From Mhamid to Foum Zguid

One day I was on my way to a small southern town named Mhamid, there I wanted to visit all hotels and the next day I wanted to do a dirt road (we call it piste) through the desert to Foum Zguid, and coming back on a parallel road. Such pistes you cannot imagine as American roads. They are unpaved, unmarked, no signs. It is only a trace in the desert, over sand dunes, over difficult stones, over dry lakes and without any other traffic except nomads and camels, sometimes there is no car within a week. I arrived there, visited some campgrounds, a very small primitive hotel, and all people wanted to accompany me on this piste. I told everybody that I prefer to go alone.

I found another small hotel to visit, and I started a conversation with two young men. We talked and talked, and they invited me for dinner. I was talking about my project, and one of them, Abdou, said he would like to accompany me. He is the owner of a small travel agency and in June it is the low season, absolutely no tourists. Since we definitely had a very good conversation I agreed. We started immediately, 10 p.m., because he said, on this piste there is a very difficult part with Fech-Fech. This Fech-Fech is a very fine, special sand, and it is difficult to drive there in the heat. We slept in a bivouac, this means nomad tents, outside the town and started at 6 a.m. for our piste.

Just behind the bivouac there are small sand dunes to cross and I thought, if this is the Fech-Fech, it is nothing at all. Such sand I did many times without difficulties. Without problems we arrived at a small oasis, there are maybe 20 palm trees, a source and a bivouac, a military post, but no village. We had a tea there and continued to the dunes of Chegaga, very large beautiful sand dunes. You might think the Sahara is full of sand dunes, but this is not true, most times there are only rocks. At Chegaga there is another bivouac, managed by Naji, because there are many tours coming to this beautiful spot, to spend a night in the desert. And then Abdou asked me the question: "Should we do the Fech-Fech or should we do a deviation?" The decision was not easy, because I was not so sure how complicate the Fech-Fech is and if I can do it. The driver of a heavy Toyota looked at my Galloper and said: With this car? Never!" I don't like to return, and I wanted to experience now the Fech-Fech!

It was already 10 a.m. when we arrived at this dry river, where the sand and the fine dry mood are mixed together. It was beautiful there. After 4 km I controlled the panel, what? The water was hot. I looked for a hard spot to stop and worried about the car. What if it is broken. There is no garage within 50 miles, there are no parts available within 600 miles. We waited nearly an hour and I started the motor, it was running fine, nothing broken. We continued, but I could only use the first and second gear, the road was too difficult. After 3 km the same procedure, water cooking, waiting. It was June, high noon, and maybe 45º C! Finally we did the 15 km of Fech-Fech in 3,5 h, with 7 breaks. But we arrived in Foum Zguid.

After relaxing one hour we decided to drive back the same day, it was late afternoon and it was clear that we had to spend the night in the desert. The way back went to a very small place in the middle of nowhere I always wanted to visit, the only place with houses in this whole part of the desert. The name is "Zaouia Sidi Abd en Nebi" and has maybe 10 houses, a school and a mosque. On the way to the spot Abdou told me to pay attention. I asked why and he explained that the people of this village are supposed to have "Bad eyes", which means they can curse you. What a nonsense, nobody ever can believe such things.

In the village people were very friendly and invited us for a tea, we had a very good conversation and I left some gifts for the family. On the road we found a nomad asking for a lift, but we had no seat available. He was very sad, told us that there was no other car in the last week. 12 km after the village we had a flat tire. We changed the tire and I asked Abdou if we should built our tent there in the desert, because it was already after sunset. He said, no, it is only 25 km to this little oasis, where we had tea before, it would be more comfortable to sleep there in a nomad tent. I agreed and we went on. 8 km before the oasis we had the second flat tire. No spare tire.

What should we do? Abdou said, this will be expensive. We are 60 km from the next village and the asphalt road, and we cannot use our phone in the desert. It was night already, but Abdou decided to walk the 8 km to the oasis, without knowing if he would find help there. I prepared a mattress on the ground, had some red wine and peanuts, even slept an hour. It was a beautiful clear night with full moon, I could see everything.

After 1 a.m. I saw the light of a car from far. It was Abdou! After the two-hour-walk he found the military post in the oasis, they radioed to Mhamid for help and they even found a spare tire with the necessary 6 holes. We changed the tire and arrived early in the morning in Mhamid, happy to be back, but also happy that we had such a nice adventure.