In the far south of Morocco lies the vast area of Western Sahara, a region historically the subject of territorial dispute and now occupied by Morocco.
This desolate expanse of hammada (stone desert), sand dunes, endless beaches and monumental cliffs is perhaps the most authentic area of North Africa, inhabited by the nomadic Saharawi people, who still today are animated by a strong sense of identity and independence.
In the hands of Spain until 1975, the region subsequently began to be disputed between Mauritania and Morocco, recently ending with the Mauritanian retreat and the consolidation of Moroccan sovereignty over the area, openly opposed by the reactionary Polisario Front movement.
Travellers going as far as Dakhla, the region’s capital, founded in 1844 by the Spanish, will cross a surreal plain, completely uninhabited for a good 520 km from Laâyoune. The charm and richness of this land are due precisely to its desolation. A wild and unspoilt landscape, set between desert, lagoons and ocean waves, breathtaking panoramas, among which monumental cliffs with surreal shapes suddenly appear and, finally, the whitewashed buildings of Dakhla, near the Oued Ed-Dahab Bay.
Built on a peninsula, not far from the Canary Islands, the city is characterised by arcaded buildings with a colonial flavour, numerous mosques, a Christian cathedral, but also new infrastructures in which the Moroccan government continues to invest incessantly. Characteristic is the harbour with Morocco’s largest fishing fleet and the poetic Spanish lighthouse. Its immense beaches and cliffs, inhabited by colonies of dolphins and monk seals, just out into the ocean, like an appendage of the Sahara desert that stretches endlessly inland. Constantly buffeted by the wind, it is now frequented by kitesurfers and windsurfers, but still retains the atmosphere of a land completely uninhabited and at the mercy of the forces of nature.
