Day 8 - Dakhla, Morocco - Nouadibou, Mauritania

Sunday, 25 October 2009 - Dakhla, Morocco - Nouadibou, Mauritania - Day 8

Distance: 450km | Time: 11.5 hr *including 6.5 hours crossing the border | Roads: Good. Bad 17km between borders

Endless undulating desert dunes in every direction. The narrow ribbon of asphalt slips through the sea of sand, bouncing the car like a ship at sea. The monotony is beautiful, the heat strangely refreshing. The Sahara is all at once; everything conjured in one's imagination upon hearing its name.

Saying Goodbye

It was difficult to leave Dakhla. It was the one place we had visited thus far that we all truly enjoyed, and we would have loved to spend more time there. The decision to go to Fez and Marrakech was, in retrospect, a foolish one. There was no reason to take up days in cities that are completely accessible, as opposed to those only reached via overlanding.

Our cars were beginning to resemble proper overlanding cars with a roof rack now adorning the turtle, and tires mounted on the hood and side of the cars. Once clean, they were now caked with the desert sand and salty mist blowing off the Atlantic. Driving back off the peninsula we saw the beach that had been so inviting upon first driving in. We all agreed this would have to be a WCT meeting point. This massive stretch of beautiful beach would be the ideal camping spot for teams - I could already picture it in my head.

The checkpoint guards at the end of the peninsula road waved us through without stopping to ask for my fiche. It was 11am and a mere 350km on a dead straightaway. We arrived as planned just before 4pm.

Skinny Dipping

We left Dakhla in high spirits. We were happy with our unexpected discovery, so much so that it will likely serve as the first checkpoint for the official run. Moreover, we were set to leave Morocco after relatively little difficulty and only two days behind schedule – a distance we hoped to make up on the new tarmac road allegedly cutting through the Mauritanian heartland. With the gaping hole in the muffler welded, boy racer was also back in good form. Outside of a small hiccup at the outskirt of town, when the Turtle appeared to be dragging part of her undergarments, the drive to the Mauritanian border went smoothly.

Actually, it went better than smoothly. We had been itching to get wet for awhile now. The Atlantic Ocean had been our constant companion as we careened through the sweltering Saharan heat. Up until now, though, its refreshing allure was nothing more than a tease, a mirage even, to our perspiring bodies. That is, unless you wanted to jump the 300 meters from our vantage point on the desert shelf to the water's surface. From Dakhla to the Mauritanian border, the desert gradually tapers off to sea level, producing the largest single stretch of uninhabited beach I've seen in my life. We were certain not to let this fortuity go to waste.

We pulled over at a spot that looked an easy 20 min roundtrip walk to the shore. The desert, though, was up to her old trickery, and, like you see in movies all the time, the distance was a lot longer than first believe. Our small excursion ended up taking twice as long. But it was definitely worth it. The cool water was a wonderful respite from the desert heat. I even took the opportunity to fully enjoy myself, making a one-man nude beach. For a shy introvert like myself, who would never consider going to a public nudey beach, this was paradise.

We cut our fun short and trekked back to the cars, knowing that we still had a good distance to cover before the border closing. Country #3 here we come!

First Real Border

We managed to navigate the Moroccan border in just under two hours. Not horrible for a border crossing, but the Mauritania side lay ahead. The two countries had ended their war in 1978, a prime landmine laying era. As most conflicts in Africa, it's a long lasting dispute stretching back to their break from colonial Europe. In this specific case that meant "who has the rights to Spanish Sahara otherwise known as Western Sahara or Sahara Occidental.

Currently governed by Morocco, Western Sahara is also claimed by Mauritania, Algeria and a small group of separatists living in the region. For us it meant checkpoints from the town of Tan Tan south to Mauritania, cheaper petrol prices and a border crossing strewn with left over land mines from a war not so long forgotten.

Arriving into Mauritania, Africa proper, was a bone-numbing experience. No man's land between the two countries was extreme piste mixed with sugar sand. One jolts the car around as if driving on coiled springs, the other swallows the tires whole. In addition, tracks shoot off in every direction leaving one inexperienced with the border dumbfounded as to which direction to head. Luckily, and unsurprisingly, enterprising African youths were there to provide their assistance through the 15 mazes from one country to the other.

For a fee vehicles traversing the border can follow a "guide" across the wasteland. This was an affront to our intrepid overlanding attitude - we could do it ourselves. We pushed forward bogging the cars down in sugar sand twice before we gave into the Opel station wagon following us despite being able to see the Mauritania border on the horizon.

Three men in their 20's, one with a striking/uncanny resemblance to Flava Flav - minus the signature clock around the neck - flailed their arms out of the windows shouting in French. Nico's voice crackled over the CB, "I think we should follow them, they want 100 Dirham to lead us." I shook my head in disgust but resigned himself to the group decision of not wanting to randomly explode on an errant land mine.

Across the piste we went, our spines jarring into the base of our head. A bobble head doll on the dash would have exploded. The border was closer than imagined and it was all I could do to hold in the "I told you so" when an experienced importer/exporter confirmed that if there were land mines they certainly were not in the vicinity of the tracks sprawling across the border.

Mauritania's entry process was lengthy and plagued by money changing touts crouched in anticipation for the naive foreigner. Having 850 Dirham left -the remnant of our gas fund for the station we missed in Morocco- we opted to try our luck having heard there were no ATMs in Mauritania. Black market money changing is like trying your luck at the slots in Las Vegas, never really in your favor.

After haggling with seven touts attempting to start a bidding war, Nico and John playing good cop/bad cop, we managed to eke 26,000 Ougs (yes, that is the name of the currency) from one. After a thorough review with a napkin and a leaky ballpoint pen it was discovered we lost about US$8 on the transaction, a fair loss as the bank probably would have charged a service fee.

Other than time, which was heightened by a tour bus full of French and a singular American, the border process was straightforward -vehicle registration, passport control and visas, customs for the car. It was at the last point that Nico made a friend. Despite group protest Nico agreed to give him a ride into town Nouadibou (pronounced Naughty-Boo). An underlying current of passive aggressive tension resonates even now amongst some members of the group for Nico's blatant disregard.

Africa Proper

Six-and-a-half hours at the border and a temporary team member later we arrived in Nouadibou, famished and exhausted.

The streets teemed with four distinctive shops: second hand clothes, "fast food", pharmacies and small grocery stores. It seemed there was nothing else other than the random petrol station. "An odd introduction to Africa" is all I thought to myself. We tried the fast food, not quite McDonald's but then that's not a bad thing. I checked out one of the second hand shops and realized I could have spent a month investigating each and everyone. Damn 72 hour visa! The pharmacy was also hit for mosquito repellant. I made a mental note to stop by the grocery store the following day for "ice coffee" ingredients for the drive through the Sahara.

We slept in what seemed to be the only spot in town filled with older overlanders taking eight months to a year to do what we were doing in 6-9 weeks, and what we would have done faster were it not for our information collecting. They thought we were mental, but then I'm used to that. I think it might have been a little unnerving for others on the team.