I stumbled across 43 Places by accident and found that there are a few people who want to go to Western Sahara, so thought I’d sign up, as I run a field project in Western Sahara, looking at archaeology and past environmental change. I also have an ulterior motive, which is that I’m taking a small number of paying guests into the field each season in order to help fund the research. But I’ll keep the sales pitch low key here, except to say that if anyone is interested in joining us in this capacity they are welcome to get in touch with me. It’s not cheap, but comparable with the cost of a specialised adventure or safari holiday, and would be quite an amazing trip (the people and landscapes are great, the archaeology is fascinating, and the area is closed to tourism).

I’m also happy to answer questions about Western Sahara if anyone wants to pick my brains just out of interest. It really is an amazing place, and the Sahrawi (the indigenous inhabitants) have had a really rough time as a result of the Moroccan invasion and occupation. The territory is now effectively partitioned between the Moroccan-occupied zone and the “Free Zone”, controlled by the Polisario independence movement. We work in the Polisario zone.

You can see photos and find more information about the project on the following sites:

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~e118/wsahara.htm
http://www.flickr.com/photos/western_sahara_project/

Contact details are also available on the above sites.

All the best

Nick