Country Quest Western Sahara # 186

Source: here

This evening I landed in Laayoune, the largest city in Western Sahara.

Western Sahara was the 186th target on my Countries & Territories hit list. Fortunately, I still have 31% of the world left to discover.

I arrived in the evening, so the airport forex bureau was closed. I had no dirhams and I needed to get to my hotel, so I walked over to a bunch of guys standing by a taxi rank. I tried to explain in my mediocre Spanish that I first needed to find an exchange bureau to change some money and then to go to my hotel.

One of the guys asked me in Spanish if he could help. I introduced myself and he said his name was Ali and would I like if he came along with me in the taxi?

“Por supuesto! Muchas gracias, Ali!”, I replied and we got into one of the cabs. In Laayoune you share taxis, so in addition to Ali and me there were two other guys with suitcases as well as the cab driver.

All the windows were rolled down as we drove and the pleasant desert air breezed through the car.

Soon we were plumb in the bustling heart of the commercial centre with narrow streets alive with people and open shops with bright lights and lots of music and street-food and kids running around and young men and women checking each other out.

With so much to look at, the cab driver rammed into the back of pickup truck, but both drivers seemed unperturbed. They looked at the cars and concluded they were still able to drive and so off we went again.

After we had dropped off the other two passengers, we reached a small exchange bureau. Ali and I got out of the taxi and Ali paid the cabbie, who drove off. Ali knew the owner of the forex bureau. I changed 50 EUR for dirhams and got the mid-market rate, which surprised me a bit.

Coming in to land across the desert at Laayoune (Source: own photo)

After we had changed money, Ali hailed another cab to take us to my hotel. On the way, Ali told me he had just come back from Rabat, where he had been applying for a permit to work in Portugal. He had been travelling the whole day.

When we got to my hotel, I insisted on paying him for his help and his kindness and the outlays he had made for the taxis, but he flatly refused. I could not even make him take payment for the cab rides. Shaking his head and smiling, he said,

“Somos gente del desierto. Somos personas buenas y tranquilas. Disfruta de tu visita!”

The End