Western Sahara and Mauritania

Editor's note: The map is up to date as are the photos. In fact, the photos are a bit ahead of the blog. So bear with us - you will be able to figure out which photos link to the blog here.

I'll load up another one asap (all based on photographs of his diary pages that Andrew is emailing me) to get us as far as Mali. However - just to bring you properly up to date, he's spent the last few days seeing an incredible market in Djenae (gorgeous photos!), then a trip to Dogon Country (my jealousy is now seriously kicking in) and today reached the gorgeous-sounding Ouagadougou - capital of Burkina Faso. Suffice it to say - he's having an adventure! I can also report that he has narrowly avoided serious foot rot after a ticking off by his wife on the need for regular sock washes! So - he's in good shape, the bike is still running and he's making good progress. He told me tonight that Africa is big - it might look big on a map, but it's bigger! The photo he loaded up today pretty much says it all I reckon! I don't think I've ever seen such a vast flat expanse.

Anyway - less of the editorial interference. Diary extracts below for your pleasure. Enjoy!

12.1.2010 – Day 24 – Marrakech

Happy/sad today. With all the crazy drivers and rip-off rubbish food stalls yesterday, our first impressions of Marrakech were not good. Today Marrakech showed a better face…we headed into the Medina and Souks of old town to try and find the Marrakech Museum and an old school. En route we found the Marrakech of old alleyways with mopeds and donkey carts jostling for position with all sorts of interesting stalls selling great Moroccan food and almost everything else. By tagging onto the back of a tour group when approached by a tout, we found the sites we were looking for. Incredible buildings with open courtyards and rooms around the edges. Fabulous mosaics, carvings and paintings on all surfaces, reflecting the wealth made by some here over the years.

This is my last full day with Tracy for a while and I am glad it was a good one. We were even blessed with sunshine! It’s going to be hard saying goodbye tomorrow at the airport but it isn’t for that long really. It will be a difficult time for me as we work well as a team and I will have to get used to being self-sufficient. A little daunted and sad. What a girl!

14.1.2010 - Day 26 –90km south Tantan

This morning I hoped would start a new chapter in the story and the day didn’t disappoint. The first 100km was more of the same; mist, hills, olive, tea, etc. After a descent at late morning the Sahara got close. The air dried, the landscapes became barren, the traffic reduced and the temperatures rose. I was going to enter the vast limestone Western Saharan desert. I was also quickly approaching African bent bureaucracy. I got pulled over by the police, by a guy frantically waving and blowing his whistle to be told quite calmly that I had broken the speed limit and that it would cost me €40. He wanted to see my passport, driving licence, insurance and vehicle document. I don’t have insurance! He assured me I would get my receipt but then suggested that, as I was a tourist and I had a Yamaha motorbike ( he likes Yamahas) I should only pay €20 but no receipt. Great!! My first bent African cop!!

Later in the day I passed through Tantan, the gateway to Western Sahara. This is where the Tibet-style occupation policing starts. Lots of road-blocks and form-filling. It was also time to pack the reserves as supplies get further apart from here. More water, extra fuel tank filled, food bought and cash from ATM.

I have arrived at the dramatic Atlantic coast with desolate beaches, cliffs and waves. Camped out and given dinner by retired German campervanners (massive van, 15 tons). Amazing stars!

15.1.2010 – Day 27 – Boujdour

A Western Sahara day. I broke camp early inn light drizzle to get some good miles in today. Most of the day it has been scrub desert near to the coast with occasional sections of dunes. Towns are few and far between – most of which feel like the wild west but made out of concrete. The people seem friendly, honest and not tempted to rip off the tourist.

The flat, vast expanses of desert are punctuated by various police-stops. Most require me to stop and hand over a Fiche which details all mine and my bikes particulars. There is a friendly but heavy-handed approach to dominating this barren land. Some of the larger towns have had the municipal town planning hand. Big open roads and fresh blocks ready for more concrete housing and Moroccan migration.

I passed the disputed border location for Western Sahara which looked like a hell-hole, but at least this signified the start of cheap subsidised fuel. The towns are full of military personnel and the coast scattered with Saharan fishermen living in shacks. UN vehicles are everywhere as are huge convoys of tanks.

Met 5 Brits on motorbikes and their guide at a police check-point. And got good info from them on the road ahead.

16.1.2010 – Day 28 – Nouadhibou

Wow, what a day! If every day was like this we could have a life-time’s experience in a year or two.

I left just before dawn in the sea mist. The petrol station was still closed. I thought I’d fill up at the station 145kms away. With a tail wind I had good fuel consumption but by the time I arrived at the station I was very low. I eventually found the attendant to be told that they had run out of petrol! The good news was that it was only 25kms to the next station, not the 125kms that I thought. Phew!

The mist cleared and it started to heat up. The road is good – as long as you keep an eye out for sand blown into the road and the only police are at the big towns. I put the iPod on with ACDC and had a blast. Fast biking – making big miles. The landscapes became more barren and the cliff-tops into the sea were dramatic. I decided to try to make the Mauritanian border. By this point there was virtually no traffic and the land had minefields at both sides. I was occasionally passed by the military, or some black Africans running European cars to West Africa. A short way before the border I found a beleaguered looking German guy on a bicycle hiding from the sun in the shade of a small pile of rocks. He looked truly frazzled and, I think, on the edge of sanity – thank God that wasn’t me. This isn’t a good road to cycle. He was “kicking to the Cape” with a football on his bike. Unfortunately he lost his ball yesterday. At lease he was only 5kms from a bed and a cold Coke when he thought he was 30kms away!

The Moroccan border post was the usual 7 person job. Get form, check form, stamp form, check paperwork, write paperwork, check paperwork, check passport. Then you enter no-mans-land. There couldn’t be a better term for this place. You enter a wasteland full of blown up cars  and rubbish with several winding tracks through sand and boulders snaking for over a kilometre to the Mauritanian coast. You can’t stray off the tracks - not even a real track – as this is a minefield (a guy in his car got blown up only a few days previously and died). I took only 1½ hours to get through the Mauritanian border – better than the seven hours it was taking earlier in the week. It was total chaos with no signage and no-one having any idea what is going on. It was like crossing a line into real Africa. For much of the time I was stood directly in the desert’s afternoon heat. I thought I was going to over-heat but with enough shade and water I got through.

The officials obviously live off the takes from tourists. They live in the shacks on cardboard and thin mattresses on the ground. Without any real system I was spat out the other side. The sun had been lowering but with my head down I headed for the first town.

As always, the border brings changes and this time it was straight into sand-dunes, multiple police checks, plenty of black faces and camels on the edge of town.

I am a bit shell-shocked from a hard day but have found a skanky room with a compound for the bike so all OK. Tomorrow it’s the dash for the capital, trying not to get kidnapped as three Spanish did by Al Qaeda six weeks ago on this road.

Looks like the African Football Cup is on at the moment. Should be football mad from now on. Hello Africa!

17.1.2010 – Day 29 – Nouakchott

Another big mile crazy day. Well Al Qaeda didn’t show their heads today, thank God.

I set off early past the camel encampments to see the iron-ore express rolling into town. The landscapes today were bleak but impressive. First I passed through sand-dunes, quickly followed by vast open flatlands and finally climbing high into huge red sand-dunes.

Mauritania is a beautiful place to travel to but I can’t help feel it would be a Godforsaken place to live. The road was nearly deserted and the landscape devoid of people. The occasional settlements were hardly even that – just a few nomadic style tents and some tiny wooden shacks trying to fight off the sand of the desert. I passed through at least ten police and army stops, only needing to give them a Fiche (a form with all my info on it). Most of them saluted me and were very friendly. I think that sums up the people of Mauritania. It looks intimidating but it’s really quite friendly and safe.

The wind picked up and blew sand across the road. The sky darkened and I wondered if I’d ever get to my destination. The roads were in danger of covering over, the going got tough and this started to become a real Sahara day. Even on tarmac with these conditions and distances between habitation it wouldn’t take much for it all to go wrong.

I stopped by the side of the road for some food and stupidly put my helmet on my bike – so it, of course, fell off and smashed one of the fittings – I was furious. I couldn’t even find the bit because there was too much sand flying around and my helmet started filling up. I used some duck-tape to fix it and carried on. My wrists were getting sand-blasted as I rode with sand travelling at 70mph hitting bare skin – they soon went raw.

By the end of the day I removed more than a large handful of sand from the bike’s air filter.

Fuel is a problem in these parts so when I went into the only fuel station to ask for ‘essence-plein’ the response was to ask if I wanted 10 or 20 litres. I asked for 10 litres and during the sandstorm the guy went into his shed, decanted 10 litres from a 20 litre plastic container and with half of it blowing into the wind he filled my tank with 4* plus sand.

The next day I passed into Senegal…