Africa-trip 2012 Back to Spain refugee style

The Malian side of the border was somehow exactly the opposite to the Guinean one. The people seemed very relaxed and friendly. Everybody was smiling at me and the necessary stamps and the laissez passer was done in no time. The road to Bamako was very quite, only in the outskirts of Bamako the traffic was getting dense. If I would not have known there had been a coup d'etat in Mali I would not have noticed. Everything looked absolutly normal. At around 6pm I arrived at the sleeping camel, a lodge at the south side of the river in Bamako. It was nice to arrive somewhere nice after this horrible day. As soon as I entered the lodge I met Kati and Tobi a German couple travelling with two motor-bikes. The lodge was rather busy and I learned they had a curfew in Bamako over the last 6 days and the people were all waiting for the airport, which was shot, to reopen.

As well I learned there had been some heavy shooting during the last days. All the shops and the markets were closed and the only traffic were military vehicles. I arrived at the first day the situation went more or less back to normal. Even though I was totally exhausted and hungry, the first thing I did was getting a large icecold beer. Yes, a beer never tasted better. A group of Portuguese people was just about to leave to the airport. A french couple tried as well to get a ticket for a flight but they came back. I heard people at the airport were fighting over tickets. Everybody was eager to leave the country as soon as possible. For me it was not that simple, first I had to get a visa for Mauretania and then I still had to go to immigration to get my Mali-visa. The next morning I went with Kati and Tobi to the Mauretanian embassy, they needed a visa as well. In the afternoon the visa was done and we could pick it up. The first step was done. Later I found out, we were the last persons who got a visa for Mauretania in Bamako. The rest of the afternoon I used to check over the car. Surprisingly there was not really anything to repair, at least nothing urgent. Ok, there was some oil dripping out of the rear brake drums, which meant the seal in the axle was broken again, and the steering had too much play, but it was nothing I had to fix right now. Immigration was where I was going the next day which was a Thursday. Normally it is kind of busy in there but this time there were only two more people waiting. But still they didn't do the visa the same day. I was been told to come back the next day in the afternoon. Being on the north side of the river already I went to the market to do some shopping. Back in the lodge I heard the first news about the Tuareg who took over large cities like Kidal, Gao and even Timbuctu. But this was not the only problem, news were getting worse. Larissa who was working at the German embassy as a consul which was just next door came over and kept us updated with the latest news. Sitting there enjoying some German beer, an unexpected gift from the German embassy stock, we heard the borders to Mali were closed again. This time because the surrounding countries united in the ECOVAS did not accept the new Malian leader. When I heard the news I jumped into the car and went to the next fuel station and filled both fuel tanks and all the jerry cans with diesel, you never know I thought. One hour later we heard there was a 72hours countdown before the embargo would kick in. It gave us some time to think eveything over. For sure, for me the most important matter was to get my passport back which was still at immigrations. Staying with us in the lodge was Georg, an Austrian fellow who was travelling by bicycle. He was coming down from London and was planning to move on to Burkina Faso where he had a visa for already. He was trapped by the time frame. I offered him a lift out of the country. Yet the bad news kept on coming in. Larissa told us one of the heads of the Al-quaida in Mauretania was asking for 50 dead white bodies. I wanted to leave the country via Kayes Selibabi, in fact the same route I came in. But according to Larissa this route was an absolutly no-go. I never've got any proof about this but there are times and situations where a proof is not really necessary. Kati and Tobi were planning to leave Mali in the very South to Senegal. This was the route I was taking last year. After a while I decided to do the same and to join them. The next morning Kati and Tobi left very early with their bikes. We were planning to meet again at the lodge De Mako in Senegal the next afternoon. Georg had thought his situation over and he had decided to take my offer. We were putting his bike on top of the car. I felt a little bit sorry for him. He was a very tall guy and the passenger seat in the Landrover was not really built for tall people like him. So I guess he was not very comfortable. There was another problem; to pass through Senegal I needed a laissez passer for the car. At 9am the next morning I was already waiting at the Senegalese embassy which was luckily very close to the Sleeping Camel. It didn't seem to be any trouble at all. But I noticed they were very busy in there. Many people tried to get a visa for Senegal in the last minute. I saw some huge amount of money changing their owners. Luckily German citizens like me didn't need a visa. I payed 5000CFA and came back 2 hours later to pick up my laissez passer. Back in the lodge I said a farewell to the owners. They were not sure what to do. The power supply was already cut off. They said when we leave the place it will be looted, so I reckon they had to sit it out. We, Georg and me, left around 2pm. First I had to go to get my passport and fortunatly it was there waiting for me. Bamako seemed very quite, not much traffic at all. We had to pass through Kati, the resident of the coup leader. At the outskirts of Bamako was notable little traffic, the shops and petrol station were deserted and outside Kati they had put tanks and heavy weapons along side the road. Before the checkpoint soldiers with automatic rifles lined the road. A lorry queue started which seemed to be kilometers long. It felt all very wierd but we just drove through, nobody stopped us. By late afternoon we were deep in the savannah, well away from all the activities in Bamako.

At the Senegalese side of the border the customs officer caused some trouble. I had already my documents but he didn't want to give Georg an entry stamp. We had to go to immigrations in Kedougou to get a stamp. At late afternoon we arrived at the lodge De Mako and met Kati and Tobi again. They were awaiting us with serious faces. Tobis bike had problems. The lodge was actually shot down for renovation but the owner allowed us to stay and even cleaned out a shower and a toillet without charging us anything. I offered Tobi to give him a hand with his bike. We spent more than half the day fixing it the next day but at the end it was working allright again. By the time we finished it was too hot and we dicided to stay another night. Because of the heat I had problems the night before.

In the middle of the night all of a sudden a hot wind was turning up. I mean it was hot anyway but it was even getting hotter, and the humidity was raising on top of it as well. I couldn't wait to get closer to the coast where it would be cool. It took us another two days to reach St.Louis where we were planning to stay at the Zebra-bar. Getting closer to St.Louis finally the temperature was dropping. I needed to take out some warm clothes again. St.Louis like the whole part of the North-West African coast is always very windy, with winds always coming from the North. I spent four nights at the Zebra-bar. I took the time to check over the car again. I had still 4000km to go. On Saturday the 7th of April it was time to say good-bye to my travell mates. Georg still didn't know where to go or what to do. And Kati and Tobi were planning to stay a little longer before they wanted to head to Tanger to take a boat to Genua/Italy. I very much appreciated their company. I wanted to reach Nouakchott the same day, for that reason I left early in the morning. The border Mauretania/Senegal must be one of the most corrupt borders of all.

And funny enough the guy at the Senegalese customs said my laissez passer was not valid. He must have been a practical joker, this was an official document. But I was not in the mood for any arguments, I just left, I had my stamp already. To get to Nouakchott I had to pass through a national park where I spotted some herds of warthogs and some very large saurians. The road was in very bad condition. I came across a dutch couple who had deadlocked their lorry-camper in sand. It looked very bad, but they had some people already helping them so I kept on going. I spent the night passed Nouakchott at the beach. To pass the border to Morocco the next day I had no trouble at all. Ok, at the Mauretanian side everybody was asking me for something, for money, for my jerry cans, even for my spare wheel, but at the end I gave them a hand to pump up some flat tyres and impressed by my little compressor they let me go. In one of the offices a big deal was going on to my advantage. A black fellow was trying to get into the country, he had a van loaded up to the top with goods, he was negociating with customs how much he had to pay. I was just a disturbance for them. He took my passport stamped it and gave it back, no car check, nothing. On the Moroccon side I had to pass through the scanner, but it was not busy at all and for this reason the whole procedure took only 1 hour. The Western Sahara, I love this country, especially the rough coast line which is 1500km long and almost completly deserted. But its beautiful. The first night in Western Sahara I parked at the beach shortly after crossing the border. Somehow it was military soil. There was a guy in uniform turning up asking me what I was doing. I told him I was going to stay over night. He checked my identity and than he welcomed me to Morocco with a hand shake. Morocco was just driving, day in, day out for almost 6 days. Nothing spectacular happened except maybe at the border to Ceuta. At customs they were obsessed with my rear fuel tank. The first guy was laying underneeth the car and checking the fuel tank, thinking it might be filled up with drugs. Not happy with what he saw he went for a colleague. This one came with a carpet already to have more comfort by laying underneeth my car. He was checking and knocking for quite a while until he finally realized I didn't have anything to hide. There was only one problem. After I bought a ticket for the ferry, which was by the way 40% cheaper than in Ceuta I went for a coffee. Normaly I don't drink coffee at all and this was a very strong one and excatly at the border I started to shake and sweat. Luckily I managed to stay cool, if not it probably would have been proof for him that I was trying to smuggle something out of the country. There was another funny detail. The ticket I bought was valid at 5pm. I had plenty of time I thought, but luckily I checked the time on the GPS which was adjusting itself to different time zones and I completly forgot the time in Europe was two hours ahead. Back in the car I jumped and headed straight to the port to catch my boat. The boat was a catamaran, a very modern built boat and normally it would travell with great speed, but the wind was very strong and therefor the sea was not really calm. The waves looked like they were between 5and 6 meter high. Walking inside the boat during the jorney was impossible. In fact the roughest sea I have ever seen. At 6pm I hit European soil again.

Africa-trip 2012 Guinea

To cross the border to Guinea was rather funny. There was a barrier where I had to stop the car. I walked towards a group of men sitting underneeth a tree playing some sort of game. It turned out to be the police checkpoint of Guinea. One of them asked me to sit down. And than nothing really happened. So I was just sitting and waiting. When they finished another game one of the guys told me I had to go to the Douane to get a laissez passer and than I had to come back. Good, it was maybe a 3 min. walk. After I asked for a laisser passer they asked me why I didn`t come with the car. I explained what the police wanted. One guy was turning up who already had an unfriendly face. He wanted to quote the car to know how much money I had to leave as a security at the border. I was telling him the embassy told me to get a laissez passer at the border. I even told him how much it cost and I told him as well nobody it going to quote my car and I would not pay any money for that. I was serious about it. My car was still outside of Guinea. I would have turned round and would have tried another border. But at the end he gave in and I went back with one of the guys. After he was talking to them things started to move. The police check behind me I went to the Douane. They were searching the car, but more out of interest than it was a real search. Shortly after the Douane was a third barrier. I didn't think much and stayed in the car. But after a couple of minutes a guy turned up to tell me I was at immigration and I had to step out of the car. Ok, he was actually checking the visa. Like usuall he wrote details down and gave me my passeport back without a stamp. I asked him about it and he started to smile. They all play a game, he took the passeport back and gave me my stamp. It was already late afternoon when I left the border. Siguiri was the town where I had to do the laissez passer, cause finally at the border they said they didn`t have any forms left. But I reckon they didn't want to take any responsability. It was already too late to go into town the same day. It is never a good idea to do what ever official buisness has to be done in the afternoon. So maybe 20km before Siguiri I went for my first bush-camp in Guinea. The laissez passer was easily done the next morning. They charged 150000 Guinea Francs which is about 15 € and, because I had a lack of local money, that's what I gave them. Two women who were  probably the wives of one of the officials looked at the Euro notes like they were out of pure gold. They never saw one before. I needed local money, but the banks didn't change any. They sent me to the market where at the end I found a guy who was changing money.

It looked like a lot of money but it was only 35€

 But I didn't change Euro, the  exchange rate was too bad. Instead I changed CFA. That's what I kept doing during the whole trip through Guinea. I didn't want to take the main road, so in Siguiri I turned off and went straight on a dirt track which was actually in good condition at the beginning but the further I went the worse it got. At the end of the day it turned into the worst track I have ever been on. Thinking this I didn't know it will go on like this for more than a week. I cannot remember how often I stepped out of the car to have a look for the “best” passage. Sometimes it seemed unreal. All these road were the only acces road to some villages or a whole area, so all the traffic had to move there. To be honest for a couple of days I didn't come across any car.

Road impression from the mountains in Guinea

They use these chinese scooters to do most of the transport. These guys are artists. They had up to four people on these things and on top of it the luggage, and than the roads. On a whole day driving sometimes I did not more than 50km. The other problem were the streams. There are sometimes no bridges. So there was the possibility to either take an overprized ferry or finding another crossing. With one exception I always found another crossing. One of these crossings was a real big stream and it didn't look possible to cross, too deep. I was waiting until the first guy turned up. Sure he was on a scooter and they were crossing with a little boat. But one of the kids who was navigating the boat was walking into the stream to show me how deep it was. When he came back I took him and placed him next to the car. It was a third way up the doors. So I was going for it. The Landrover was really not waterproofed. As soon as I entered the stream I had the water inside. It was just above the pedals, but it was no problem at all. The car so far did an incredible job anyway. More than once I was sure it'll go to tip over. Severall times I felt one of the front wheels was already airbourne but I always managed to keep it on it's wheels.

The people I met in the mountains were incredibly friendly. They were very calm, almost shy and sleeping next to a village never turned out to be a problem. And they just left me alone, they didn't bother me in any way. It was very relaxing. All this changed as soon as I entered the “tourist” area between Labé and Pita. It was back to the typical “white person, give me money” routine. I say tourist area but I actually never spotted any tourists. Later before Kindia I met an American couple on bicicles, the only white people I met in Guinée. The temperature at night dropped quite a bit which was actually really nice. During the day it was always around 37ºC but at night it dropped below 20ºC and once down to 8!!ºC. Fantastic. Labé and the surroundings were more than 1000meters above sea level, the reason for the cool nights. But as soon as the sun was rising it was back to hot. In the first hour after sun rise the temperarure sometimes went up by 12ºC.

When I came across a vehicle that's how they looked

The Landscape first looked exactly like in Mali but soon it was changing. It got greener and greener. Palm-trees and mango-trees took over more and more. I reckon the mango-trees in Guinea could feed the entire world with mangos. They were just everywhere. The road between Pita and Labé was the only paved road in Guinea with not too many potholes. One day I took a track down hill to visit the Kambadaga waterfalls. Getting used to bad tracks, this one was no surprise. Still it took me a good hour to get there. I found a nice flat place to park the car. The river did not have much water, towards the end of the dry season it was in fact not much more than a runlet. But the scenerie was absolutly breath taking. The falls were going down in three drops, each drop had maybe 100meters. And everything arround the falls was just green. It looked like being in a jungle. This was honestly the most beautiful place I have ever seen. I couldn't believe the beauty of it. This place would be worth to visit in the wet season. I sat down close to the first drop in the middle of the river bed, and I imagined how it might look arround here after the rains started. For sure I wouñd not sit at the same spot. The remaining water coming downhill was crystal clear. Feeling dizzy by so much beauty I went back to the car and met two kids and two guys who were selling me a camping ticket though it didn't look much like a camping to me. Actually it was just a flat piece of ground.

These people were picking cashew fruits

One of the guys was a guide who wanted to stay with me. It took me quite some talking to make him believe I wouldn't need his service. He would have stayed with me the whole day. I had a similar experience the other day when this guy turned up, sitting next to me for hours. When I stood up he stood up, when I walked off the car he followed me. I only could get rid of him by pretending to go to bed. Sure, I know he wanted to offer his service but I didn't get the point what for. At the end I spent a very relaxing day with some nice walks to the falls. From Kambadaga I took a sort of mainroad towards Kindia but turned off before to Tondon. On this road there were cars and even lorries moving and it was in insanely bad condition. It was like driving in a rock field. I felt sorry for the locals, cause all they've got were roads like this. They even were running Taxi services. Though the condition of the cars was beyond imagination, and still they were totally overloaded. In Guinea they used mostly the old Peugeot 505 break. It was a sheer impossibility how much they loaded in these cars not to mention the lorries. Most of them old tipper trucks. I reckon the only ones strong enough to survive the roads. Once I had one of these Taxis in front of me. It broke down in the middle of a bridge. The bridges in Guinea were not particularly wide, but I tried to pass by as close to the Taxi as possible. Maybe it was a little bit too close. One of the hinges of my rear door hooked on the Taxi, so when I tried to move the Taxi was moving with the Landrover, forward and backward. I got off the car and climbed by holding myself on the roofrack to the back of the car. I mean my tires were at the edge of the bridge, and there was no guard rail what so ever. At the end some people turned up and started to shake the Taxi until it was unhooked. I moved on but not without getting some dents and some of the Taxi's paint on my car. Luckily it was the same spot where last year a lorry at the Mauretenian border reversed into the Landrover. To get to Tondon or finding the road was not easy neither. I got lost several times. I always ended up in some villages which were a dead end. In one of the villages two teenagers hopped in the car to lead me the way. It looked to me as if it was the first time they were sitting in!! a car. If young folks get a transport they have to stand on the bumper or they are sqeezed into the back of a pick-up or they have to sit on the roof on top of the luggage but they never actally sit inside the car. They were grinning all the time. To the question how far to Tondon they said; ohh very far...! It turned out to be a distance of not more than 40km, but for them it was in a different world. From Tondon I went towards the beach. I wanted to see the beach. I was already puzzled when all the people I asked how to get there looked at me like;”What are you going to do at the beach”. Later I understood. The beach for them is not like what beaches are for us. They don't go there for a swim. The poorest people lived at the beach in cardboard houses. There was a sort of small dam which was used as a road at the same time. On both sides of the dam were houses. There was acces to the beach but it didn't look nice. The sand was rather black. I would have stayed at the beach if I would have found a nice spot but it was one village after the other, one poorer than the other, and at the end I gave up. People in Guinea are not exactly rich but it looked like the fisher were at the bottom end. What I spotted close to the beach were hundreds of bulls. Really big herds, and only bulls, not one single cow.

Scooter were crossing the river by boat

Before I turned off to the beach I spotted a sign which said auberge at the Kabo lake. That sounded promising but they didn't allow any camping, but I found a nice spot at the lake where I parked the car and stayed until the next morning. The lake was absolutly stunning. The water had maybe 28-30ºC and it was surrounded by Palm and Mango-trees and by some others I didn't had a name for. Just green without any sign of being used for tourism at all. Like a virgin lake, beautiful. There were two houses close by and the people came over to have a look who was parking in their yard. There was one problem; at night the temperatur didn't drop at all, and the humidity was raising. Even there were no mosquitos at all I had a terrible night. Too hot, too humid. I couldn't stay there not one day longer. My time in Guinea was running out anyway so I was planning to slowly go back via the mountains. To get there I had to take a short distance of the main road in Guinea, the bit close to Conakry. And prompt I was hit by police corruption. That was the other side of Guinea. I was not wearing a seat belt. But hey, by the time I was sitting there cars were passing by without any lights or doors with people sitting on the roof but still he wanted money. Funny was the bench he was sitting on just collapsed when I tried to sit on it as well. So we all ended up on the floor. I handled him down to 20000Guinea Franks and went on. Passed Kindia I went back up to the mountains. One evening it started to rain. I was standing there in the rain hoping for some more, which for sure didn't come. After some more days driving on these roads I've got tired of it. Not to mention the car. It didn't make any trouble but the steering and the gearbox felt and sounded different already. I came by gold mines owned by Americans and a plane wreck. The wreck didn't look too bad, ok, the engines were long gone, but there was no damaged to the body. Close to Siguiri I came by some fields were thousands of people were working. I didn't have a glue what they were doing there until I gave a guy a lift into town. He told me these people were looking for gold. I had never seen such a thing. People standing in the mud digging with their bar hands for gold. I asked the guy if there ever someone is finding any gold and he said yes now and than a very little piece, but that's all what matters, it keeps them going. The second news he told me was in Mali had happened a coup d'etat while I was in Guinea and the borders were closed, but the guy said they might reopen the day after tomorrow. Fine I thought. At the next checkpoint I asked about the latest news and the answer was the next day the border will be open again. I made an early stop and went straight for the border the next day. I crossed on a different border. It didn't start well. The police wanted money cause I didn't respect a stop sign, which I did. All of the sudden I was sick of all this corruption. Every bloody checkpoint was asking for money. Money, money and again money. My fuse went. I started to yell at them, I had enough. Surprisingly they gave in. The boss came and told me he wanted me to leave his country with a good memory. Fair enough I thought. I went on to customs, where I had to pay more money and than to the last check and they got me. The person in charge asked me for insurance, which I had, but he said I would need a tourist insurance which was rediculous. They just wanted money. My fuse blew again and I was trying to find a way, but I couldn't go backwards nor forwards, they had me, and after 6 hours I gave up payed and left the country. I left Guinea with mixed feelings. The incredible friendly people and the absolutly stunning landscape which I loved very much. On the other side were the corrupt authorities and the insanely bad roads. Guinea, love and hate.

Click here to watch some pictures.

Africa-trip 2012 Mali

One of the once beautiful houses of the colonial era

We had to cross a dry river bed to enter Malian soil. The Mali side of the border was called Malgue as well. Customs was in town which was actually great. They made the “laissez passer” on the spot which saved me time of going to customs in Kayes. One of the guys working at customs was not very nice. He was very pushy, like he was waiting for me to make a mistake to give him a reason to take the car apart. And he was observing me very close all the time. Maybe he thought I will get nervous. After the documents were stamped they searched the car. One of the guys was climbing up the roof to have a look in the roof-box. He didn't feel very comfortable but he had to do so cause the unpleasant guy was the boss. Melgue behind us we still had a three hours drive to Kayes. Finally we arrived in Kayes, I remembered the town and we went to the Auberge de Jeunesse opposite the train-station. It looked like all the people were glad to see me. And Clément was in town. He is the guy leading the project at the Chutes de Gouina. But first of all we went to change money and for a cold beer. I only wanted to spend one night in Kayes. Kayes is the hottest or second hottest town on the planet. In Janurary the temperatures are still ok. Not more than maybe 37ºC in the afternoon. The next day we went into town to do some shopping and afterwards we left to go to the Chutes de Gouina. I was surprised again. I thought I took the wrong turn when we were finding ourselves on a new road. It seemed like they were building many roads in Africa. Only the part around Diamou was not finished yet. From Diamou to Gouina it is only a 20km distance but it always takes more or less an hour. It was nice to arrive in Gouina. It was our first destiny. (This is how it started last year).We didn't do much the same day, we were just looking for a good place close to the river to park the car. I like this place very much, both, the project and the surroundings. I like the sound of the near-by waterfalls the same than the very nice temperatures. In the morning it was mostly around 18ºC and in the afternoon it was climbing up to 33-37ºC. Only there was a period of maybe five days with very strange weather. It started with a hot wind which turned out to be the Sirocco. The next day it looked like fog with a view not more than 200meters,but what it was was dust blown into the air by the wind. It made breathing not very easy. Finally after five days the sky was clear again. There were bad news from Bamako coming in. Very bad news. Somehow the Nomads or the Arabs were fighting against the Malian military force. We didn't hear much about it. The news were just coming through drop by drop. The next we heard was the market in Bamako was closed and the roads into Bamako were blocked off by armed forces. People from Mauritania were leaving at night etc. Some people were talking about a coup d'etat. We were hoping at this stage the situation might clear up. I was checking already the map to see how if necessary we could as fast as possible leave the country. A couple of days later we heard the situation had cleared out. We spent four weeks at the Chutes de Gouina. I was actually working hard most of the days. There are so many things to do. But they really did a good job. The garden for example, they fenced in a part of the surroundings close to the river and planted Mango and Banana-trees. Next to them they created a vegetable garden. All very nicely done. The problem I remember from being there last year was the water. The water pressure from the tube they put close to the falls was not strong enough. To go the whole hog they bought a diesel water pump which is placed next to the river. There was only one problem with this pump. It was made in India and for that reason it was not very reliable. In the four weeks I spent at the falls the pump had to be repaired three times. Back to the garden. The water is pumped up into a basin. One filling is enough to irrigate the garden between three and four days. A second pipe is heading straight up to the buildings to get water for the kitchen, the cleaning and for the construction site. The reconstruction of the buildings was getting ahead as well. Some walls were already rebuilt. The blocks were all made on the spot. The electricity is now powered with three 150Watts solar-panels. Only the capacity of the batteries is not high enough to have a constant flow of electicity during the night. 6-8 people were employed at the place constantly. Most of them doing construction work at the moment, and the cook. She was doing her best to feed up to 20people every day. Outside the garden they built 6 Koulou-Koulous. These are the traditional

Three of the new built Koulou-Koulous

round little houses which are located in every village in north-west Africa. Very well done and they look very beautiful. They were built to host what ever people are passing by. Sometimes people pass by to visit the falls and stay only overnight and some of the guys like a french couple were staying at long term. The place looked already so much more lively than last year. And it gives some families already a regulary money income. But still there are so many more things to do. The list is endless. But one day it might be a nice independent little village. I gave a hand where ever I could. I was

Building a table

building a table out of a tree trunk. This was the hardest wood I was ever cutting with a chainsaw. It took me three days to built this table and at the end we needed 10!! people to move and to turn it. Than the car, the Tata which was brought down from France last year. Surprisingly it was still alive. Only the gear-box gave up. I took it off opened it up and fixed it. It sounds easier than it was. But at the end it worked again. Than we were cutting many dead trees. Some of them were already on the ground but most of them were still upright. These trunks will be used later to build a terrace in front of one of the buildings. In one of the near-by villages, Foukara, they had the same pump than they had in Gouina. It was smoking like hell and they asked me if I could have a look. So one day we took tools and were going to Foukara which lies on an island in the river Senegal. I've been there last year already to cut some palm-trees down. The engine had an adjustment problem which was sorted in a short time. They surprised me again. They do have a very nice garden there with a working irrigation system. I was wondering who built this and after I asked they told me it was a project financed by the Malian government and was built last year. After we went back to the other side of the river a guy was turning up who was running the mill in the village. The mill was turned over by a very old diesel engine which for sure was not starting anymore. It took me 5 minutes to get it going again. I could only see one problem. The engine had no exhaust, so all the gases were just staying in the mill and by that the what ever they crush gets polluted with exhaust fumes. Towards the end of the month the preperations for the festival were starting. Just before the festival I went ill, so I can't tell anything about it. I had the typical diarrhoea fever mix. Ewa decided to stay in Gouina. She was planning to stay in one of the Koulou-Koulous. We had no arguments or anything going on, that was what she wanted to do.  On Monday morning the 27th of Februrary I said good-bye to Gouina and went to Kayes. Mainly to get an extension for my “laissez passer”. Funny enough I met Stephen an english guy we met earlier this year in Atar in Mauritania. The next morning I left early. I went towards Kenieba to catch the new paved road to Bamako. The road to Kenieba is a bad dirt-track. The average speed was around 20km/h. Stephen gave me an idea. Instead of going down to Kenieba I turned off before and went towards Manantali. There is a big artificial lake. The tracks were terrible. Finally it took me four days to get to Bamako. On one day I was only able to do 90km, but I was driving the whole day. Luckily the Landrover is a very narrow car, cause some of the tracks were donkey tracks, just wide enough to pass through. But the wooden box on the roof got damaged. And the tent. I was

One of the tracks just wide enough to pass through

hitting a big branch when I had to turn round once. The whole thing was bent. Not good, later I had a look and I found out one of the main angles was bent. I arrived at the lake on the third day. Beautiful. The road from Manantali to Kita was a bad dirt-track again, wide enough for lorries to pass, but bad. I was really glad when shortly before Kita I hit the paved road. Imagine, in three and a half days I was doing 400km and than in three hours another 200km. On Friday afternoon I arrived at the sleeping camel, a lodge almost in the center of Bamako. The first I did was checking the tent. I took the bent angle off and tried to straighten it out again.  No chance, too solid, I would have needed a wise. But I did a temporary repair. Not perfect but the tent could be used again. I spent six nights at the sleeping camel. Compared to the quite nights I had over the last weeks it was quite noisy and for that reason I was not getting too much sleep. The temperature and the humidity was slowly raising up. There were some things I had to do in Bamako. First of all I needed an insurance for the car and I had to look for another gas bottle. The two I had with me were almost both empty. I like Bamako. It is somehow caotic but it's got something. I loved walking through these colourful markets. I went into town almost every day and when it was just to get one of these tasty sandwiches from the vietnamies take-away. What I needed as well was the visa for Guinea. It was not as easy as it sounds. The embassy I was sent to was a Guinea embassy but they didn't do any visa. I had to go to the other side of town, but nobody knew the place. Sure, at the end I found. It was too far to walk the whole distance so it gave me a chance to ride with some of the total wrecked Taxis. Fantastic. The visa was very expensive, it cost me more then 70Euro. Funny enough Us citizens pay almost 100Euro. I spoke to quite a few people in town and they were all telling me about the war in the desert between the Tuareg and the Malian military forces. It sounded like a serious thing. For that reason there were only a few tousists in town. After I had all my stuff sorted I left Bamako on a Thursday morning and drove towards Guinea.

This Link will lead you to Picassa photo page                                                                                

Africa-trip 2012 Mauretania

The drive through no-mans land towards the mauretanian border controll is always something. It is a 4km track. But a very bad track. There are always some cars or lorries stuck on the track. This time it was a 40 ton lorry who was stuck in sand. The problem is to leave the track. Luckily there are always more than one possibility to take, but never leave one of the tracks. The whole area is a mine field. After spending two hours with the morrocans we spent another hour with the mauretanians. They were actually cool and everything worked out fine. Only one guy was trying to rip me off. Going into Mauretania an insurance policy has to be made. And this guy wanted to charge me 17000 Ogouiya which is 50€ for a 20 days policy. I remembered different prices and I told him. I just didn't pay him. He was following me all over the place but I kept on telling him to give me a better price. At the end I just left in between the organized tour cars (cause they thought I was a member of them) without paying for any insurance. But this guy was following us in a car until the first police checkpoint and I thought I might be in trouble now. But funny enough there was a guy who was our guide through the desert last year. He sorted the situation out for me. It felt like half of Mauretania was following me. I wanted to spent the night in Nouadhibou to change some money and to sort out an insurance. There were only three check-points to pass. Big surprise. All the prices in Mauretania went up.

But hello, quite a lot. Only the exchange rate for the Euro went down. But on the campside "Abba" the owner sent me a guy who was going to change money for a good course.  Nouadhibou is not exactly what we would call a nice town. It is dirty, smelly and noisy. But still a good place to exchange money and to fill up. Fuel inland for example is more than 10% more expensive. The night was very noisy and for that my sleep very bad. We left early in the morning, the town was still asleep. It was a Friday morning which is the week-end in a muslim country. We wanted to go to Atar along the rail-way through the desert. The trains using this rail are coming down from the ore-mines more north east of Mauretania. We spotted two of these trains which are the longest trains in the world. I was counting 150 cars behind three engines. Later people were telling me up to 180 cars is the normal length of the train. This train is just endless, and especially at night it makes a terrible never ending noise. Back to the track. 70Km outside Nouadhibou we were turning left off the main road and got almost stuck in sand in the first village already. The kids pointed us in the right direction. After the first dune I had to stop to release some tyre pressure. The next 500km were just rocks and sand. Sometimes the landscape was boring and sometimes absolutly stunning.

The car was doing a brilliant job. Even climbing sand-dunes was not at all a problem. Close to night fall I spotted a car in a distance which had the bonnet open. I turned left to see what was going on. It was a Toyota with a broken engine. The guys were telling me to get some help from the next police post which was 6km ahead. At the police post they asked some silly questions, somehow I had the feeling they thought I was making this up. Fact is it was after 6pm and they didn't want to let us move on anymore. They said it is dangerous to spent the night in the desert and they have the order to gard white people between 6pm and 7am. At the end we spent the night in the police compound. I was talking quite a while to the chief of them. I was sure he just came over to talk to me to have an eye on Ewa. She felt totally unconfortable to be the “pray” of all these lonely men. I mean, imagine, these men spent I don't know how much time there without going home to see their wifes, if they have one. Some how I felt sorry for them. But we had a good night and left early in the morning. I gave them a small bag of clothes to give it to the kids in the village. The temperature in the morning was still chilly. But at midday we had already 37ºC. But no humidity. We always had less than 20%. The whole day round. The place we slept was actually an important point for the train. It is the only place where two trains are able to pass each other on a more than 600km track. And off we went to the desert again. Still at morning I spotted a blue security car coming from the left. They told us to stop with an automatic rifle pointed at us. Not exactly a nice feeling. I didn't trust them at all. Sure they had uniforms and the right car but hey, we were in the middle of nowhere. I didn't even get out of the car nor did I switch off the engine. When the second guy took a rifle and made it sharp I knew we were in serious trouble. At the end everything was fine. We missed a police check-point and they thought we were some people who stole my car and didn't stop when they told us to do so. Funny enough they didn't ask us for any identification. So we could have stolen the car, but for them being white was passeport enough. From than on I took care not to miss any further check-point, to avoid this sort of trouble. Once the car was stuck in very soft sand. It was one of the last dunes we had to cross. Lifting the car up with the high-lift jack didn't work. Digging had to be done. And for the first time my self made sand ladders were in action, and they worked very good, no problem at all to get the car back out of the sand.

To get to Atar was a long road, especially the last 100km. We had to climb a pass where we had some stunning view down to the desert. I mean the suroundings of Atar are still desert but with some palm trees here and than. At late afternoon we arrived at Bab Sahara in Atar. Bab Sahara is a camp-side turned over by Cora and Just a german-dutch couple who have a great knowledge of the area and of Mauretania. And the town center is in walking distance. It was good to have a rest for a couple of days. I used the time to fix the car. Yeah, yeah, again. But this time it was two suspension mountings and a water hose which was touching the front diff. My speedo gave up as well, at least the odo-meter. I reckon the wash-board tracks were too much for it. I opened the whole thing up and fixed it. The second morning the car was ready to go again. We went into town to do some shopping. I had a surprise. They were working everywhere to make the town more beautiful. They were putting nice shaped flat stones to pave the side of the roads ans they were working on a water channel system. On the market we bought the first home grown vegetables. Otherwise they have everything imported from the Canary Islands.On the market we made a contact with two young guys, which means like they were following us around the market, showing us places to buy cheaper. Probably the cheaper places were just family members. But they knew were to get fuel on the black market. This fuel was coming into the country via the desert and it was 20% cheaper than at the stations. After a quite evening we met one of the guys the next morning to get some fuel. They count the amount by cans to 20 and to 5 liters. But I have to admit the fuel was clean and I had no problems with it at all. Everything done we were heading out of town to Chinguitti. It is only a 85 km distance. To get there we had to climb a pass up to a sort of plateau which is 700m above sea-level. The pass was the only paved part of the road. Chinguitti was rather disapointing. I heard so much about it but in real it is a town which is fighting hard not be covered by sand. There is an old and a new part of town.The old part of town has some nice buildings and we could see the places where they have to dig off the sand constantly. Some over 2meter high walls were completly covered by sand. We took a coffee at the auberge Zarga. The owner is involved in a school for Nomads, somehow a school which is moving with the people. He asked us for some donations and we gave him some clothes for the kids.

Our plan was to go down south to Tidjikja. A 400km trip through the desert. Directly at the auberge the track is leading into the dunes. The first 30km was just sand without any tracks. After a short time we got stuck, but I still had the car on full tyre pressure. I released it and we had no problem to get through. The best results I had actually with 1bar at the rear and 0,6bars at the front axle. So when the tyres look flat it is the right pressure. The sand was very soft and to get through I had to floor the pedal constantly. All of the sudden I saw some smoke coming from underneeth the bonnet and the engine temperature was in the red. The cooling van was not kicking in. One terminal was broken. No problem, I just put a new terminal and 4liters of water and off we went again. After 30km we had to turn left and the desert was changing into a rock-desert. A rock desert is very hard to drive. Many passages I had to pass in first gear in low range which means a speed between 2 and 3 km/h. The average speed went down to 16km/h. The first night we spent only 40km off Chingdetti. But just before nightfall we had the first puncture. On the second day we made a little bit more than 100km, but driving the whole day, only interupted by lunch. The landscape was stunning. Once we had to climb a pass which had an incredible bad track. I don't know, the climb was only a few km but it took hours. Sometimes we had to climb steps more than 20cm high and we had to pass a dune-field which was not too difficult to get through. The sand was rather hard and thanx to the GPS we knew were to go. We had a very strong wind from the East and there was no track what so ever to follow. They were all blown off or covered by sand. The second night we spend behind a very tall dune to get some protection from the wind. On the third day the disaster started. Off we went in the morning knowing we still had more than 1 day to get to Tidjikja. On late morning we were driving down a side of a hill right into a dune-field with huge dunes. These dunes were between 10 and 15 meters high. At the beginning we still saw some tracks but covered by these massive dunes. Like usuall we tried to go arround some off the dunes but they were getting higher and higher and the sand was getting softer and softer. The first time we were stuck right at the beginning of the field. This time we needed the sandladders. We found a possibility to enter the field but after a short time we were completly lost. The GPS was no help cause the track simply didn't exist anymore. We still thought we will find a way and got deeper and deeper into the field until we were stuck in very soft sand on the top of a dune. We were digging already for some hours when I heard a clonk noise from underneeth the car. You have to imagine all this happened in very bad weather conditions. My eyes were already full of sand and I could hardly see anything. After the clonk the car didn't move anymore. Finished I thought, the gearbox gone I thought. I opened up the part in between the seats and discovered the rear prop-shaft was still moving. One of the front tyres was moving as well, so I knew a rear drive shaft snaped. This happened when the car was up to the chassis into sand. But there was no choice, it had to be changed. What we did was putting the sandladders on the weather-side of the car to stop the sand from blowing underneeth the car. On top of it we wraped blankets around them. I tried to get underneeth the car to be able to work there but no chance, still too much wind getting through and too much sand. Ewa was somehow covering the side as good as possible and I was digging the sand off. I knew we didn't have much daylight ahead and the car was somehow getting deeper into the sand by itself. I know, sand is the enemy of evey moving part so I tried to get as less sand as possible into the axle. Ewa did a good job assisting me by the work. I was pushing sand away with my back to get close to the rear diff to open the drain-plug. I saved as much oil as possible in a plastic bottle. First I took off the left hand side drive-shaft. It was good. Than the right hand one which was on the weather side. Ewa was holding a blanket ripped around me and the axle I had to open to avoid the sand to get into it. Yeah, it was snapped and I had a spare one in the car. I put the new one and filled what was left off the oil back into the diff. I tried and yes it was working again. But we were still stuck in the sand. After maybe another hour we were off the sand but still in the dune-field where as far as our eyes could see there was no escape. We were driving where it was possible, up and down, backwards and forwards but we couldn't fine a way and it was almost dark already. We had to spend the night. The night was not very pleasant. Somehow it seemed the car was leaning more and more to the side during the night. Finally when I spotted the first daylight I got off the car and saw what was happening. The wind was that strong it was blowing the sand underneeth the tyres on the weather side off. The car was almost tipping over. Luckily I was able to drive it out of there. So far so good. We decided to walk our way back out of the field. And finally it worked. After a couple of hours we were out. We were celebrating with a nice cup of tea. We still wanted to go to Tidjikja. We were trying hard, but at the end it was always these huge dunes which were blocking us up. Towards the end of the day we decided to go back. We still had enough fuel to do so. One nice experience on the way back was this nomad family.
We were just preparing lunch when this car turned up. They invited us to their home. They gave us camel milk and butter and dates. The tast was absolutly fantastic. In exchange we gave them same clothes and on top of it I gave the guy an inner tube for his car. The only thing happened on the way back was another puncture. I put the second spare wheel on. On the morning of the last night we spent in the desert another tyre was flat and we had no other spare wheel. Luckily it was a slow puncture which I had to pump up several times before we were back to civilisation. Finally after six days and five nights we were back in Atar. There we felt how exhausted we were. We met some other travellers at the camp-site Bab Sahara who had an open ear for our adventure.  After a hot shower and some fresh clothes the world looked different again. After all I found it quite impressive how fast a nice trip can turn into a deadly trap. We spent two nights in Atar. Ewa tried hard to clean out the car. There was  sand everywhere. Even on top of the dashboard I had some mini sand dunes. Good, my job was to fix the car again. Three punctures needed fixing, the aircleaner needed fresh oil and for sure I changed the oil in the rear diff. We were completly lost in time and dates. I had to check. On the 24th of Janurary we left Atar and went to Nouakchott, the capitol of Mauretania. But not before I was looking for this young guy again to get cheap fuel. All in all we used up 125 liters of fuel for a 700km distance only done on rocks and sand. It was a 450km ride to Nouakchott which can be easily done in one day. We arrived at 6pm at the auberge Menata. It was quite busy there. The members of the Rally Budapest-Bamako were spending the night there. Only the Rally was not going to Bamako but to Bissau. Still it was called Rally Budapest-Bamako. We spent two nights in the Auberge Menata. It is not really a place I can recommend. It is just very noisy, so to find a good night sleep was just not happening. And the price to stay went up by 25%. We left early on the 26th. I was filling up the car again, fuel in Mali is more expensive. What was left of the Ouguiya we spent in a supermarket. The drive on mauretanians national-road no.1 is rather boring. Traffic and many check-points. In Aleg we turned off to the right towards Boghé. The number of check-points between Boghé and Kaedi was getting rediculous. Sometimes we were stopped every 5minutes. It was getting late and I knew we wouldn't make it passed Kaedi the same day. I spotted a field of nut-trees were we spent the night. Off we went the next morning. We wanted to reach Kayes in Mali. The plan was to pass Mbout and than via the Passe de Soufa to Kankossa and than down to Kayes. But on one of the check-points they told us not to go there. There were some Rebells hiding in the mountains they said. So instead we took the road down to Sélibabi. Surprisingly we found ourselfes on a brand new paved road. Ok, some parts were still under construction, but it was a Friday and we just kept driving on it cause nobody was working on a Friday. I was asking my way through town. There was no track not on the Gps nor on the paper-map. I found out we had to go to Melgue which is a border-town between Mauretania and Mali. But we didn't make it the same day. After Sélibabi the road turned into a donkey track. We slept somewhere between Sélibabi and the border. Somehow I had a very bad night and for that I was not in a very good mood the next morning. To find Melgue was a different story. I asked every oncoming person. If by donkey, by bicycle or by foot. They always said yeah, yeah just go straight ahead. But I saw on the GPS we were getting to close to the border and there was still nothing what looked like a border-town. At the end we had to turn left again and finally we came into Melgue. Customs was on the main road. They gave me my stamp for the car, but not without charging me 10 Euro. Further on was a police check-point. One of the guys was putting an automatic rifle over his shoulder and walked in front of the car until we were in no-mans-land.

Click here to watch some pictures.

Africa-trip 2012 Spain-Morocco

On Sunday morning the first of Janurary at 11am I started my second Africa-trip.
I was not going by my own. Ewa, a polish woman, who was working in Mojácar at the time was joining me.
But before I left I was collecting two bin bags full of second hand clothes which were donated by Diane and Mo&Robin. Thanx again.
The day we left it was beautiful weather. I was curious about the car, especially about the engine and the gearbox. Would they last? I was possitive surprised by the power of the engine again. It was so much more relaxing to drive without shifting down gears all the time a little hill only came in sight. And the fuel consumption was much lower as well. One thing I didn't like from the beginning. The car was constantly pulling to the right. The second thing I didn't like too much was the gearbox. There was no noise or anything, it just took some force to shift the gears. I had to keep an eye on that.
The place where I wanted to buy the tickets for the ferry was shut. In fact most of these places were shut, which was not really a surprise at the first day of the year. Finally 10km before Algeciras one of these places which were mostly some office containers had open doors. The guy who was working in there charged a fair price and at 9pm we went on the ferry which was called “Jaume I”. It was a super fast ferry. It only took us 30 minutes to get to Ceuta. It felt like being on a speed boat. For the second time I hit african soil. In Ceuta there was only one big parking space at the coast line. That's where we went to spent the night. The next morning we were heading straight for the border. Easy, after 15 minutes we were through and in Morocco. They didn't even check the car, just a quick look inside. I was wondering about the fuel prices in Morroco, and, they were exactly the same than last year. Only the exchange rate was a little bit worse. 1Euro to 10,88 Dirham. But the fuel was still at 7,35 Dirham which is 66cents a liter. We went towards Tetouan and than headed straight over to the west coast towards Rabat where we had to get the visa for Mauretania and Mali. The to the right pulling was getting worse. As a first try to see if it makes any difference I was changing some tyres. It was better but still not really good.  We were arriving at the Mauretanian embassy at late afternoon. The weather was still beautiful but much colder than on the mediteranean side. Now the waiting game started. What had to be done to get a visa is to get a form which has to be filled out. Like usuall something was missing, so we had to go there twice. The counter to bring in the form, the passeport and two pictures stayed only open from 9 to 11am, and it was busy and people tried to get in the queue first etc. Just boring. The following  day after 3pm they gave the passeports back. We were hoping we could make it the same day to the malien embassy. They stay open until 3.30pm. Funny enough we had it all worked out. There are two queues, one for the women and one for the men and the women are always going in first, so I gave Ewa all the documents. But unfortunatly the Mauretaniens didn't open the door  before 20 to 4, so the plan was not working out. The picture was taken in front of the embassy, the waiting game.

We had to stay another night. The third, and they were very cold, much colder than the nights in Spain. I spent the time during the waiting prcedure working at the Landrover. I lifted every wheel up to check if the brakes are all running free.  In the steering I noticed a little bit of a play, so I adjusted the steering box. The handbrake lever was making a lot of a rattling noise which was going on my nerves. I fixed this as well. That was the most of it. Even when the Visa-buisness was boring I enjoyed to stay in this road in front of the embassy. There are always some interesting people turning up and it was just funny to watch with what sort of vehicles people are going or trying to go to Africa. Good, I reckon most of the vehicles will be sold there. This german guy for example, he had a car with a totally worn out timing belt. And they were heading for Gambia, good luck. After we had the Mauretanien visa we were heading for the Malien one the next day. I thought it might not take longer then two hours but no. The guy told us to come back at 2pm, which ment we had to wait another five hours.At two pm we were back and for sure the visas were not finished yet. But one guy who was working in the embassy was from Tombouctou, it was a good chance to ask what is going on there. Just a couple of weeks ago three people were captured and one was killed in the middle of the day in the middle of the town. He said everything is save now. There is a festival starting around the 16th of Janurary and it looks like they made some effort to keep the place save. Back to the visa, after another hour I was just tired of waiting and I asked them to give us our passeports and our money back, and all of a sudden things started to move. The ambassador himself took care about the situation and on top of it he gave us our money back, ok, not all of it, the rest stayed in the coffee box for the staff, but hey. Finally at 4.30pm we left the place with our visas. We were quite driving some distance. I wanted to stay at a place called Qualidia, but it turned out the campground didn't exist anymore. I asked some guys and they sent us to a parking place out of town where we spent an undisturbed night. I wanted to sleep in the roof-tent, but unfortunatly it took some water. It must have happened when we had the very strong rain in Spain. I should have checked it. Everything inside was ready to go to the bin. The next day Ewa was cleaning the tent and I was again checking the car. The pulling was still present all the time, but this time I found the problem. One of the tyres must have had a problem, cause after I took this one off to be used as a spare the pulling was gone. We made it until Agadir, passing by at the beautiful argan tree area just passed Essaouira. These trees only grow in this area. I spoke with one of the argan-oil sellers and he said 2011 was a very bad year for argan-oil. They didn't have enough rain. Normally it rains in the month of December. I could see it myself, the fruits were very small and the trees only had a very small quantity of fruits to be picked up. The price for the oil went up as well. But this oil is so good, I couldn't resist and bought some, together with some honey and something I never saw before. It was smashed almends mixed with argan oil and honey. Delicious. The picture on the left shows one of the argan.oil sellers. Shortly before Agadir I discovered a new campground.  The place was nothing else than a more or less flat place on the top of a rocky hill.

But we had the first warm shower since we left Spain. And again car problems. The steering wheel was always after I hit a whole with only one front wheel moving very fast from one side to the other. I only could stop it by hitting the brakes. Very unpleasant. The next morning I decided to find out what was wrong. The steering damper was gone, I was not even trying to get one here. Instead I put more resistance on the swivel housing housing by taking out some of the shims and voilá the problem was sorted. It looked like all the car problems were solved now. Finally. Ewa in the meanwhile was doing all the washing. A word to Ewa. She was so far the best travell maid I had. She just took over the kitchen and whenever we stopped she was preparing some lovely food in no time. I never found out how she was doing this, but the result was fantastic. I felt like having 5 star dinners in the middle of the desert. When we left the camp-ground it was already past midday. We were not going very far. In Guelmin, which is by the way a very clean and friendly town, I saw a sign leading to the “plage blanche” which means white beach. I heard about this beach already 20 years ago and we decided to give it a try. It was not what I expected. To be honest it was quite dissapointing. And white sand? No way. I reckon it is not worth to go there, We hit the road quite early the next day. The landscape was turning into desert. I loved driving in this scenerie. These endless ongoing roads only interupted by a police checkpoint or a small village. Though we had a very strong wind blowing directly from the side. Shortly before nightfall we arrived at a camp 5km off the main road. A french couple took over this place one year ago and so far they did a good job. The place was called “Roi de beduine” and they were still building on it. There was a small river next by, with a small waterfall. Sure there was almost no water in it but I saw a picture how it looked after some rain; quite impressing. A place I really can recommend. Only the mosquitos in the evening were a little bit disturbing. Back on the road the following day. On the picture some of the Off-roaders we met. It was a 570km distance to Dakhla. But we made it, even constantly fighting against a very strong wind. The fuel consumption went up a 30%.

In Western Sahara the police checkpoints were before and after every bigger town. So we were stopped quite often. On one of the checkpoints I had the first confrontation with corruption. When the guy said he wanted to discuss with me outside the car I knew already what he was after. And yes, he was directly asking me for “cadeaux”, money or alcoholics. I knew all of this game from Senegal and at the end he said bonne voyage. They try. Ha, before Laayoune they've got me in a speed controll. Buy the way, they had speed controlls all over the country. They pulled me over and showed me the radar camera, it was made in Germany. I had a laugh with them. They were really friendly guys and they let me go without a fine. At seven pm we arrived at the camp-site in Dakhla. I like Dakhla, it is a friendly town. I was only negative surprised by the quantity of camper-vans on the camp-site. They are just every where. On this camp-site I wanted to make some buisness. I put some spare parts for Landrover engines in my car which I wanted to sell in Dakhla. The first guys were coming over already in the morning to discuss the price. It turned out in Morocco there is no buisness to make with parts. The guy would have bought the parts immediatly but for a very bad price. I decided to wait until Mali or Mauretania to sell the parts.
It was getting hot, and we had luck with the wind. Dakhla is a surfers paradies, but it was not at the time we were there. Dakhla is the last possibility to do some cheap and good shopping and we took the opportunity.The night we spent at a really nice beach maybe 30km outside Dakhla. I just turned off the mainroad and than followed some tracks, beautiful. We had a stunning sunset and a beautiful moonrise. We wanted to cross the border to Mauretania the next day and we got up very early. The last possibility to fill up with cheap fuel is 85km before the border. Don't forget it. The fuel in Mauretania cost almost the double. We arrived at the border at midday. I was worried we had to pass trough the scanner on the morrocan side but fortunatly we didn't have to. The only problem were members of an organized tour. They had 31 cars and half of them were in front of us. But after two hours we had everything done and went over through no-mans land towards the Mauretanian side of the border.

Click here to watch some pictures on Picassa photopage.