While Simon covers the exciting and colourful stuff down south I'll content myself to describe my divergent path.
As left the hotel in Nouakchott for the 2nd time I had to weave a path through the array of Spanish bikes which had just arrived.
I'd not seen the riders in the evening so was pleased to meet one of them that morning. I had one key question for him, which was, had they got petrol at the Mauritania service station and they had. That sounded promising for my call there today. From this you will have deduced that I'll be heading back north. This was a hard decision to make. I considered the options, one was to follow the road Simon and I had taken, looping around into Mali to allow an easy border crossing into Senegal. Simon was now 5 days ahead so no chance to catch him before he flies back home on Oct 21. Also from Simon's feedback there were some hard riding days which I would find tough, as I was still recovering my strength. The other 2 options were direct border crossings from Mauritania into Senegal, neither were attractive crossings. The Diama crossing has had some bad reports recently of scams to get entry permission for vehicles and the route there can be tricky after rains, and there has been a fair bit of rain recently. The 2nd more direct crossing is Rosso and the access road is good, but that is the only good thing about it. Rosso is the worst border crossing in Africa and I went through it twice 3 years ago. It is corrupt, expensive and the people are very aggressive. I promised myself I would not go through it again in my own, which is why we had planned the Mali route. So my only option is to turn around and retrace my steps. This first day north was also going to be a long tiring day but it just involved riding the bike on a straight quiet road, getting through a border and find a hotel. OK, it's a long straight road across the Sahara, with one fuel station in 500km but I felt confident the pump would have petrol, and that I would be up to the journey.
Although disappointed at having to curtail the trip and not stick to the original shedule, this route will mean I'll have crossed the Sahara twice, this trip, once alone, making 4 crossings in total. The Saharan crossing was one of the high points for me when planning the trip. On the way down it was great to share it with Simon and realise he was as enthusiastic about the beauty and the vastness of what we were riding through. However I was also looking forward to this ride across the desert on my own, which was how I experienced it first. I did wonder if the desert would still have the magic I experienced in 2014 and was not disappointed on the way down, we'd see how it would be on the solo ride north.
The ride out of Nouackchott was fine and the first thing I noticed when I got on the open road was how different the bike felt. The whole front of the bike seemed smoother, much less vibration. This must be down to the fitting of the new tube and I now wished I'd done it earlier. As expected, after taking to the spaish biker, the fuel station between Nouachchott and Nouadhibou had petrol, so my averages at this service station are now 75% with petrol, 25% without petrol.
I have to admit a small part of me was disappointed they had petrol, as I'd have enjoyed the challenge of getting to the border with my fuel reserves, and be able to dine out on the story of making it, or not. The first half of the journey was cool as I left at 7 but had warmed up by the middle and cooled to about 36C when I got to the border. On the way there were many camels and a little sand and I was keen not to rush past these features of the desert, as I was not sure when I'll be back.
Firstly stopping in the desert on your own is different to being with someone. There is just that moment when you return to the bike hoping it will start.
I've been passing sand dunes and never stopping, trying to capture them from the road with the camera, so decided to stop and have a closer look, in fact to go play in the sand. Who knows when I'll have the chance again.
There were quite a few camels this time, much more than I saw in 2014 so here a couple from the crossing north of Mauritania.
And then this fellow rider.
The Mauri side of the border with Western Sahara(Morocco) was easy and quick, took less than half an hour. Ome of the officials, some senior guy who we had chatted to on the way south, recognised me and asked where mu friend was. This recognition eased my path a little. Rememnering I was Irish he mentioned Gerry Adams, and referred to him as the Irish Nelsom Mandela. I'll make no political comment here but was happy to nod in agreement if it got me an easier passahe through the border. Then of course there is the no-mans-land.
It wasn't too much of an issue to navigate the rocks and sand, except when I headed for some gravel which turned out to be soft sand and I was in danger of sinking into it, but kept going and reached the tarmac successfully. The admin on Morocco side was a pain and took ages. Everyone was polite but you have to see lots of people, 12 I believe and of course in the correct order and it is a building site and you have to fit in having the bike x-rayed. What they are going to see inside my metal panniers I can not imagine. Anyway, after about 2 hours I had completed all, apart from seeing the police and customs at the exit gate, which I did and then headed for the petrol station just outside the border. Loud shouts behind, so I stopped and another policeman was following me, he must have stationed himself just outside the gate. He had to see passports and take a fische, give me strength!
Anyway soon I was heading for hotel Barbas which I discovered on my last visit. It is a wonderful cheap place, where you ride your bike into the foyer, rooms cost about £16, they do food, next by a petrol station and are very friendly. What else would need after a long day in the desert, well a beer would be good, but you can't have everything. The next question was, would they have a room, cos I'd not booked, in case I didn't make it. They had, so all was well. I had a coke, ate a pizza and rested well.
This one's for Edventure, Ed this is the Moroccan side of no-mans-land now. A but different to when you rode it.
The next dilemma when staying at the Barbas is where to go next. Crossing the Sahara you have to go from place to sleep to place to sleep, unless you want to camp. The nearest option is the camping place Simon and I used on the way down at Dakhla, but it's only 3 hours up the road and is expensive and basic. The next major town Boujdour which does not have any hotels listed, so I aimed to go to Laayone, where there are a number of hotels. The only problem with the Laayone is that it's 750km across the desert, which is about 10 hours of riding. Simon and I worked out, we were doing well, if we could average 80kpm overall, with fuel stops and check points. As I started off one thing in my favour was it was overcast and cool, in fact quite misty. To start with the road was good and I was keeping good speeds. It was very boring though as there wasn't anyone about, not even camels, or I couldn't see them in the haze. I had one visit to a petrol station that didn't have fuel, another where they guy had to be woken up and switch on the generator to power the pumps and lastly a guy who refused to serve me because the pump attendants were having lunch, just what you need when you are in a hurry. This was all eating into my time.
When the sun appeared I noticed I had a riding companion. He's been with me before in Africa and in Iran, early in the morning or just before sunset. Strange I had not seen him when riding with Simon. Good to have him back.
Then I hit the roadworks just after Dakhla, major roadworks with detours offroad and slow riding, coming down we weren't rushing, so this time the roadworks they seemed worse. I was now getting worried about making Laayone before I got too tired, and a headwind was not helping. I decided to put Boujdour in the GPS and have a look for a hotel. I rode through but didn't see any, and there was only a campsite listed in the GPS. I stopped at a cafe, which had rooms and ordered a coffee. I asked the waitress about the rooms and she shook her head and suggested it was not a good idea. I got on to booking.com to check on the Laayone hotels and now, none were showing rooms. This was not good, I might have to ride on and hope to get a room in Laayone which i did not think was wise, as I was quite tired, so decided to look at the campsite in Boujdour first. It was down by the sea and I asked if they had rooms and they did, simple ones for about £8 and bigger ones for £12. I decided to splash out. So got in a room with 2 beds, no en-suite though, a veranda and the bike parked outside, perfect. I went up to town and bought some water, got money and bread and cooked a meal.
A nice relaxing evening and I can hear the Atlantic as I write this.
It was a nice relaxing start today with breakfast on the terrace watching the sunrise.
I had decided on Tan Tan as my likely destination a mere 500km up the road, so was not going to rush away. What a delight it is to have the bike parked outside the door of the room, making loading so much easier. I did have a problem with the bike when I arrived in Boujdour last night when filing up. When I unscrewed the cap of the spare Acerbis tank, the rubber tube connecting it to the main tank split, severing the tube. This was not critical but would limit my range, as the fuel in the auxiliary tank would not feed automatically into the main tank. I had some self amalgamation tape and did a repair that evening and was hoping this should fix it. The tape should form a leakproof seal, even with petrol and be strong enough to hold the tube together. I'd find out today if it works.
On the way out of town I picked up a bread, for less than 10 cents(€) for lunch. Once on the road I had the headwind from the right again making riding hard work. This lasted for a couple of hours but the road was generally good and I was making reasonable progress. The hardest feature of the wind was in overtaking trucks. Approaching a truck I would be leaning into the wind, then as I neared the rear of the truck, the side wind died and the bike had to be upright and as I finished the overtake the wind hit me, harder for a few seconds, so I had to suddenly lean into it, to maintain stability, all good fun!
I had taken trouble to make sure my fisches were correct before leaving and this seemed to be helping me with the many checkpoints. One thing which was not helping was that my entry stamp into Morocco had been done on top of the Mauritanian visa and made it difficult for the checkpoint police to see. Once I knew what they were searching for I would point it out, to speed things up. After a couple of hours the headwind changed to a following side wind which was much better. I was now cruising at a good speed and the road was generally good, but not perfect, as there were occasional bad potholes and I hit two of them, clipping one of them as I tried to avoid it, but no damage done.
At one checkpoint the Gendarme came over to me and said I was Irish before I had a chance to say anything. I confirmed I was and he then asked where my friend was. In had to explain that Simon was in Senegal, that I had got ill etc. So it seems the Gaels made an impression on him too on the way down. With the side wind I mentioned, sand was encroaching on to the road and a couple of times it was quite dangerous.
Anyway, I got to Tan Tan in one piece and the one hotel in the GPS had a room. I asked how much and the lady quite rightly asked would you like to see the room before she told me the price. I had a look and it was large and ensuite and when i came down she told me it was £16, an excellent result. After resting I had a walk around the town. Just 100 meters from the hotel was a service station with a shop attached, named "Things to buy for cars", so I went in and asked about petrol tubing and am now the proud owner of a meter of plastic tubing. The main activity on a Saturday night in Tan Tan is watching football. I saw Watford beat Arsenal and later Barca draw with Athletico. I asked what was on the menu at the hotel restaurant and ended up talking to the chef. I explained I wanted a simple tagine and explained my food difficulty in Mauritania, so the chef proposed he would send out for some meat and make me a tagine. He did and it was delicious, almost as good as my cooking last night.
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