Tan Tan to Layoune, Spanish Sahara

Guelmine--Tan-Tan, Morocco, Nov. 4, 1982

 (DAN) First thing in the morning, Shirley and I walked over to the "Province" or the provincial headquarters to get official permission to travel further.  The compound itself is a well preserved Foreign Legion fort with arches, steps, trees, courtyards, ramparts, etc.  Set against the desert, it looked almost romantic. 

South of Guelmine the Sahara -- and the official war zone-- start.  Shirley had been informed that at various points we would need special permission to travel and she had two cards she was going to play:  1. She had actually talked with the sub-minister of the interior for frontiers, and though she had no proof of the conversation, she knew the dude's name. 2. Shirley has a friend (from her Tennessee childhood) who is the King's interior decorator. This man knows the cousin of the King, who is in charge of the forces in the occupied area. These impressive credentials did not help with the bureaucratic ping-pong that ensued: guard-- scribe--scribe--governor's assistant--general --secretary's assistant--general secretary's secretary—dismissed.  We had to regroup and initiate a new strategy:  a ): Governor--scribe--Governor (mention of ministerial contact)-- Laissez Passer in hand, but only to Tan-Tan. I found out the bus schedule, and supposedly there was one every hour. Shirley inquired in French and found there was not to be one till 1500 hrs. By 1700 none had shown up, and on 100th inquiry found that the 1500 bus had broken down, the 1700 had picked up all the passengers and gone straight without stopping in Guelmine. By this time we had decided on "taxi" transportation and were on our way by dusk.

The meantime was not without its events. After we found that we would have several hours to kill, Shirley finally acceded to the pleas to translate a woman’s letter from English into French. The young man, Hassan (naturally) took us to his small shop and invited us to the back to sit on skins and weavings. Maureen and I went to buy provisions and when we came back, Shirley was in an intense Arabic conversation with a man in flowing robes and a blue turban ("The Bedouin"). Helena was conversing with a young long-haired Spaniard. Hassan was nowhere to be seen. Shirley was excited because "The Bedouin" could speak Classical Arabic, which is what she is learning and was telling about all of these places in Mauritania, Algeria, and Mali that he'd seen or his father had seen.

(HELENA) Now, Dan and I have tried to reconstruct this since, but it all happened so smoothly that it's impossible to give every detail. Somehow the Bedouin managed to sit over beside a trunk filled with desert treasures. Hassan’s father served the mint tea and there were dates and nuts passed around, so we were feeling most humbly impressed with this unexpected hospitality. The Spaniard had come in with a friend who had taken to translating for Shirley and the Bedouin. The latter very casually took out a leather tobacco pouch, I thought for the Spaniard to admire. Before we knew it the floor had big leather bags spread over it and was covered with silver trinkets and assorted leather things. It was done with such subtlety that not one of the four of us knew what had happened until the Bedouin put a big bowl in front of Shirley and asked her to pile things from the display in it. He wanted to trade.  Did it ever take some doing to explain we had nothing to trade and couldn't even carry extra things on our trip. I think just that explanation took 20 minutes. We had simply been hustled by this Hassan.  I suppose every time an English-speaking person comes to town, he hauls out his letter and asks to have it translated.   We even thought they just "happened" to be there.  Hassan's parting shot: "Give me a gift to remember you by."

A street in Tan Tan. Photo Maureen Blackburn

Tan-Tan, Morocco, Wednesday, November 3, 1982

While Dan and Shirley went off to the fort to see about getting permission to go to Layoune (El Aiún in Spanish, and on many maps), Maureen and I went to the market (we still keep our food separately) and back to the room to get things packed up to leave the hotel room by noon. Dan and Shirley still weren't back after more than 3 hours, so Maureen and I carried everything downstairs. But since there are only dawn departures we then had to dispiritedly drag everything back up the stairs and reinstal ourselves (after a big commotion to get our key back, since the guy in charge wasn't there and the others didn't speak French). All four of us went out for lunch. We had to shop around before we found a place that served a plate for 5 Dirhams.  Dan got it first, and the rest of us followed after we'd seen what it was, lamb with cooked vegetables and sauce (tajine) that you eat by dipping bread in it. It was quite good, but once again we exited with a big scene.  Something happened (either they didn't understand our order or they decided to overcharge) that they wanted to charge 18 DH apiece.  Shirley got right in there and refused to pay more than the five. We walked out knowing we should never even try to walk by there again.

We spent the afternoon washing clothes. Amazing how fast things dry in the sun and aridity.

View of Tan Tan from our rooftop rooms.  The ex French Foreign Legion fort can be seen in the background. Photo. Maureen Blackburn

Our contact with the officials went a little better than in Guelmine. The "Province" was about 1 km. out, but once there, the first person we were shown to was the Governor. It took him about an hour to copy our Guelmine Laissez passes by hand, partly because Shirley kept interrupting him to have him pronounce phrases in Arabic. We had to wait another hour to have it typed. However, when we got it, it turned out we now needed a stamp from the military authorities, so we walked, this time a long way around a hill on a road leading up to the fort or kasbah. The fort had also been used by the French Foreign Legion but had a definitely older base.

The sentry would not let us pass, and it took 15 minutes for him to catch the attention of anybody inside the fort.  After another 15 minutes a soldier came down, would not admit us, but insisted on taking our Laissez passes and passports himself into the fort. The Saharan sun was getting hot by now, and we were worried about letting our documents stay with the military. But after another wait, the soldier came ambling down the hill with the passports and the stamped documents. Our way was now clear to go into the Spanish Sahara area. It turned out that vehicles can only leave before noon and in semi-convoy, so we would have to wait until morning (5 a.m.).

I was making inquiries around in stumbling French, and finally somebody showed me a Land Rover driver. I tried to speak French to him and he said, "Yo no entiendo nada do eso, hombre!" Sweet Spanish music to the ears! If he weren't across the table I would have kissed him and wished him a thousand camels.  It turned out that most of the drivers on this stretch are from Layoune and speak Spanish over French. Shirley also learned in indiscreet inquiries (soldiers within earshot) that the Western Saharans preferred being under Spanish control rather than Moroccan.

Our expenses in Morocco came to $US 8.82 per day per person.  This includes the $US 100 spent on our airplane tickets from Layoune to Las Palmas.  We traveled approximately 2393 Kms which took 43.75 hours.

Western Sahara

Continuing our route.  Yellow represents land travel and red the air travel to avoid the war zone. Base Map copied from The TIMES Comprehensive Atlas of The World.

Tan-Tan - Layoune, Spanish Sahara, Nov. 4, Thursday, 1982

Up by 0400 a.m. and to "Taxi (11 seat Land Rovers) Stop".  There were a lot of passengers already there and there was a lot of commotion. There was a group of soldiers searching the vehicles, and there were about 5 Military Police (MP) walking around talking with people. The MP in charge could speak Spanish but would not tell us what was going on. First he said that there would be no vehicles to Layoune, and that there were problems on the road. All the vehicles started pulling out empty, and the story was that they had to get some kind of permission from the national police. Then a group of soldiers appeared and the MPs claimed that the military was preempting all the vehicles.  Finally it turned out the MPs were there simply to make sure that the soldiers were the first to get on the vehicles. By now there were probably 100 people and 30 vehicles milling around the small square.  Shirley complimented the MP on his Spanish and somehow it was "arranged" that we would get on right after the soldiers, and when the time came he sort of held people back and helped us get on our jeep.  

Our Transport into Western Sahara with the conveniently Spanish-speaking driver.

We finally pulled out at 6:30 and made the first of 6 security checks of the day at the national security stop. Then we had to stop at a military check outside of town. At some of the checks they allowed Shirley to get down and take slips of paper with the information from our passports, but at others we all had to get down and walk in and answer the questions verbally. At one checkpoint we were again invited to a hot cup of mint tea, cookies and mixed nuts inside a large tent while the sergeant laboriously typed out the same information we had left at the previous 10 checks. At none of the checks did they even mention searching our bags for anything subversive. At the last stop outside of Layoune the police again had our jeep take us to where we would stay in town.  Clearly they are not accustomed to having foreign travelers in Spanish Sahara (known as Rio de Oro in Colonial times).

The landscape was truly desert, and we did not see a tree all day.  At one checkpoint I was able to get out and look around for nearly an hour. In some stretches there were sand dunes up to a km. long and maybe 10 m high. Other stretches had many smaller dunes, and in others there were no dunes in sight. Possibly a third of the trip we were within a hundred meters of the ocean, but on a level maybe 20 m higher, and the entire coastline appeared to be cliffs with occasional beaches in the arroyo outlets. Much of the road had good pavement. It had all been paved at some time, but more than half had only a strip about 1.5 m wide. For hours we drove with one tire on the pavement and one on terrible washboard, rutted surface. Even when the pavement was wide enough for one vehicle to drive on, every time we passed or got passed we had to drive with two tires off onto the shoulder, often at 70 km/p/h. It took us roughly 9 hours.

 Western Sahara

After we arrived, I struck out to inquire into the airplanes to the Canary Islands and found that there was a Fokker leaving the next day, but it was completely reserved.  After I insisted, the man (Royal Air Morocco is the only company) said there might be a possibility because 30 of the seats are reserved on every flight by the Spanish company that is mining the war-causing nitrate, and they don't always use them all; so we spent the rest of the day with that cloud over our heads.  The next flight out was 6 days away.

I don't think we've mentioned that in our last three towns, and especially Layoune, the Moroccan army is everywhere. They have countless Land Rovers and many Unimogs (Mercedes Benz all-terrain trucks) roaring around town, and in Layoune there were, it seemed, 3-4 soldiers on every corner. It is the main reason we have no pictures of the towns. It is the first time Helena and I have been in an occupied town.

Atlantic coast stretch visible from main road.