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The Garages were only those in the desolate south (south of Guelmim), where advance knowledge of their location could prove useful. Be aware thought that they are not always in operation - in fact I found two out of order - one with no electricity, and one with no petrol. The info here was collected in September 2002 and is to the best of my knowledge correct, but please don't stake your life on it! I have only shown the First and Last on the edges of settlements, but have shown more than one where more than one exists in the more remote areas, because of the chances of one being out of order. My experience though was that fuel stations now are more frequent than I had been lead to believe - in fact I could have quite easily managed without the jerrycan I bought in Layounne.

You're welcome to download locations of Atlantic Route Fuel Stops:

• Google Earth
• GPX format, compatible with most mapping programmes, suitable for upload to a GPS
• Points shown on the 953

For details of this whole trip please see:

• Google Earth and Google Map showing Route and Photos.
• Flickr : Thumbnails, Details, Map (Google one's definitely better for Morocco), Slideshow.

My total distance for this trip was 6000 miles, from Somerset (UK) down to the Mauritanian border, and back home. I rode down, taking the Poole-Cherbourg ferry, but came back via. Santander-Plymouth. It was a hectic 15 days all in all, but that's the way I like it.

There's an interesting story here on the BBC's website about Building a Road Across the Sahara.

Also, anyone thinking of travelling round these parts could do a lot worse than visit Sahara Forum Topics on the excellent Horizons Unlimited Bulletin Board, and Chris Scott's Sahara-Overland site.

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