Going south again

Although the first night I slept in a bed, I decided to change that again as I found the room to expensive and to smelly as a bathroom was included. This was one reason for the high price propably. There also supposed to be a warm shower, but I did not find any remotely warm water in the morning. They let me sleep on the roof terrace in the tent. Which I guess was in any way much better. Next night I did not sleep much better as I was too lazy to swap to another couch as the one I was lying on was tilted. What did not help either is that it stormed.

Also in Ifni is not much happening, although I met here a nice French girl, who spoke English and a very nice German guy, with who I drank some wine and beer. He brought it from Spain, when all what he had brought was gone, we tried our luck at the 2 bars of Ifni, but at 12 they al ready were closed. I managed to buy a bottle of wine though, which we emptied in my room. With the German, Kai, I went on a short tour through the surrounding hills, with his 4x4. On one of the hills I was attacked by a dog, it did not manage to really bite me, but still it left an impression and it hurt too.

Kai had plans to repair his car in Ifni, but it turned out, he did not like the price they asked for two new doors, so he decided, after consulting with me, to leave as soon as possible to the south. We had decided earlier that I would join him until Dakar. So we left March-6, midday and headed south, for a trip of about 2000k through the desert. At 2:30 at night we stopped for a sleep at the beach near Dakhla. Kai slept in the car, I next to it in the sand. Around 12 we left Dakhla, after some coffee, the purchase of food and the attachment of the 2 number plates to the car at a mechanic shop. Until now the plates had been taped behind the windows, but the police always was clueles about their whereabouts and were always stopping us because of this and because of the strange shape of the car of course.

Leaving Morocco was not that difficult, nor entering Mauritania, it was getting from one country to the other that caused some problems. There was a strip of no-one’s land with no roads only sand and rocks. Although we had a 4x4 car we got stuck in the deep sand. We had to move the sand to get the car driving again. With the help of a local we managed to find the border post of the Mauritanians. At night we arrived in Nouakchott and we slept in a tent at an auberge, which was quite nice, because the wind could cool us a bit. During the day it had been about 45 degrees Celcius in our non air-conned car.

In the morning we had breakfast at the auberge and after that we left for the border to Senegal. Kai had the idea not to cross the border at Rosso, which looked like the logical place to cross, but more to the west, where we could use the bridge instead of the ferry. According to Kai there was a lot of hassle in Rosso. It must have been really bad in Rosso, because the place where we tried to cross, they tried to squeeze money out of us at every occasion they could think of. We had to cross a national park, pay; cross a town, pay; pass the customs at the Mauritanian side, pay; pass the police post at the Mauritanian side, pay; cross the bridge, pay; pass the police at the Senegalese side, pay; pass the customs at the Senegalese side, pay. We also had to buy insurance for the car in Senegal. Because our tactic for not paying/lowering the amount was just walking out of them and wait till they came back to us, it took a rather long time before we were on the move again, but the tactic was pretty effective.

We arrived in Dakar at night. The first hotel was very expensive, the second I found was half its price and with much less comfort. I decided to go for the low price. In the price included was the easy access to hookers, as the hotel is used as a brothel. It did not bother me though. All the women were very friendly anyway. It was a shame I had to part from Kai, as I really liked to travel with him, but he had to go further south and I thought the train trip to Bamako would be really cool.

I wanted to go by train from Dakar to Bamako by train as soon as possible. Because I thought Dakar not that appealing partly because of the high prices. At the train station I heard that the next train would leave on Saturday, 2 days away. The only thing I needed was proof of vaccination against the yellow fever if I were to use the train to enter Mali. I knew I was vaccinated, however did not bring my vaccination booklet. The guys at the station knew a guy in town who would be able to provide me with such a document, for proper reward of course. I was brought there and in 5 minutes I was vaccinated against yellow fever and cholera at least on paper. It only cost 2500 CFA’s, so that was not bad at all. Now hope it works. Of course I also needed a Mali visa, unfortunately the embassy was already close when I arrived on Thursday. On Friday I was in time, but then they told me the visa would only be finished on Monday. I could not speed up the process in any way. So now I am going to take the Tuesday train.