Phase 17: Mauritania

And, then, it all went to hell in a hand-basket ...

Still a long day’s run from the border I begin to hear an odd swooshing noise coming out of the engine on the driver’s side, so obvious even above the sound of tires on the road and wind rushing in through open windows that Clare comments on it from her side shortly after I’ve first picked up on it myself. A quick roadside check under the bonnet displays oil shooting out from an unknown part under the gasket. Not a good – REALLY not a good – place for a mechanical concern and we’re only a few days past a thorough check-up at the Land Rover dealer in Bamako, who gave her a clean bill of health. 

Hopefully there’ll be a decent “bush mechanic” in the next town; but, no, it’s a one-horse town where if I wanted a new set of bald tires to replace the phenomenal mil-spec super stompers  I’ve just put on in Bamako I’d be set; otherwise: nothing. But as we spin the roundabout one more time in fruitless searching before continuing towards the Senegal border and hopefully some semblance of civilization where a decent mechanic might set up shop, Clare spies a large blue overland truck parked on the side of the road and we’re quickly chatting with Berndt and Melanie from Germany and assessing the amount of oil now dripping out of the engine and leaking down into the gutter. 

Berndt, a trained mechanic with a complete workshop on board his truck, thinks it should be a relatively easy fix and suggests we skip Senegal for any number of reasons we find valid and easy to agree with and head for Mauritania instead; they’ll follow along behind us in case it gets any more serious than it presently is.

A quick swing through town and I find a decent looking set-up along the road – nothing more than a bench under a tree but lots of energetic activity abounds and there looks to be a large set of tools lying about so as it’s the best they’ve got we’ve got no choice. A thorough, everyone’s heads stuck under the bonnet whether they be involved in mechanics or not assessment later and the verdict is given: they can fix, “no problem”, and the offending part is soon wrestled out. Berndt and Melanie have also stopped in, having decided to wait out the fix with us in case there is any way he can assist. The fantastic people you meet on the road.

Hours of effort is engaged, complete with Berndt getting stuck in as well, bringing out his pop rivet gun and compressor to meld the two pieces back together and, after a few km’s test drive without issue we’re – with a wave of relief - fixed by dark and have set up camp together in what we are to learn later is the local cemetery. No wonder it’s so quiet ...

Next morning we’re off, B and M before us as I want to do a bank run in case of further issue, and we’ve also no intention of attaching ourselves to their hip - both of us being fairly ‘independent’ travelers not looking to turn it into a shared group activity. Half way to the border and a new noise sneaks out of the bonnet – a rhythmic ‘ticking’ this time. With a sense of foreboding I look under and see oil shooting out of the ‘repaired’ part like a severed artery bleeding out. With expletives spurring me on I swing round to head back to the mechanics, only to have Clare wisely counsel our better option is to catch up to Berndt and his fully-equipped truck rather than go back to the bush mechanics as - even if they can find the source of the problem (again) - they have no way to put the part back together again with Berndt and his pop rivet gun now gone. Expletives again and back around towards the border.

Quickly catching up with Berndt and explaining our situation, he is willing to get stuck into it and suggests we stop somewhere shady down the road, away a bit down past the border. Which we do; a quick wave at the local, curious, goat herder all the permission we seek as we stop under a large tree, which I start immediately hacking away at to clear the vicious thorns overhanging the work surface. Not so fast; within 5 minutes a car comes to a screeching halt roadside and we are told by the uniforms inside in most uncertain terms we cannot stop here as “two Italians were killed right here” and we must get immediately to the local police station down the road to work on the truck there. No arguments there and we’re back off, me draining oil so badly now I lose 7 litres in the next 40 km’s, arriving within a drop of Dry and Dead.

So sets up a day’s gruelling toil under a baking sun, but Sods Law prevails and we quickly go from bad to worse as the part snaps in half as Berndt attempts to remove it. Incredible, above and beyond, efforts are then brought to bear, with Berndt – one of those “I’ve got just the right thing for this” kind of guys with a truck of wonder and seemingly endless supplies for any manner of possible requirement  - fashioning a bespoke metal plate to seat the two broken pieces onto. Hours pass, sweat pours (or would were it not so dry that it never gets a chance to escape a pore before evaporating), Clare and Melanie spa their feet in buckets and in the end it’s all for nowt – the piece is well and truly @#$%ed and we’re now left with no alternate but to be towed by Berndt to the capital, Nouackchott, some 950 km’s northwest. 

It cannot be emphasised enough just how lucky we were to have come across them at the roundabout – and that they turned out to be such wonderful, helpful (and damned skilful) support for us; truly our Guardian Angels here and our heartfelt thanks for their support on our behalf cannot ever be emphasized enough.

I could probably right a whole blog entry here on just how arduous a grind it is to be towed on the end of a 6 metre rope (shortened to 3 for towns) for such a distance and on such torn up roads, with constricted steering and brakes, weaving around potholes that sprung up from under the big truck in front with only a split second to react to them, always hyper-alert without respite and jerked around like a puppet on a string (held by a very angry puppet master ...) but I’ll sum it up simply by saying it was the most grueling ‘driving’ I’d had to get through on the whole trip. Not to mention when at every police checkpoint we were reminded of the tenuous security situation and warned to be careful on the road ahead it was no pleasant experience to be completely at the mercy of the towing truck and without any ability for independent action. But no breeze for those towing either; by the time we’d reached Nouackchott some three days later we were both shattered by it all and stood milling about our seaside camp ground like survivors from a battle – which, really, I guess we were ... The alternative, though, had we not met them, is one best not lingered on too long.

Clare flew out that night to Morocco, then on next morning back to the UK for a role at the British Red Cross she was very keen on so I was to face the repairs and subsequent journey alone. A flat bed came to take the truck to the local Land Rover authorized mechanic, who took the truck in on the Thursday and then announced they were closed for Friday and Saturday so they’d get on it Sunday. Jayyyyyyyzuz ... Could have stayed at the beach another couple of days. 

In the end it turned out they’d ordered the wrong part (as they had confidently informed me Thursday when I asked for a thorough review first before work got underway they didn’t need to look at the broken part now it was “no problem” – which I KNEW would be a problem; and, hey, what a surprise when it turned out to be ...), unnecessarily removed the entire engine block looking for other issues I told them were non-existent (and were), never found the part ordered from the UK special delivery but did find the one they required in amongst their stores next day and finally got it all back together and running late Tuesday (the fault being with the vacuum pump – which had been replaced once already, in Livingstone, but that I had in error not recognized as being what it was). Expensive and time-consuming/frustrating exercise, but the truck did leave running better than ever for their over-involved efforts so at least can’t fault them on that.

From Nouakchott there are two routes north to choose between: left up the coast on great tar up to Nouadhibou; or right first on tar up into the Adrar region for Atar then on piste of varying quality to the oasis towns of Chinguetti and Ouadane, then even further up to Choum where you must either organize a lift on the Iron Ore train (the world’s longest train, at over 2.3 km’s in length and about as basic as can be) or turn left and drive the piste straight across the border with Western Sahara. Advised against driving the topline piste solo (friends having had to dig themselves out 9 times on their trip across and seeing only 3 settlements in the 650 km) I went off in search of info on the train (and being a bit of a trainspotter the chance to ride on the fabled line was also very appealing). I spoke with the head of the Tourism Bureau about my plan; no problem she said, I’ll call my uncle he’s the driver of the train, he’ll know. Calls made and all is arranged for Monday: call a fella named Hamoud on arrival in Choum, he’ll have it sorted.

Decision made I head up to Atar on an easy drive on tar through a very sparse environment, dunes starting to show now and plenty of camels browsing amongst the scrub to amuse me (laugh every time I see one of those dumb-but-look-so-proud-of-themselves beasts). Atar was nothing, and like everywhere else mostly all closed up and I am the only tourist in town, causing plenty of interested passersby at my table during dinner of mangy fried chicken and chips from a bag at the only place open in town. 

Next day I’m heading east to Chinguetti along a rough but serviceable hard-pack road, arriving after 3 hours in a town forgotten by time – and certainly by any tourists in Mauritania. Every auberge and campsite is closed save one (Bar Sahara), which I find only because the watchman launches himself out the gate and chases after me down the street begging me to stay. A few dollars to camp but he quickly assures me I have the run of the place as I need – sleep on the roof, take a room if it rains, lounge in the deserted bar area (bedecked in many stickers of prior overland visitors, none of which look to be newer than a few years back, curled up, colours desiccated from the heat).

He sets to making us tea, where over the obligatory three cups of overly sweet and bitter mint shots we hatch a plan together: a tour of the old town of Chinguetti that afternoon to view the museum and library holding ancient volumes of the Koran, a run next morning out to the ancient town of Ouadane but return and not stay, another night at the campsite then a return to Atar the following day. Never one to choose a guide over solo travel but this all sounds sensible and I know the piste out to Ouadane is going to be rough (and also doesn’t show on my GPS) so another pair of hands on board never a bad idea.

All goes well: the town tour very interesting, the Koran’s suitably parched, and Ouadane is a stunning ancient village that tumbles down a cliff face like a series of children’s blocks petulantly knocked over. But we see a storm on the horizon, very picturesque lightening arching across a black sky even though we remain in unrelenting sun, and my guide advises it’s best to get a move on – and good thing we do and quickly as within minutes the rains are pouring down off the bordering plateau and seething across the plains. Within minutes the road is awash and we are fording through puddles half a wheel deep before coming across the first of what will be a dozen washouts caused by flash floods roaring across the road, chewing everything up in their path like teeth through bread. 

At issue is not the depth, which is not great (and certainly less than the river near Timbuktu) but the current is unbelievably strong, causing me to almost lose footing a number of times as I conduct my route recces, and there are hundreds of jagged rocks now hidden beneath the water that could rip my tire apart or leave me beached upon them spinning wheels in the air and at the mercy of the rising waters. Crapsticks (as Clare would have so eloquently put it ...).

The journey back to Chinguetti quickly doubles in time but in the end we’re back without major incident and I’ve added another few notches of highly technical driving to my belt so all round a very enjoyable day’s outing. Back to Atar next day, fording more floods and towing out stuck trucks who mistakenly went for crossings without giving prior recce on the important ‘exactly where and how’ of it, in pouring rain that looks set to stay; so it seems this will be the environment for the rest of my travels through the region – arrive in shocking heat and cloudless sky, but travel through and out under leaden clouds and sudden angry bursts of torrential rains. Least it’s cooler for it.

As I prepare to head for Choum the next morning I am stopped at the roundabout seeking directions to the piste (which has my GPS baffled) when Charles de Gaulle sticks his head into my window. Honest to god splitting image, wearing the uniform of the Mauritanian Army. He expresses some concern for my safety on the route up, but is all very French about it – gallic shrugs about whether any actual security issue is presently in the area, just doing his official but friendly best to make me aware whilst also not trying to put me off in any way (as that would just not be french to have such a  ... insignificant nuisance ... as terrorism interfere with the adventure of such a journey). He bids me a hearty bon voyage and throws a jaunty salute as I drive away – would have liked to have got to know his story, am sure there is much more to it than the undercover uniform hoped to present ...

The piste up to Choum, about 3 hours north when all is good, would be a difficult route at the best of times but has now been made worse by the rains. It’s also not a route but more a run through a 4x4 training academy, with every possible obstacle and environment put in front of me as I grind my way up through it. Deep soft sand? Check. Steep tailbacks up and down the plateau with sharp bowling ball sized rock strewn about and no barriers on 300 foot cliff faces? Check. Floods requiring diversions of a few hundred metres either side into unknown ground (where landmines and hidden pools of deep mud that’ll stick a truck solid up to its doors are both very real dangers I am told to be aware of by every local I have spoken with: “Whatever you do don’t ever go off piste” they say ... Uhuh ...) all whilst trying to maintain a course with no markers to aim towards? Check. Not a single other person around to assist should things go pear-shaped, out in the middle of the stark barren nowhereness? Sure, why not, see how that stresser affects you - check. It’s all there. But I pass the test and make Choum by 2 with more than enough time to get sorted for the should-be-as-scheduled departure of the train at 5 as Hamoud has informed me in calls both the day before and this morning as well. All is good.

‘Course, Hamoud turns out to have done absolutely nothing to arrange getting my vehicle on the train. Nowt. And, in fact, there IS no train for vehicles on a Monday, never is. Wednesday, Wednesdays only I am told repeatedly by all involved in our now fairly heated discussions about just why in hell I’m in Choum today on his bidding if the (insert chosen expletive here) train does not even come here until Wednesday??!!? It is, of course, all “pas de probleme” ... It should be added here that Choum is not a town, it is a station for the train; and for that about the most fleabitten, soulless place I’ve ever arrived in – and in which I am now facing a 2 night 3 day wait in. Not happy.

But once resigned to it all being “no problem” and agreeing to wait it out there (or, more accurately, it being more like “no other solution” ...) Hamoud steps up and basically adopts me into his family for the stay, inviting me to lunch and dinner each day (and scolding me gently when informing me his wife had waited with breakfast for me the first morning and I’d not shown up as I was still asleep he discovered when subsequently checking in on me at the Gendarmerie station that was my home for the duration. Well, it was only 7 when you came by Hamoud – I am on holidays here man ...).

Time passes slowly but easily in sweltering heat during the day and torrential rains at night, lounged about in Hamoud’s ‘man room’ being waited on by wife and children for the mornings and afternoons, where assorted local men arrive throughout the day, unannounced, greet me with no sense of surprise at my being there and promptly fall asleep on the floor next to me, snoring away wrapped up in their cloaks; and then to my tent by 9 full of huge platefuls of starch and mutton gritty with sand, declining endless rounds of tea with the police should I aim to sleep at all that night.

Wednesday finally dawns and I’m up early brewing coffee when Mahmoud, who on Monday had been introduced to me as “The Chief of the platforms” (which I think is quite a title), arrives to inform me we must get to the train “gare” tout de suite! Mahmoud is not my favourite guy, a jobsworth who made it quite clear Monday I could accept a train on Wednesday or I could drive the piste (said much in the same way someone would say “go fly a kite”, or words to that effect ...), with eyes that go in opposite directions to each other and a top lip buried in a thick moustache that curls up to such a degree – and his squashed nose down to such a degree – that the two seem destined to become as one soon. I have named him “Snuf”, not as I wish to have him killed, but after Snuffleufagus (sp??) from Sesame Street, who he sounds just like. 

Snuf gets me cracking and I quickly break camp and head for the station to get loaded onto the fabled platform he has apparently – as he says repeatedly - gone to such great lengths to attain on my behalf. It is curved into a convex from use, covered in nails driven into the boards, and without rails – and when I set about hammering them in I am berated for wasting time on a day of such urgency. Two hours later and a length of baling wire affixing each point of my truck onto the platform as the only form of security it will have for the journey we are done, and I ask when the train is due to arrive (as the urgency has coloured the entire exercise and frayed tempers between Snuf and his crew). “Ce soir” he replies with a shrug, walking off for a nap no doubt. Knob.

Hamoud rescues the day with an invitation to lunch, but once done there is no regularly-scheduled nap to be enjoyed as he informs me the train is here and we must get ready to go. Now I’ve heard the train both nights previously and it’s been in about 2200 so I’m a bit surprised at both the morning’s sense of urgency and it’s sudden appearance today 8 hours early but I’m playing along amiably so off we go. To sit together in the sun, on my folding chairs in front of the truck, baking, til, after three interminable hours, I am finally affixed to the train and only now actually ready to depart.

I immediately realize what’s afoot here though: I am attached to three engines and three water tankers – but most obviously there is no great beejesus iron ore train anywhere to be seen. Am I not taking the “big train” I ask Hamoud? Mais oui, bien sur – but it is not here, you must go 3 hours “la bas” (that great French expression for “over there” that is thrown into any conversation, under any circumstance and with multiple meanings as the situation requires). It is then I realize that all the urgency of the day has been aimed to ensure I am loaded and ready to go just to get to the main train, as it must not be able to load me as part of its normal arrival in Choum at 2200. Not so good really; this adds a meaningless-save-for-the-scenery 6 hour round trip to it all and means a stretching out of the journey’s total timings from 12 to 18 hours in length now ...

But no matter; I am seated on my deck chair, stunning scenery on all sides, sun gently settling into the horizon – and with it the day’s heat – and gently rocking along to the train as we start out from the gare and into the hinterland. All is good; in fact, all is fan-bloody-tastic in fact - all that is missing is a cooler of beers at my side and I don’t think I’ve ever sat in such an enjoyable  environment  ...

And, then, it all went to hell in a hand-basket (again) ...

Without warning, with no perceptible change in speed or terrain, the platform starts to swing wildly from side to side, like a rodeo bronco trying to throw off its rider but in this case the platform trying, violently, to rid itself of the truck off its back. I can hear the shocks and springs slamming under the truck as they are squashed down to their very limit then violently pulled apart in equal measure, from one extreme of their range to another. Swearing wildly to no one anywhere near earshot I grab hold of the bulbar to steady myself from being the first casualty and one-handedly fold the chair I had just moments ago been so enjoying and quickly store it down between the front wheels where I hope it will stay put under the unrelenting onslaught of conflicting forces. Not so lucky one of two sands mats, previously bungy’d to the roof rack and wrapped together with a ratcheted strap – the force has torn that apart, then extending the bungy until it lost purchase and the hook freed off the rail, allowing one to drop quickly over the side into the great boot sale of lost items that must be this stretch of the desert. 

 

And I quickly realize too – but not quickly enough to do anything but swear – that the box of rain sheet poles that, in their case, form the cap to the folded roof tent, keeping out the elements while underway and which I had removed to allow the hot air to dry out the prior evening’s rain damage, has also done a runner, a very serious loss for both all further travels under that tent as well as any re-sale value it would have held, which for this action has now been brought to zero. And save for my death-grip on the bullbar I am quite set up to join them over the side as well if I try and make for the relative safety of the trucks interior – relative, as I am beyond certain the securing wires will snap within minutes, the truck lose out to the overwhelming forces of gravity it is currently battling with full effort against and I will a) if outside, watch it crash mercilessly down onto the desert, to be dragged along by the train like a dog caught under a truck’s wheel; or, b) if inside, have both of us go over together, though with me covering the role of the dog in this case ...

And this is – once I have made my way, Spiderman-like, along the truck to my door – the way I pass the next 18 hours of travel, broken only by short periods of calm-in-the-storm when we arrive at depots or tiny settlements along the way to allow more ‘passengers’ to scramble on top of the ore cars and settle in for a long, cold, dusty but free trip across the country but that do nothing for me but give me a chance to furtively emerge, stretch my legs and assess any damage before quickly taking refuge again back inside the truck as soon as we jerk away into the dark, scrambling into the psychological safety of the cramped cocoon of mattress-on-storage-boxes that I have made into a bed, and that in the end will for those merciful breaks take my journey from 12 to 18 and on to 24 hours in total before I am finally released. 

A mercilessly hellish journey, the worst – against a string of very strong competitors - I’ve ever suffered myself through; but at least another tick can now be made against that ever-nagging list of want-to-do’s I constantly torment myself to carry along through life like a unit of measure (though this now having secured the top spot on the list of NEVER-want-to-do-agains ...).

Finally freed from the confines of the platform – not without my having first stormed off into the Chief of Movement for the Iron Ore Train’s office and – my shite French aside – given him a fairly clear appreciation on my thoughts on being stuck sat on a siding for 2 hours awaiting a push forward to offload, which – amazingly – comes about immediately upon my leaving his office – and I gratefully head into Nouadhibou, located on a peninsula and blessed with a welcome climate of refreshing ocean breezes, if not any actual personality. 

Quick wash and a lube – for the truck, not me – and I check into the Hotel XXXX, as recommended by the Africa Overland book - another ‘could be great but for there being no tourists in years’ kind of place, but a welcomed break after 36 hours of grind and dirt and I quickly shower off inches of grime, put on anything I have that is not covered in dust and head out to eat for the first time since lunch with Hamoud in what feels like weeks ago now ... 

Not much to choose from but a Spanish-run cafe down the road (neighbouring Western Sahara having been a Spanish colony and home of the fabled – and far less well known than their famous French counterparts – Spanish Foreign Legion; so this cafe is well-populated by a motley cast who all seem to have forgotten, or lost, their way home decades ago); it draws my attention for being the only place along the strip that appears possibly open and on pushing the door aside to see if it is serving anything find myself loudly exclaiming “BEER!!!” at the startled group of Europeans seated round a few tables drawn together in a tight grouping. Yes, they answer en Francaise, only place in town (and in a country where alcohol is illegal). My GOD but that was the best beer and three more I have ever had!!!

Few days excellent R&R and it’s time to cross into Morocco, head up through Western Sahara, and aim for the finish line of Fes 1880 km’s ahead.