05 Apr Dakhla, beyond nothingness

Since Phoenician times and until the Portuguese Gil de Eanes arrived and dared to round Cape Bojador, this remote part of Africa was considered the symbol of the unknown, the place of the Mare Tenebrosum behind which it was impossible to venture without the certainty of never returning. Nor did the strange chronicles of Hanon's voyage contribute to the explorations, let alone the fact that Ptolemy christened this place on the map "the cape of fear".

How wrong Herodotus and those others were who claimed that there was nothing beyond those lands, for the heat was so extreme that life was impossible and any man who dared to go there would turn black ipso facto (in my case it would take a little longer, having gone through all the shades of pink beforehand). But of course, they said it in perfect Latin, plus ultra nihil est (beyond that there is nothing), and it sounded so true that anyone would doubt it.

Well, thank God, they were wrong, because if they had only gone a few miles further south, they would have found one of the most incredible places I know, Dakhla.

I feel sorry for them, they missed it, they were not lucky enough to see the entrance through that isthmus of white sand, turquoise sea and black rock, the beach of Duna Blanca, the colonies of flamingos and Dragon Island. They lost their way along a rugged coastline battered by the irifi, that westerly wind that has made me so independent after so many lashes. They could not taste that skewer of gazelle dorca, freshly caught between the dunes that a Saharawi friend offered me, or savour some dances in the Samarkanda restaurant, while from the other side of the estuary and like a siren song, the call of El Aargub, trapped by the desert, can be heard. Nor could they get close to the Punta de la Sarga, spot killer whales and hopefully see some of the last monk seals. They missed out on all that...

That is Dakhla, "the entrance", the gateway to paradise, although for me it will always be my beloved Villa Cisneros, our oldest detachment in Western Sahara, since 1884 when it was founded by the Africanist Emilio Bonelli. It has always been represented to me as a meeting place for legionaries, Meharists, Saharawis, fishermen, parachutists, dream or adventure seekers, tough people, with a thousand stories written on a skin tanned by the sun and the sirocco. Today, different people come here, but always adventurers, and no one leaves without the idea of returning.

I am one of them, long ago I chose to be like Gil d'Eanes and crossed Cape Bojador, and went discovering Africa, in search of the lost oasis of Zerzura or any other adventure that sounded like madness.

Along the way I met friends among the Peul, Fulani, Tubus, Tuareg, Maasai... I climbed volcanoes, crossed deserts, saw the last camel caravans of the Afar and dozens of elephants on forgotten roads in Cameroon, even saw the caracal being hunted... I remember praying to God in front of the dunes of Tanezrouft and to the devil in the worst dive bars of Bamako. I have smoked strange herbs with the Hadzabe, drank Konyagui with other guide friends in the heart of the Serengeti and danced mbalax in the nights of Dakar (with that personal style of mine, never well understood...). There were nights when I slept alone on the dune of Chinghetti and others when I got drunk with a company of the French foreign legion in a lost village of the Vakagá, while we sang that song... Le Diable marche avec nous. Such an African song, and one that I need to hear when I am overcome with nostalgia for old comrades and past adventures.

In short, during these years I have seen coups d'état, lived through revolutions, been shot at, arrested, swindled, threatened, moved, fallen in love and even seduced (well, I can't remember if this last one has happened to me once or not), and so it is here, in Dakhla, where my adventure began so many years ago, that I am starting this other one, to tell you about the Africa I have seen, and I hope you like what you will discover.

I ask only one thing of you, do not pay too much attention to Herodotus' ideas and dare to cross the Cape of Fear yourselves.