DAY 17 SATURDAY 23rd JANUARY 2010

Planned to leave very early but John was a bit unwell so we hit the road at 8.45am. John led the way out of town but unfortunately did not see a red light at the entrance to a large roundabout. I nearly missed it as well and skidded to a halt just in time. We got away with that and were soon out of town and on the road to Tiznit which is where the others had spent last night. At 11.00 we stopped for our tradional morning coffeee break but kept the stop short as we had a lot of miles to cover today. The riding today was fairly boring in comparison to the exciting roads of yesterday. The roads were mostly flat and straight and you could see for miles until the horizon. The monotomy was interrupted in the afternoon when a herd of camels wandered across the road causing us to brake suddenly. It appears that Saharan camels have the same road sense as Dartmoor sheep. We stopped to take photos of the camels but they continued to keep moving after we had parked and were sonn hundreds of yards away.
We encountered several police checks as we crossed from Morocco to Western Sahara and a few of them requested all our details. We had prepared for this by producing dozens of copies of these "fiches" which included all personal details you could think of.
There were strong winds blowing from the Atlantic spreading sand across the road. It even rained at midday but luckily we avoided the short downpour as we were inside under cover having lunch at the time.
We stopped on the outskirts of Laayoune to see if the other group had sent a text to tell us where they were staying but nothing had been received. As we rode into the town we spied their 4 bikes parked outside a cheap looking 2* hotel so pulled up to join them. The hotel room reminded me of the sort of cheap French rooms I used to use when I first went motorcycle touring nearly 30 years ago. As we were on the outskirts of town there were no restaurants and we had to walk towards the town centre to find some. Roger and Bhud walked on ahead and we explored other areas. John very intelligently thought to ask a local phamacist for directions on the basis that a pharmacist is likely to be an educated man and able to speak English. A fish restaurant was recommned and the 5 of us walked to it and then texted Roger and Bhud to let them know exactly where we were. John and I went in and the restaurant owner pushed two tables together to create on large table for 7. We ordered drinks and then saw Roger and Bhud cross the road and go into the next door restaurant with all the others. This was the real low point of the trip and John and I ate in the original restaurant and had an excellent meal.