|
|
|
Mauritania,
Western Sahara and Morocco |
|
|
|
Salaam
Alaikum. Faithful readers may recall that our plans for
the route north from Bamako were to head for Mauritania,
via Nioro du Sahel, Route de l'Espoir, Nouakchott and
Choum, where we planned to catch the train to Nouadhibou
and cross the border to Morocco. We did catch the train,
but not in Choum, but rather somewhere in the desert,
in the middle of some minefields, and with Ellen's clutch
almost burned out and front brakes leaking, the train
having to make an emergency stop in order to help us out....
The
events leading up to this story started when we left Bamako
in the company of Christian, the german desert biker we
first met in Ghana. Our African adventures up to Bamako
had been entirely pleasant, the roads and pistes had been
mostly ok, and the bikes were running fine. All of the
above were about to change quite drastically. A short
way north of Bamako, a well meaning put unfortunately
incompetent bush mechanic failed to recognize my bike
troubles as related to a defect gas pump, took the carburator
apart and was unable to put it back together. He also
managed to damage my gas tank in the progress.
Luckily,
Christian was able to fix the problem in order to get
us back on the road, or rather back onto corrugations.
These were very deep and very scary since the only way
to pass them without having your dental fillings rattled
loose, was to ride over them at between 80 and 100 km/h,
a fairly impressive speed, especially when the corrugations
suddenly turned to loose gravel. At least the riding never
became boring. We arrived in Diema and were immediately
and enthusiastically welcomed by Cheick, the local bike
mechanic. Although his services were not required for
the bikes (not yet, anyway) , he nevertheless invited
us to stay with his family, fed us and was generally very
good company.
The
following day, we headed out towards Nioro du Sahel, or
at least we tried to. After about 15 km, the road became
increasingly sandy and very difficult to navigate with
our admittedly overloaded bikes. This had supposedly once
been a decent piste but according to the locals, it was
now pretty much ruined by the passage of the Paris-Dakar
rallye. We got rid of some luggage (by having some helpful
people take it to the hostel in Nioro) and rode on. Christian
had taught us the basics of sandriding, with varying success :
Ellen, after a few crashes, resorted to walking her bike
through the increasingly difficult passages whereas I
tried to follow Christian's advice and take the sandy
stretches at some speed, gassing the bike through, rear
tire swinging wildly from side to side, motor screaming
and adrenaline rushing. None of our respective riding
techniques proved itself, since Ellen's clutch didn't
like her method and I managed to crash headfirst into!
the embankment while racing through a very long, deep
sandy stretch. With the help of Christian and Cheick,
we eventually managed to get to Nioro, but not without
having had two punctures for good measure.
We
were sick and tired of sand, so we decided to put the
bikes on a truck to get them the 200 km to Kiffa in Mauritania,
since all the pistes leading to Mauritania were described
to us as sandy and very difficult. The truck was supposed
to take about 6-8 hours, Inch'Allah. It actually took
us 17 hours, since we totaled 6 punctures and an undisclosed
number of tea breaks. At around midnight, Omar, our driver
said « This is the place where I picked up the
French tourist who was attacked by bandits and had
his car taken ». He had barely finished the sentence when
we had another puncture, leaving us sipping tea on his
carpet in the middle of the desert once again and wondering
which direction the bandits would come from. Great tea,
though. After arriving in Kiffa, we unloaded the bikes
and happily hit the Route de l'Espoir, had yet another
puncture, fixed it and arrived in Nouakchott after two
comparatively uneventful days dodging camels in the !
road.
There,
we spent a day with the Malian singer Samba Diallo and
Monique, listening to Samba's music, fixing two brand
new punctures and trying to figure out how best to get
to Nouadhibou. Our information about the train from Choum
to Nouadhibou was somewhat sketchy, we had definitely
decided not to take the beach piste, so we opted for yet
another truck. Baaaad idea, as it turned out. The ride
was supposed to last between two and three days. Six days,
12 punctures and various other mechanical problems later,
we were stuck without gasoline or water about 10 km before
the junction with the piste leading to the border with
Morocco.
Because
of a major muslim holiday, there was no traffic expected
for a while, so we unloaded the bikes, and attempted to
do the last bit by ourselves. Turned out to be another
bad idea, since the piste was deep ruts in deep sand,
and riding off the piste was not recommended because of
the abundant landmines in that area. We finally resorted
to riding along the train tracks for a while, but Ellen's
clutch started slipping, forcing us to stop and consider
our options none of which was particularly pleasant. Suddenly,
the rails started to sing, a train appeared, the driver
made a questioning gesture, we responded with the universally
accepted sign for « the clutch is toast », the driver
stops the train, some helpful people throw the bikes on
a platform wagon, we hop on, and 90 minutes later, we're
in Nouadhibou. Deus ex machina, if we ever saw one.
Looking
back at the truck ride through the desert, we should add
that in a way, this whole ride was one of the most interesting
experiences on this trip so far. This actually is true
for the whole African part of the trip, but the truck
ride really allowed us to share for a few days the Mauritanian
way of life. We slept on top of the truck under the stars,
ate with our two Nigerian Tuareg drivers, visited desert
camps, drank enormous amounts of tea and had long discussions
with them lying under the truck waiting for the afternoon
heat to pass. In the desert, patience is not merely a
virtue, it becomes a survival technique, but it takes
a while to get used to a mentality based on « If
God wills ».
After
arriving in Nouadhibou, we did some work on the bikes,
including fixing another puncture (the grand total was
a proud 24 punctures in two weeks, 6 punctures on the
bikes and 18 on our two truckrides. Anybody done better?),
before heading north. We received a lot of assistance
in Nouadhibou from Abdallah who, besides owning a nice
hostel, knows everything around town and is refreshingly
efficient in providing help for wary travellers. His mobile
number is 222 419431, e-mail asimex@caramail.com. Upon leaving, our guide managed to take
us through some final sandy stretches, just for fun, but
we finally made it to the Moroccan borderpost where we
had to wait for 24 hours before being allowed to continue
towards Dakhla, Western Sahara. The northbound border
between Mauritania and Morocco has only been open a few
months, so procedures are still a bit sketchy, but the
Moro! ccan borderguards and police bid us such a friendly
welcome that the administrative hassles were soon forgotten.
We
continued towards Laayoune where we stayed for a couple
of days, being lazy and marvelling at the number of UN
personnel in town. The UN has been present in the Western
Sahara for a long time, trying to assist in the resolution
of the Polisario conflict that opposes the people of the
Western Sahara to Morocco who annexed the region in 1975.
Our
first taste of Saharan hospitality was offered at a gas
station where the owner refused to serve us unless we
accepted to share his food and tea, an offer we gladly
accepted. He taught us that, unlike the traditional tea
ritual involving three glasses of tea, the ritual practiced
by his people (the people of Sidi Ahmed Rquibbi) called
for a fourth glass to be offered to visitors. Quite a
lot of tea.
Morocco
was great. Pleasant people, great shopping, good weather,
and curvy roads all make it a place to come back to. Unfortunately, we were somewhat out of
time and had to bypass Fes and other attractions we would
have liked to visit. We rode from Laayoune over Guelmim
to Marrakesh where we stayed for three days, before heading
on to Melilla where we took the ferry to Almeria in Spain.
Total distance covered in Africa came to 6.300 km in almost
two months.
We're
now in Ampuriabrava in the north of Spain, where we will
spend some time with my family, skydive and update the
website, before packing up again for the next leg, Europe
and Central Asia. Once more, as promised, my father will
join us, riding this time his own Harley from Spain to
Istanbul. The fun continues...