Tropic of Cancer in Western Sahara

I don't really watch telly, I don't even have one, but sometimes I check what's on on BBC iplayer. That's how it happened that now I regularly watch The Culture Show and anything from traveller Simon Reeves.

The newest series of Simon Reeve is called Tropic of Cancer, where he travelled around the world through the circle of Tropic of Cancer reaching 18 countries.
The 3rd episode will be aired tonight, can't wait to see it!

Anyway why I am writing about this, is because Mr Reeve posted a photo on his Twitter account about the Tropic of Cancer signpost in Western Sahara and for my surprise...in the middle of nowhere, so far from Hungary...the signpost marked this latitude in English and guess what....in Hungarian too...

Tropic of Cancer in Western Sahara (Copyright Simon Reeve)

When I started writing this post, I actually wanted to ask why is that! In Western Sahara the spoken language is Arabic or French but definitely not Hungarian, so I was really intrigued to look for the answer!

I found it :) and will post it here tomorrow! Either updating this post, or in the comment section! :)

Till then be my guest to guess the reason!

*** The answer is easy ***

First of all, I tried to search online amongst the images but that did not give any satisfactory answer…well not any answer…Then I went back to do it in an ‘old skool’ way, THINKING and not using the internet.

So I heard about lost or hidden tribes in the desert that speak Hungarian or something very similar to Hungarian so maybe they live around Dakhla in Western Sahara.

Or was it a lonely or a group of Hungarian explorer(s) who wanted to mark that (s)he/they conquered the Sahara and was able to reach the Tropic of Cancer?

Is this a huge discovery? Some kind of language similarity between Hungarian and a tribal language?

And finally I found the answer: Hungarians always take part in rallies across the world. So the participants from the Budapest-Bamako rally had the idea to actually show to other people where the Tropic of Cancer run through the desert. Well at least someone had the idea to mark it there!

To be honest even the above correct answer went through my mind…but I could not imagine that these rally drivers and assistants would stop in the middle of the desert in the middle of a fast paced race, just to mark where the Tropic of Cancer running through the world…anyway…I was close J Conclusion? Be imaginative anything can happen! J

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