‘Ooh la la Habibi!’ shouted the excited teenager from the footpath as we inched through heavy Sunday evening traffic in Tangier’s leafy outer Marshan district. Perhaps the car spotting bar is a little lower in Morocco, but I guess my girlfriend, Telle, and I did stand out in our British-plated 986-generation Porsche Boxster S, covered in the dusty detritus of a 3,000-kilometre loop to the Sahara Desert. I hadn’t seen another sports car of any type for the prior fortnight we’d been in the country. Just our tiny lozenge for two, an enigma in a sea of dented French economy hatchbacks, fume-belching diesel trucks, and the assortment of things laying claim to vehicle status on the wild roads of North Africa.
Quite why we decided to drive an old Boxster to the Sahara is a simultaneously simple and complex question. After seven years of living in the UK it was time to return home to Australia, and we craved one last road trip before packing the Boxster into a container and sending it Down Under. And the northernmost tip of the Sahara is about as far south as you can easily drive without mounting a specialist expedition. Simple, then.
Complex, because being Australian imbues you with an inherent sense of geographical isolation. Trips for Aussies are either within the confines of our (admittedly large) island, or they involve a plane. The rush of putting the hammer down out of Calais and crossing entire countries as fast as you dare in a car you love, observing the morphing of culture and cuisine as you drive, is a drug that we Antipodeans can’t buy and it never gets old. Maps are unfurled, bottles of wine are opened, plans are formed. ‘Let’s drive the Boxster to Africa!’
Departing from Cambridge, England, we hopped on the 36-hour ferry to the northern Spanish city of Bilbao, emerging in the heart of the Basque Country and directing the Boxster ever further south. Already the architecture and cuisine of Spain grows increasingly Moorish with every passing kilometre, a context-setting quirk owing to the Iberian Peninsula’s deep Arab history which would have been missed had we simply flown. The choice of taking a sports car was already paying dividends, too. Having an off roader in Morocco would certainly have granted us greater freedom to venture further into the desert, but it would also have made the thousands of kilometres there and back sheer misery. We, on the other hand, were free to sniff out true driving roads and to nail it out of every toll booth in the spirit of Bremner, Metcalfe, and all those who have driven inappropriate cars to the desert before us.
In Algeciras we bade farewell to Europe and sailed past the Rock of Gibraltar by ferry, the continents of Europe and Africa both simultaneously in our sights from the top deck. After navigating the expectedly chaotic customs inspection at Tangier Med port and buying local insurance from a small booth (90 euros cash, third party cover the only option), we were in.
Our route first took us inland, initially traversing potholed, busy roads across vast plains of subsistence farms and through dusty, unremarkable towns and cities. I’ll admit to spending the first few hours that day questioning quite why we’d come all this way, but as we started the climb into the beguiling Anti Atlas ranges, it all began to make sense. Hindsight would reveal this to be the worst stretch of the trip by far, and for the most part the roads in Morocco were smoother and of a higher quality than those back in Cambridgeshire.
Amusingly overloaded trucks, police checkpoints every half hour, mules pulling carts, and a speeding fine in spurious circumstances (30 euros cash, no receipt given) had us feeling a long way from home indeed, but already the kindness and warmth of the Moroccan people made us feel welcome in their country. Truck drivers gave us beaming smiles and big thumbs-up, workers riding in tuk-tuks cheered us on to pass them at full throttle (we happily obliged), and enthusiastic petrol station attendants quizzed us on our route. From afar we’d watch groups of school kids excitedly inspecting the parked Boxster’s every detail, leaving handprints in the dust where they would each insist on touching the Porsche crest and peering in through the window. Their excitement was a palate cleanser, a reminder that even if our car is just a cheap old Boxster in our little bubble, it’s exotica for many of the souls with whom we share this planet.
Climbing to the blue-hued hilltop village of Chefchaouen, we then pushed on southwards to Fes, pausing to spend a few days exploring its delightfully labyrinthine medina on foot. I’d also earmarked some time for maintenance but the Boxster was marching stoically on, leaving me with little to do before descending the Anti Atlas and crossing an increasingly arid landscape to the small village of Merzouga. Our most remote stop may be a frontier town on the edge of the desert within sight of the militarised Algerian border, but there are no shortage of luxury riads in the area catering for the not-so-intrepid like ourselves.
Spotting towering dunes on the horizon for the first time was a moment seared into our memories, made sweeter in the knowledge that we’d driven there in a five grand Boxster from damp old England. Truth be told, the route to Merzouga is largely formed of reasonable quality tarmac, except for the final 20-minutes out to the riad we had chosen. We bumped along a confusing network of mostly rocky but occasionally sandy trails, much to the amusement of gathered tourists in hired Land Cruisers, bottoming out occasionally on the sandy crown yet crucially keeping up momentum and picking a strategic line to avoid getting stuck. After some onlookers shouted that we’d never make it, I was far too proud to risk proving them right and suffer the ignominy of requesting a tow.
With just a little more throttle and opposite lock than was perhaps required, the plucky Boxster got us right to the riad, and we even celebrated with cold beer in the usually dry region. The 205 Africa Raid event, which was based that night from the same riad, had conveniently brought their own well-stocked cash bar for competitors. Parked amid a sea of over 150 desert rally-modified Peugeot 205s, we even bumped into none other than Finnish World Rally Champion Ari Vatanen in the dunes, pint in hand!
The still silence of the Sahara at first and last light was mesmerising, but with increasingly strong winds blowing and slowly sandblasting the poor Boxster, and no sign of the conditions improving, we checked out a day early and set course for Marrakech. We crossed the exceptional 1,693m Tizi’n-Tinififft pass for a night in Ouarzazate, and then attacked the famous 2,260m Tizi n’Tichka pass through the highest of the High Atlas mountains the next day.
I’d been warned of North Africa’s highest paved road, with tales of dangerous ongoing works causing treacherous, muddy and rocky conditions, with some friends even going so far as to say the road would be impassable for us in their experience. Well, I am happy to report that the road works are (almost) complete, and the Tizi n’Tichka is now one of the world’s great driving roads. Wide, long, smooth, and fast, the biggest risks would be self-inflicted. The temptation to fully exploit this brilliant chassis and go ever harder and deeper on the brakes and throttle over the 75-kilometre pass was strong, and even though we did relent at times, the nagging thought of being a hell of a long way from home with no backup sat in our consciousness. A little risk is always worth it, mind you - cooking your brakes after a hard descent on the way to Marrakech is a hell of a story for the pub.
We made it back to England without so much as opening the toolbox – 5,443 kilometres to Africa and back without a single fault. I had quite a job in cleaning the sand out of seemingly every orifice to prepare the Boxster for the stringent Australian quarantine inspection, and just a fortnight later, it was loaded into a container bound for Australia.
As the Rifleman’s Creed goes – This is my Boxster. There are many like it, but this one is mine. And when it lands this February and takes up a new, gentler, life of Sunday morning coffee runs through the Adelaide Hills, it will forever be the Boxster that we drove to the Sahara.
Photos by Andrew Coles
