Despite having some cool concrete camels there wasn't much to hold me in Assa. The fact that is was blowing a sandy gale and everything seemed shut didn't help matters.

I thought I would try getting even further south to Samara. Following the asphalted road down through Zag and then around to Samara seemed like the best option. I had a fair idea that the road would be closed to foreigners but thought it was worth a try anyway.

Sure enough just outside Zag was a fairly grumpy military checkpoint where they told me to get lost They said I should have been prevented from coming this far and didn't believe me when I said that that there hadn't been any police checkpoint outside Assa (there wasn't).

Either way, I turned around and headed 20km back towards Assa where I spotted a piste that headed vaguely south west in the direction of Samara. As it was now getting late I headed a few km down the piste and camped up for the night.

The weather wasn't great when I went to bed. Strong winds and plenty of dust in the air made it fairly unpleasant and the wind really picked up during the night and rocked the landy from side to side (Have a look at some satellite pictures of sand storms over this region here).

This weather continued for the next 4-5 days and I had a fairly miserable existence stuck inside the landy unable to cook and covering the inside of the landy in dust, and me with urine, every time I had to go outside for a pee!

I stayed put as I didn't think the landy would like being driven in such harsh dusty conditions but it would have to be said I was fairly uncomfortable, and swore to change my cooking arrangements as I ended up eating raw veggies after a few days..

In the end the wind died down enough for me to drive away, first having to spend two hours digging all of the sand out from underneath the landy, doing so hesitantly with a spade at first. This proved to be a good policy as a snake slithered away after the first couple of spade full's.

So back to Assa covered in dust and starving...