At Ait Benhadou we bid farewell to the Aussies Kim and Grant and we headed back on our way back to the coast to continue our journey south. This took us to the coastal city of Agadir (nice beaches and restaurants) and then on to Dakhla and through the Western Sahara to the border with Mauritania. We were informed that Morocco was celebrating the peaceful independence of Western Sahara which is now independent under the rule of Morocco as opposed to the rule of Spain. The peacefulness is reflected in the army posts every 200m along the shoreline and the dozens of road blocks we passed.

Windswept and very sparsely populated, the landscape is bleak at best but somehow also very engaging. We are told that the hinterland of Western Sahara is fantastic to explore, something for the next time we pass through the region.