The procedure to enter Mauretania was even more difficult. Photocopie of this and that, filling out forms, we even had to pay a parking ticket, hoho what a choke, a parking ticket to park the car while you have to wait for your documents. A young guy was leading us. He changed us money as well. Good course he said, later we found out we were ripped off from him as well. Never change money at the border. While I was in one of the buildings another guy was aproaching the car and was searching it. He searched until he found something he wanted. At the end he took a mosquito spray and some St. John Worth pills. He asked me what these pills are for and I told him when he takes two of them with his dinner he will be a very strong in bed at night. I really would like to see him snoring beside his wife after he has taken them, what a prick. At 6pm we had all the stemps we needed and entered mauretanian soil, hurray. Don´t get me wrong, most of the guys were friendly and just doing their job. The german fellows we met in Dahkla told us about a camp-site in Nouadhibou. It is 40km behind the border. Desert again. We only passed two checkpoints, one even with a barrier. On the first checkpoint we had to register again and it was getting dark. Nouadhibou, wow, what a town, forget everything you know about european cities. The cars sometimes are wrecks, without lights, wings or even doors.
They sound like they will fall apart in the next five seconds but somehow they keep on driving. The stores are all lining the road. They sell just everything. We stopped a few times to ask for the camp-site. The people were friendly and helpful. Finally we found it and parked the car. The camp-site looks quite nice and even the showers are hot. The prices like everything in Mauretania are more expensive than in Morocco. We parked the car close to another Landrover with Zurich Numberplates. We just finished dinner when the three Germans from Koeln and Louis turned up. Louis is the owner of the Landrover. He is a 69 years old fellow from Zurich/Switzerland. He is travelling by himself in a practically brandnew very well equiped car.In the morning I discovered the two french cyclists. How is this possible I thought but they had a lift . They turned up with some other french fellows in three cars.
They are heading for Burkina Faso.Louise took the opportunity and joined them. There is another camp-site near by. We went there to say hello to the Germans. We thought they had left already but Laurance had some mussles the day before and was not feeling very well. They hired a guide and wanted to go next to the rail road to Atar which is 500km inland in the mountains. The road is a sand track. Our plan was to go to Nouakchott through the „parc national du banc d´argulm“ which we heard must be very beautiful, but Ralph asked us if we want to join them and we did. We decided to leave early the next morning.The rest of the day we took it easy. We went into town and I checked all the oil levels in the car. I didn´t know what was expecting us but for sure some heavy tracks.Take off was planed for 7am the next morning. We left one hour later. The first stop was a fuel station. We topped up everything we had, both jerry-cans and both fuel tanks, all together 150 liter of fuel. The fuel prices in Mauretania were much more expensive than in Western Sahara. Depending to the exchange rate around 80 cents for a liter of fuel. The guide, Moktar, was quite a friendly guy. The first 80km we had to stay on tarmac and then we turned left into the desert.We had the rail road always on our left hand side. The train is carrying ore from the ore- mines in Zouérat. The first time we saw a train was amazing. It was just never ending.
They had four powerful diesel engines and I don´t know maybe 100 wagons or even more. Later we learned it is the longest train in the world. The track through the desert started easy, rocks and a lot of dust. We had to stop after we were 10 minutes on the track. One of the fuel tanks on Ralph´s car was leaking.Moktar said there are four track but after a while I never new if we were still on a track or just heading east. We stopped in a small village to get some water. Village is maybe not the right word. In fact there was just one house and one garage or workshop. We were since one hour on the track and in this house was a woman staying with her two kids. What in hells name is someone doing in the middle of the desert in a house without a door or windows. We went on to the next village which was in fact a village. 90 souls were living there. They even had a school. We met a young guy 15years old boy who was very educated. He was going to school in Nouádhibou. To get there he is either jumping on the train or going by foot which takes him three days. This was the first place where the petits cadeaux had some sort of value. We just gave them some coloured pencils and some copy-books and they were so glad like we had given them some gold. The women were dressed in some fabrics, even the head was totally covered. Not even the hands were vissable, they were wearing gloves, only the eyes. But still it was hard to tell if the were young or old. As soon as they thought we had given them enough cadeaux they let us have our lunch outside the village. Later two police officers turned up. Even in the desert they have posts everywhere. They said they are doing this for our protection. Actually we were entering a so called not save area. We never had the feeling of not being save.
Later we met a guy who is living here and he said all the Al-Quaida panic is made up by the French. I have no idea what is wrong or right, fact is we had a save trip.After the village we had to release air-pressure. The sand-dunes started. This was great. The Landrover did a good job. Only on steep dunes the engine was not powerful enough to climp to the top, so we had to go backwards and around the dunes, but we were never stuck. The engine was working on the upper temperature-limit. At the end of the day, finally we got stuck on a flat bit with really soft and deep sand. No problem, Odo parked the other car in range of the winch. We hooked the cable on and voilá, easy, with some help from the engine we winched ourselves out. It was now time to look for a place to spend the night. Moktar led us off the track into the dunes. We had dinner and even some cans of beer. If you have never spend a night in the desert you cannot imagine the silence. I had always this song from Simon and Garfunkel in my mind; the sound of silence. And the stars, so clear, so close. But than in the middle of the night; surprise. A train. In this silence the noise of the train was infernal. Some of us thought it is armagaddon. I thought in the desert it might get very cold at night, but we still had 15°C in the morning. Sure during the day it was raising again up to 30°C. When everything was packed I wanted to start the car......nothing. Not fireing. Ok, I tryed to bled the fuel system but there was no air in it. Anyway I tryed a couple of times but still nothing. I could see with my inner eye the two pistons in the injection-pump. I was sure they were stuck. But to open up an injection-pump in all the sand is not a good idea. We tryed to tow the car to give the engine more raves but we couldn´t even get it moving. Plan B. I had a second injection-pump in the spare parts compartment. After one hour the pump was changed and the car was starting. What a release. We went on, dune after dune after dune. I remember when we climbed the first dune we were like yeah-hey a sand dune but after two days it was just like aargh another sand-dune. We were passing another village and every maybe three hours a police post. And camels, I don´t know what these camels are eating but we met many camel herders. In the late afternoon I started to feel bad. And it got worse and worse. By nightfall we were still a couple of hours away from Atar our destination. My stomach was very bad and I became fever. I had to do some emergancy stops to jump into the bushes, diarrhea. I drove as long as I could but at one stage I hit something underneeth and I just couldn´t go on driving. The others realized we are not longer behind them and turned round. As soon as I saw them I layed down in the back of the car. Ralph took over my car. I explained him how to use the gear-box and he did a very good job driving the car the last bit into Atar to the camp-side Bab Sahara. I was shivering and had fever-dreams when we arrived. To be honest I cannot remember much what happened, but Cora, one of the camp-site owners took care about me. The next day Cora asked me to move into one of the little houses they had on the camp-site. It was surprisingly fresh inside. The others and Lena went to Chinguetti to spent new years eve. Moktar our guide stayed with me on the camp-site. I spent the day sleeping and reading.The camp-site Bab Sahara is owned by Just from Holland and by Cora from Germany. If you ever come close to the area this is a good place to relaxe. They are staying since 14years and turned a peace of desert into an oasis with many trees. The coordinates of the camp-sites are N20°31´157´´/W13°03´723´´. Atar is very close and reachable by foot. We stayed five days. When the others came back from Chinguetti we had a nice dinner together. The morning of the second of Janurary it was time to say good-bye. Ralpf, Odo and Laurance, thanx very much for the nice time we had and a save trip back home. We decided to take it easy. I had to get my force back. One day Lena was taking everything out of the car and cleaned all out, there was sand everywhere. When I felt better I had to check the car.
Just helped me to get oil and filter. I could use his workshop where he even had a pit. I changed oil and filter, cleaned the air-cleaner, greased the prop-shafts, checked the oil levels in the axles and the swyvel- housing, fixed a short circuit and I had to changed the check straps, they were both broken. After five hours the car was as good as new. A word to Malaria prevention. We decided to have Tuesdays for our Malaria day. So this Tuesday was the second time we took the prevention. Lena didn´t have too many problems but the stuff I´ve got from Spain just knocked me out again. I had the feeling my illness last week was caused by the Malaria prevention. All of a sudden I felt very bad again. Stomach cramps combined with fever. I definetly need another prevention or no prevention at all. People down here kept saying don´t take anything and when it hits you than you take something. I will give it a serious thought.The next morning we didn´t know what to do. Stay another day or not. Finally at late morning we decided to leave. We had to go to Nouakchott to get our visa for Mali. Just gave us a direction for a lodge. The drive was rather boring. 450Km through the desert. But this time on paved roads. The only changes were the colour of the sand, it changed from a sort of yello into white and back to yellow. The closer we got to Nouakchott the denser was the traffic. When I talk about dense traffic I mean there are more cars than only one every 30 minutes. With Just´s explanation we found the lodge without any problems. It was quite a busy place. There were even some faces we knew from the embassy in Rabat. Most of the guests were Europeans. We met a french couple on the way to South Africa with bicycles. The majority of people we met since we started the trip were french. Sure, they have the advantage to speak the language. Anyway, if you are ever planing of going to North-West-Africa you should maybe take a french course before you take off.
It is just indispensable. You always need to deal with authorities or local checkpoints and english is definetly not the first language. In the morning we joined the french couple and Shawn a guy from Rhode Island to go to the Mali embassy. It took us maybe 30 minutes to get there and it gave us the opportunity to have a look at the City. The City is somehow built on sand. Sure they have paved roads, at least the main ones but there is sand just everywhere. The roads are in bad conditions as are the cars and the lorries. The lorries and even the coaches some times are driving with broken leaf springs and for this reason leaning over to one side but it seemed to be very normal. At some of the vehicels I had to look twice to believe the condition. Especially cars like the old Renault 12 and the Mercedes van 207 are sometimes in a condition I haven´t even seen when they were parked up on a scrap yard for more than 10 years. But they all still move. The embassy was easy to find. The people were very relaxed, we handed over two passport photo, filled out a form and payed each 5000Ouguiya which is equivalent to 17€. We just waited outside underneeth a tree, watching the traffic. After two and a half hours we had the visa, cool. On the way back we found a big supermarket were we did some serious shopping. You might think why don´t they do the shopping on markets or in the small shops they are just everywhere. The answer is easy. The quality is always better, they don´t give you special tourist prices and on top of it they are cheaper. Back on the lodge we took it easy. I tried to fix the blown-up injection pump. It didn´t work. I reckon the damage was caused by very bad fuel quality. The pistons in the pump are blocked off. I will deal with this problem later. Shawn the american fellow from Rhode Island decided to join us. We left the place the next morning around 10am. We took the road via Boutilimit to Aleg and than turned off the beaten track towards Boghé. In Boghé we found a lodge where we stayed over night. We had at least 12 checkpoints today. I mean they are just overdoing it a little bit. A checkpoint every 50km would be fine but sometimes there were 4 checkpoints in just about 20km, especially close to population. This lodge was somehow funny. First they didn´t want us to stay, but as soon as they had realized we are staying in the car the were ok. I asked them for shower and toillet and he showed me a place with a hole in the floor. At the end they were installing a light and left a bucket of water. To have some privacy we had to take the door which was actually standing on the ground and place it in front of the door way.
We met some red-cross people from Senegal, they had a meeting somewhere in town the next day. When it came to payment the next day I was quite shocked. He was asking for 5000 Ouguiya each. I told him he is nuts. At the end I payed 4000 Ouguiya for the three of us. It was still 4€ each which seemed quite a lot to me for a place without any accomodation. We left quite early. We were heading towards Kaedi. Between Boghé and Kaedi we thought we could take a turn left to head towards the river Sénégal. We stopped in Bababé to get some bread and water and like usuall there was some sort of police guy turning up. I asked him if we could visit the river and he explained us the road. The river was just 2km off the main road. As we approached the river we were entering a village. We had 5000kids on our tail. One off them was hanging on my back ladder and leading us to the river. Beautiful. We just stepped out of the car when we had a visite from the local police. The guy was welcoming us and he invited us to have tea with him. No problem, we parked the cars in the middle of town and had some tea. We were always surrounded by the kids. I am not lying when I say it was at least 70 of them, all staring at us. The river is actually the border between Mauretania and Sénégal. The guy explained us that at the moment they have low water, and he showed us the mark up to where the river is rising in the wet season. They are building as well with some government money, it might even come from Europe, a checkpoint and a crossing point to the Sénégal. We gave the kids the last of the cadeaux we had. It is unimaginable how these kids are freaking out by getting some coloured pens and some copy-books. After the tea-ceremony we left and were heading back to the road. In Kaedi the paved road ended. We thought we could go on to Mbout where we planed to stay for the night. The road was a dirt track with sometimes very deep holes in it. One second out of concentration could make you lose the car. I don´t know but once I was hitting something with the front left wheel and I thought we have lost an axle. I think the hole car was airborne. I stopped to check the car but couldn´t see any damage. Once again I realized how solid a Landrover is built. Somehow we missed Mbout and ended up on the wrong track. It was getting dark and Lena started to be worried about the night. I asked in a village if we could stay there but they didn´t look like the wanted us to stay so we went on and found a checkpoint. I asked the guy and we could stay just next to the checkpoint in the field. Earlier I was saying something about Al Quaida, the guy in the lodge yesterday told us there is Al Quaida in the desert and he told us as never to stay in the desert over night. He said the police has strict orders to help travellers when ever help is requiered. He said there are some areas in Mauretania where it is not at all save to go which is in particular the area north and east if Nema. Later we heard more about Al Quaida and it seemed they are anything else but definetly not an invention of the French. People are sick of them. They are destroying what ever is left of the economy of the country. One day later we heard about two french guys being killed in Niger where everybody was telling us it is save. We had a good dinner at the checkpoint and left early again the next morning. Shawn was taking the front prop-shaft off before he started his travells and we thought now is the time to put it back on and as we found out later we were right. We were heading back towards Mbout and we were looking for the road to Passe the soufa and Kankossa. Luckily Shawn had a GPS. I reckon without it we would have been totally lost. The road was a better donkey-track. At some stage they had some bridges crossing the now dried out rivers. But more than half of them were just washed off. We figured out it must be impossible to do this track in the wet seasson. In one off the riverbeds we were both stuck. First Shawn who took the lead following the GPS. We were looking for another passage for my car but the sand was just too soft. I was releasing air-pressure and we started some serious winch action. We hooked my car onto Shawn´s and I winched myself out of the riverbed. As soon as I climbed the other side I gave Shawn a hand and winched his car off the riverbed as well. It was actually the only time we were stuck. It was the second time the winch did a really good job. Shawn was driving a 4x4 Volkswagen van with a turbo.diesel engine. He had locks on both axles and still the Landrover had the much better traction. We went on and on, sometimes thinking we lost the track. Once we entered a village where they are used to the Rally Paris-Dakar. The people from the Rally must give them always a lot of cadeaux, cause all they were screaming was cadeau, cadeau....! We didn´t have any left and when they realized they won´t get any the kids started to throw rocks at us. Not a nice experience. Finally we went over the Passe de Soufa. On top of it we had a stunning few into both direction. The one we were coming from and the one we were heading at. At the next checkpoint the guy was showing us a short cut to Kankossa. We got lost again and ended up on the road which is leading back to Kiffa.
When we just decided maybe we could go to Kiffa we saw two french plated cars and shortly after we had the whole village surrounding us. We learned that in this place we had to find the customs to get the stemp to leave Mauretania. We didn´t even had to look for the custum guy, he turned up later telling us I am custom, I am custom. We all went to his office which was a better goat stable, but he had the stemps we needed, and he didn´t even charge us. We did some shopping in a local shop and decided to spent the night with the french. It was actually two french and a spanish woman. They had a Renault21 and a Renault Nevada. Both front wheel drive and when we were looking for a place to spent the night they were already stuck three times. I don´t know how they managed to come that far in this sort of cars. Finally we just stopped somewhere outside the village for the night. One of the guys in the neighbourhood came over to check us out found we are ok and let us in peace. The next day was somehow exciting. We looked at the map and thought it must be easy to cross the border and take the road to Kayes but it turned out to be a nightmare. We were already lost just after Kankossa. To find the road back we were heading across-country towards compass point east. We ended up in some cow fields totally lost. We couldn´t see not even a slightest sign of a road when we spotted a dust cloud at the horizon. We were heading for it and found the last outpost of Mauretania called Hamoud. The guys were explaining us how to find the road to Mali but either they didn´t know how to explain or we were just too stupid to find it we were lost again in no time. The first people we met I was asking where we are and we found out we were already in Mali.
They are heading for Burkina Faso.Louise took the opportunity and joined them. There is another camp-site near by. We went there to say hello to the Germans. We thought they had left already but Laurance had some mussles the day before and was not feeling very well. They hired a guide and wanted to go next to the rail road to Atar which is 500km inland in the mountains. The road is a sand track. Our plan was to go to Nouakchott through the „parc national du banc d´argulm“ which we heard must be very beautiful, but Ralph asked us if we want to join them and we did. We decided to leave early the next morning.The rest of the day we took it easy. We went into town and I checked all the oil levels in the car. I didn´t know what was expecting us but for sure some heavy tracks.Take off was planed for 7am the next morning. We left one hour later. The first stop was a fuel station. We topped up everything we had, both jerry-cans and both fuel tanks, all together 150 liter of fuel. The fuel prices in Mauretania were much more expensive than in Western Sahara. Depending to the exchange rate around 80 cents for a liter of fuel. The guide, Moktar, was quite a friendly guy. The first 80km we had to stay on tarmac and then we turned left into the desert.We had the rail road always on our left hand side. The train is carrying ore from the ore- mines in Zouérat. The first time we saw a train was amazing. It was just never ending.
They had four powerful diesel engines and I don´t know maybe 100 wagons or even more. Later we learned it is the longest train in the world. The track through the desert started easy, rocks and a lot of dust. We had to stop after we were 10 minutes on the track. One of the fuel tanks on Ralph´s car was leaking.Moktar said there are four track but after a while I never new if we were still on a track or just heading east. We stopped in a small village to get some water. Village is maybe not the right word. In fact there was just one house and one garage or workshop. We were since one hour on the track and in this house was a woman staying with her two kids. What in hells name is someone doing in the middle of the desert in a house without a door or windows. We went on to the next village which was in fact a village. 90 souls were living there. They even had a school. We met a young guy 15years old boy who was very educated. He was going to school in Nouádhibou. To get there he is either jumping on the train or going by foot which takes him three days. This was the first place where the petits cadeaux had some sort of value. We just gave them some coloured pencils and some copy-books and they were so glad like we had given them some gold. The women were dressed in some fabrics, even the head was totally covered. Not even the hands were vissable, they were wearing gloves, only the eyes. But still it was hard to tell if the were young or old. As soon as they thought we had given them enough cadeaux they let us have our lunch outside the village. Later two police officers turned up. Even in the desert they have posts everywhere. They said they are doing this for our protection. Actually we were entering a so called not save area. We never had the feeling of not being save.
Later we met a guy who is living here and he said all the Al-Quaida panic is made up by the French. I have no idea what is wrong or right, fact is we had a save trip.After the village we had to release air-pressure. The sand-dunes started. This was great. The Landrover did a good job. Only on steep dunes the engine was not powerful enough to climp to the top, so we had to go backwards and around the dunes, but we were never stuck. The engine was working on the upper temperature-limit. At the end of the day, finally we got stuck on a flat bit with really soft and deep sand. No problem, Odo parked the other car in range of the winch. We hooked the cable on and voilá, easy, with some help from the engine we winched ourselves out. It was now time to look for a place to spend the night. Moktar led us off the track into the dunes. We had dinner and even some cans of beer. If you have never spend a night in the desert you cannot imagine the silence. I had always this song from Simon and Garfunkel in my mind; the sound of silence. And the stars, so clear, so close. But than in the middle of the night; surprise. A train. In this silence the noise of the train was infernal. Some of us thought it is armagaddon. I thought in the desert it might get very cold at night, but we still had 15°C in the morning. Sure during the day it was raising again up to 30°C. When everything was packed I wanted to start the car......nothing. Not fireing. Ok, I tryed to bled the fuel system but there was no air in it. Anyway I tryed a couple of times but still nothing. I could see with my inner eye the two pistons in the injection-pump. I was sure they were stuck. But to open up an injection-pump in all the sand is not a good idea. We tryed to tow the car to give the engine more raves but we couldn´t even get it moving. Plan B. I had a second injection-pump in the spare parts compartment. After one hour the pump was changed and the car was starting. What a release. We went on, dune after dune after dune. I remember when we climbed the first dune we were like yeah-hey a sand dune but after two days it was just like aargh another sand-dune. We were passing another village and every maybe three hours a police post. And camels, I don´t know what these camels are eating but we met many camel herders. In the late afternoon I started to feel bad. And it got worse and worse. By nightfall we were still a couple of hours away from Atar our destination. My stomach was very bad and I became fever. I had to do some emergancy stops to jump into the bushes, diarrhea. I drove as long as I could but at one stage I hit something underneeth and I just couldn´t go on driving. The others realized we are not longer behind them and turned round. As soon as I saw them I layed down in the back of the car. Ralph took over my car. I explained him how to use the gear-box and he did a very good job driving the car the last bit into Atar to the camp-side Bab Sahara. I was shivering and had fever-dreams when we arrived. To be honest I cannot remember much what happened, but Cora, one of the camp-site owners took care about me. The next day Cora asked me to move into one of the little houses they had on the camp-site. It was surprisingly fresh inside. The others and Lena went to Chinguetti to spent new years eve. Moktar our guide stayed with me on the camp-site. I spent the day sleeping and reading.The camp-site Bab Sahara is owned by Just from Holland and by Cora from Germany. If you ever come close to the area this is a good place to relaxe. They are staying since 14years and turned a peace of desert into an oasis with many trees. The coordinates of the camp-sites are N20°31´157´´/W13°03´723´´. Atar is very close and reachable by foot. We stayed five days. When the others came back from Chinguetti we had a nice dinner together. The morning of the second of Janurary it was time to say good-bye. Ralpf, Odo and Laurance, thanx very much for the nice time we had and a save trip back home. We decided to take it easy. I had to get my force back. One day Lena was taking everything out of the car and cleaned all out, there was sand everywhere. When I felt better I had to check the car.
The link underneeth leads you to the picassa photo store
Super, da kriegt man ja richtig Lust auf Afrika, wieder liebe Grüße und gute Weiterfahrt !!!
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