Mauritania
Day 62 06/03
Nouakchott
6212 miles
A new country and quite different from Morocco. There is an awful lot of nothing in Mauritania. We spent the first night in Nouadibhou which was a small ramshackle town. It looked more like a shanty town than a village. On the way in to town we saw the longest train in the world. The next day we drove to Nouakchott which was a 400km long road with nothing much inbetween. There were a few nomad settlements along the way, loads of camels and sand dunes galore. There were a couple of bulldozers keeping the dunes off the road but otherwise not much other traffic. Nouakchott is definitely nothing special, again it is a very ramshackle place and seems to be fighting to keep the desert out as there is sand everywhere. We only came here to get our Mali visas so now that we've got them we'll be moving off tomorrow to the Adrar region which is supposed to be beautiful.
Day 67 11/03
Nouakchott (again)
6947 miles
Well we're back in Nouakchott after a change of plan. We drove up to Atar and Chinguetti which are on the edge of the desert. Chinguetti was a major stop off on the old camel caravan trading route from Timbouctou to the coast. There is nothing much to it now but we were able to go driving off into the desert and spend the night in the dunes - after digging Leon and Miles out of soft sand a couple of times. Our next plan was to follow a piste south to Tidjika and then on to Mali but Mauritania ia not agreeing with us. First Campbell got the dreaded runs and a couple of days later Claire and I got it so we decided to abandon the piste idea and head to Mali on the tar. So it was back down the long, boring tar road to Nouakchott. Today is election day in Mauritania so we've had the campaigners going all week. It is pretty quiet at the moment but I don't know what will happen tomorrow when the results are announced.
Day 70 14/03
Bush Camp on the road to Mali
7440 miles
Elections came and went without too much fuss and we headed out of Nouakchott after a bit of spares shopping and fitting a new radiatior to Miles. We also picked up an Aussie backpacker, Evan, who was heading for Mali. We spent the first night at a beautiful spot in the dunes and then headed off the next morning hoping to get close to the border - but as is always the case things don't go to plan in Africa. A few kilometers down the road that morning and the clutch gave in - Again. But this time it had us stumped. Air was getting into the hydraulic system but we couldn't find any signs of fluid leaking. Anyway after pumping the clutch pedal a few times the clutch came back and off we went again. There were long stretches of quiet tar road so we got into 5th gear and all was well - until the next village. Campbell went to change gear and no clutch again so we crashed the gears, barged our way through town, stopped at the other end, pumped the pedal until all the air was out and off we went. Unfortunately this method didn't work for long. Eventually we lost the clutch all together and after spending 3 hrs on the side of the road trying to fix it and running out of clutch fluid we decided to travel on and try to catch up with Miles. We caught up with Leon, Claire and Miles at a police post along the road and as it was getting late we decided to spend the night there. Not the best of campsites as we had traffic all night and somebody on a little concrete slab praying all night.
Day 3 and after changing the master cylinder and refurbishing the slave cylinder (which didn't work) we limped on to Kiffa in the hope of being able to get some parts. We stopped at a campsite on the edge of town and the there were very helpful and went off to get the seals we needed. Of course we were ripped off for the price of the parts but that's Mauritania for you. So the clutch was fixed and off we went again. Our dramas were not over yet. The good tar road that we'd been on now started to deteriorate and Campbell hit a HUGE pothole which broke the bolts holding one of our front shock absorbers on so it was off into the bush for a campsite and some emergency repairs.
Mauritanian Summary
Mauritania is quite a change from Morocco, the towns are pretty dirty and shanty townish - even Nouakchott. Between the towns there is a lot of sand and not much else. The Adrar region near Atar is beautiful with mountains and dunes nearby. We found Mauritania to be very expensive, especially for car parts and international telephone calls. I'm sure that we were charged more than double in many cases - but that's the peril of being in a foreign country. I think that given the chance Mauritania might have grown on us - especially if we'd managed to get onto some of the pistes.