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BURIED IN NO MAN'S LAND!
Okay, we'll admit to feeling somewhat trepidatious about travelling in Mauritania. We viewed the country as stepping out of our comfort zone, with it being the first country on this journey that we had not previously visited. With the Foreign Office advising against all but essential travel, the French family murdered by terrorists in late 2007, the resulting cancellation of the Dakar rally due to the security situation, and the recent political coup, we kept thinking maybe entering was not the wisest... especially when we found out it is illegal to import or buy alcohol (with the exception of a couple of bars in the capital where the world's most expensive beer costs about 5 pounds!) But having thought long and hard we decided to try to be gung-ho as crossing Mauritania is essential for us to get to Cape Town!
So having finally mended our puncture, we arrived at the Moroccan / Mauritanian border at 3:00pm, intending to follow all other seasoned overlander's travel advice and rest up for the night, feeling refreshed when we crossed in the morning to deal with any bureaucracy... well, best intentions don't always go to plan. The border "town" consisted of a dingy hotel... and that was it. So we decided to hit the border there and then, and began shuffling through our paperwork, whilst chatting to the occupants of the only other vehicle around, an overland Hilton on wheels driven by an American couple, Don and Kim.
At 3:30pm we handed our passports over to Moroccan immigration and waited... and waited. It took us about 1.5 hours to actually leave Moroccan soil, which was pretty straightforward but just required patience and time. And then we hit the 5km stretch of No Man's Land between Morocco and Mauritania, a heavily mined stretch that belongs to neither country. We had read about the importance of sticking to the piste as each year people who stray from the path are blown up, and we rather naively thought there would be signs to direct us or the piste would be clearly identifiable... we were wrong. Once the Moroccan tarmac ends, the land is litttered with abandoned and blown-up vehicles, and it certainly felt like we were entering a war zone.
So letting Don and Kim lead the way (sorry guys, using you as the guinea pigs!), the piste headed off in all directions, in parts disintergrating into soft, churned-up sand. So our choices were to move to harder ground and risk a landmine, or get buried following the well-used tracks... so buried it was. Allison got off and walked most of it, trying to lighten the load (and she'll admit to now being terrified of riding in sand given the amount of spills we have had in it), and so watched Mark have our hardest off to date, where he buried The Camel's rear and fell off hitting rock. He was fine, but the rear pannier had taken a whack on the inside that later needed some of Mark's panel-beating skills, and one of our "rocket launchers" (as the Moroccan police called them, but where we store our tools) sported a dent. But the two of us could not haul The Camel back up by ourselves; luckily having overtaken Don and Kim at some point, Don came to the rescue and helped us heave her upright. Learning what hard work that was, Don quickly sped off (no hard feelings!), leaving Mark to try to paddle through. Quickly buried again, we both had to dig and push, with Allison then jogging alongside and pushing to get the beast through, being showered with sand as a result. Below pic shows just how deep we buried her... still think we were lucky to get The Camel out of that.
What a workout! We finally arrived at the Mauritanian border gate with perspiration running off us, but feeling triumphant to have made it!
So we joined the queue of vehicles, mostly Mauritanians returning to their homeland with stolen or purchased European cars smuggled in with Mauritanian plates and from what we observed, some jerry cans of fuel for customs. Finally reaching immigration, our visas were stamped in, and then customs stamped the carnet, returning it to us and demanding a 10 euro "tax", our first requested bribe of the trip. All of our earlier discussions on how to handle these scenarios went out the window, when faced with a surly official, exhausted, hot and dirty, twilight falling and still another 40km to ride before reaching the city of Nouadhibou. A half-hearted "...but it's only a motorbike, surely it should be half-price" was refused, and the 10 euros was handed over so we could get out of there. So changing some money on the black market for the first time, and ignoring the soldier telling us we must buy vehicle insurance at the border or we would be arrested at the next checkpoint, we headed off into Mauritania.
Immediately we were struck by how Mauritanians appear devout Muslims, with buses and cars all pulled over by the sides of roads for the evening prayer. We were waved through the three police roadblocks with no issues, so with Don and Kim following us (nervously watching us dodge the traffic as we arrived in the city, the taxis like to get close and these vehicles are seriously dilapitated) we all found a campsite (having to put our tent up for the first time in Africa due to the increased costs here) and went out for some good Chinese, what a relief having been on the road for eleven hours. We've since heard that our border crossing was one of the fastest, taking just over three hours, with other overlanders taking between four and up to six!
So we made it, and in the next post will give you an update on our Mauritanian experiences.
Mark and Allison xx
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