Nouakchott, Mauritania

We have reached the capital of Mauritania, and civilisation of a sort, after four wonderful days of desert driving. Western Sahara became emptier, the checkpoints fewer until we reached the border, the place all bad officials are sent for punishment. It took an hour for them to stamp the passports, then a customs check, then Officer with Big Hat check, then final check from Man in Uniform Under Tree.

 First Camp

There followed about 5km of appalling wasteland, the track unmaintained due to bad relations between Morocco and Mauritania. The surface is rock and sand, and for added interest, runs through a minefield. Naturally this is where Land Rover chose to get bogged. We risked being highly embarrassed by the French convoy of 2WD vehicles we knew was following, so we were very fast with shovel and sand ladders. 

[ P.S. When we reached Nouakchott we heard the news that another Discovery, driven by two French men, hit a land mine less than a week previously, and the passenger died; apparently due to a navigation error in the border zone].

On the Mauritanian side, the routine was repeated, the officers friendly, barefoot in huts full of flies. First hut asked for a present; second sold visas; third sold customs clearance (and a free rundown on all the Irish football players they knew). Insurance would wait - we were free, and wasted no time getting to the coast and a nice spot on the beach to camp.

There is a well paved road to the South now, but the next day we left it find a camping spot behind a dune 6km from the road - the best spot yet, with shelter and a line of dunes for Jason to run in the morning. 

We continued off-road the next day, knowing that if we turned East we could pick up the paved road. We made about 65kms, occasionally getting stuck, but nothing too bad. Sometimes there were tyres or other markers of an old piste, but with the new road, it is not in use much.

It was worth the diversion for a meeting with a desert traveller, dressed in sky blue on a fine camel. He jumped down to shake hands. We had no language in common, but he accepted an apple, then went to his camel and took a metal bowl and rinsed it, then half filled it with camel milk. It was quite nice, a bit sweet and tangy. I took some Polaroids of his camel, and he insisted on one of himself without the beast and was delighted with the result.

Later we ran into serious dunes and had to back track, using the GPS. In the end, when we got to the tarred road we were only 40km from our morning camp, but had a great Sahara day. Now we will stay overnight to get our Mali visas in the morning, and turn East.