Mauritania - Desert Crossings

Hello all,

Before crossing into Mauritania we had to pass through 2km of no-mans land. Surprisingly there is no main road or signs so you just have to wind your way around the tracks in what we hoped was the land mine free right direction! There were odd "car parks" scattered around with a mixture of new cars (for sale) and wrecks (not for sale), inhabited by a small group of people. Someone wanted to speak to us but with 5mins and counting until the border closed, we were not stopping for anyone. After the bribe bluff, hassle and laziness on the Moroccan side, the Mauratanian officials were quite efficent and almost friendly. The fact that the sun was about to set probably helped as they wanted to break their Ramadan fast and even the faint hope of beer could not persuade them to search our vehicle for longer. Alcohol does not exist in Mauratania.

Noadibou town is sand coloured from the roads to the squat buildings, the only splash of colour coming from the sky blue coveralls that the men wear, their heads swathed in scarves to prevent the ever prevelant dust from invading every orifice. Bumper to bumper cars honk their horns announcing their presence convincing me that the best idea was to stay in the relative calm of the auberge unless nescessary. There is rarely much to do in African towns so we stayed here for a day only to sort ourselves out. True to my promise, I rested in the auberge courtyard which was relatively sheltered from the wind and sand storms watching a man kill, skin and chop up a goat, doing my washing and reading Harry Potter. Later in the afternoon, a failed attempt to visit the Cape left us watching the orange sunset over a plethora of majestic but rusting ships on a shallow stretch of the coast. Sounds romantic until you remember the key words - sand storm.

Early in the morning Brian and I set off to buy fruit and veg. The shops, sorry shacks, reminded me of Mongolia in that you have to look inside every building to find out what it sells and rummage through every cart to find the freshest produce. Shopping this way is much more enjoyable than Tescoes even if you do have to haggle over the price every time...

In our usual fashion, it was coming on to dark by the time we left but we made it to the edge of the bird sanctuary, a couple of hours out of town before getting bogged in the sand for the first time. Excellant tent location. The wind had died down, the black night sky was full of stars and the glimpse of new moon revealed an endess expanse of desert in front of us. It was exhilerating. Then the wind picked up again and even a healthy dose of whiskey and coke provided by the S. Africans when I thought them how to play sh!thead could not help me sleep through the sandstorm in my tent. I had to wrap my scarf around my head just so I could breathe. Brian and Mark on either side of me had the edge of the tent to shield their heads in. Lucky b*stards.

To reach the main section of the bird sanctury, a national park for migratory birds, we had to cross around, over a series of sand dunes. We used GPS points and compasses to guide us through because we didnt know where the main track was. This was pretty cool. Boggin ourselves in a soft sand dune in the midday sun was not cool. Later we found out that average afternoon tempretures are 53degrees+ and 45 in the shade. Highest recorded during our stay was a whopping 62 degrees which had us all sweltering apart from Marc who is "used to living in the desert"... Fine, you can dig the car out then!

A dip in the warmish sea cooled us off and we after some bird watching - flamingoes, pelicans, herons, egrets etc, we found an excellant campsite for fishing, football and french cricket. In the morning I collected a load of scallop/mussel shells for dinner which we had with the fish the boys caught. The others didn't want to eat them at first because I couldn't say in all honesty that they would not get food poisioning from them. They looked, smelt and tasted fine to me and I had collected/stored them appropriately but I had never seen this type before. Gradually the group succommbed to this tasty sea treat which was a shame as I could have eaten them all ; ) No-one became sick.

The next day we moved location but spent in a similar way. It was good for both cars to get an idea for what they could and couldn't do in the sand before we hit the desert proper. The plan was to put the cars on the iron ore train to Adrar, central desert region because passengers could sit on top of the train. However, we had been unable to find good info on times of trains (which could take cars) and you'd be sitting inside the dusty cars instead of ontop because they were empited in Nouadibou, so Marc and I decided to drive. The Saffers and Brian hotfooted it back to town to make the train.

Marc and I are in a small desert town where luckily we find some bread and sardines for food and even a wizened carrot. After trasping around in the burning hot sand we finally ascertain that the "road" is barely a track and you follow the railway tracks. Don't go to the left handside because of, you guessed it ..... landmines. Great!

This felt like an enormous adventure. Now we were in the Sahara. The 400km, which took 2 days and 2 night, covered various desert terrain from hard gravel, to black rocks, thorny grasslands which made the landscape look green and large yellow sanddunes. The later I discovered with quite a shock after falling into a heat induced sleep. Marc was halfway up one at the time, my eyes opened to a a wall of sand. As we bounced over several more I amazed I could sleep at all. The secret for not getting bogged is speed. A concept Marc was delighted to indulge in.

The other exciting part of what was an oven-baked Kathryn journey (Marc had more fun as he was driving) was on one of the several occasions that all signs of tracks had totally disappeared and the sand was too soft to drive on. This left one solution. The train tracks. My heart was in my mouth as I constantly scanned infront and behind us for a train. We knew that there were 3 a day in both directions but not what time we could expect to see one here. These trains are the longest in the world at 2km and quite a sight to watch on passing. We had been driving for about 20mins when I spotted a train approaching us. With painstaking slowness, Marc slowed the car, changed gears and looked for a good place to leave the tracks, luckily the drop wasn't too great but there were a load of the all wooden sleepers in the way. What an adrenalin rush! After the train had passed we returned to the tracks to take photos. On mine, I have my ear pressed against to the track listening for trains.

Camping in the middle of nowhere in these odd conditions, especially as it was now just me and Marc, I felt like an explorer or a pioneer. Of course, we were neither and despite the population of Mauritania being only 3 million, the harsh nature of the place means that if you can drive there, other people are not far behind.

Hope you are all well and happy,
Lots of love
kx