"Chewing on a piece of grass, walking down the road... And the free wind is blow'n through your hair.." It was a bit hard to chew on a piece of grass because there wasn't any. But an early morning desert breeze did blow through my hair. Anyway, the lyrics of Ventura Highway were good and I needed to take a walk and clear my head. Another phone call back home to my sick mother in Australia was distressing....

Alan woke up sore and sorry from his jolting ride the day before and was showering while I took a wander in the surrounds of our Tamlalt Hotel. The red desert sunrise light was fantastic. Long finger shadows fell across the brilliant bare sands; the sheer nothingness of the arid landscape and the much needed solitude of an early desert morning was liberating - and very therapeutic. And the dawning day promised to be glorious.

Next door to our hotel was a nomad camp with around twenty camels. There was not a soul to be seen. It seemed like everyone was asleep. The camels stirred as I walked closer with several rising to their feet, groaning and bellowing loudly. I certainly had not meant to disturb them. Such magnificent animals. I wondered why they too are so maligned. Every article I have read on camels relates mainly to their bad temper and spitting. Now, I know a lot of people who have and/or do both.... One particular camel, stretching luxuriously in the morning sun, was completely coated with mud. The recent rains must have been lovely for her to roll in.

Rejuvenated after my walk, I joined Alan for breakfast at our hotel. He too was feeling a lot better after a hot shower. We were amazed by the dust. Our room had been spotless the day before but after the sand storm the previous day, everything was covered in thick dust. There was even a little sand dune on the back of the toilet.

Jacky and his staff member Hassan did not speak English but they were very hospitable and provided us with a simple but very good breakfast in the communal dining area. Not that it was at all communal, as we were the only guests but it was decorated with rich coloured, cosy Moroccan furnishings and had a great ambiance. We were intrigued with the seats. These crazy chairs were a mesh of balloon-like cushions and looked terrific - although they were not particularly comfortable. But, we were on our own with just Jacky and Hassan and we sighed with great relief that Mohamed had not booked us into a tacky tourist resort like what we saw the evening before at Erg Chebbi.

Mohamed did not arrive at Merzouga to pick us up at 10.00 am as he had indicated the evening before. It didn't matter anyway as we decided to go for a brief walk around Merzouga. If Mohamed arrived, he would surely be able to find us. There appeared to be absolutely no-one else around.

The day was glorious and Merzouga in its almost eerie desert isolation, exuded a feeling of real peace and calm. We walked several kilometers past surrounding nomad camps and then a number of hotels. It was so empty it reminded me of a facade of a movie set. Again, there was not a soul to be seen. We arrived back to our hotel to find that Mohamed was still not there.

The day seemed to come and go. Fortunately, we were very relaxed and found being on our own in Merzouga for a day was exactly what we needed. Jacky and Hassan however were concerned for us and tried many times to call Mohamed but to no avail. It seemed like he had turned all his phones off. A sudden panic broke in. "What happened if he had a car accident? Perhaps he may be sick, or stranded somewhere in the desert?" We even thought about telephoning his partner Danielle in Canada.

Around 4.00 pm Mohamed rocked in to the hotel grounds. "There is nothing much to do at Ouzina so there was no point in leaving earlier." he explained simply.

We left Merzouga at 5.00 pm for our much anticipated trip to Ouzina on the Moroccan-Algerian border. When we asked Mohamed about Algeria he told us it was an extremely dangerous place and not one where tourists should travel. The 2013 attack on the French owned Algerian oil fields where 23 workers, including westerners were killed as well as frequent kidnappings of westerners was very much in our minds but we often wondered about Algeria. Perhaps one day...

On our way through Merzouga we were amused by the names of some of the hotels such as Nomad Palace, Chez Julia and even the Auberge Trilobite. Housing was functional; just square beige-brown mud brick and straw blocks which almost disappeared into the beige desert background. Again, there were very few people around.

Which piste? The desert from Merzouga to Ouzina was a maze of pistes which seemed to go in all directions but thanks to Mohamed's biological sat nav we were able to place all our faith in his amazing navigational skills. I often wondered on that journey how we would fare if something happened to him. I am flat out finding my way around our streets back home in Australia, let alone a trip through the Sahara where there are no roads and no mobile phone coverage. The only signs of life during our journey were some disused quarries and an occasional nomad and camel.

There was still a lot of free water around from the storms and Mohamed's car constantly swerved and crashed through the water courses and ravines. It was the wildest ride. In most instances there were no pistes at all and Mohamed had to make our own way across the unmade terrain. The occasional groan came from the unfortunate back seat passenger. I didn't dare ask Alan how he was. There was absolutely no point. But it must have been truly horrible for his poor cracked ribs.

The scenery toward Ouzina however, was nothing short of breathtaking. Mohamed had been right in taking us later in the day. The afternoon sunlight reflected a burning red on the huge towering escarpments and a soft glow on the ever changing colours of the desert. You could almost imagine you were part of an artist's painting.

And then we were in a lunar landscape, an out of planet experience. A white clay pan flat surrounded by bare cream hills looked like a giant desert sea. The landscape changed again to fabulous folded chocolate mountains dusted by a cocoa sand. Flat topped thorny African trees dotted the scenery. A dust storm was brewing in the distance and dancing desert devils spun their way across the desert flats. Black gravel desert changed to a brilliant green, seducing us into thinking it was lush grassy pasture. But it was just an illusion. Your mind could do dangerous things in the desert.

Distant crescent sand dunes reared up from nowhere. Pigmy shrubs punctuated the undulating foregrounds. Plants are the key to understanding the nature of an environment. A dead give-away to the location of the slightest moisture, lines of thorny trees clung tenuously to the fringes of old water courses and whiskery tough grasses belied curious, seemingly parched desert mounds.

As our car descended a steep dune and onto a dead flat desert plain, the sun glowed brilliant orange on a lonely mud brick building. The panoramic view of the little fortress in the crimson desert was simply gob stopping. "Just take a look at this lonely joint, smack in the middle of what could be the most desolate and isolated place in the world!" exclaimed our Thought-to-be-Dead-Patient-in-the-Back-Seat.

It was our hotel, the Ouzina Rimal. And yes, it was smack in the middle of the great Sahara Desert.

Nothing could have been more of a contrast than the Ouzina Rimal hotel and the Erg Chebbi Resort at Merzouga. And thankfully, our total Ouzina experience was to be the antithesis of what we had endured the evening before. Built like a kasbah, and made from mud bricks walls some 15 cm thick, the traditionally Moroccan furnished Ouzina Rimal oozed great atmosphere. The rooms were simple but adequate, and absolutely spotlessly clean. There was not even a micro sand dune on the toilet seat! And Alan was over the moon that the bathroom actually had a shower recess and ready hot water.

A long golden afternoon provided an ideal opportunity to explore the surrounding dunes and desert of the Ouzina Rimal. There were no streets or even visible pistes, just desert and more desert. Interestingly, the address of the hotel is expressed as navigational co-ordinates. If you happen to be looking for the hotel and have a decent satellite navigation instrument, the "address" is GPS: N30 (degrees) 44' 780" W 04 (degrees) 12' 760"!

Alan was stiff and very sore after our travels. I'm not sure how he coped, but he did manage to accompany me on a climb up a massive red dune just behind the hotel. The panoramic views of the surrounding desert and dunes were fantastic in the glowing sunset. In a gentle desert breeze the sensation of space and place was absolutely exhilarating. "A free wind was blow'n through our hair..."

I was walking backward to position myself to take some photos when I suddenly experienced more than a feeling of space and place. On the other side of the razor sharp dune peak was an enormous engulfing crater, some 50 meters or so deep. The thought of falling into this gaping abyss was truly horrible. What could happen? Could there be a sudden sand slide? Or would I be just buried by sinking into the soft sand? We shuddered. It was time to descend.


The large dining room at the Ouzina Rimal was delightfully decorated with richly coloured tribal rugs and traditional wall hangings, and bright orange, pink and yellow curtains. Our genial host, a friend of Mohamed's, provided us with a great meal. We were all in good spirits, and even Alan's poor ribs seemed a bit more comfortable.

Sadly, for our host and owner of Ouzina Rimal, we were the only guests that evening. It was, I must admit, difficult to see how our friendly host could make a living from his hotel. He had obviously invested a considerable amount into the establishment of the place which was fitted out for groups of tourists. Mohamed explained that it was also used for accommodating international off-road car rallys, including the famous Paris-Dakar Rally (due to security reasons, this rally is now held in south Argentina). At these times Ouzina apparently becomes alive with crowds of vehicle and rally enthusiasts. It must be good for business but we were mightily pleased there were no rallys during our stay.

An early night was appreciated. We had had a fabulous day but knew we had a very long drive the following day to Zagora. Little did we realise however, just how long our journey was to be.