On the way to the Sahara

Between red sandstone, improvised workshops, and helpfulness

My path to Merzouga, to the Sahara, is breathtaking. Once again, it's a canyon landscape like that in the northern Spanish desert – the one with the forgotten Western. Nature is painted sandstone red, the Atlas Mountains rise on the horizon. Magical. Also the camaraderie on the road: I regularly get warned by flashing headlights before the next police checkpoint. There are many of those. Well-dressed policemen measure speed and mercilessly wave people over. I received my first ticket with so much kindness and respect that I couldn't even get angry.

I rarely pass by places. Usually, it is just road, sand, mountains. In Midelt, a place in the middle of nowhere, I suddenly find myself in an organic supermarket. I buy twelve liters of oat milk for thirty euros and vegetables in paper bags. I'm speechless. I look to see what else might be found here. Perhaps someone who can fix my broken screen – which fell without protection a few days ago? I walk to the mobile phone shop. “No, not me,” says the man. “But he, over there, can do it.” And so I am passed along, from shop to shop, from hand to hand. A great togetherness, a network of helpful people. What one cannot do, the next can. One hand washes the other.

Finally, I find what I need. In a dusty shop, a friendly man pulls the right screen from a drawer. His daughter is just coming home from school. She is to show me where I can get it repaired. Together we walk down the street. The little girl carefully and attentively carries the packaging with the screen in front of her, still wearing her backpack. It feels light to walk beside her – this pretty girl in her flowing dress and headscarf, completely serious in her task. We dutifully line up. Surely she has been instructed to hand everything over herself and to only leave when it is done. She hands over the screen as soon as it is our turn. I give her ten dirhams, one euro. She beams. “Shukran, shukran,” she trills in a soft child’s voice.

“Ready in 30 minutes!” says the man. Good. I let myself drift, finding warm flatbreads, almonds, and figs again. I check for my camera every few minutes – but there is none. No phone. No messages. No one wanting anything. No one I have to respond to. If I had a GPS in my head, I could very likely live without it for a few weeks.

For the repair, I pay 400 dirhams, about 40 euros. I'm happy. The sandstone landscape is changing. Palms appear, a river winds through the valley. I cross the Ziz Valley – the largest oasis in Africa. I have to stop every few minutes. I can hardly believe my eyes; how beautiful this green band is that stretches through the evening sun, framed by the red Atlas Mountains.

Between this vastness and the dust, between the laughter of a child and the quiet trust of the people, I feel what is different. The camaraderie here does not arise from plans or perfection but from closeness. From the knowledge that somehow we help each other. And that it goes on – always – even when nothing seems certain. Perhaps that is the essence of this journey: to experience how light the world can sometimes be when we simply trust it a little.