It was late afternoon when Best Friend and I passed through Rimini in North Africa. The heat on the bus was sweltering and as our driver turned off the trailing gritty road into the desert, the sun was low in the sky. The beginning of the desert at the Berber village of Merzouga is not an easy translation from earth to sand; the rockiness and the bumps sent luggage flying all over the bus and the Australian couple next to us were flung high enough to hit the ceiling. We clung on, peering through the windows at the white stone markers which guided us. With no marked roads and no landmarks, these were the only thing preventing us being lost in the flat plain ...  Read the complete review