I enjoyed one more tea with Hossine on Sunday morning before I started my trip into the Sahara. My first checkpoint was Assa. The small town seemed friendly and quiet. I didn’t see a lot of people on the streets when passing the most southern point of my trip through Morocco.
Eating lunch with Mohamed, Mbark and their friends
I spotted some palm trees a few kilometers after Assa. Maybe there was a good place to take a break for lunch?
While exploring the area, I met Mohamed, Mohamed (an obviously common name) and Mbark. They prepared a tajine with chicken and french fries on wooden fires.
I couldn’t reject the invitation to join their lunch when I saw the delicious food.
More friends joined the group while we were drinking tea and waiting for the food to get ready. We mostly spoke French which worked surprisingly well. My forgotten language skills might have been revived in Morocco? 
The food was really good! But the best part of my lunch break was the great company!
Really funny dudes. Hopefully we’ll meet again some day! I gave Mohamed my GitHub shirt as symbol of our friendship.
Sleeping between palm trees
I followed the road in parallel to the Algerian border until I reached Aït-Ouabelli. The little village was surrounded by an oasis where I found a quiet spot right behind the riverbed.
The rising sun and the clouds created a very impressive atmosphere. I would have loved to spend more time at this beautiful spot. However, the gray clouds approaching from the west looked like rain.
I drove a couple of minutes headed east and stopped to get some work done when the weather looked better.
Looking for good connectivity
The connectivity along the coast had always been brilliant. I was used to work from anywhere in Morocco. This time, the connection wasn’t great, though. It was good enough to get my personal tasks done. However, I was afraid the low bandwidth would have a negative impact on the video call scheduled for the evening. I decided to get back on the road to look for a spot with better connectivity.
I passed a lot of nice places but I had to realize that I couldn’t rely on area-wide 3G/4G network coverage anymore. Was it a bad idea to drive into the desert without taking a vacation? I was looking for the next oasis like a thirsty traveler. An oasis meant water. Water meant people. People meant villages, and villages hopefully meant a radio mast. 
The connectivity slightly improved when I followed a power line.
I finally reached the life-giving oasis near Tissint.
The connectivity was perfect and there was enough time to look for a nice spot to park my van before the meeting started.
Hopping from one oasis to the other
In the morning, I found another nice place only a few minutes east from Tissint.
A beautiful spot for travelers on vacation. I had to move on. No village, no LTE, no video calls. Nevertheless, I seemed to be on the right way. Berlin was already indicated by a signpost. 
I luckily didn’t have to drive all the 7643km to find my next spot. I quickly reached Foum Zguid where I parked my mobile office between two trees.
The spot was located a few kilometers away from the town and really calm. I didn’t see any person during the one and a half days that I spent there.
Driving deeper into the Sahara
I left the spot near Foum Zguid on Wednesday afternoon to reach my final destination for this week: Zagora. The town with a population of about 35,000 people seemed like a good spot to do my laundry, socialize and take a little break from traveling.
The drive was a true Saharan experience. The strong tailwind didn’t only increase my average speed but also blew up a lot of sand. Soon, the blue sky was covered by a red, dusty cloud. I had drive very carefully to avoid hitting the dromedaries walking around in the sandstorm.
I finally understood why Hossine taught me how to prepare a tea with foam that absorbs all the sand.