At the virage, I switched to a 4×4 vehicle with a driver who probably already overcharged me for the first ride, but then really took me for a ride by vastly overcharging me for the two-hour ride to the ancient city of Aoudaghost.

The city was beautiful, surrounded by eroded mountains of layered brown stone with caves and also by unusually orange sand dunes, probably due to the presence of lots of iron. The driver let air out of the tires to get more traction in the sand. (That’s a picture above of the guy who overcharged me so much.)