It has to be said, and it frequently is, that Timbuktu is not the most pleasant place on earth. There is nothing particularly wrong with it, except for the large numbers of hawkers and 'guides' who have obvioulsy been spolied by all the rich tourists and don't understand that not everyone wants to be interrupted every five minutes by people trying to sell identical bracelets. There are several interesting mosques - in the same Sahel style as the one at Djenné - and there's the desert. But even that is not as nice looking as the desert by Chinguetti in Mauritania. I ended up staying for a day - I'd have left earlier if the bush taxis didn't all leave at 6am, and I'd been able to find some postcards a bit quicker. For somewhere as iconic as Timbuktu, postcards were oddly hard to find.
I left the city in an old Land Cruiser bush taxi. On the ferry across the river I got talking to a Britsh couple who were on a two week package tour of Mali, as they were in a privately hired 4x4 they ended up seeing a lot more of the country that I did in less time. The bush taxi stopped at the main cross country road and I took a local minibus from there. Despite being only 180km to Sevaré, this took about six hours. At every small settlement we stopped to pick up and drop off passengers and merchandise for the market in a village just outside of Sevaré. We also frequently stopped to top the radiator with water, the engine with oil, and to do running repairs as is the norm for sub-Saharan public transport.
After a night in Sevaré I took the bus to Bobo-Dioulasso ('Bobo'), officially the second city of Burkina Faso. But in reality an overgrown village with pleasantly tree-lined and traffic-free roads and a population of themost relaxed and friendly people I've ever come across.
Sunday 30 November 2008
Thursday 27 November 2008
Part 7 - From there to Timbuktu
Getting from Kiffa in Mauritania could have been a problem. There is public transport but it's pretty bad - even by African standards. So, I was extremely grateful to be offered a lift by the Afrikaners, as far as I wanted - or as they put it 'as far as you can put up sharing the back seat with the kids'.
I ended up spending about a week with them, and would have continued but thought that I had better give them some space and that arriving in Timbuktu in an air-conditioned Land Cruiser would be just too easy. Also, I may do this trip again, but driving myself, and I would not likely have another easy chance to do the river trip.
From Kiffa we took the piste instead of the main, tarmac route - another advantage of going in a private 4x4. Although it took about 8 hours to drive 200km it was extremely enjoyable. At the first village across the Malian border we were advised that there was trouble ahead; a couple of locals had been robbed at gun-point on the road south. We were invited to camp out in the village school yard - I slept in the classroom, and we had a pleasant evening there. The Chef de Police for the village, came along and had a glass of wine and then mad his excuses, but he had obviously asked the villagers to respect our privacy, which we were extremely grateful. While it may seem to be missing the point of travelling, having scores of children crowding round at every stop, shouting 'cadeau cadeau', or trying to sell things all the time can be very tiring.
In the morning we were told that the way was safe - an army truck had gone through just beforehand - and we left for the final 80km to Kayes in western Mali.
The journey from Mauritania to Mali saw another change in the scenery and also the buildings. While most of Mauritania is basically desert, the far south, and most of Mali is greener. The buildins in Mauri were generally bland flat-roofed structures - presumably mostly concrete, but there were also lots of square tents - about 20ft long with vertical sides about 5ft high and a shallo pitched 'roof', the material - not sure what it was - is all sewn together and supported by two wooden posts in the centre in the form of an 'A'. The sides are held up by attatching ropes to trees, stakes and anything else that's handy.
Going towards Mali, the villages started to become more stereotyically African, with round mud huts and pitched roofs. Although the cities were still primarilly of low concrete buildings.
The other differents is in people's appearance; in northern Mauritania the people look mostly 'Arabic', by the time we entered Mali, we were definitely in Black Africa. In the desert regions, most men - Arabic or black wear turbans (howli - not sure of spelling) and over their normal clothes (shirt or t-shirt and trousers) they wear 'boubous' (again, I need to check spelling but pronouned boo-boo), which superficially looks like a large sheet with a head hole in, about 5 feet wide and ankle length. Obviously, it's a bit more stylish than that, and presumably it's effectiver at keeping out the direct sun - and dust. However, being the same width as outstretched arms, does mean that the men frequently have to flap their arms about to try and get them untangled. The women mostly wear muslim-type clothes, but not the all-over conservative chadors(?) seen in the middle east, they are usually brightly coloured as well. In the south of Mauritania, and into Mali, the women wear either western clothes or African dress; and despite being Muslim, these dresses do make the most of their figures.
Anyway, in Kayes we caught up with the German Unimog family and they seemed to be really grateful that their sone now had some other children to play with. From Kayes, we headed off to the capital, Bamako, and stayed there for a couple of days to catch up on washing etc, to give the children a break, and to get a Burkino Faso visa. The city is a vast sprawling mass and, to be honest we saw very little of it outside of the campsite located on the south back of the river Niger - which at that point is about half a mile wide.
We then continued east, spending one night camped out in an agricultural research station in the middle of nowhere. Drinking Morrocan red wine while discussing African politics, watching the shooting stars and listening to the jackals was one of the most pleasant evenings on the trip for me.
We drove through Ségou - a pretty town by the river, that seemed to be base for a lot of charity and NGOs. Oddly, in dusty less appealing towns there were markedly fewer such organisationsin evidence.
Travelling east, the building styles changed again - many buildings were made of large mu bricks that were then rendered each year with more mud. This thick covering gave the buildigs soft rounded edges and a very distinctive appearance. Mosques tended to be taller than one storey, and so had wooden posts sticking out of the mud for the builders to stand on to apply the mud each year, and the minarets of the mosques were more conical shape. Also, as we went east, we started seeing lots of small granaries - squat cylindrical huts, usually bulging outwards towards the base, and with straw 'chinese hats' as roofs. Very picturesque, but unfortunately the camera was not working properly.
Djenné is one of Mali's 'must sees', it's a small dusty town set on a sort of island in the middle of the Niger inland delta, but it's attraction is the mosque. It's the largest mud building in the world and is a world heitage site.
The final leg of my journey in the comfort of the Land Cruiser was to Sevaré, a small and unremarkable town close to Mopti; a large, interesting but chaotic town on the river that most people prefer not to stay in. The guesthouse in Sevaré was run by an English woman and her Dogon husband. It was a very pleasant place to stay - tranquil, with a courtyard with plenty of shade. The following morning I said goodbye to Jean and Hannelie, and to Gunnar and Sonja as they all headed off to Timbuktu in their vehicles. I took a local bus to Mopti and, after a bit of asking around and the usual haggling, I secured a space on a pinasse that was heading down the river the following day. Pinasses are wooden boats that provide most of the transport along the river, this one was was about 60 feet long had a beam of 12 feet, and a draft of about 4 feet - when loaded. The boat had a canopy, made from bamboo and tarpaulins, and the open sides allowed a pleasant breeze across the 'deck'.
The boat was carrying large sacks of cement, sand, rice, millet, and charcoal (on the roof) to Timbuktu and the villages en route. There were about 50 passengers as we left, and when we arrived in Timbuktu 36 hours later there were probably about ten remaining. At each village the boat stopped in the river and passengers and goods boarded and alighted by the local pirougues that were paddled or poled from the shore. Also, people selling bread, water, oranges, cakes and god knows what else came along to meet the boat to sell to the passengers. The passengers were mostly carrying large amounts of luggage as well, there were a few goats, a 'bunches' of live chickens, water canisters, an old blackboard, a huge pile of corrugated zinc sheeting, and dozens of bundles of belongings and purchases stuffed into the ubiquitous woven plastic sacks. Virtually everyone had a radio with them as well - a particularly good hawker had had a successful morning's work as the boat waited for departure from Mopti. The trip was actually quite pleasant - despite sleeping on a sack of cement, and having the same hideous tape of monotonous Islamic chanting being played back to back. While Mali produces some fantastic music, the person sitting next to me only had the one tape for his new radio cassette player and was determined to get the most from it.
The toilet consisted of a hole in the bottom of the boat (where the hull raises above the water line, in gondola style) at the extreme rear behind the engine and in a very inaccessible place. The men did the 'number ones' over the side of the boat, not sure what the women did. Food consisted of rice cooked with spices and whatever fish they caught. Which for the first three meals was very little, I had a small fish head on the first night, which I discretely gave back to the river. For the last meal I did actually have a whole fish - only slightly larger than the average goldfish, but a pleasant change all the same. Tea - short, strong and sweet as in most of north Africa was in plentiful supply.
We finally arrived in Kouriome, the port for Timbuktu, at two in the morning. I'd been prepared to sleep on the river bank, but there was actually a 'bus' waiting. As the bus was an ancient land-rover, I decided I'd take this and arrive in Timbuktu in some style. The car was loaded up with about a ton of rice in huge sacks, and half a dozen passengers and our luggage, and driven very slowly long the causeway through the rice paddies to the old city. I reckon we were doing about 20 miles an hour, difficult to say as the spedo wasn't working (very few do in Africa), and as the steering wheel didn't seem to work very well either I was happy that we were going so slowly. After waking up the security gaurd of 'Hotel Camping de la Paix' I dragged a foam mattress ontop the roof and slept under the stars for the few remaining hours of darkness.
I ended up spending about a week with them, and would have continued but thought that I had better give them some space and that arriving in Timbuktu in an air-conditioned Land Cruiser would be just too easy. Also, I may do this trip again, but driving myself, and I would not likely have another easy chance to do the river trip.
From Kiffa we took the piste instead of the main, tarmac route - another advantage of going in a private 4x4. Although it took about 8 hours to drive 200km it was extremely enjoyable. At the first village across the Malian border we were advised that there was trouble ahead; a couple of locals had been robbed at gun-point on the road south. We were invited to camp out in the village school yard - I slept in the classroom, and we had a pleasant evening there. The Chef de Police for the village, came along and had a glass of wine and then mad his excuses, but he had obviously asked the villagers to respect our privacy, which we were extremely grateful. While it may seem to be missing the point of travelling, having scores of children crowding round at every stop, shouting 'cadeau cadeau', or trying to sell things all the time can be very tiring.
In the morning we were told that the way was safe - an army truck had gone through just beforehand - and we left for the final 80km to Kayes in western Mali.
The journey from Mauritania to Mali saw another change in the scenery and also the buildings. While most of Mauritania is basically desert, the far south, and most of Mali is greener. The buildins in Mauri were generally bland flat-roofed structures - presumably mostly concrete, but there were also lots of square tents - about 20ft long with vertical sides about 5ft high and a shallo pitched 'roof', the material - not sure what it was - is all sewn together and supported by two wooden posts in the centre in the form of an 'A'. The sides are held up by attatching ropes to trees, stakes and anything else that's handy.
Going towards Mali, the villages started to become more stereotyically African, with round mud huts and pitched roofs. Although the cities were still primarilly of low concrete buildings.
The other differents is in people's appearance; in northern Mauritania the people look mostly 'Arabic', by the time we entered Mali, we were definitely in Black Africa. In the desert regions, most men - Arabic or black wear turbans (howli - not sure of spelling) and over their normal clothes (shirt or t-shirt and trousers) they wear 'boubous' (again, I need to check spelling but pronouned boo-boo), which superficially looks like a large sheet with a head hole in, about 5 feet wide and ankle length. Obviously, it's a bit more stylish than that, and presumably it's effectiver at keeping out the direct sun - and dust. However, being the same width as outstretched arms, does mean that the men frequently have to flap their arms about to try and get them untangled. The women mostly wear muslim-type clothes, but not the all-over conservative chadors(?) seen in the middle east, they are usually brightly coloured as well. In the south of Mauritania, and into Mali, the women wear either western clothes or African dress; and despite being Muslim, these dresses do make the most of their figures.
Anyway, in Kayes we caught up with the German Unimog family and they seemed to be really grateful that their sone now had some other children to play with. From Kayes, we headed off to the capital, Bamako, and stayed there for a couple of days to catch up on washing etc, to give the children a break, and to get a Burkino Faso visa. The city is a vast sprawling mass and, to be honest we saw very little of it outside of the campsite located on the south back of the river Niger - which at that point is about half a mile wide.
We then continued east, spending one night camped out in an agricultural research station in the middle of nowhere. Drinking Morrocan red wine while discussing African politics, watching the shooting stars and listening to the jackals was one of the most pleasant evenings on the trip for me.
We drove through Ségou - a pretty town by the river, that seemed to be base for a lot of charity and NGOs. Oddly, in dusty less appealing towns there were markedly fewer such organisationsin evidence.
Travelling east, the building styles changed again - many buildings were made of large mu bricks that were then rendered each year with more mud. This thick covering gave the buildigs soft rounded edges and a very distinctive appearance. Mosques tended to be taller than one storey, and so had wooden posts sticking out of the mud for the builders to stand on to apply the mud each year, and the minarets of the mosques were more conical shape. Also, as we went east, we started seeing lots of small granaries - squat cylindrical huts, usually bulging outwards towards the base, and with straw 'chinese hats' as roofs. Very picturesque, but unfortunately the camera was not working properly.
Djenné is one of Mali's 'must sees', it's a small dusty town set on a sort of island in the middle of the Niger inland delta, but it's attraction is the mosque. It's the largest mud building in the world and is a world heitage site.
The final leg of my journey in the comfort of the Land Cruiser was to Sevaré, a small and unremarkable town close to Mopti; a large, interesting but chaotic town on the river that most people prefer not to stay in. The guesthouse in Sevaré was run by an English woman and her Dogon husband. It was a very pleasant place to stay - tranquil, with a courtyard with plenty of shade. The following morning I said goodbye to Jean and Hannelie, and to Gunnar and Sonja as they all headed off to Timbuktu in their vehicles. I took a local bus to Mopti and, after a bit of asking around and the usual haggling, I secured a space on a pinasse that was heading down the river the following day. Pinasses are wooden boats that provide most of the transport along the river, this one was was about 60 feet long had a beam of 12 feet, and a draft of about 4 feet - when loaded. The boat had a canopy, made from bamboo and tarpaulins, and the open sides allowed a pleasant breeze across the 'deck'.
The boat was carrying large sacks of cement, sand, rice, millet, and charcoal (on the roof) to Timbuktu and the villages en route. There were about 50 passengers as we left, and when we arrived in Timbuktu 36 hours later there were probably about ten remaining. At each village the boat stopped in the river and passengers and goods boarded and alighted by the local pirougues that were paddled or poled from the shore. Also, people selling bread, water, oranges, cakes and god knows what else came along to meet the boat to sell to the passengers. The passengers were mostly carrying large amounts of luggage as well, there were a few goats, a 'bunches' of live chickens, water canisters, an old blackboard, a huge pile of corrugated zinc sheeting, and dozens of bundles of belongings and purchases stuffed into the ubiquitous woven plastic sacks. Virtually everyone had a radio with them as well - a particularly good hawker had had a successful morning's work as the boat waited for departure from Mopti. The trip was actually quite pleasant - despite sleeping on a sack of cement, and having the same hideous tape of monotonous Islamic chanting being played back to back. While Mali produces some fantastic music, the person sitting next to me only had the one tape for his new radio cassette player and was determined to get the most from it.
The toilet consisted of a hole in the bottom of the boat (where the hull raises above the water line, in gondola style) at the extreme rear behind the engine and in a very inaccessible place. The men did the 'number ones' over the side of the boat, not sure what the women did. Food consisted of rice cooked with spices and whatever fish they caught. Which for the first three meals was very little, I had a small fish head on the first night, which I discretely gave back to the river. For the last meal I did actually have a whole fish - only slightly larger than the average goldfish, but a pleasant change all the same. Tea - short, strong and sweet as in most of north Africa was in plentiful supply.
We finally arrived in Kouriome, the port for Timbuktu, at two in the morning. I'd been prepared to sleep on the river bank, but there was actually a 'bus' waiting. As the bus was an ancient land-rover, I decided I'd take this and arrive in Timbuktu in some style. The car was loaded up with about a ton of rice in huge sacks, and half a dozen passengers and our luggage, and driven very slowly long the causeway through the rice paddies to the old city. I reckon we were doing about 20 miles an hour, difficult to say as the spedo wasn't working (very few do in Africa), and as the steering wheel didn't seem to work very well either I was happy that we were going so slowly. After waking up the security gaurd of 'Hotel Camping de la Paix' I dragged a foam mattress ontop the roof and slept under the stars for the few remaining hours of darkness.
Tuesday 18 November 2008
Part 6 - Mauritania.
I ended up spending a couple of days in Nouadhibou. Far longer than it deserved, but was handy to get washing done, anbd just relax for a bit. The Norwegian Cyclist was concerned that the bike would become a hindrance. In particular there's an infamous train journey from Nouadhibou to the desert that could prove problematic. Not far from the 'Hotel Camping' was a shanty town, and after getting the puncture fixed we wheeled the bike around to the shanty and gave it to a woman doing washing outside her shack. Hopefully it will be useful to her or she can sell it on to someone. Anyway she seemed grateful, if only slightly suprised.
The train. Michael Palin's done the trip in his Sahara series, and there'e a lot of other accounts of the journey. Basically it's an iron ore train. A 2km long iron ore train. With a couple of carriages and other wagons on the back to serve the few communities out in the desert. The Norwegian Non-Cyclist and myself got to the patch of ground that is in lieu of a station rather late - we thought the train left a couple of hours later than it did - just as the endless stream of wagons was trunndling past. Suddenly there was a series of violent clankings and the train came to a halt, with the carriages bouncing back and forth slightly at the end of over a mile of wagons. The scrum began - we tried to get on the first of the two carriages, these are essentially metal boxes with odd porthole windows, but apparently these were for people who'd got there early and actually bought tickets before. We eventually managed to fight our way onto the last carriage. This looked like a relatively normal looking European coach that had the luxury fittings removed; such as the lights - it was 8pm and pitch black - heating, toilet doors, and a selection of windows. To compensate for these deficiancies, there was someone with a portable stove and food, a vast quantity of luggage, and a live goat. We managed to find just enough space on some seats and had an interesting journey. At frequent intervals people came around with Mautitanian tea (strong gunpowder green tea made into a syrup, served boiling hot in espresso quantities), macaroni, biscuits and other snacks. The other peope in the compartment were freindly - and it was actuallky an enjoyable experience. Although the violent lateral jolts and alarming rockin from side-to-side weren't so good. And being kicked out if the train at 6am in the dark at some desert outpost was also not so pleasant.
From this outpost, Choum, we and 18 other people and their luggage, and 3 vast and leaking canisters of diesel were ferried the two hours across the desert tracks and over a range of low mountains into Atar, the central town of the Adrar mountains and the main tourist region of Mauritania.
After a bit of hassle and being led to grotty auberges outside of town we managed to find a pleasant place run by a friendly Frenchman. I stayed there a couple of days and then spent a day in a small desert town about 100 km away called Chinguetti. Although famous for a number of ancient manuscripts held there, for me the best thing was the scenery. To the east of the town is the largest stretch of sand in the Sahara - while much of the desert is bare rock or huge tracts of gravel beds, this area was dune country. I went for a walk along the dried up river bed (wadi, or oued) climbed a few dunes and wandered through a pretty oasis village and back to the auberge. A fantastic walk, although rather hot and I did get a sunburnt nose. I blame this on the malarial prophylaxis that apparently can cause the skin to become sun-sensitive, but in reality it was just me being stupid.
The taxi-brousse (bush taxi, generally very old mercedes saloons that 7 passengers are squeezed into) had problems on the way back to Atar. A combination of the corrugated desert piste and the enthusiastic driver caused the gaiter holding the front shock absorber to split, so the top of the shock was trying to pound its way through the bonnet. It took numerous stops and attempts to tie the shock down wth rope to cope with the deadly road/driver combination, and just as I thought it was sorted we got a puncture. Fortunately a passing taxi had a jack so we were able to carry on to Atar. The following day I got a lift wih the auberge owner to the capital, Nouakchott. This was in a battered old van that had problems with its alternator and fuel feed. Luckily we were going in convoy with another ex-pat so after pushing the van into a field and paying a nomad to keep an eye on it, and after discreetly transferring the four cases of alcohol into the other car we continued on our way. Mauritania is almost a dry country, and it's illegal for most people to import or transport alcohol around the country. So I was slightly apprehensive about sitting in the back of the van on a foan mattress carefully positioned to hide the booze from the eyes of the policemen at the numerous checkpoints.
In Nouakchott (NKTT) I got dropped off at Auberge Menata, a pleasant place in the centre of the capital, with an enclosed courtyard for overland vehicles. Over the next couple of days an asortment of 'quatre-quatres' (4x4s), camper vans and the blue Unimog arrived. I spent one evening at the Port au Peche with the Unimog couple watching the fishing boats come ashore outside NKTT - there must have been a few hundred of the traditional boats on the beach - well, traditional with the addition of a substantial outboard fitted. The fish got carried ashore from each boat in plastic boxes to the market, where some were tipped out into the back of Peugeot pick-ups and the rest onto stalls in the market. I bought a kilo of filleted fish of some sort - possibly mullet - and then went back to the auberge where the German couple cooked it in butter and spices, and we ate that with some boiled potatoes and sour cream - apparently a very German thing, and I have to say it was very tasty. A young Belgian couple in a nicely kitted out Defender arrived the following day and I got shown around the car's various features - interesting stuff and it got e thinking about what to do with mine. On the last evening an Afrikaaner family arrived in a large Land Cruiser towing a trailer. Jean and Hannelie and their two young sons had driven from South Africa up the east sde of the continent and into Italy and onto Holland, and were now on their way back home via West Africa. The Norwegian Non-cyclist also arrived the last night after staying at a private house for a few days.
I left the auberge at bout 10am one morning, a bit later thn planned, and got a taxi to the Gare Routiere for Kiffa - a town about 600km (400 miles) east of NKTT. The Peugeot taxi-brousse eventually left at about midday, with only seven adults and two young children, but with the roof-rack loaded to about four feet high with boxes of fruit and luggage. We must have got at least 100km before the car broke down the first time, and it took the driver about half an hour to sort out the problem. There were further break-downs, and stops for various other reasons, and the car was not exactly fast even when working. At one o'clock in the morning we stopped to drop some passengers off and then had to enlist the help of locals to help push start the car again. Luckily it was full-moon, but even so I wasn't too happy about the driver driving without the lights off for much of the time. Especially, when he flashed them on at one point to see a donkey dolefully standing broadside on in the middle of the road. Somehow, we missed the donkey, and the edge of the road, and we didn't roll over, which I was quite pleased about. I looked back and te donkey was still standing there complety unpeturbed. Eventually at about 2am I was dropped off outside the 'Hotel Camping Phare de la Desert', where I managed to wake up one of the security guys and then fell asleep on a mattress in the communal area.
The train. Michael Palin's done the trip in his Sahara series, and there'e a lot of other accounts of the journey. Basically it's an iron ore train. A 2km long iron ore train. With a couple of carriages and other wagons on the back to serve the few communities out in the desert. The Norwegian Non-Cyclist and myself got to the patch of ground that is in lieu of a station rather late - we thought the train left a couple of hours later than it did - just as the endless stream of wagons was trunndling past. Suddenly there was a series of violent clankings and the train came to a halt, with the carriages bouncing back and forth slightly at the end of over a mile of wagons. The scrum began - we tried to get on the first of the two carriages, these are essentially metal boxes with odd porthole windows, but apparently these were for people who'd got there early and actually bought tickets before. We eventually managed to fight our way onto the last carriage. This looked like a relatively normal looking European coach that had the luxury fittings removed; such as the lights - it was 8pm and pitch black - heating, toilet doors, and a selection of windows. To compensate for these deficiancies, there was someone with a portable stove and food, a vast quantity of luggage, and a live goat. We managed to find just enough space on some seats and had an interesting journey. At frequent intervals people came around with Mautitanian tea (strong gunpowder green tea made into a syrup, served boiling hot in espresso quantities), macaroni, biscuits and other snacks. The other peope in the compartment were freindly - and it was actuallky an enjoyable experience. Although the violent lateral jolts and alarming rockin from side-to-side weren't so good. And being kicked out if the train at 6am in the dark at some desert outpost was also not so pleasant.
From this outpost, Choum, we and 18 other people and their luggage, and 3 vast and leaking canisters of diesel were ferried the two hours across the desert tracks and over a range of low mountains into Atar, the central town of the Adrar mountains and the main tourist region of Mauritania.
After a bit of hassle and being led to grotty auberges outside of town we managed to find a pleasant place run by a friendly Frenchman. I stayed there a couple of days and then spent a day in a small desert town about 100 km away called Chinguetti. Although famous for a number of ancient manuscripts held there, for me the best thing was the scenery. To the east of the town is the largest stretch of sand in the Sahara - while much of the desert is bare rock or huge tracts of gravel beds, this area was dune country. I went for a walk along the dried up river bed (wadi, or oued) climbed a few dunes and wandered through a pretty oasis village and back to the auberge. A fantastic walk, although rather hot and I did get a sunburnt nose. I blame this on the malarial prophylaxis that apparently can cause the skin to become sun-sensitive, but in reality it was just me being stupid.
The taxi-brousse (bush taxi, generally very old mercedes saloons that 7 passengers are squeezed into) had problems on the way back to Atar. A combination of the corrugated desert piste and the enthusiastic driver caused the gaiter holding the front shock absorber to split, so the top of the shock was trying to pound its way through the bonnet. It took numerous stops and attempts to tie the shock down wth rope to cope with the deadly road/driver combination, and just as I thought it was sorted we got a puncture. Fortunately a passing taxi had a jack so we were able to carry on to Atar. The following day I got a lift wih the auberge owner to the capital, Nouakchott. This was in a battered old van that had problems with its alternator and fuel feed. Luckily we were going in convoy with another ex-pat so after pushing the van into a field and paying a nomad to keep an eye on it, and after discreetly transferring the four cases of alcohol into the other car we continued on our way. Mauritania is almost a dry country, and it's illegal for most people to import or transport alcohol around the country. So I was slightly apprehensive about sitting in the back of the van on a foan mattress carefully positioned to hide the booze from the eyes of the policemen at the numerous checkpoints.
In Nouakchott (NKTT) I got dropped off at Auberge Menata, a pleasant place in the centre of the capital, with an enclosed courtyard for overland vehicles. Over the next couple of days an asortment of 'quatre-quatres' (4x4s), camper vans and the blue Unimog arrived. I spent one evening at the Port au Peche with the Unimog couple watching the fishing boats come ashore outside NKTT - there must have been a few hundred of the traditional boats on the beach - well, traditional with the addition of a substantial outboard fitted. The fish got carried ashore from each boat in plastic boxes to the market, where some were tipped out into the back of Peugeot pick-ups and the rest onto stalls in the market. I bought a kilo of filleted fish of some sort - possibly mullet - and then went back to the auberge where the German couple cooked it in butter and spices, and we ate that with some boiled potatoes and sour cream - apparently a very German thing, and I have to say it was very tasty. A young Belgian couple in a nicely kitted out Defender arrived the following day and I got shown around the car's various features - interesting stuff and it got e thinking about what to do with mine. On the last evening an Afrikaaner family arrived in a large Land Cruiser towing a trailer. Jean and Hannelie and their two young sons had driven from South Africa up the east sde of the continent and into Italy and onto Holland, and were now on their way back home via West Africa. The Norwegian Non-cyclist also arrived the last night after staying at a private house for a few days.
I left the auberge at bout 10am one morning, a bit later thn planned, and got a taxi to the Gare Routiere for Kiffa - a town about 600km (400 miles) east of NKTT. The Peugeot taxi-brousse eventually left at about midday, with only seven adults and two young children, but with the roof-rack loaded to about four feet high with boxes of fruit and luggage. We must have got at least 100km before the car broke down the first time, and it took the driver about half an hour to sort out the problem. There were further break-downs, and stops for various other reasons, and the car was not exactly fast even when working. At one o'clock in the morning we stopped to drop some passengers off and then had to enlist the help of locals to help push start the car again. Luckily it was full-moon, but even so I wasn't too happy about the driver driving without the lights off for much of the time. Especially, when he flashed them on at one point to see a donkey dolefully standing broadside on in the middle of the road. Somehow, we missed the donkey, and the edge of the road, and we didn't roll over, which I was quite pleased about. I looked back and te donkey was still standing there complety unpeturbed. Eventually at about 2am I was dropped off outside the 'Hotel Camping Phare de la Desert', where I managed to wake up one of the security guys and then fell asleep on a mattress in the communal area.
When I woke the following morning I discovered tht the German Unimog was there, along with a British motorcyclist. They left that morning, and I stayed there to catch up on some sleep and work out how to get into Mali.
Friday 7 November 2008
Part 5 - Cycles in the Sand - updated
So, it's now 3rd November and I'm Nouadhibou, in northern Mauritania. Being winter it's only 38 degrees in the shade. The journey down from Agadir has been interesting, and since leaving Morroco has become a lot more African.
From Agadir I caught a bus to Laâyoune. At least that was the plan. Halfway through the journey at the town of Tan-Tan, I was told that the bus would be waiting for an hour or so for a lunch-break. That baing normal practice I thought nothing of it, but was glad that I decided to have a tea and cake in a cafe opposite the bus station. I was glad because after taking the first sip of the tea I saw my bus start to pull out of the station, I ran over and stopped the bus, and the driver got my bag out of the luggage locker as I tried to ask him why it wasn't continuing to Laâyoune. A freindly policeman then intervened and after a lot of discussion got the bus driver to pay the grand-taxi fare onwards.
South of Agadir the desert reaches the coast. It was quite bizarre to see someone fishing from a rock on the side of the road in the Sahara and then to realise that we were driving along the top of a low cliff.
Laâyoune was nothing special. Lots of Morrocan flags - the area is disputed territory so the central government seems to want to make a point about who runs the place. I took a bus down to Dakhla the following day. More sand, mostly rocky desert, but some dunes and low rugged hills. Defintely worth coming back to take some photos.
Dakhla's on a the end of a narrow peninsula that dangles about 20 miles down the coast of Africa, leaving a long thin sheltered bay. Sheltered from the waves, but not from the wind, with a wide (a few kms i think) sandy stretch. And it's very popular with wind-surfers, kite boardes and the like. A beautiful stretch of coastline.
Dakhla itself is a dusty town several hundred miles from anywhere. There're few surf shops, but mostly stuff just for local people. At dusk the streets liven up as people emerge into the cooling air and shop, ander about have tea, and generally socialise. Obviously there's very little drinking - in fact I didn't see anywhere to buy a alcohol at all in Dakhla, although I'm sure there must be.
I got talking to some local surfers - although i didn't realise they were local as they had bleached dreadlocks and were pretty stoned. Drank lots of tea. They then found someone who could arrange a space in a car south to Mauritania. There're no buses on this route and until recently all traffic went in convoy because of the separitists. Now there is a bit of traffic and it's just a case of knowing where to find the cars to catch a lift. The run down was not too uncomfortable - the usual 4 people on the back seat of a Mercedes, but all were fairly slim so was OK. Stopped at a sleepy village for a tagine - the best I've had, and lots of tea.
At the frontier there was a queue of traffic at the Morrocan exit post, we all piled out of the car and handed the passports into the office. Other than the locals there were a few overlanders a campervan and a French couple who were working in Morroc but were just returning north from a holiday in Mauritania. There was also a on a bike. She'd been hitching through from her native Norway, then decided to buy a bike in Morroco, but she never had to cycle far before someone took pity on her and managed to put the bike on the roof of their car or truck, and gave her a lift. Probably just as well as there are some stretches for over a hundred miles with no civilisation at all on the desert road. She was heading to the Congo of all places.
Between the Morrocan and Mauritanian border controls is about 500 yards of no-mans land. The only stretch of untarred road from the Mediterranean to central Africa. There were also a lot of car wrecks and people doing dodgy deals out of the jurisdiction of either country. A slightly surreal place.
The Mauri border controls were fairly straightfoward. And then we were in Africa - as opposed to an extension of the Middle East.
Nouadhibou is a dusty town which doesn't appear to have a centre as such - certainly not like the medinas and souks of Morroco. The taxi dropped me off at the 'Hotel Camping Baie de la Fevre' (or something like that). Shortly afterwards some of the overlanders pulled into the courtyard - one of them carrying a bike with a puncture and a relieved Norwegian .
From Agadir I caught a bus to Laâyoune. At least that was the plan. Halfway through the journey at the town of Tan-Tan, I was told that the bus would be waiting for an hour or so for a lunch-break. That baing normal practice I thought nothing of it, but was glad that I decided to have a tea and cake in a cafe opposite the bus station. I was glad because after taking the first sip of the tea I saw my bus start to pull out of the station, I ran over and stopped the bus, and the driver got my bag out of the luggage locker as I tried to ask him why it wasn't continuing to Laâyoune. A freindly policeman then intervened and after a lot of discussion got the bus driver to pay the grand-taxi fare onwards.
South of Agadir the desert reaches the coast. It was quite bizarre to see someone fishing from a rock on the side of the road in the Sahara and then to realise that we were driving along the top of a low cliff.
Laâyoune was nothing special. Lots of Morrocan flags - the area is disputed territory so the central government seems to want to make a point about who runs the place. I took a bus down to Dakhla the following day. More sand, mostly rocky desert, but some dunes and low rugged hills. Defintely worth coming back to take some photos.
Dakhla's on a the end of a narrow peninsula that dangles about 20 miles down the coast of Africa, leaving a long thin sheltered bay. Sheltered from the waves, but not from the wind, with a wide (a few kms i think) sandy stretch. And it's very popular with wind-surfers, kite boardes and the like. A beautiful stretch of coastline.
Dakhla itself is a dusty town several hundred miles from anywhere. There're few surf shops, but mostly stuff just for local people. At dusk the streets liven up as people emerge into the cooling air and shop, ander about have tea, and generally socialise. Obviously there's very little drinking - in fact I didn't see anywhere to buy a alcohol at all in Dakhla, although I'm sure there must be.
I got talking to some local surfers - although i didn't realise they were local as they had bleached dreadlocks and were pretty stoned. Drank lots of tea. They then found someone who could arrange a space in a car south to Mauritania. There're no buses on this route and until recently all traffic went in convoy because of the separitists. Now there is a bit of traffic and it's just a case of knowing where to find the cars to catch a lift. The run down was not too uncomfortable - the usual 4 people on the back seat of a Mercedes, but all were fairly slim so was OK. Stopped at a sleepy village for a tagine - the best I've had, and lots of tea.
At the frontier there was a queue of traffic at the Morrocan exit post, we all piled out of the car and handed the passports into the office. Other than the locals there were a few overlanders a campervan and a French couple who were working in Morroc but were just returning north from a holiday in Mauritania. There was also a on a bike. She'd been hitching through from her native Norway, then decided to buy a bike in Morroco, but she never had to cycle far before someone took pity on her and managed to put the bike on the roof of their car or truck, and gave her a lift. Probably just as well as there are some stretches for over a hundred miles with no civilisation at all on the desert road. She was heading to the Congo of all places.
Between the Morrocan and Mauritanian border controls is about 500 yards of no-mans land. The only stretch of untarred road from the Mediterranean to central Africa. There were also a lot of car wrecks and people doing dodgy deals out of the jurisdiction of either country. A slightly surreal place.
The Mauri border controls were fairly straightfoward. And then we were in Africa - as opposed to an extension of the Middle East.
Nouadhibou is a dusty town which doesn't appear to have a centre as such - certainly not like the medinas and souks of Morroco. The taxi dropped me off at the 'Hotel Camping Baie de la Fevre' (or something like that). Shortly afterwards some of the overlanders pulled into the courtyard - one of them carrying a bike with a puncture and a relieved Norwegian .
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