DAKHLA

We finally reached a beginning of a peninsula where Dakhla is located. Of course, before we were allowed onto the peninsula we had to go through yet another control. We were very excited as views on the cape were just marvellous and again breathtaking. We had to stop every one mile as the beauty of that place had to be perpetuated on the photos. This small cape is so varied. In the middle there is sand and the main road, on the right side there is the Atlantic Ocean and its great waves and spots for surfers and on the left side a lovely, magic and beautiful lagoon...A really, really amazing place. It was really hard to imagine that it was actually January! In spite of the fact that the place was brilliant we saw something very sad.

While we were driving toward Dakhla City we noticed a lot of very young dogs in the desert near big blue bag. We stopped and got off... That was one of the saddest thing we have ever seen.Seventeen dogs were abandoned, left in the desert some still were in the bag with no water or food, just left in the middle of nowhere. Two mums and fifteen small puppies were just dumped. Some puppies couldn’t walk and one hasn’t even opened his eyes yet. Those dogs were squealing, but dog’s mums allowed us to come closer. We gave them some water and some food. We didn’t have much - only some spread cheeses as our food reserves were nearly finished. We took some photos of those sweet animals and Charlie turned back with camera to police controlers and told policemen about what had we found. Officers understood him, but also said that they didn’t have influence on that and the strongest puppies would survive as anyway they are desert dogs. We were so sorry for those dogs... There were too many to put them into car. We still feel really bad that we actually couldn’t do much more for them. We really hope that someone took care of them. We had to drive on.

When we finally arrived to Dakhla we had mixed feelings – we were happy that we made it to where we challenged ourselves to get, but also we knew that from this point on we had to turn back. The city itself had a specific African feel to it. It’s a place lost in time and space – a place forgotten by most and only visited when passing by, visited by outsiders only when heading further into Africa as this place is their last stop before crossing the Mauretania border... We found the place interesting because of this legacy as it had two sides to it – one is the outside looks which has to be called rough , and the other which is nice and friendly people not affected by the rat race or fight for the $. We found ourselves a roadside grill bar and we ate again Charlie’s favourite keftas, that time they were made from camels:/

Next day we decided to spend easy just enjoying Dakhla’s atmosphere. We spent some time in one of the surfers’ spot admiring great big waves and lying on the beach. Oh those waves where so huge...even they could form almost perfect tunnel. The afternoon we spend on the other side of the cape - Lagoon..ooohh yes please... That was a great place for walking, swimming and just resting. We noticed some really big jellyfishes..Half dead of course...We noticed on the lagoon some tyres prints and later we saw a car, which was driving through this paradise... Unfortunately, those people were unlucky and they got stuck in the middle of the lagoon, while the hide tide was coming. As we were informed later unfortunately that car was covered by water... nobody could pull it out in time.

Dakhla seems to be forgotten place, many people would just omit this city, because of its location – end of the cape, end of the world. However, if you’re travelling by car in Morocco you really should visit city as it is worth it.

Our Photo Album: http://picasaweb.google.com/106661203325099532399/10Dakhla#