Tiznit - Tan-Tan - Laayoune (MA) : going south towards disputed sands

Going south the distances between towns becomes greater and the landscape more arid. The towns, however, all have a distinctive character with only the increasing military presence in common as we emptied tank after tank. With the tared road in excellent condition and the traffic scarce (max. 10 cars per hour) we easily could have made more miles each day, but the opportunity to exclusively enjoy the peace and quiet of the changing arid landscape as for example salt flats, dunes of differnt types and in a variety of colours, small canyobs and sea-side cliffs. Laayoune is the gateway and largest town of Moroccos latest aquisition being almost three times the size of France. Rabat started its conquest about 30 years ago when Spain left a vacum to the pressure of POLISARIO for an indpendent Western Sahara. The almost extravagant new part of town stands in sharp contrast above the poorer old section which has various army and police quarters. After our fruitless attempt of finding cheap accomodation in the old town we had a good meal at an on-street restaurant. The atmosphere was a little tense, we were on our guard and thus prevented my gloves bing pinched by one of the many kids hovering around "la nave". I guess it was not coincidence that by the end of our meal there were two men from some special unit on the premises giving us their dutiful "Welcome to Morocco". That not all is quiet in the Western Sahara became even clearer when we had an early coffee in front of Laayoune's best hotel before leaving the next day. The parking lot was full of 4x4s from the UN. We wondered why each delgate (some even in tennis dress!) seemed to have his own 4x4 when we haven't seen a gravel road for the last few hundreds of kilometers and there are always plenty of Mercedes taxis around and if a hotel with a few stars less wouldn't also help the UN kep its budget.