Mauritania (1)

As we sat and contemplated thoughts of jacking the whole adventure in we remembered that Faith’s husband Tom had worked here for some time. We borrowed a sim card from one of the hotel staff (which subsequently turned out to be, ‘hired a sim card’) and managed to call Tom in the UK. In three hours we had a mechanic check the truck and were lounging infront of satellite telly with a cold drink.

We spent the next three days in Noukchott working on the truck but with good food, a cold beer and air conditioning in the en-suite bedroom. We made good friends with two of Tom’s mates in the house and spent late evenings drinking G&T’s and relating stories. In all, it was the break we needed to refuel the spirits and recompose for the next chapter in our voyage.


			The first thing we did when we got to Mauritania was to get fleeced. It was so impressive to watch a real master conman in full flow. The protagonist was a young Arabic lad selling vehicle insurance who, through fast-talking and slight of hand, managed to get us to pay 6000 Ouigias (around £40) for insurance whilst handing us an official receipt for 4000 and pocketing the balance, we were 10km up the road before we knew what hit us. Welcome to Mauritania. It was now 7pm and we had been on the road for 7 hours, and since the light was beginning to fade we had thoughts of stopping, but the truck had other ideas. The temperature gauge started to rise 100, 110, 120. As we slowed, it settled down. We were still convinced we had a major problem in the engine and the thought of stopping in the middle of nowhere and not being able to start again made us make the desperate decision to keep driving through the night when the temperature was cooler to reach Nouakchott, 500km away. Jools climbed though to the back of the truck and made coffee and noodles, and we alternated the driving for the next 7 hours, arriving at Nouckchot at 2 o’clock in the morning. In total we covered 800km straight over 14hrs.

	Spirits had hit a huge low in the truck after awaking in a dusty city and having to poo in a paper bag in the truck, which I was now convinced had a knackered engine (the truck, not the paper bag). We sought refuge in the only decent looking place we could, the lobby of the Mercure hotel, cool, comfortable, and with free wireless broadband. I threatened to get a room for Jools for a few nights break if we needed to fix the engine, but at 33000 (£64) Ouigia a night it was certainly going to seriously dent the travel budget, especially since a fresh OJ cost £2.50 (remember we are now relating to Morocco OJ at 18p).

	Mauritania is dusty, the sun disappears long before it hits the horizon even though there is not a cloud in sight. The streets of Nouakchott are mainly sand and garbage, and the observable standard of living falls way short of what we have seen in Kenya, but still as a traveller there is a feast of experiences to be had.

	I still marvel at the state of the vehicles, rush hour looks something like the banger racing at Buxton raceway. No lights, no windscreen, no matter.

We left Nouakchott in a dust storm and drove East towards Aleg and Tidjikja stopping off at a fantastic site for a little bouldering.

At Tidjikja we taxied off the runway and headed for a 250km piste south to Kiffa.

The route looked substantial enough on the Michelin map, and we felt that having covered a fair few miles in Morocco on piste, then we should be fine enough for this one. However with no GPS points to guide us and, for detail of terrain the 1:4,000,000 map was next

to useless, we soon were left wondering if we were on the right track at all. We back-tracked 10km to a fork and thankfully met a local 4x4 taxi to ask directions. “Tout droit”, “tout droit” “tout droit”. Simple as that, strait on. Deciding that we needed a target to aim for we attempted to draw coordinates from the map and transfer an estimated point onto the GPS but since the only grid lines on the map were separated by 4 degrees longitude and latitude this really was a best guess estimate (these lines are approximately 300 miles apart).

The driving was not too difficult but by missing a sign for deviation that was written in Arabic, we slumped into a sand pit. Remarkably right next to a bloke with a shovel, he shifted a little sand from under the wheels and more remarkably, he was the first Mauritanian that refused money! We reversed out, and again back-tracked once more, and camped for the night just after the deviation.


	The next day we dropped down a steep rocky pass into a sand filled valley, we dropped the tyre pressures to 30psi and after 6km reached a small village. After several attempts to pronounce the village name we were heading for, we were desperately disappointed to see waving hands back the way we had come. After climbing back out of the sandy valley the going became rockier, and so in fear of damaging the tyres we spent an hour re-inflating to 45psi. Continuing in what we felt must be the right direction, the occasional nomad kept pointing “tout droit”.

Eventually we arrived at a gap between two huge boulders with steep rocky steps down into a sandy valley, and all we could see ahead was dunes. As we crept down we were filled with a sense of no return and after 20 yards it became obvious that after this point the fight back up would be monumentus. Somehow we managed to reverse back up the sandy gradient and slip back between the boulders to firmer ground. Backtracking once more we spotted a shepherd with a herd of goats. He repeated the company line “tout droit”, “tout droit”.

As we stood once again at the head of the dune-filled valley we felt that this might just be an irreversible move. We checked the water and fuel situation and then dived right in. The tracks turned us left of the main height of the dune field and we descended further and further until suddenly we turned a crest and corner and ground to a halt in a 30m wide dry, sand, riverbed.

Again we dropped the tyre pressures to 30psi and followed the faint tyre tracks along the soft sand for about a kilometre. There was a good covering of trees along the banks but soon the riverbed turned to huge rock slabs which descended in three foot steps until an amazing sight opened before us and the invisible river dropped into space over a huge ancient water fall. A grand canyon opened before us and was flanked on both sides by huge dune fields. At the base of the waterfall remained a round pool of water 100m below. We crawled up the line of dunes and rock, and as the light dimmed I tried to photograph what spread out before us. A photo never encapsulates what kind of huge river once cascaded over this fall, and, if huge forests once surrounded it. I was haunted by thoughts of possible major climate changes in the future and how they could alter landscapes and people. It was certainly too late to continue on, and I could think of worse places to have a campfire and roast marshmallows, also looking ahead to the dunes beyond, we knew our best chance of crossing them lay in the early morning when the sand was firmed by the night’s dew.

We were very torn the next morning between waiting for sunrise and good light to photograph the canyon and the need to make good use of the best sand conditions, so by 6.30 we had left that fantastic place and were skimming across the sand tracks making good distance.

	It was fast becoming the case that to continue forward was the better choice, but with an estimated 40km of sand before the next village the balance of fuel also became a concern. The tracks eventually disappeared up the side of a dune wall, and on inspection ahead only appeared sporadically between areas of newly formed ridges. As we sank in near the crest of the wall I started to worry that we were not going to make it. We dropped the pressure in the tyres even lower, down to 20psi and for the first time, out came the sand ladders.


	Looking ahead there was another obvious obstacle and I managed to get moving with enough momentum to clear the next short ridge, but not too much momentum! Continuing across the dune field eventually we began a second long descent, further and further, with increasing anxiety as to whether we were still heading in the right direction. Thoughts of Ray Meres survival stories kept arising but further we pressed and deeper we drove.

The driving was soft sand for another 20km and when we finally reached the village of Boumdeit it was 2 o’clock and time to find some shade.

After attempting to re-inflate the tyres our Truck-air compressor finally gave up the ghost and so we only managed 30-35psi, but our route-finding the next day took us through an additional 80km of sand before we finally happened upon a massive road which probably was the track we should have been on since Boumdeit. This road led us straight to the centre of Kiffa.

Originally we thought about spending the night here, but several frustrations and a dearth of usable cash moved us forward. In one petrol station I watched in fascination as the proprietor discussed the strength of the US dollar over the phone, whilst gnawing at the marrow of a cold bone, like a dog. The other petrol station owner got up off his prayer mat and seeing we were in a difficult situation, tried to fleece us.