Steve and Jan's African Travels.
Travellers Tales
Driving through Mauritania
We reached the sea at a point near D'arguin Island, famous for its flocks of seabirds and thrilled to the sight of
Flamingos. Pelicans, Egrets,
Herons, and soaring high above us huge West African Sea Eagles. We drove on until we reached the village of Louik.
Louik is the home of the Imragen people. Traditionally these people were nomadic fishermen but nowadays they live in
squalid settletments. The huge piles of garbage and rotten fish surrounding the settlement gave a general impression of
extreme poverty and
destitution. Louik hardly deserved to be called a village, just a few reed huts and fish drying racks along the
shoreline. At certain times of the year the Dolphins drive shoals of yellow mullet inshore for the fishermen to catch
and who in return feed some of the fish back to the dolphins.
We had reached the boundary of the Park
National Du Banc D'arguin and reported to the parks office housed in a small stone hut. Here our permits were stamped
and we
were told to report to the military to show our Passports.
The soldiers demanded 500 Ouguya each but refused to give us a receipt. We had a general policy of refusing to pay
bribes, if possible, as it only makes life more difficult for those that follow. We refused to pay without an official
receipt and after an argument and before things turned nasty we jumped into our vehicles and made a rapid getaway.
After driving for about 5 kilometres we reached a point on the seashore where the road ran out, from here we would have to drive the rest of the way on the beach.
Fidel, our guide left us at this point with the instruction that we should leave before midday and that we should then leave the beach after some 75 kilometres where we would find a track leading to a road going to Nouakchott. He said that it was a very bad "piste" but because of the high tides of the full moon it would be far more dangerous to drive the whole length of the beach.
Here we were camped just a few metres from the sea, waves lapping on the shore, a full moon shining, peace and tranquility enveloped us. We turned in wondering what the morrow would bring.
The next morning I lowered our tyre pressure to 2 bar and set off to drive the beach and promptly got stuck, I lowered the tyre pressure to 1.5 bar, the minimum, and were soon underway. Those first few kilometres were pretty hairy, driving at the top of the shoreline we were over at an alarming angle and the waves were hitting our wheels. Gradually with the tide falling the driving became easier.
An encounter with a Fat Policeman while driving to Bamako in Mali
It had been a long, hard days drive, it was late in the afternoon and we were both rather tired and, because we still had 93 kilometers to go, I did not think that we would get to Manantalli, our next town, before dark. We were following the Bafing River looking for a suitable camping spot but we just couldn't find a decent place were we could park and put up our tent and then before we knew it an hour had gone by and we had arrived at the police checkpoint on the outskirts of Manantalli. I handed the officer our papers and inquired if there were any decent places to camp nearby. He said that we would be able to find a place after we had passed the hydro electric dam on the other side of the town.
I drove us through Manantalli and we soon saw the huge barrage in the distance. The road took us to a point just before the dam-wall where we came to a crossroads and here I managed to make mistake number one. I saw the stop sign and applied the brakes unfortunately by the time it had registered and I had stopped Ollie I was just beyond the sign. We weren't sure which road we should take and set back at the side of the road there was a small shelter so Janet climbed down and went over to ask for directions. Well, under the shelter sat a fat, surly, scruffy policeman. He had one trouser leg rolled above the knee a dirty teeshirt and flip flops. He couldn't have looked less like policeman if he had tried. Janet greeted him and asked the way we should take for Kita. He got up, beckoned her to follow him and walked over to the sign which he pointed at and wanted to know why we hadn't stopped before it. Janet realised that this guy was looking for trouble so she bit her tongue and apologised. He begrudgingly told us to turn left when we reached the Barrage. And sent us on our way, phew.
We set off towards the dam and for some unknown reason I turned right and soon realised we were driving along the top of the dam. Mistake number two, there had been no sign to say that you couldn't drive along it and it was too narrow to turn around so I just had to keep going. A few minutes later I heard hooting and looking in my rear-view mirror and saw the fat policeman, riding an ancient motor cycle, his face contorted with rage, shouting and waving his fist at us. I stopped Ollie and he appeared by Janet's window. What we could understand of his rantings was that he was accusing us of being spies and demanding our passports and camera. We both offered profuse apologies and said we had just turned the wrong way but he was having none of it and demanded that we follow him back to his post. He took our passports but I said we didn't have a camera so as we followed him Janet was frantically hiding our two Nikons under the seat. Back at his post he continued to rant and rage and said that we would have to go with him to a police station in the town. I said we would but only if he returned our passports because by law he couldn't keep them from us. At this became even more angry and stomped off back to his shelter, still with one leg of his trousers rolled up.
It looked as though we had reached an impasse but then our luck changed. A car came out from the hydro-electric plant and stopped the driver asked if we were OK. He spoke quite good English and we explained our predicament to him. I got the feeling that this guy was someone of importance for he went over and spoke with the fat policeman for a few minutes and then returned to explain that we could have our passports and he would let us go if we would pay him some money. I'd had a feeling that it would come to this so asked how much he wanted. Our friend went back to consult fatso again and came back to say that he wanted 2,000 CFA (about 2 quid) The fat policeman came out of his shelter and his greedy little eyes lit up as I handed him the money and he returned our passports. But then perhaps our Saviour carried more clout than we knew for when I thanked him he said that shouldn't blame the guy to much as he was put there to guard the entrance to the power plant and was paid very poorly. We made a quick exit this time taking the right road! No, the left.
It was past 6 O'clock as we drove into the gathering gloom. About five kilometers from the Dam we found a track leading from the road into the bush where I parked Ollie next to a huge flat granite rock. Then it was all systems go to get our tent set up, our beds made and a meal cooked before it got too dark. We were both a little traumatised by the events of the day but were soon eating our meal and listening to the good old BBC world service accompanied by the sounds of churring Nightjar's, chirping Crickets and all the other night sounds and we were soon able to laugh about the predicament we had just got out of. It had seemed pretty awful at the time and could have been worse if the fat policeman had set his sights a bit higher and demanded a lot more money than he had but, perhaps, he had been swinging the lead in accusing us of law breaking, perhaps it was perfectly legal to drive over the Barrage, in Africa your never quite sure.
To be continued