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.