‘DAMN IT J.B.,’ Neil said through his pain, ‘I’m going to go on.’ It took three days for the reality of the situation to sink in.
The fibula had snapped in the middle – not bad as leg breaks go but bad enough. We’d been told it would take a month to heal; but how strong would it be? Falls are guaranteed in the desert. If the bike fell the wrong way and the leg broke again a hundred miles from anywhere, what then? And the bike? After completing the inevitable formalities with the police, I set about trying to mend it, but I’m no mechanic and could only bodge it up. Had we been in Malawi or Zambia, the bike could have hobbled to Cape Town, but the fact was we still had to cross the Sahara. With bent forks it was simply impossible. Just to complicate matters further, if we weren’t in Algeria within three weeks our visas would no longer be valid.
So all that was on the one hand. On the other was Neil’s dream. Not only had he put his heart and soul into it, he had also invested over £3,000. To see it destroyed barely 200 miles into Africa was a catastrophe. Not to mention the fact that he was my partner and the thought of setting out for Cape Town alone was, well, daunting to say the least. I promised to help him all I could but the situation was taken out of my hands. Neil’s leg got more and more painful as each day passed and it soon became obvious that there was really no choice.
‘A limb is more important than a trip,’ Neil said resignedly. ‘I must go home.’ Four days later he was in hospital in France and although it was another three months before I found out the full story, it was just as well he was.
We had always imagined danger would come from external sources such as bullets or knives, wild animals or deadly diseases, but I was now painfully aware that the most dangerous aspect of the journey would probably be holding a heavy,two-wheeled machine upright all the way to the Cape. I had selfishly thought of the trip as my show, in which Neil was merely playing a supporting role, but to him it was every bit as important. This time, it seemed, God was laughing at him.
To say that I felt blue, as I sped along the road towards the Algerian border, would make me a master of understatement. I felt terrible: guilty for having persuaded Neil to come, mean for leaving him and utterly sorry for what had happened. Added to this, in Niger the Tuareg were taking vehicles from Westerners at gunpoint, in Nigeria there were maniacs on the loose, armed with machetes, intent on chopping people up, and I was fast approaching one of the most notorious border crossings in Africa. I had expected to feel better once I got going, but I didn’t. Cape Town was over 10,000 miles away; it might as well have been on Pluto.
‘Arrh, you musician?’ asked the cheerful-looking customs man as he studied my immigration card. The room was dark and airless. A huge map of Africa sprawled across to the wall, dwarfing me and my confidence.
‘Yes . . .’ I replied a little nervously, never quite sure if it’s a good or a bad thing to be. In Europe it often means being pulled aside and given the once over. In Africa it proved to be different.
‘This good,’ he smiled. ‘I think you play rock’n’roll, yes?’ Humming some indistinguishable tune, he started to play an imaginary guitar. ‘Me, I like Beatles.’ To eat or to listen to I wondered?
This friendly fellow in no way resembled the bastard, ‘I’ll give you a six hour search’, baksheesh-demanding customs officer I’d been warned about. On the contrary, both he and his colleagues were nothing short of charming. The Algerian border turned out to be a classic example of why you shouldn’t believe everything you’ve been told until you’ve seen it for yourself. In Africa, as I would soon discover, travellers love to tell a melodramatic story. I suppose it makes them feel braver and more intrepid if they have coped with a difficult situation themselves, or serves as a useful excuse if they do not wish to.
Within twenty minutes I had shaken hands and said my goodbyes and was crossing the frontier to enter the Sahara proper.1
For the first time in a week my spirits were high. The whole Sahara stretched before me, 2,000 miles wide, like an ocean of mystery. I headed west along the northern edge of the Grand Erg Oriental towards the trans-Saharan highway. Wave upon wave of scrubless yellow dunes unrolled. There were few villages, just sand. I remembered reading somewhere that when carried to their extremes things take on the characteristics of their opposites. Landscapes are no exception. My surroundings reminded me of the top of an Alpine range: the power lines looked like ski-lifts and the sand like snow, only the people were missing. At times the whole road vanished under drifts of sand. I had to go steady as hitting one at fifty would have been disastrous.
A seed of optimism had burst in my chest, now I was really on my way. Neil was gone and that seemed unbelievably cruel, but I couldn’t help feeling that perhaps, for me, this was always the way it was supposed to be. This journey wasn’t simply about having fun, thrashing a motor bike thousands of miles across Africa. There was a much bigger – more important – reason than that. It was easy to over-romanticise the link between the journey and my grief – like Sir Lancelot, carrying my pain with my primus – but there were obvious connections between the two. I needed answers and I wanted peace. With every mile I wouldn’t automatically be granted these – sitting at border posts and avoiding pot-holes would not be enough. I would have to be pushed to new lengths, perhaps to the edge. Travelling with Neil would have been too easy – a problem shared – making this impossible. I had to be alone and, as I motored along under the bright desert sky, it seemed as though fate had made it so.
At a small village I bought some tomatoes and chillies from a market trader. Dark strangers in djellabas and turbans milled about the colourless streets; curious about me, they stopped and talked in undertones. As I left, a mangy dog gave chase, as if telling me what the men hadn’t the nerve to say. It gave up when I reached the edge of the village but schoolchildren, dressed in white coats, followed its lead and threw stones. Apparently this is something of a national sport, and happens to everyone; I took two direct hits but was too excited to be put out. A few miles on I parked amongst some dunes to lunch in peace on a sardine and tomato sandwich.
Towards evening the wind picked up and danced a million grains of sand down the road before me. As the sun blurred into a crimson wash I pulled off the main road into Touggourt and, happy with my first day’s solo progress, splashed out on the best hotel in town. It cost just five pounds.
The following day I got away in good time and soon had the wind at my back. The scenery changed as I drove west. Gone were the rolling Beau Geste dunes. Here the land was flatter, with thousands of tiny bushes like whiskers on an old man’s face. I could see for miles in every direction. Never had I witnessed such space and openness. Wild camels roamed the desert plains while carcasses fed the scavenging birds.
I was driving on, happy but cold, when up ahead I saw a road-block. I wasn’t sure what to expect but I’d been told to be cautious and to prepare for the worst.
‘So . . . you is Inglis, I think?’ said the policeman. He was about fifty-five, rather plump, grey-haired and with eyes that never stopped smiling. He didn’t really speak but chortled, as if everything to be said was humorous. It was hard to imagine him carrying out any pernicious activity. I knew I had nothing to fear.
‘Yes.’ I tried to match his grin.
‘You know where you are?’
I pointed at the map. ‘About here I think.’
His face became grave and he shook his head. ‘No, no, no, my friend. You is here.’ He pointed to Morocco. Then his face split again in two. ‘I joke . . . I joke . . . I like you Inglis. You funny, crazy men I think. Look, this is road to Ghardara but is very bad.’ He pointed down a sand track. ‘This also road to Ghardara and is very nice. I think you take this one. Ha! But you is Inglis, so maybe you take bad one.’
‘No. No. I’ll take the good one.’
‘Aarr . . . ha! ha!’ he chuckled. ‘Maybe you not so crazy, where you going?’
‘South Africa.’
‘South Africa?’ He was amazed and again burst out laughing; his wonderful beaming face made me laugh too.
‘You more than crazy. I know it – you Inglis, all crazy. If you go to South Africa I think you need many luck.’
For a moment I thought he was going to take some out of his pocket and hand it to me. Instead, he slapped me on the back and went away talking and laughing to himself. So much for bastard Algerian policemen. I came to three more road-blocks that day, none of the others even bothered to stop me.
In the late afternoon I crested a ridge and found Ghardara below me. As the sun lost height and sank towards the west, its golden light lengthened the shadows across the pastel buildings. On the top of the biggest hill an imposing minaret stood proudly, like a holy man, with the sprawling town below kneeling in veneration. From here it was south all the way to Nigeria and, for all I knew, to the end of the continent.
As I was parking on the main street I heard a voice over my shoulder.
‘I wouldn’t leave your bike there if I was you.’ I turned round to see a lanky, dark-haired Welshman. ‘That’s where we left our Landrover and all our passports and documents have been lifted. Bastard Arabs! They’ll take anything. Damn them I say.’
Before I had a chance to answer he was gone, obviously very angry. I bumped into him and his friend a little later on but rather wished I hadn’t as they were both still surly and resentful. It seemed that they had been trying to deliver their Landrover to someone in Malawi but had been turned back at the closed Zairean border. Okay, it was bad news, but things could be worse. Surely that’s what travelling is all about? Highs and lows. Good luck and bad. Even poor Neil with a broken leg and a dream in tatters had eventually been able to find the absurd, funny side to it. They had at least seen a large part of Africa, still had their vehicle and were in good health. I tried to put this point of view to them but with little success.
‘It’s all right for you, with all the time in the world. We only had a month to do it in. Now we’ve got to wait here for a week to get new papers. I don’t know what work’ll say . . . we work you know.’
A Danish motor cyclist I met that evening was also turning round and going back.
‘I have heard that the situation in the desert is very bad.’ It turned out to be no more than I already knew, which wasn’t very much. The Tuareg were said to be robbing overlanders in the desert south of Tamanrasset, on a couple of occasions taking their trucks. But there were hundreds of vehicles going across each week and less than a handful had been hit. I found it hard to understand his defeatism. I don’t mean to sound fearlessly heroic, I am not, but you don’t plan a trip like this without anticipating some danger. Perhaps my motives for risk-taking were stronger than his, but to turn and flee at the first whiff of trouble seemed ludicrous – why not save yourself the bother and just tour France instead?
The next morning there was one thing I had to do before I could leave for El Golea – get insurance. These days in London it’s hard enough to get motor-cycle cover for the UK – ask about Africa they laugh you out of the office. It had to be done here, country by country. So far I had been lucky that no one had demanded to see it. I asked the hotel receptionist for directions.
‘Oh non – c’est fermé, m’sieur. Aujourd’hui est vendredi, demain c’est ouvert.’ I’d forgotten again. Friday is the Islamic holy day and all businesses are shut. I’d either have to risk it and hope that I wouldn’t be stopped, or wait in Ghardara an extra day.
I think as a consequence of losing Neil I was keen to get some distance under my belt. The thought of what I was doing seemed so daunting that I wanted to get well into the Sahara before I had a chance to stop and think. On the other hand, the blue Chinagraph line tracking my progress on the map had already made something of an impression, and Ghardara seemed a nice enough place. Besides which, it is asking for trouble driving round a country like Algeria without your papers in order. Although I’d been fortunate to meet only friendly officials the rumours had to come from somewhere. I’d stay and look around.
Most of the day I spent wandering the narrow streets, exploring the mosques and watching the animated cast of the colourful market. There were buyers, sellers, browsers and beggars, talking, smoking and drinking tea. The fragrance of spices and freshly cut flowers did it best to mask the earthier smells left behind by goats and donkeys. Given the arid countryside I’d just driven through, I found the selection of perfect vegetables on sale nothing short of amazing. There were also carpets and clothes, sandals and slippers, chickens, books and all manner of cheap electrical appliances.
At the far end of the market square, between the carpet sellers and a donkey cart, there was a hullabaloo. Many people gathered excitedly, watching something and laughing. When I got close enough to peer over their heads, I saw a dark brown snake wriggle up the sleeve of a walnut-faced Arab and then emerge from the bottom of his djellaba to the shrieks of joy of all who watched. The sun was low as I made my way back towards the hotel.
‘You want change money?’ said a voice from behind me. I turned and saw a young face, faintly lit, at the entrance to a dark alleyway.
‘You want change money I give you good price.’ I was a little surprised that he was talking to me in English since few people here could. I had some dollars I’d smuggled in just for this purpose and now seemed like as good a time as any.
‘What price will you give me?’
‘You come this way, I give you good price.’
I followed him down the alleyway, dodging some fleeces which hung on strings from the balcony above, round a corner and through an ill-fitting wooden door. I found myself in a musty, unpainted room.
‘You sit here,’ he said, pointing to a flimsy wooden chair up against the wall. He sat on a stool facing me. A young girl perched on the window-ledge in the corner, studying a thick book, evidently doing her homework. A dim electric light bulb did its best to brighten the gloom.
Many countries in Africa have very strict currency import and export controls, and in my experience, none are so rigorously enforced as in Algeria. Upon entry, a currency declaration form must be filled in, stating exactly how much money you have. Every time you change money, you must get an official stamp on the form to show that it was legally changed. If this form is not kept in perfect order you can have big problems on leaving the country. Hence the booming black market in hard currency. If you do manage to get some undeclared money into the country, you can get nearly twice as much for it as at the official rate of exchange. It is however, like all good scams, not without risk. If you are unlucky enough to get caught, either at the border or while changing it, you can expect at least a fewdays, possibly months, in jail. And I wouldn’t wish an Algerian jail on anyone.
‘How much you want change?’ asked Yousef.
‘Well . . . er . . . only fifteen dollars actually. It’s all I have.’ It wasn’t, but it was all I needed. From what I could see of his expression in the gloom, he was crestfallen at the puny sum.
‘I give you thirty dinar for one dollar,’ he said. Since the bank was giving twenty-seven I knew I could get better, even for my meagre deal.
‘You said you give me good deal, I can get fifty for one dollar.’
‘No, this is too much. I give you thirty-five.’ And so it continued until we both settled for forty-two.
‘Tell me, Yousef, how come you speak English?’
‘I learn it so I can make business with the tourist.’ This seemed as good a reason as any.
‘And is this your sister?’ I asked, tipping the chair on its back legs. Before Yousef had a chance to answer my question the back legs gave way and I crashed to the floor. Teachers always said this bad habit would one day do neither myself nor a chair any good. Now they were proved right. That sort of thing is always embarrassing even if the audience is only two Algerian children. The little girl started to giggle as I tried unsuccessfully to mend the damage. Yousef said it didn’t matter but I could see that it did. It was the only chair in the room, possibly in the house. Of course I would have to pay for it. I gave him 200 dinar and left muttering words of apology, my short career in currency smuggling a total waste of time.
From Ghardara the trans-Saharan highway carves its way directly south across the heart of the desert, which does its best to reclaim it. For the first 1,000 miles the road is asphalt and in good condition, but from Tamanrasset there is no road at all, over 500 miles of sand and rocks as far as Arlit in Niger. It was on this stretch of piste that the Tuareg were said to be causing the trouble. Still, I had to get there first and I knew there would be a lot more information in Tam. All the overlanders gather there to form convoys before making the big push south.
Having got my insurance and filled up with petrol, I was away by ten. The further south I drove, the pinker the sand became – almost orange. The plains expanded and the road got straighter. As far as the eye could see was flat, arid nothingness. Then vertical flat-topped rocks appeared. At first there were just a few, then more and more until I was driving down a canyon. Jutting straight out of the earth to about 500 feet, they were as menacing as those in Monument Valley, seen in countless cowboy films. The strange thing about them was that they all levelled out at exactly the same height, as though God had sliced their tops off with one swish of a sickle.
There were dunes later on, huge and forbidding, marching towards the road. To get a better look, I stopped on a ridge where the edges of the road dropped sharply away on either side. While I was sitting absorbing this strange sight, another motor bike pulled up behind mine and a man and a woman dismounted.
‘Eh gov, d’you know where we can get a beer round ’ere? Ah’m that bloody parched me liver’s swearing at me. Ah’m like as not gonna pass out unless I get one . . . Oh, an’ by the way, I’m Steve an’ this es Sue, ma missus.’
It was hard to know what to say. One minute I was musing on the amazing creations of nature and the next I was being accosted by a Yorkshireman looking for a beer.
‘El Golea I should think, it can’t be very far now.’
‘Aye, that’s about what we thought,’ said Steve. ‘D’you fancy one ye’sen?’
As a matter of fact I did. Driving all day in the desert is thirsty business. Excluding the grumpy Welshmen, these were the first Brits I’d seen, and bikers to boot. It seemed likely that they would be decent company so I agreed and we drove the last fifty miles in convoy.
It didn’t take long for Steve to find a hotel with a bar and we were soon sitting round our beers. Steve was indeed amusing. A loquacious man, no taller than five foot five, his lively face wearing a bandit-style moustache, he sat eagerly on the edge of his chair, the quicker to express the next thing to come into his head. Sue, on the other hand, was quiet and thoughtful. She didn’t say much and when she did it was usually to reprimand Steve for exaggerating one of his countless stories. ‘Oh, Steeeve . . .’ she’d say, ‘he never ded.’ But Steve wouldn’t mind, he’d just turn to me and giggle like a naughty schoolboy.
I have always been a bit wary of men who talk about drink or women in the first five minutes of meeting. It usually means they can’t get by without the former and aren’t getting any of the latter, but Steve was a pure delight. I’m sure, as his wife insisted, his tales should be taken with the proverbial pinch of salt, but he was a natural story-teller and his tales were all amusing or interesting. One of them, about an Indian in Dubai, where Steve had been working with Sue, was particularly bizarre.
The story concerned a man from Punjab who had been accused of a rape which he almost certainly did not commit. He was duly taken before the court, found guilty and given a five-year jail sentence.
Some ‘kindly’ fellow prisoners told him that in one year’s time he would be able to appeal against his conviction. ‘Learn the Koran inside out,’ they said, ‘learn to speak Arabic, change your name, become a Muslim and the judge will assuredly give you back your freedom.’
The Indian took the advice.
One year later he stood in the dock and the judge said to him, ‘I hear you have changed your name and become a Muslim.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You have learnt the Koran?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You can speak and write Arabic?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And you are a good Muslim?’
‘Yes, sir, I am.’
‘Well, this is most unfortunate for you. Under the Holy Law of Islam, to which this court adheres, the penalty for rape as a Muslim is life. Take him away.’
The next day I drove on across a barren gravel plain which ran almost all the way to In Salah. The wind was strong and chill but carried no sand. Just outside the town there was a cutting where the road broke through and dipped away out of sight. As I rounded the corner, for the first of many times on this journey, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had reached the edge of an escarpment and before me, hundreds of feet below, lay an extraordinarily beautiful arid valley. The surface, covered by bright yellow desert flora, was pierced by jet-black granite buttes and inselbergs. It was as though I had been beamed down to another planet.
In the camp site that night there were fifteen of us sitting around eating couscous and talking. Most of the campers were engaged in a scam which was new to me but which I would soon see being executed by many others. Hugo, an affable Dutchman with whom I later crossed the roadless desert, explained that because Niger is a landlocked country there is a chronic shortage of decent cars. As there are no import restrictions on vehicles you can just drive them in, overland through Algeria, and get three or four times what you paid for them in Europe. It’s just about as simple as that, except of course for the little problem of crossing the Sahara. At Arlit, the first town across the Niger border, plenty of dealers are ready to take vehicles off your hands. Hugo had a Peugeot estate, the preferred choice, though some had Mercs, and Maurice, a Frenchman on his twelfth trip, had a minibus. He reckoned that after two more trips, which were definitely getting more dangerous, he would have made enough money to live with his girlfriend in South America for two years. A fat Belgian had figured it out the best. He didn’t have just one vehicle, he had a truck and low-loader with five cars on its back. On reaching Niamey, Niger’s capital, he would sell the lot and fly back ten grand richer. It sounded quite tempting.
What a long-haired German called Marcus was doing did not sound tempting at all.
‘I am volking across the Sahara,’ he told us. The collective gasp of amazement was quickly followed by a barrage of questions as to the likelihood of his succeeding in such a venture. He answered with confidence that bordered on arrogance. ‘Oh, ya, I am very determined.’ We were all suitably impressed.
Still, I guessed that if someone could push a wheelbarrow across (Geoffrey Howard, in 1975), it must be possible, but I, for one, was pleased to have a motor bike. At seven the next morning, when I passed him a few kilometres out of town, I gave him a wave and wished him luck. You can, therefore, imagine my surprise when I saw him two days later in the hotel bar in Tamanrasset, drinking a beer.
‘You’re a quick walker,’ I said. ‘Five hundred miles in two days is pretty good. Why don’t you walk to Cape Town, you’d be there next Monday.’
‘Ah, my feet ver sore, ya. A truck gave me lift. It is of no matter.’
All was fine until I got to within fifty miles of the Arak gorge. The wind whipped up and hit me so fast it was hard to know where it came from or what had caused it. It didn’t matter, it was there sure enough – a notorious Saharan sandstorm. The sand cut and slashed like a cat-o’-nine-tails. It wiped the contented smile from my face, replacing it with a squinting grimace. For the first few miles I battled on, sometimes leaning the bike as much as thirty degrees to stop myself being blown over. I knew I had only a few miles to go till the gorge would lend me sanctuary but each one felt like ten. The sand got in everywhere. It penetrated my goggles and blocked my eyes. I turned my head away, closing one eye, but it was no good, I knew I must stop. There was so much sand in the air that the sun was barely visible – a thick, painful blizzard of dirt. Through the murk I saw a black shape up ahead. When I got closer I saw it was Steve and Sure huddled behind their bike. I pulled up beside them and we sat in contemplative silence while the earth did its best to erase us from its surface. When I did open my eyes I could barely see ten yards ahead in a place where previously I had been able to see for miles. We waited for nearly two hours while the sand slowly buried us. It did not let up or show any likelihood of doing so.
‘We might as well make a dash for the gorge,’ I shouted to Steve. ‘We could be waiting here all night.’
‘Aye, keep your lights on and we’ll follow close behind.’
The road was invisible a lot of the time and twice I drove off it into deep sand. Mile by mile we plodded on, no faster than twenty miles an hour, fighting the forces of nature. But at last, standing like a citadel of peace and security, out of the gloom came the faint and welcome outline of the Arak gorge.
Despite all the hardship and discomfort one inevitably suffers on a bike, it is, I’m sure, the most satisfying means of transport, at least on a trip like this. In a Landrover or truck you can simply wind up the windows and pour yourself a coffee, cocooned in Western comfort. Not so on a bike. Whether it be sandstorm, torrential rain, fierce wind or even a swarm of locusts, indeed anything God, nature or the devil can throw at you, you must take it. There is nowhere to hide. But when the challenge is over and you have succeeded, the feeling of satisfaction is unbeatable.
At about seven, the wind dropped as quickly as it had risen and the evening was still. We camped about forty miles into the gorge, making sure we were above any wadis as flash flooding can be lethal. Indeed, they say more people die from drowning in this part of the Sahara than they do from thirst. A storm up in the Hoggar mountains, which we were now entering, can quickly result in torrents of water down below.
We were joined by Frank and Iliana, a German couple who had been with us in In Salah. They were travelling south in a four-wheel-drive camper van. Not only did they have coffee but they also had cold beer, some of which they shared with us along with a meal of spaghetti bolognaise.
We retired at about nine thirty but sleep did not come easily. Lying on the sand, without the protection of the tent which I had had to dispense with since leaving Neil, I was soon very cold. The icy chill of the starlit desert sky penetrated my body and settled on my bones as though I were dead. The desert at night can be unimaginably tranquil and serene, but that night I could not take comfort in it. I had been too busy and excited by what I was doing to dwell for long on the loss of Neil but now I felt lonely for the first time since his departure. Steve and Sue were huddled in their tents and Frank and Iliana were together in their van. Looking up at the stars I saw Mel’s face and missed her terribly. Surely that’s what it’s all about, having someone with whom to share moments like this. What the hell was I doing belting across Africa? Trying to escape from the shackles of a broken heart? Trying to impress friends who wouldn’t really understand? Or was I trying to prove something to myself? I didn’t know, but whatever the reason, as I lay there under the distant heavens, it all seemed just a little pointless without love.
I was so dirty and tired by the time I reached Tamanrasset I decided to stay in a hotel and sod the camp site. I don’t mind sleeping rough and consider myself just about as hardy as the next man, but if there’s a hotel to be had at not much greater expense, I’ll take it.
First I tried the Hotel Dassine, which I found boarded-up and then the Tinhinane, which had no rooms available. This only left the more up-market Hotel Tahat.
There wasn’t much to be said for the Tahat as I soon discovered. There was no hot water – I’d just about given up hoping that there ever would be – and the light didn’t work in the room which I shared with a thousand flies. The one thing it did have going for it was its receptionist. She looked absolutely delicious. On arrival I walked up the steps of the capacious lobby and accidentally caught her eye. She left her place behind the desk and came over.
‘Bonjour, m’sieur, comment puis-je vous aidez?’ For a moment all my French deserted me. Confronted by this vision of loveliness, I could say nothing. Come on, Jonny, pull yourself together, you’ve talked to pretty girls before.
‘Err . . . pardon, mademoiselle . . .’ She was smiling at me, either conscious of the effect she was having or simply being polite. ‘. . . Mais, avez vous une chambre pour la nuit?’
‘Oui, m’sieur, c’est quatre cent vingt dinar.’ After an embarrassing pause during which I first translated the French to 420 dinar and then converted that to sterling, I realised it was over twelve pounds. This was far more than I could afford for one night, but I couldn’t let her know that. Besides, I was tired and in need of a treat. Okay, just this once.
‘Oui, d’accord. C’est bien, merci.’
With the same enchanting smile she took my passport so she could fill in the ledger later. As she leant down to get my key I couldn’t help but notice the most perfectly shaped breasts hidden behind a pale silk shirt. I looked away quickly, embarrassed that she might have seen. Apparently she had not. She just gave me the key and watched with some amusement as I struggled with my luggage out of the back door towards my room.
It’s funny how a fully grown man can react to a beautiful woman. She had probably treated me like any other guest, smiled and been polite. But had I seen something more than that, or was it just my vanity hoping so? I must have looked a sight: filthy, scruffy and I probably smelt as well. But . . . if I was not very much mistaken . . . there had been a certain something . . . a kind of sparkle in her eyes that seemed to be for me. I went to sleep with that in mind.
I was awoken by a swarm of flies so thick I couldn’t tell if the ceiling was black or white. The room was small and airless; I opened the shutters but it made no difference. I packed a bag with what I thought I might need for a night at Assekrem, the hermitage at the top of the Hoggar mountains fifty miles to the east, and went to reception to check out.
The bright, morning light reflecting off the marble floor filled the room. Giant yucca plants stood by the doorless doorways like sentries guarding the tomb of a Pharaoh. Other guests made their way to and from the dining room, lingering for a while to take in the notices on the information board.
She was there again, even more beautiful than the vision I’d slept with. Her long black hair fell easily across her shoulders, tumbling a short way down her back. She wore no make-up; there was no need as her golden skin was perfect. Her face was almost childlike with a little nose, delicate chin and the softest cheeks. As I approached the desk, her almond eyes, as dark and bright as polished onyx, lit up. Her infectious smile was as radiant as the stars.
‘Bonjour, Jonatan,’ she said, pushing back some hair that had fallen across her cheek. ‘Bien dormi?’
I’m not usually too keen on people calling me by my Christian name. I associate it with being accused of something, told off, but from her it sounded delightful. And, more importantly, it meant she’d taken the trouble to remember it from my passport which she now handed back. Surely she doesn’t do that for all the guests.
‘Oui, merci,’ I replied, grinning stupidly.
There were three other people working behind the desk and all seemed to take an interest in me. They asked questions, in a mixture of English and French, such as where was I going, what was I doing and where had I been, to which I replied as best I could. Then she asked, I thought for the hotel register, ‘What is your occupation?’
‘Oh, je suis musicien.’
‘Vraiment?’ she asked excitedly. ‘What do you play?’
‘Ugh . . . la guitar et je suis chanteur.’ A fatal mistake and one I regretted immediately.
‘Oh! C’est très bon. Please sing something for me.’ Instantly, all the others were joining in, asking me to sing. Why can’t I ever learn to keep my big mouth shut? I hate singing alone to people at the best of times but without a guitar, and to a girl I was seriously contemplating carrying off into the sunset, it was a disaster; but I knew I had no choice. So what should I sing? ‘Only the lonely’ by Roy Orbison was all that came to mind. Of all things. What a jerk. I sang some of it, felt utterly stupid, and blushed. She seemed to enjoy it, or at least pretended to, and clapped.
We talked some more but eventually my business was completed and, after leaving my luggage with them for safe-keeping, I turned to go.
‘Au revoir.’
‘Au revoir, Jonatan. If you return after two o’clock for your things I will be here working.’
‘Bon. D’accord.’ I left feeling as high as the place I was about to visit. I didn’t even know her name.
Assekrem, meaning End of the World, stands at an altitude of 9,000 feet, in an area of the Hoggar mountains known as Atakor and getting there proved to be my first real challenge. I left Tamanrasset on a dusty road which passed the police check-point and led on into a labyrinth of wadis. The air was dry and hot and the sun slammed down relentlessly upon my back. The sand was thick and deep ruts made progress hard. They seemed to make the front and back wheels go in different directions and twice I nearly fell. After an hour, I clambered out of the riverbed and onto a flat gravel plain where the going was easier. At a Tuareg encampment I took a wrong turn and wasted ten miles in a loop back towards Tam. Again a shabby dog, much like a greyhound, appeared from nowhere and gave chase. It got close, for a moment snapping at my heels. On this terrain it possessed much the same speed as the bike, though thankfully less stamina. It soon gave up and limped away, barking at the dust.
The bike heaved and spluttered as I drove high up into the range. Black mountains, like the rotting teeth of a giant, jutted vertically out of the gums of the earth. It was a landscape of tortured sculptures forming distant peaks, oppressive, almost evil . . . the devil’s backyard. Narrow tracks, composed of sharp rock and lava flow, hammered the bike’s suspension and rattled every bone in my body. At times the going was so steep the bike slid backwards on the shale, losing power because of the altitude. I expected spokes to break, oil seals to leak or tyres to burst. I passed Ilamen, a mighty piece of rock which towered 3,000 feet above me. How wonderful it felt to be driving under the Finger of God, bound for the End of the World.
The front wheel hit an unseen gully and I was knocked off balance. I fell hard, my first fall in Africa, leaving me with a slightly strained right shoulder. Brushing myself off, I continued up the track and eventually rounded a corner to enter the refuge below the hermitage itself. It had taken four hours to cover fifty miles.
There was a chill wind whistling through the malign peaks as I parked outside. I was relieved to get into the main room of the refuge and gratefully accepted a thick, black coffee. I sat down in a comfortable chair, much to the relief of my back, and let Dawn, a friendly Canadian girl who was up there with two friends, tell me about the man who was mad enough to want to live in this lonely place.
It seems that Charles du Foucauld was something of a wealthy rogue before 1905 when he caught religion big time in Morocco. He took his vows as a Trappist monk, gave away most of his money and came out to Tamanrasset to help the Imazighen, or Tuareg. After a while even Tam proved too busy for this mystic so he came to the Atakor and built the hermitage as a place of contemplation. The isolation of the place and the hardness of the life nearly killed him, as a result he didn’t stay long before returning to Tam, which did. (In 1916 the Tuareg of Tassili joined forces with the Libyan Sennousi and, bribed by the Germans to make trouble for the French, went on a raiding party to Tam. By mistake, for it was well-known that he was a holy man, du Foucauld was shot by an overexcited boy of fifteen.) Still, as I looked out of the window onto the evil landscape of black volcanic rock, rock which had at some point ripped through the surface of the earth in a most violent manner, it was hard to imagine how du Foucauld could have worshipped anything other than Satan. If hell could be imagined, surely this was it.
The dormitory was warm. I had fully expected to sleep outside so was relieved to find a sponge mattress and some shelter. Sitting cross-legged facing each other in the corner of the room were two Tuareg men. Their traditional veils hung loosely from their heads and the swords they always carried lay at their sides. The veil – or chech – is what makes the Tuareg distinctive. It consists of a piece of cotton between three and five metres long, traditionally dyed indigo, wrapped around the face and head with only a slit left for the eyes. To explorers of old, the Tuareg were known as the blue men because the dye from the veils stained their faces. The dim light from a solitary oil lamp sent their sinister shadows sliding across the wall. Their Tamachek voices continued uninterrupted, an expressionless flow of sound. We settled ourselves for the night.
There was a time when the Tuareg were the unrivalled warriors of the Sahara. The sight of their blue veils could strike fear into the heart of the hardest man. As mercenaries, protecting the desert convoys and the isolated people of the oases, they gained substantial rewards. They also bred highly valued camels and traded salt from their mines at Bilma, but a combination of drought, hostile governments and a fall in demand for salt led to the slow but definite demise of this once great tribe. Most Tuareg have left the desert to live in hardship in towns where they look for work as security guards, handicraft sellers or, if they’re lucky, guides.
Mohammed and Maktar were of Berber descent. Both having lost their livestock in the droughts of the eighties, they had been forced to travel north from their homes in Niger. They now drove Landrovers for the tourists wishing to see the area. Between them, on a pile of hot coals, sat a small, enamel teapot, its contents simmering gently. Maktar poured the mint tea into three small glasses and passed them round. No one from a culture such as theirs would ever indulge themselves before making sure that everyone else had been invited to partake. Indeed, I was soon to realise that the less people have the more generous they are. There is no question of ‘giving’, it is as natural as breathing. They rolled some spliffs of hashish, passed them round too, and, warming to their audience, told us tales of their past.
After a while the dope took over, my body fell asleep and my brain gave up the battle of translating from French. I sank back and let it all wash over me, thoroughly contented. I was 9,000 feet up, in a house at the End of the World, listening to warriors talk. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t understand – I knew what they were saying. I closed my eyes and drifted to sleep.
By the time I woke, the sky was already a psychedelic mass of colour. Hurriedly I pulled on my jeans and staggered outside. It was cold, by God. My breath turned white as I clambered from the dormitory up the zigzag path towards the hermitage, stopping every few yards to catch my breath. I reached the little house at the top, looked east and was awestruck. A mélange of colours filled the sky while stars were still in evidence above. As the sun slipped up from behind the Martian landscape it seemed as though it were doing so for the first time, like the birth of a new planet.
The effect was marred slightly by a truckload of Australian overlanders who had arrived late the night before.
‘Lizzy, have you finished the Vegemite!’ shrieked a girl. And though Lizzy swore she had not, the ensuing argument was hardly conducive to my daydream interplanetary exploration. They sat in a row on the edge of the cliff, with enough camera equipment to open a shop. Knowing they had just as much right to be there as I did not lessen my resentment. Was this what Africa would be like all the way south? Would there always be truckloads of backpackers? I don’t mean to sound like a travel snob but, after all, this was the End of the World. I began to realise that if unspoilt Africa was what I desired, if I really wanted to go to places which few people see, where that tribal chief would lend me his hut, I would have to get off this well-trodden route. I walked a little way down from the peak and sat watching in solitude, wishing I’d been born a hundred years earlier.
Six hours later, without any wild dogs, Bedouin camps or falls, I was back in Tam – the town with the beautiful girl. I found the camp site and secured myself a dusty but comfortable zeriba, or grass hut. Nervously, I made my way back to the hotel to collect my belongings. Half of me hoped she wouldn’t be there. I could get my things with the minimum of fuss and be gone, into the desert, the whole thing remembered as a fleeting fancy. The other half, the less cowardly side, prayed she’d be there, although I really wasn’t sure why.
I arrived at the hotel, made my way up the steps past the yuccas, and approached the desk. Her head was buried in a ledger, concluding some business. I stood in front of her, smiled and waited. At first I had wanted to turn and run but I hadn’t, and now I was pleased, even calm. She looked up and smiled.
‘Ah, bonjour Jonatan,’ she said excitedly. ‘Est-ce que Assekrem était bien?’
‘Oui, c’était magnifique, merci; mais la route était un peu mal. Mais . . . comment tu t’appelles?’
‘Amel.’ It was a beautiful name, pronounced a-mel, and struck me as an astonishing coincidence. She had got up and was now standing in front of me with only the desk between us. I asked her to spell her name for me. She wrote it down in large swirly writing and told me that in Arabic it means ‘hope’. I crossed off the ‘A’ and told her about Mel. I don’t know why, for I very seldom tell anyone, especially strangers, but somehow it seemed right. Her face became grave as she offered her condolences. I changed the subject – and some money – really as an excuse to stay longer. I hung around as long as I could, at a loss as to know what to do. I couldn’t just ask her out for a drink – it’s not like that there. I wanted to tell her she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, that I’d give anything to hold her, to kiss her, hell, just to sit and look at her. But how could I? I was leaving for the border the following morning, the whole situation was hopeless. I sat outside the hotel for ten minutes, wishing I had said something, wondering what to do. It seemed too ridiculous, too bizarre. Could I really be feeling crazy about this girl I’d only just met? And if so, was I not mad to be turning my back on her? How could I ignore what my heart seemed to be telling me? Was it the same feeling I’d had for Mel that first time? It really felt like it was . . .
8.35 p.m. January 15th
‘Bringgg . . .’ The piercing sound of the door bell echoed through the house. ‘Damn,’ I muttered as I burned my hand on the casserole. ‘Okay, just coming. Emma, can you do something with the stew. It’s all dried out.’ I’d never had anyone to dinner before and was as nervous as a rabbit trapped by headlights.
A week earlier, at a party in the country given by mutual friends, I had become re-acquainted with Tania. She had grown up a lot since I had last seen her some three years back and now, at nineteen, was a beauty to behold. She had the sultry looks of a Romanian gypsy with high cheek-bones and large brown eyes. In her black velvet dress she had had little difficulty in holding my attention for most of the night.
She was beautiful, yes, and good fun, but was she right for me? I wasn’t sure. But I also knew that if I didn’t make an effort, I’d probably never find the right girl. ‘It’s no use waiting for that thunderbolt,’ I told myself. So I asked her to dinner and she accepted.
The closer the big day got the more nervous I became. What was I going to cook? A fry-up was about all I was good for, and who else should I invite? Was I being stupid getting so worked up? Could I really imagine Tania as my girlfriend? I’d had relationships before, of course, but they had never lasted long; somehow we’d just never clicked. What I wanted was the big one – Love – a soulmate. Would Tania be different, would she be the one? It was hard to see what we actually had in common. Worrying that she might be feeling just the same way, I decided to check that she still wanted to come.
‘Yes, of course, I’m really looking forward to it,’ she said when I called her at work. ‘It’ll be fun, but . . . er . . . would you mind if I brought a friend?’ Evidently she too was unsure.
‘No, no, not at all.’ I tried to hide my disappointment.
‘You’ll really like her,’ she went on, rubbing in her uncertainty. ‘You know, she’s into music, bands and all that.’ So I figured I’d just wait and see.
I reached the front door and took a deep breath. It had been raining all day and had only recently stopped. A strong breeze rippled the puddles. It blew Tania’s hair across her face, she pushed it away with her hand. I bent down to kiss her on the cheek.
‘Hi,’ she said brightly, handing me a bottle of wine. ‘This is Mel.’
A ripple of electricity ran down my back – so thunderbolts happen after all. She was perhaps not as classically beautiful as her friend but in her pale blue eyes she seemed to carry a secret, a certain spirit I had never seen before. It wasn’t so much the way she looked as the spark that came from within.
I knew in an instant that she was the one. She was the girl I’d been waiting for. The girl I spent countless nights with alone in my bed. The girl who would make me whole. I knew it as certainly as I knew my own name.
Surprising myself, I bent forward and kissed her. ‘Come on in, I’m afraid I’ve burnt the stew.’
I returned to the camp site with my mind in something of a muddle. I could just drive off into the desert the following day and in a week or two I would probably have forgotten all about Amel. But on the other hand . . .
Then an idea came to me. I would write her a letter in French, telling her how I felt, and give her my Kenyan bangle. It was the only thing I had worth giving, besides perhaps a torque-wrench which I doubted she would have much use for. Yes, she’d like that.
I reckoned she would not be on duty that evening as she’d worked the day shift, so I thought I’d give it to one of the other receptionists to pass on to her in the morning. I realised that this would give her no chance to respond as I’d be gone, but the futility of the situation didn’t seem to bother me – at least she’d know how I felt.
With my mind made up, I was much happier. I sat back on the dusty mattress in my zeriba and wrote the letter. That completed, all I had to do was to persuade Steve to come with me for a beer, and that was never going to be a problem. At eight o’clock we set off, Steve ignorant of my scam.
As we walked up the steps of the hotel the plan fell apart, for there, standing facing the other way, at the far end of the lobby, was Amel. Oh no, what can I do now? I can’t give it to one of the receptionists. They’ll just call her over and . . . well . . . that’s far too intense. I raced for the sanctuary of the bar, hoping she wouldn’t turn round, and that Steve wouldn’t notice her, for he knew I liked her. I was nervous, very nervous, and in need of a drink.
After a couple of beers I felt much better, as did the whole situation. She’s probably gone by now, it’ll be fine. Go and change some money and if everything’s cool you can hand the present over and get out. My mind made up, I acted. But as soon as I showed my face in the entrance hall I realised that this plan was doomed to failure as well.
‘Ah, Jonatan. M’sieur Jonatan,’ the receptionists called excitedly.
‘Bonsoir.’ I was a little confused, not really knowing why I had suddenly become so famous. One of the other girls disappeared and within a minute she was back with Amel. She was out of her smart work clothes, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, with her hair tied up at the back – the look suited her. We were now on the same side of the counter and I was filled with Dutch courage.
At once the whole world seemed to implode, with Amel and I at its centre. It didn’t matter that we spoke different languages or came from cultures a million miles apart, it was obvious that our feelings for each other were the same. I felt things I hadn’t done in ages. All those precious emotions I had been forced to keep a lid on for more than two years resurfaced. Amel had woken me up.
‘You’ll find someone else, of course you will,’ friends used to say reassuringly, but I had been far from convinced that I would. ‘To have what I’ve had once is more than many people get,’ I would think. ‘Why should I be so lucky as to have it all again?’ They had often set me up at dinner parties with single girls, I’d even had affairs with one or two, but nothing whatsoever had stirred inside, it had been as though my emotions were dead. Yet here I was, quite literally in the middle of the Sahara desert, with a girl I had known for only a matter of minutes, deliriously excited as that treasured feeling of total, uninhibited joy consumed me again. In some ways she even reminded me of Mel: the enthusiasm and speed with which she talked, the way she pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear, her figure, and there was even some resemblance in the features of her face. But what grabbed me the most, sending my heart all aflutter, was her captivating, ever-present smile. From it radiated an excitement and passion for life that had me hooked. And when I caught the sweet, fresh fragrance of her body as I whispered something in her ear I could have cried with delight. Instead I laughed. We sat close to each other talking, smiling and holding hands. I felt no guilt – it all seemed so absurdly right.
Amel was witty and enthusiastic. She didn’t giggle for the sake of it when my French was wrong, but she did take the micky. She told me she came from Algiers from a large family but, fed up with the harsh rules Islam imposes on women in the north, she had applied for the relative freedom of a job in Tam. When her father had finally consented to her taking it, a decision most Algerian parents would not have contemplated, she had jumped at the chance.
‘The best thing I ever did,’ she said happily, ‘and now I meet you.’ Her colleagues cackled from behind the desk. They seemed delighted that Amel should be so happy. Neither of us was quite sure what was going on.
It was honestly about the last thing I expected to happen, and must be considered highly unusual. In a country where unveiled girls over twelve, let alone beautiful women of twenty-three, are seldom seen, I was falling head over heels in love and it seemed the feeling was reciprocated. It didn’t matter that the whole situation was hopeless, I was enchanted – I could have sat there all night.
I gave her the letter with which she was very pleased and excited. ‘Pre-arranged . . .’ she kept saying, waving it above her head. ‘He must like me.’
‘I do. I do.’ I think you’re bloody gorgeous. She kept it unopened, saying she would read it later, when she was alone in her room.
Again the time came for me to leave her. For the last time? I kissed her good-night and, unable to find Steve, left, walking on a cloud.
Hugo was sitting at the entrance to the camp site wearing a smart new chech of deep blue. From a distance he looked great, just like one of the Tuareg he was talking to. I had to tell someone about my strange evening, so I poured it out to him. Then a friend of Hugo’s came over, carrying a bottle of whisky. Franz was a tall, strikingly good-looking Dutchman. He was dark, wore a battered dusty hat and with his long thick hair straggling out at the sides, looked something like a Red Indian. It turned out that he was the driver of a Dutch overland group of fifteen who, unbeknown to me, was supposed to be coming with our convoy in the morning. For one reason or another they had decided to leave twenty-four hours later and, if I wanted to, I could go with them. An extra day in Tam! I could hardly believe it. Maybe I could get Amel out of the hotel and away from prying eyes. Yes, an extra day – what a buzz! We sat around a tiny, crackling fire, beneath a quarter-moon and drank the whisky. I couldn’t stop talking. I hadn’t felt so happy in years.
In the morning I made my arrangements for crossing the desert. It was ridiculous, here I was about to drive 500 miles across nothing but sand and all I could think about was this girl. I hadn’t considered how much petrol might be needed, or food, or even water. I took Hugo’s advice and hastily got an extra fifteen litres of petrol to see me through to Alit. He told me there would be no petrol at In Guezzam, on the border, and kindly offered to carry it for me. His advice turned out to be good.
I had a shower and went to see Amel. It was after eleven by the time I turned up and as she had been expecting me early to say goodbye she thought I was not coming. Relieved, she gave me a smile. We arranged to meet in town at five.
The desert comes right up the main street in Tamanrasset. It blocks the doorways and piles up in drifts like snow on a New York sidewalk. The road was wide, shaded by flat-topped acacia trees and lined with single-storeyed mud-brick houses. Tall Tuareg, dressed in blue and white robes, sauntered along, some on foot, some on camels; they have the same indolent stride. I sat on a bench under a tree and waited. It was hot even though the sun was low in the sky. The air was still, there was no breeze.
‘Ah, Jonny le Targui,’ Amel said, referring to the chech I was now wearing. We walked slowly down the muggy street to the courtyard where my bike was parked. She’d never been on a motor bike before and loved it. The feel of her hugging me tight, her front pressed into my back and her chin resting on my shoulder, was wonderful. The sun was setting as we drove out of town into the desert. We stopped and sat under a date palm to watch it.
‘Jonatan, why did we meet?’
‘I’m not sure.’ I put my arm round her and held her close. Again I could smell the glorious perfume of her skin. I breathed it in deep, forcing it into my memory in the hope of being able to recall it later. ‘Maybe one day we’ll know.’
After a moment she smiled. ‘Our paths have crossed once, they may do so again.’
‘I hope so,’ I said, as much to myself as to her. I leant forward and kissed her cheek.
‘Insh’ Allah,’ she said, her soft, dark eyes resting on me. ‘It is all in the hands of God.’
1 Three days later, in a raid by FIS, the Islamic fundamentalists, the border was attacked and four of these men were killed.