Tarfaya's main claim to fame is its association with the French pilot and writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. In 1926 he began flying in the airmail service between France and Senegal, and Cap Juby (as Tarfaya was known at the time) was one of the stops. This museum tells the stories (in French) of Saint-Exupéry, the airmail service’s founder, Pierre-Georges Latécoère, and the service itself, which eventually became part of Air France. If you want to visit, call ahead.
In 1927 Saint-Exupéry was appointed station manager for Cap Juby, and he spent over a year here. During that time he wrote his first novel Courrier Sud (Southern Mail), in which an airmail pilot dies south of Boujdour in the desert of Rio de Oro. He also picked up inspiration for his most famous story, Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince), which features a pilot lost in the desert.
