There is a very fat German man in our group of 5, very annoying. He has a huge belly as tight as a drum which he likes to get out every now and again for a spot of sun. He is very loud so you can easily locate him - I can be busy contemplating a pretty stone when there will be a huge long fart to my left. We aren't really supposed to go 1 km off the tracks ( which are pretty invisible) because that's the distance the mines have been cleared.

We are travelling east and down the Mauritanian border, further south. We have stopped to camp in an area full of petroglyphs and one on sand dunes with lots of tracks - snakes, gerbils, lizards, beetles - with the odd swallow making its way up back to the UK. We haven't seen anyone else for 2 days now. Meals are usually camel - cubes roasted on an open fire or Dairy Lea triangles.

We are nearing Dakhla now, the capital of Western Sahara and have just passed the sea which we all thought was another mirage. The driver has just said that he can take us girlies to Senegal so that's another trip in the pipeline....