After freshing up and a breakfast this old man made for us, we started to pack the car again. Meanwhile Ramon’s friend paid us a visit again, he slept with us in the tent but apparently had left the tent somewhere early in the morning.
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| A real saharatent! We decided to stay in this tent to experience this. |
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But the Saharagelber was nearby  |
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| And another camping friend |
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| It was a very sweet friend too, look at me, I’m cute! |
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Ramon was playing with the dog and we rearranged the stuff in the Benz. Then the old man was standing nearby. I offered this man 75 dirham, which is around 8 euro’s, which would seem reasonable in comparison what we’ve paid for places like this.
The man got another look, he wasn’t the silly old man anymore and said we need to pay 250DH without blushing. WHAT?!!? I told Melissa what was happening, and that we are INDEED tricked again. ‘NO FREAKING WAY!’ This man is crazy.
I threw everything in the car and told him that HE did not want to tell us a pice, that they made it all obscure by continuously saying that they did not want any money. I gave him the 75DH and told him this was it. He started to protest heavily and told us we had to wait for the owner, we had to call the owner again and tell HIM that we would not want to pay 250DH. One can sleep in a big hotel for that amount of money. I told him I am NOT calling this owner again, and that we do not care if it’s enough or not and we sure won’t wait for this owner to drop by.
So much for the nice and romantic atmosphere, this fellow knew how to ruin it. I told Ramon to get in the car and we literally threw the rest of the stuff in the car and I started it, the man god mad and screamed ‘Fuck you!’ to us.
I had enough of this guy and did not react. Melissa explained to him we would inform all travel guides about his practices. His face changed a bit, he probably understood her english.
We left the place and thought it was very disturbing, the way it often goes with the people over here. Ramon was shocked, and did see how thing sometimes work around here.
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| The cool combination of Sand and water, on the peninsula of Dahkla. |
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At the beginning of the evening we entered Mauritania. At the border we had some trouble finding out where we had to be, Three counters and it wasn’t clear where we needed to be first. This costed us some time but in the end we did all the paperwork and the car check was easy.
Now we would find out how they were in Mauritania, taking alcohol into Mauritania is forbidden and we brought sime wine with us. But at first, there was another issue, we had to drive over a very bad road to get to the border of Mauritania, in fact it’s not a road but sand and stones and it was not easy to see which track we needed to have. I paid 50 euro’s for some guy to guide us, I read in the Sahara overland that this part could be tricky because of landmines. After we arranged this with these guys who made us this offer we only drove 500 meters and there we saw the border post! No kidding! This was 50 euro’s just flushed into the toilet! How stupid could we be? A bit more investigation would have helped us enough. We approached a ilttle hut built of mud and canee, where a man was sitting inside, accompanied by his co-worker. This had to be the border post.
Inside a man was writing in a big book, wich constisted of lots of names and the registration of plates.
At this border post there was a not too cosy atmosphere, the guy inside sat there and seemed to be very arrogant, and waved us away when we did one step into his office. We did, and stood there for some time, nog knowing if he would help us or not. Melissa got grummy about his attitude but it’s best to act as if you’re not too interested either, and don’t look hurried! This always is gonna cost you money. After they were done we were called inside and then it went fast, he wrote down our names, asked about our car and if we were planning to sell it.
‘No way, I’ll never sell it’ I told them. We’re not golddiggers and we drive the car back. We could go on to the next post. There we had to pay 20 Euro’s each, I asked a receipt for that, but it indeed seemed to be right. Some friendly guys hanging around there
I brought my book with me because I expected to wait here for quite some time. It was a dutch book ‘Mijn Mercedes is niet te koop’ from Jeroen Bergeijk, they asked about the book and asked (again) if I was planning to sell it. I think from now on, I will be asked all the time
We had to arrange a vehicle insurance for Mauritanie but in fact wanted to continue to Nouackchott. We decided to take the risk and go on. Then at a control post they asked about our insurance for the vehicle, I showed him my default green insurance card where all kind of countries are listed but only with the first character. I showed it to him but he said it’s not what he meant. I played stupid and pointed at the M character, and told him ‘Mauritania’. He let us through, probably thinking ‘never mind’ and so we could go on. It was completely dark.
Sometimes the dunes around us extended on the road, and this was not too easy to see on time when you drive 100km/h on the tarred road. We discussed the fact that we were uninsured now and decided to go back, this wasn’t a real smart thing to. Also, at another checkpoint they would probably not let us through and give us a fine. So we drove back to Nouadhibou, 150kms back Well, we ended up at a nice camping which had exactly one place left. It was completely full with Renaults from people who were participating in a rally or something.
The friendly owner of Camping Baie du Levrier welcomed us and we had a pretty good place over here.
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| On to Mauritania |
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| Another road image. |
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| The rough road between Morocco and Mauritania. |
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| A big group of Camels, just after passing the border of Mauritania |
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| Very sandy in Mauritania too |
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| Camels in the beginning of the evening |
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