Tarfaya
The Airmail Staging Post Where Antoine De Saint Exupery Was Stationed As Cap Juby'S Airfield Chief In 1927 And Wrote His First Novel, With A Museum To Him, The Shell Of A British Trading Fort Standing In The Surf, And One Of Africa'S Largest Wind Farms On The Plain Behind · Tarfaya, Laayoune-Sakia El Hamra
In 1927 a young pilot called Antoine de Saint-Exupery was posted to run the airfield at Cap Juby, a staging post on the mail route down the African coast, and spent two years in a hut beside a runway here, flying over the desert, negotiating for downed crews and writing his first novel. Tarfaya keeps a museum to him, and for a small coastal town with sand drifting through its streets it is a surprisingly affecting place. Offshore stands the shell of Casa del Mar, a British trading fort put up in the 1880s and now a ruin in the surf, and behind the town one of Africa's largest wind farms turns on the plain. A point about geography matters here: Tarfaya sits north of the 27-40 parallel in the former Cape Juby strip, which has been Moroccan since 1958, but it is the northern end of the Laayoune-Sakia El Hamra region, which extends south into Western Sahara, a territory whose status is disputed and where government travel advice differs. Routine for travellers on the Dakhla road, and worth checking before you drive on south.
Atlantic coast town on the N1 opposite the Canary Islands, with the Casa del Mar ruin offshore and the Saint-Exupery museum in town, Tarfaya, Laayoune-Sakia El Hamra, Morocco
The Saint-Exupery museum keeps daytime hours with a small charge and a long midday closure, shorter in winter, and it has been known to be shut without notice - ask at a cafe and somebody will usually find the keyholder. The beach, the Green March monument and the view out to Casa del Mar are open ground at any hour and free. The fort ruin itself stands in the water and should be looked at rather than reached; there is no causeway and no safe crossing. The wind farm is working infrastructure, not a visitor site, and is seen from the road. Buses and shared taxis on the N1 between Tan-Tan and Laayoune stop in town through the day. Fuel, a cash machine and simple hotels exist here, which is not true of much of this coast.