18th December 2012

Sand, Camels and Mad Max

Well now! We are now getting on with the serious business of travelling in Africa and we have moved down to the bottom of Morocco and into proper desert which is now very warm. Now I don’t say that to bring out envy but it does mean we are making progress. However in order to highlight what I have to put up with my ‘esteemed life partner’

On the last really chilly day we had we were driving down the road. Ping said, ‘It’s really draughty in here, there is a cold draft getting in’. I checked my door it was shut tight, Ping checked her door it was shut tight.  Still she complained that she was cold  we looked high and low checked the sliding door and the vents eventually  I had to stop to have a good look round, still found nothing . After sometime Ping, looking rather sheepish said, ‘my window is open!’  So we wound up her window and she was happy again.

We have driven down to the edge of Western Sahara.  The mountains gave way to a vast expanse of rocky desert and that in turn has turned into the Sahara with fine sand piled in drifts and dunes everywhere, it is truly beautiful and I feel this is what I came here for. In way it’s a shame that this soon became rocky once more and has kind of changed and changed again since then.

Needing to cover a lot of distance, we’ve had to drive at night on a couple of occasions.  A general rule is that it is not wise to do this as there are a myriad of reasons why you shouldn’t drive on these profoundly dark roads. Even right out in the desert there are pedestrians. Camels and other livestock are often to be found and of course unlit trucks and buses that only turn their lights on if another vehicle comes towards them. However, driving through the desert during the night was indeed a surreal experience, the darkness was all around us, but it wasn’t spooky or frightening. There was nothing to see but distance lights from other vehicles. There was no one around, but we didn’t feel unsafe at any time, it was exhilarating!

Due to the delay caused by the repairs it was necessary to travel quite fast in order to clear Mauritania before our visa expires. So we drove all the way down to border with Mauritania in one day, over 600km through the desert. Our crossing into Mauritania was quite an adventure and, I suggest, not for the faint hearted.

So here goes.  We arrived at the border at about 4pm before the border closed and guess what? I found we had another puncture. So I had to change a wheel which seemed to prevent us getting through that afternoon and we started to prepare to camp the night.  

Just a word or two about our tyres.

Before we left we bought  7 tyres from a company that supplies "Unused MOD surplus Tyres. We trusted VASS & Co to provide us with what we paid for.

They were cheaper than new but they were not cheap we bought new tubes and spares all our punctures with one exception seems to have been caused by grit inside the tyre. I believed that this may have been caused by carelessness when fitted by VASS +Co.  I emailed them  to point this out and to invite the comments of the management  They did not have the courtesy to reply.  We spent in excess of £500 and informed them that we needed them for trans Africa travel.  There now I have that off my chest  maybe someone from Vass may care to respond.

Another Bloody Puncture!

I decided that as diesel is so cheap in Western Sahara (20-25pence per litre) I would fill up using all my remaining currency. I chatted to a couple of very moody guys there who were clearly there for some ‘unconventional purpose’ they were very helpful and pointed out that although there are very few people waiting now, the road will fill for miles in the morning, with people trying to get through. It would be no problem to get the police to allow us through the Morocco side, before they open at 9am - just pay the cop 10 euros.

Whilst I filled up, unbeknown to me, Ping had gone up to a cop and asked if we would still be allowed to pass through tonight. He said no problem, but it quickly became clear that we were now committed to going through and that this was part of the strictly unofficial 10 euro scheme. There really was little to be done but to go with the flow, and at 6pm we passed through the Moroccan border without a hitch. After going through all the checks, there was one guard who drops a chain for us to pass. I swear the expression on his face said ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’

                                      The Badlands.

We passed through the gate and the scene which greeted us as we went through was truly astonishing! We were about to pass through an area known as “no man’s land” that could easily have been part of one those ‘post-apocalyptic movies’. The place littered with blue plastic bags and bottles and the totally barren desert landscape (reputedly once laid with landmines), littered with abandoned vehicles of all kinds completely stripped of parts, fires burning to keep people warm, all kinds of apparently unscrupulous activities going on, people changing money, emptying goods out from their hiding places and hiding other items, and rather bizarrely thousands of old smashed televisions everywhere.  There was sand to get stuck in and rocks to get hung up on - this was an unbelievable drive and only 4 km long! We had initially decided that we would sleep by the Mauritanian side and pass through in the morning.

Well, sod that!

As we arrived we saw that the immigration and customs post were apparently still open and it was getting dark. Again we were rather taken along by the tide and we went through all the formalities in a period of intense chaos and almost total darkness that lasted less than an hour. Ping said she wasn’t frightened at all, but actually found it quite an adventure even though I had no idea where she was at any given time. I experienced a kind of low grade terror. We decided to camp there and then in the border area and drive on in the morning. Wow that was intense!

We have since driven across the very impoverished and in some ways quite hostile countryside. There are many police checks which seem to have very little obvious purpose. These checks were sometimes miles apart and sometimes as near as a couple of hundred metres apart. They solemnly examine our documents and then wave us on.

High Street Noudhibou

The capital city, Noukchott, really resembles a cowboy town and is quite a strange environment.  All this seems to indicate that this not a good place but that is not so, nearly everyone we have met has been pleasant and charming, despite looking terribly sinister through our western eyes as they all wear, both men and women, a scarf covering their faces together with dark glasses.

We have now driven over 2000 kilometres of the Sahara and at the time of writing we are resting 15kms from the capital, in a most beautiful place by the Atlantic Ocean, in the company of some new friends who are staying in a nomad’s tent on the beach. The food is absolutely delicious, fresh fish barbequed to perfection!

                            Peace and harmony at Les Sultanas

Well, we have only three days to get across to Senegal, so having rested for a day; we are off in the morning to another crossing that promises much of the chaos of the last one.

We are indeed lucky to be constantly surrounded by such beauty of the Atlantic, the mountains and this variety of different deserts.

Happy Christmas to all. 

Love Ping and Noel 

We do love to hear from you all. 

Email us on noelbow51@gmail.com or pingbow54@gmail.com