Today has been an interesting day. The drive to Dakar full of surprises. As I mentioned earlier, Sengal is a very different country. Wikipeadia describes it as heavily indebted and poor with a population of 17million. Half of it’s expenditure goes in education. This is clearly showing. Children and teenagers…
Despite our exhaustion we didn’t get a good night. Lots of noise, talking and dogs barking. It was interesting to see our location in daylight. We are beside water. It sounds like the sea, but it is actually the Senegal river. The sea is a short distance away, beyond a…
The day has dawned cloudy…mmmm…..and it’s looking, dare I say, like rain could be imminent.However, checking in at www.Accuweather.com, the forecast is for a nice day, cloudy but only 29deg. Whew!Because if it were to rain, the chances of getting to the Diama border would be zero, due to mud.…
I struggled to get back to sleep after Dennis’s crazy idea to get up at 1am. So at 5 we decided we would get up and on the road back to Nouakchott. By the time we had cooked porridge and packed up it was 7.45, but still pitch black. I…
Oh! What a day!!! The alarm on my phone was set to 7am. The idea was to leave by 9am when our other Landy companions wanted to depart too. It was all a bit of musical chairs as four vehicles were packed in like sardines at Auburge Triskell. The German/Russian…
Last night we spent a convivial evening having dinner with Didier and Pascale, the French couple also in a TD5 Defender, who are staying at Auberge Triskell too. Mousaka and salad was the offering of the evening. Accompanied sadly by non-alcoholic beer. Mauritania is a “dry” country. Today there isn’t…
From our desert camp it was only 180ks’ back to the city. There are police stops every 50 or so k’s and I enjoy trying to avoid giving them a “Fische” a piece of paper with our passport numbers and car registration details. Jen gives me a hard time as…
Last night the wind came from nowhere, just as we were getting our bedding ready in Poki. Without having the Caranex erected the wind is no problem. It is impossible to stop the noise from something flapping. With the portable airconditioning on and wind rocking Poki, we were soon asleep…
Another peaceful night in the isolation of a desert camp. We are approx 30k’s from the road to Chinguetti. We are enroute to Chinguetti. It apparently holds priceless historical Islamic scriptures and records and is also a historic town. Breaking camp and on the road by 10.30am, it’s only 30k’s…
The plan was to visit the White Valley. As we weren’t sure where to find it we were going to follow our fellow campers, a tour group who were staying at Camp Jemal in Terjit. The previous evening we had been talking to the young Mauritanian guy who owned the…