Ruins: The town the Sahara ate

Renee Akitelek Mboya found the ghost of a smugglers' den in Mauritania

In the empty streets of La Guera, the sand spills forward, turning into itself like a forming fist. Paneless windows - devoid of light save the glinting thread of a spider's web - stare back at you. Their grilles flare and creak an uncouth welcome. The town climbs into your shoes, grain by grain, until you are heavy with the ominous nostalgia of the place.

La Guera was once a smugglers' paradise of 3000 inhabitants. It lies on Ras Nouadhibou, a 30km-long peninsula of sand that juts into the Atlantic at the southern end of the former colony of Spanish Sahara - now Western Sahara.

This is a territory violently disputed by the Kingdom of Morocco and the separatist guerrilla forces of the Polisario Front.

The ruins of La Guera stand isolated from the city of Nouadhibou, on one half of the isthmus seen only from the French gun towers that loom silent at the entrance of the Cansado industrial estate. Rusty cannons are the only testament to the violence of the history of the Saharan coast.

Abandoned since 2002 when it became overrun by sand, La Guera is a crumbling blemish on an otherwise pristine landscape. But it's a region that remains one of the most sensitive points of conflict in the world. A visit to La Guera now involves registering at the Mauritanian Army base in Nouadhibou.

This gesture will gain you an all-access pass in the form of a nine-digit phone number for Lieutenant Harouna, and a perfunctory warning about the improvised explosive devices that litter the beach.

To approach La Guera, I turn my back on the French cannons. Appearing like a mirage on the dusty horizon, the town rises and dips as I walk towards it, leaving my taxi driver digging his old Mercedes out of a sand dune that is attempting to swallow it.

Every so often, my foot snags on a rock or a stubborn desert root and I panic, imagining I can hear the pressurised trigger of a landmine release under the weight of my body.

I arrive to find a town ashen from its daily battering of sand and salt air. A goat and a blond dog peer round the corner at me. I walk along the roofs of sand-filled houses, stepping down into the street to look for signs of life - the lives of hundreds of Saharawi refugees who were once housed on these beaches.

Those you have come to look for are not here. This place no longer exists. It is an illusion made of sand and crumbling brick.