05 Sep The Southern Post

This time I am going to take you on a route that has always occupied a special place on my wish list. A route opened by a handful of dreamers like Saint Exupery, Jean Mermoz or Guillaumet, pilots of the Aeropostale line, who risked their lives so many times facing the night, the sea or an unsubmissive Sahara, in order to carry the mail between Dakar and Paris at all costs. Men of action and lovers of literature, adventure and poetry often go hand in hand.

That route was designed to be completed in less than a day, with relays at intermediate stopovers at solitary airfields: Casablanca, Agadir, Cap Juby, Port Etienne, St Louis and finally Dakar. In Exupery's words, a route of wind, sand and stars, to which I, who can find no better claim than that and do not need much more, feel totally attached.

Every kilometre of it speeds up my heart, making me feel the victory of my free spirit over the slavery of the office. And unlike them, my plane usually breaks down and I have to do the route by land..... I enjoy every second, from the colonial charm of St Louis, to the silence of the dunes of the Azefal or the hustle and bustle of the camel market in Guelmin. It is a real route of the senses and as such, I let myself be carried away by all of them, except common sense (the least common of all my senses), because that is what the adventure demands......

I can only imagine the feelings that would go through the hearts of those pilots every time they left Dakar, flying low over the endless beach leading to St Louis, while watching the arrival of the fishermen in the villages of Kayar and Potou. Or flying over the small baobab forests, the lonely dunes of Lompoul (stay there for a night...!!!!) and the marshes of the Langue de Barbarie where thousands of pelicans stop to rest from the long journey.

Doing it by car, along the beach until the tide allows it, gives you another perspective that also has hidden surprises, such as a few simple beers in a beach bar with an unmemorable name?

Then comes St L ouis, the final stage of the first day. Entering the island by crossing Senegal is like entering another dream, where those remote places invented by Herodotus become reality. Let yourself be hypnotised by the sound of the waves lapping against the outer island's jetty or by the sight of hundreds of pyrogues piled up in the Guet N'Dar district. Take a leisurely stroll through the colonial quarter or give it your all in the worst dive bars frequented by Mermoz. And if you like jazz, which I hear some people do, this is the place.

To get to the next stage, Port Etienne, today's Nouadhibou, the best idea is to draw up a crazy plan and complicate it as you go along, but at the very least, that plan has to go through the oases of Ametlich, and then reach the beaches of the Banc D'Arguin where the soft dunes of the Achkar die. Otherwise, it's not a good plan.

I like the Banc D'Arguin a lot, even if it doesn't always present its friendliest side. You have to get there by day, because the roads are almost invisible and there is a village, Arkeiss, which loves to hide at night and is difficult to find. It is home to the Imraguen, fishermen who have always maintained a fishing alliance with the dolphins. There are also thousands of birds that stop on their way to the cold northern lands, huge colonies of crabs and even the remains of a whale that has turned into a desert.

The end of this stage in Port Etienne also leaves no one indifferent, the cliffs of Cap Blanc, the narrow streets of the colourful market, our town of La Guera, and for years my favourite part, the graveyard of boats stranded on the beach. Not forgetting to enjoy a baila in the fishing centre, which sometimes needs to be supplemented with a diet of fuet.

The next and last stage before Casablanca was Cape Juby, one of the northernmost outposts of our beloved Spanish Sahara, when our presence there was reduced to a group of small garrisons scattered in the vastness. Villa Cisneros, Tifariti, Bir Nzaran, Bir Gandus, Smara, Mahbes, Bir Lehlu .... and, of course, Edchera. There, at Cape Juby, in this place of sand and silence Exupery was Exupery's stage manager, flying and writing, which was what he liked, lucky him...

After Cape Juby and before reaching Agadir, already in Morocco, came Puerto Cansado and further north Sidi Ifni, the parachutist heartland, or wherever the mysterious tower of Santa Cruz de Mar Pequeña was located. I always wish to revisit and recall the old glories of my ancestors in Ercunt or in the souks of Arba del Mesti or Telata de Sbuia. I will enter Telata or the sky...

But this time, my adventure ended in the Sahara, right between the heights overlooking Duna Blanca and Dragon Island. And there, impressed by the landscape of the entrance to the estuary of Villa Cisneros, thinking sadly of such good times long ago, I said goodbye to the three friends that the road gave me and I went elsewhere, as always, chasing the wind...