PLACES VISITED: 1) Nouadhibou, 2) Azefal Akchar Desert, 3) Parc National du Banc d’Alguln, 4) Mumgar (Village & Beach), 5) Nouakchott (Capital), 6) Rosso MAURITANIA, 1) Rosso SENEGAL, 2) Mouit SENEGAL.
OVERNIGHTS (All Bush Camps except where noted): 48km south-east of Al-Gargara in the "Azefal Akchar Desert”, 35km south-west of "Parc National du Banc d’Alguln", El Mhaijrat, Nouakchott (Auberge Menata, x2), Rosso (Camping back of Hotel Chamara) MAURITANIA, Mouit, 25km south of Saint-Louis (Camping Zebra Bar) SENEGAL.
MILESTONE MOMENT: This post comes to you at the end of my first 4 weeks and in this post I pass the first calendar month in Africa. It feels like 1 year because of all the tenting and un-tenting, clothes packing and un-packing, hot days and cold nights, dry chapped hands, wild hair and all the logistics and rules of bush camp living… but it IS speeding up. We are all getting used to it and the days now seem to be passing quicker.
BLOG TRAILER: This post is all about our journey through Mauritania. We drove through and slept in the Azefal Akchar Desert (part of the Sahara) and the Parc National du Banc d’Alguln (UNESCO protected and one of the largest bird watching sites in the world). We visit the seaside port of Nouadhibou (bustling but ugly) and the hot sandy, capital Nouakchott. We even ate camel and slept under the stars. Mauritania is very different from Morocco - much poorer and rougher and no real architecture or food to speak of. It can also be dangerous since there are still tensions between the local “Black Moors” of black African descent versus those of Arab decent (“White Moors”). The country has also suffered from unstable government and many military coupes. Refer PS below for more on Mauritania. The upside is that it has a huge coast along a pristine blue-green coloured Atlantic with no waves and easily ready for tourism unless beach sand pollution gets the better of it - it is here that I stepped on glass and cut my foot. Fish is plentiful and cheap. We saw the longest iron-ore train i the world at 2.3k and 168 wagons! I ate a praying mantic and kissed a gecko. In this blog I also sustain my first injury stepping on glass on the beach and cutting my foot. It managed to heal in just 3 days in time for my first run in Senegal!
DAY 29, Fri 11DEC15, 99km, Nouadhibou to Al-Gargara+48kmSE "Azefal Akchar Desert” MAURITANIA. Nouadhibou (Pop 100,000) reminded me of India. Abject poverty but everyone manages to dress beautifully without an ounce of dirt on their clothes. This is a port city with nothing touristy to see. At the centre of town is the main market with lots of fruit and veg but the meat and fish are covered in flies. There are old busted merc taxis everywhere carting people in and out. I spent 2.5hrs walking everywhere including into the residential areas where I saw people living in very sub-standard conditions. But this is good compared to the huge tin slums some 5km out of town. Walking in the markets is exciting - filled with the sites and sounds of vendors, goods and yelling. The range and quality was heaps better than Laayoune in MOROCCO where we shopped.
At 1pm we departed for the desert but went out of town to a fresh well to fill all our water jerry cans (twenty of them holding 20L each). On our way a whole bunch of local kids chased the truck with some of us throwing them lollies. One grabbed hold of the ladder at the back of the truck, hung off it, broke the cable tie and brought the ladder crashing down - lucky it did not hit him on the head! We were very lucky to see the famous iron ore train which is the longest in the world at 3 locos pulling 168 carriages totalling 2.3km in length!!! Then we turned off the sealed road and drove straight into the Azefal Akchar Desert under the watchful eye of our local guide Ahmed, a tiny, thin, dark little old man in his late seventies of Arab descent. He knows this desert back to front and we did not use GPS.
I turned my watch GPS on so I could track our journey and store it. Once I get on the internet I would download it onto my running website and it will show up in google maps just like all my runs - I could then trace it into my atlas. My watch also recorded all my runs, no matter where - no internet required to record - just the GPS! Our campsite was amongst the dunes and the evening was warm with no wind - we sat on top of the dune watching the sunset whilst sipping a French liqueur called Pistes. Magic. We had travelled 48km in 2.5hrs to get here with no road or tracks - just desert and a little old man. Dinner was minced camel on top of mashed potato! Tastes like salty beef and very chewy - it was great to eat something local. Tonight another first - I slept in a “mozzie pop-up tent” - it is in a circular bag, you remove it and throw it in the air and “pop”, it opens up into a cradle shaped tent covered in a thin, fine anti-mozzie mesh. There is no rain cover or walls so it is like sleeping in the open air with the stars above you. I set it up on top of the dune so I could see the desert beyond and the stars above. More Mauritanian magic!
DAY 30, Sat 12DEC15, 169km, Al-Gargara+48kmSE "Azefal Akchar Desert” to Chami+35kmSW “Parc National du Banc d’Alguln” MAURITANIA (Run 2). The light of the sun woke me up today instead of my alarm - my iPhone had run out of charge due to the cold. Luckily, the pop up tent takes seconds to pack so I made the end of brekkie and our departure of 8am. More desert but this time with wild camels and Acacia trees. It happened!
58km into the trip we got stuck in the sand! Even with the tyres deflated by 20% of their bitumen pressure, you can still get stuck. Everyone took turns digging the sand away from the front of each set of tyres and then placing specially made iron mats with round holes in front of the tyres - one for each back tyre and two for each front tyre. Then Grant drives the truck out over these boards. It took three goes before the truck was on firmer sand. Everyone enjoyed the experience but I suspect this enthusiasm will quickly disappear if we have to keep doing this! For lunch 
I ate a “Praying Mantice” and kissed a “Mauritanian Gecko”! All on film. We also saw many many wild camels just roaming the flat plains. What the heck did they eat and where did they drink? We got stuck again at the 70km mark and came out first try. Our campsite was in the National Park but it is still desert with smaller dunes. We arrived early so Roberto decided to go for a run with me. He started lagging behind and I wondered why. Before I had a chance to ask him he revealed to me at the 5km mark that he was desperate for a poo. I stopped the clock but kept running in circles while he did his business. He did not use a sock. He ripped out the netting of his shorts and used that! He swore me to secrecy. Did not say anything about the blog though. I had to write something because it reminded me of similar stories in Australia. We had grilled chicken for the first time and very early - it was still light. I decided to watch the ozzie horror movie “Lemon Tree Passage”. Not that great but the sleep was my best to date - it was so good that when I woke I thought I was at home in my own bed!
DAY 31, Sun 13DEC15, 136km, Chami+35kmSW “Parc National du Banc d’Alguln” to El Mhaijrat via Mumgar MAURITANIA (Run 3, Swim 1). Another beautiful desert morning with a routine that felt very easy for the first time. Is this whole thing getting easier? Maybe. I will let you know in another month. It was not long until we could see the Atlantic again. Beaut green blue colour but lots of rubbish left over by local fishermen. We reached the town of Mumgar (Pop 100). It was really a bunch of makeshift huts with whale bones around the main meeting hall (council). I then went off to get closer to the huts in the distance when all of a sudden a bunch of kids dressed in every colour imaginable run towards me singing - here was a film ready in the making. I brought them back to the truck and we all went crazy taking photos and film. Naturally the main act was the “dag dance” with all the kids - fantastic - some caught on very quickly!
Just a tad out of the town we got into too much sand and had to get out and push! Yes, push the truck along! Did not need to use the metal mats but dropped down the tyre pressure dramatically. What a sight but it worked! Just outside Mumgar we hit the beach for lunch. We would stay here 2.5hrs to wait for the tide to go down so we could drive on the beach itself. It was 77km to here from last camp. I went for a run along the beach and then a 1.2km swim - my first open water in Africa. Water on the cool side (guess 19C) but lap-able. The water was clean but the beaches polluted. Many locals had shacks on the beach and you could see them in the distance fishing. The my second drama of the trip. Just 2 metres from getting back on the truck with my cozzies on and shoes in hand I stepped on something sharp (probably broken glass) and put a nasty 15mm cut into the bottom of my left foot - bugger. Blood everywhere.
Alex and Bref came to my rescue and helped me wash it in the ocean and Alex put some antiseptic and one of his own swabs and tape on it. Tight and painful but no more visible blood. Just made it short of 3pm when the truck used the metal mats to get on the beach and off we went. Blue-green ocean right outside one side and yellow beach dunes at the other. We drove another 40km along the beach and then camped by the beach near El Mhaijrat. For me, dinner was the best to date with 7 fresh fish purchased from Mumgar that day cooking in foil on the fire, stuffed with onion and tomatoes. Delicious and heaps of fish per person - first time we had fish for dinner. Discussion was also very animated tonight. I put Betadyne on my foot with a light band-aid to help it breath and went to sleep.
DAY 32, Mon 14DEC15, 126km, El Mhaijrat to Nouakchott (Capital) MAURITANIA. I checked my foot first thing and the cut was still open but no bleeding. It was tender and soar to walk on. I put on more Betadyne and a loose band-aid and a new sock which I took off in the truck to try and dry out the wound. Today was a rest day and cook group which was well-timed to keep me from running on it. I need to somehow close the cut so it can heal. Chris suggested super glue, having used it himself. Dave had some but I decided to wait until we got to Nouakchott today to see if I could find those suture strips - if not then I would use the super glue. Nouakchott (Pop 1m) is only 50yrs old and grew haphazardly with crooked streets everywhere. It has one the busiest fishing ports and market in West Africa. When we arrived around 11:30am it was already 34C with dusty, chaotic main roads and traffic that did whatever it wanted. Once again, every second car was a beat-up old diesel merc and there was not a new car in sight.
This city is worse than Nouadhibou and takes it over as the worse to date. There is not much to see or do here. I set off with Riza and Roberto to see the main “Grande Mosquee" and in front of it were all the markets. Could not take many photos, even of buildings, since many people in the background objected. The eateries were very dirty and people sold everything everywhere, even in the middle of foot paths. Every second person hassles you to change money and they DO offer far better rates than the banks. Given the heat, we decided to visit the National Museum which was not much. We sneaked into the Pre-historic section because no one saw us and cooled off. Mauritania was mainly occupied by Phoenicians before-Christ then the Spanish Moors and France after-Christ. By this time it was coming on 2pm and the truck was coming back to pick us up from the city centre to take us to our hostel nearby. Bliss. Hot showers and the option to upgrade to a bed for 10AUD per person per night. Deal! Roberto and I shared as usual. I then discovered a laundry nearby and dropped off a bag of clothes to be washed and dried - more luxury at just 15AUD. I was on cook group that night and Chris led with hickory chicken pieces and cabbage salad pita rolls - really good and a hit with everyone - some said it was the favourite to date. I also cooked some falafel balls for the vegos and they said it was the best they’d had and were so good and plentiful that the meat eaters polished them all off with a new attitude towards felafel!!! Many had not had them before. By this stage I felt the sun had got me and retired early given that I was doing brekkie the next day and gulped down some hydrolyte instead of wine - it helped.
DAY 33, Tue 15DEC15, 0km, Nouakchott MAURITANIA. Today was wash day, supplies day and rest day. Nothing more to see or do in the city so I simply planned to shop for some medical supplies for my foot and fill up on olives, cheese and juice. My foot was going well. The wound was starting to close up. I would not run on it today to give it a chance to heal further - also it was too hot. Instead I did some blog corrections using the hostel internet and some banking. At around 1pm, Riza, Roberto and I decided to go for a leisurely lunch to sample some of the local fresh fish. We found “Le Prince” from the Lonely Planet guide.
It was good. 
Plenty of locals including suits. Huge portions. We had grilled fish from the crazy local markets (5km away) and they put a cheese sauce on top. It was good and only 10AUD. From here we decided to visit another Lonely Planet establishment called “Cafe Tunisie” just across the road for coffee. It is here that we had a long chat about “the group” and despite the diversity of cultural backgrounds, personalities and ages, how we managed to get along! We also talked a lot about our background, circumstance and what we intended to do when we got back. Laughed a lot about possible outcomes of our trip. It was a short walk back to the hostel - picked up my clothes along the way and then had a shower and re-packed. I skipped dinner since our lunch was so big and so late and because I had plans to buy a tub of ice-cream with the last of my local currency and watch a movie with Roberto. We did this at 9:30pm and watched the life story of "Saul of Tarsus" who later became St Paul. Not a great film but the ice-cream was delicious - it was a 0.6L tub that almost cost as much as the fish - goes to show you how expensive it is for the locals to import stuff they do not have.
DAY 34, Wed 16DEC15, 210km, Nouakchott to Rosso MAURITANIA. What a great sleep-in we had. The wound under my foot had now completely closed but was still a little tender and bruised. Put on runners and ran a little with not much pain but decided not to risk it and give it one more day to dry out. Up at 9am and spent the last of our local currency on juice. Did some banking and called mum. By 1pm we were “on the road again”. It had felt like ages but it was a good feeling. We were clean, well rested and well-fed but low on booze! We set out for the border with Senegal. The desert returned with no dunes but plenty of rock and heat and very flat. Passed many small villages comprising multi-coloured, box-shaped homes and kids running after the truck. 
The journey from the capital to our campsite at the border town of Rosso took 4.5hrs. As we neared the border the landscape definitely changed to a very even ochre sandy dirt with no rocks but many many umbrella-style trees. Lots of herders out here. What had not changed was the hot, dry conditions. We got to the border check at Rosso and were told that the ferry here was broken - to get across the boarder you need to pit truck and people on a ferry to cross the Senegal River. There are two rival towns for this purpose and the guy who told us the ferry was broke was from the other town! So we decided to stay in Rosso at the back of the fenced-off Hotel Chemama since the police did not want us to camp out in the open for fear of our security. We still pitched tents but had access to a toilet and the lobby lounge inside the hotel. Basic stuff but good enough for a wine and blog. I was down to my last bottle with the possibility of re-stock tomorrow in Senegal before our camp. I decided not to take the risk and buy a bottle of Dan who had stacks and even made a little profit - surprising for an American who hates America!
DAY 35, Thu 17DEC15, 108km, Rosso MAURITANIA to Mouit via Saint-Louis SENEGAL. Simple morning. Slept in mozzie tent (small, light-weight tent with no rain cover that just fits one person’s body - easy to erect). Our drive to the border was only 10min down the main road of Rosso. The border itself is actually the Senegal River. We arrived close to 7:45am and the wait started. By 9:30am we were on the ramshackle ferry crossing the river. Many of us walked onto the ferry behind the truck. Photos are strictly prohibited at all border crossings (that is why there are no photos in the blog) but with this one I found a loophole. I asked our border guide if we could take photos from the ferry in the middle of the river and much to my delight he said “YES”!!! Even Andi was snapping away when we got to the middle. I took some clips for the movie. At 11:30am we were on our way to the capital Saint-Louis, 93km away from the border. Landscape changed again to a flat brownish sand and hay-like dry grass with low trees with course green bristles. Lunch was by the roadside and we arrived into Saint-Louis one hour later at around 2pm. Then it was a mad scramble to change money and buy booze! We made it by 5min back to the truck before it left at 4pm! We walked over the old Gustaph Eiffel bridge that you will learn about in the next post. I got local currency at at ATM but Roberto and Riza needed a bank, which cost us 20min. I improvised and asked the bank employee where the nearest booze shop was located and SUCCESS, I found it and Andi inside it! We stocked up like a caravan coming out of the Sahara! I detected our lateness and asked the wine shop owner to order us a taxi to take us back to the truck. We made it by 5min! Our campsite was another hour away and by the river. Fabulous. I dressed to run on the way and launched. Fell back to Earth! Pain. My wound was not ready. I had the shits but collected my ego, set up my tent, washed some clothes and sat down to drown my sorrows in my new found wine! What a lovely evening. Under the pines. Under a clear sky. We ate our last stocks of chicken and sat down at the literal “Zebra Bar” for a few beers before a lovely sleep-in...
PS: A LITTLE ABOUT MAURITANIA:
Mauritania (Pop 3.5m) is famous for the true Sahara dunes and old oasis, caravan / camel towns of the movies (in the “Adrar” region), silverware, military coups, iron ore mining, old diesel Mercs and even bird watching. It is twice the size of France and the highest mountain is “Kediet Liill” at 915m. It also has the world’s second largest monolith (rock) after Uluru called “Ben Amira”. Mauritania was first settled in the 3rd Century AD by Arab Berbers (same as Morocco). It was part of the Empire of Ghana before the Berbers finally took it over and made it Muslim in 1674. By 1904 the French had moved in and preferred that the Spanish Moors (whites) take it over to prevent Morocco (also Berber) from assuming it so they gave it up to the Moors in 1960. This country is all about coups and trouble. Cannot understand why. It is hot, dry and inhospitable with no agriculture or precious resources. The seventies was bereft of democracy with mainly military rule and lots of conflict over the Western Sahara. After Morocco took it over the attention turned internal to conflcts between the “Bidan” (White Moors) and “Haratin” (Black Moors) and continues still with one general ousting the other. Finally in 2007 the constitution was re-written and democratic elections for the President put in place. How would I summarise or characterise Mauritania: dusty, hot, dry, lots of roadside Police checks, lots of busted up cars especially mercs, long flowing royal blue gowns with golden highlights, no booze anywhere, lots of very cheap fish, long blue-green Atlantic beaches with no waves.
PPS: DUST:
There was so much dust in the truck cabin crossing the Sahara in Southern MOROCCO, WESTERN SAHARA and MAURITANIA that I had to transfer all my on-board electronics into a water-dust-proof “dry bag” and had to wrap my MacBook Air in cling-wrap to prevent it from shorting. You can see this in the photo.
PPPS: INTERESTING FACT ON AFRICA (and Mauritania):
If African slavery had not existed, the population of Africa at the end of the 18th Century (which was 25m) would have been DOUBLE! Mauritania was notorious for slavery and only abolished it in 1980! Despite this, the UN reckons that there are still 350,000 slaves in the country, which is 10% of the population!!!
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