Sahara sojourn

(Author’s note. Extracted and rewritten from the author’s book, Wings and Wanderlust, his diary of three years on the road in Europe.)

The bizarre two-day Sahara Desert trek passed through desert villages to Playa del Aaiun in south Morocco where we were to take a boat to Las Palmas, Canary Islands.

We were 14 backpackers — two Canadian guys from Alberta, a noisy French guy, a quiet Japanese guy, an American ex-NASA ballistic missile engineer, and others. Most of us were running away from the “absurd” affluent world, from civilization.

At the border between Morocco and the Spanish Sahara, the Spanish immigration people demanded proof of money. Some had little money. It seemed some might have to turn back.

I approached one guard. He was surprised that I spoke awkward Spanish. When he found out I was Filipino, the five other guards came over. It was their first time to see a Filipino. They asked a lot of questions in English. Responding in broken Spanish, I knew I had them under my thumb.

GUARD 1: Hey, the Philippines is part of Spain, right?

ME: Once, but not anymore.

GUARD 2: Wow. You are an eastern Spaniard.

ME: We have adopted many Spanish words — uno, dos, tres, la mesa, silla, hijo de... (They all screamed).

They did not check if I had money. They let me pass through. They even gave me a sandwich.

ME: (Pointing to my fellow backpackers) Por favor, señores, mis amigos? (Please, how about my friends?).

GUARD 3: Hey, this guy’s smart. You are the first Filipino we have ever met. You know that?

ME: Si. Verdad.

GUARD 3: Okay, okay, everybody, go, go, go. All of you, friends of Filipino, go.

Everyone screamed in delight. I was the hero of the moment. It was an arduous two-day trek, very uncomfortable and bumpy with sand inside our ears. Even with a 4-wheel-drive Land Rover, six times we had to go down to push the vehicle across the soft sand. Twice we got lost when the tire tracks guiding us disappeared. We saw a candy-apple red Porsche in the middle of the desert, abandoned by its German owner during the grueling week-long annual race from Paris to Dakar, Senegal, said our driver.

At sunset, we stopped to sleep. At El Aaiun, we had two days to kill before the boat to Las Palmas came. I saw a garbage dump nearby. There was a discarded suitcase made of first-class leather. As I started cutting it up, the French guy laughed at me. I made a leather pouch for my passport. I cut thin strips of leather for “strings” to sew the sides of the pouch together. I made a half-inch wide strip as a shoulder strap.

When the French guy saw it, he grabbed the suitcase and started making his own. The next day, everyone had a leather passport pouch. Being from the Third World, I knew how to improvise. Drifters from affluent countries had less sense for improvisation. I was a hero a second time. But heroism was not really my cup of tea. The boat finally arrived and we were on our way to the Canary Islands, the winter haven for Northern European tourists.

(The book, Wings and Wanderlust, is available; just email the author at redgate77@gmail.com.)