Janet's diary. Travelling with Ollie in Africa
Mali Saturday 3rd January 1998 from the border with Senegal to Bamako.
Leaving Senegal behind we headed for the Malian border and after crossing the bridge over the Faleme River we completed our Customs documentation before entering the town of Diboli, almost a carbon copy of Kidira, and visited the police station. We completed the required paperwork and paid out 2,000 CFA. then the official who was dealing with us told us that our insurance wasn't valid for Mali. I was sure that it was but didn't argue (it never helps). I asked if we could get insurance in Diboli, he said this was not possible, but that we could get insurance as soon as we reached Kayes. We thanked him and shook hands, he wished us a good stay in Mali.
We drove through the town until we were stopped again at a police post on the outskirts. I got out of the truck and took the paperwork down a steep embankment, to a little hut. Next to the hut was an open shelter under which lay the chief of police asleep on a bunk. Another policeman met me in the doorway of the hut and I handed him our Passports, he glanced at these and then asked for the vehicle documents. He looked at our insurance and then shook his head and said “this is not valid for Mali”. I explained to him that the police in town had told us that we could get insurance when we got to Kayes. He wandered over to consult the police chief, now awake but still reclining on the bed, by now this guy was beginning to irritate me. He returned and informed me that we could not drive to Kayes without insurance, what must I do I asked, If I cannot get insurance here. “You must go back to Senegal” he said - Now I was really getting cross and beginning to see red. I was sure that this was just a trick to get money from us, so I pulled myself up to my full 5ft 2 and told him that I would “not go back to Senegal” “and as you will not let us drive to Kayes, then we will pitch our tent out side of your hut, sleep the night here and then tomorrow morning, I will walk the hundred kilometres into Kayes and return with the insurance”. With this he seemed quite taken aback and once more went to speak with his chief, still lying on the bed. At this point Steve came down from the truck to see what was happening to keep me so long so I quickly told him what was going on. The policeman returned, I waved the insurance document under his nose and pointed out that it said in the small print that it was valid in Mali. He gave up, shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders he rolled his eyes at Steve as if to say you poor chap, and waved us out of his sight. He must have realised that he was not going to get any money out of us. We quickly climbed into Ollie and drove off, at speed.
We were now driving along a reasonable gravel road flanked by a forest of huge Baobab trees. Villagers walking beside the road, waved and called out greetings, as we drove by. Malians seemed friendly, even if their police were corrupt. We drove for about half an hour, then realising we would not make Kayes before Sunset, we looked for a place where we could pull off the road. We drove well into the forest until we came to a huge old hollowed out Baobab tree and tucking Ollie behind it we made camp. After organising our bedding inside the truck I cooked our dinner, rice and a tin of Marks and Sparks cream of chicken from our store cupboard, accompanied by tomatoes, onion and pepper salad, with melon for desert. It was quite spooky sitting drinking our coffee, in the moonlight underneath this ancient old tree. We sat listening to sounds of insects, frogs and owls and in the distance, hyenas. Now I felt that we really had arrived in Africa. It had been a very eventful day and we were both feeling very weary, turned in at half past eight. Day 1. Mileage 193.
Thursday 11th December.
Friday 12th December.
At about 11.40 Fidel allowed us a ten minute break to stretch our legs and have a drink. To stop ourselves from dehydrating we have to keep drinking all the time and now had to retrieve another bottle of water from the back of the truck. Fidel said that he wanted us to drive for another hour and then we would stop to eat and rest over the hottest part of the day.
Not long after we had got under-way again we came across a huge herd of Camels, there must have been at least two hundred. It was quite an amazing sight, something that probably hasn't changed for centuries. The Arab herder was a very tall, very black, young African. We stopped and he came over to talk with Fidel. We all stood around, with the wind howling and blasting us with sand, Joss gave him a jar of jam, some bread and we filled his water bottles. Not long after we had left the camel herd we came across a lone Camel with a very small baby, we stopped and took some photos. Next we spotted a tiny Fox with huge ears; you wonder how these animals can exist in this bleak landscape. We battled on until a quarter past two and Jan only got stuck once more.
We stopped at small Oasis for lunch, bread and cheese, tomato, apple and a coke and then put forty litres of fuel into the tank from our Jerry cans before setting off again at a quarter past three. At first we crossed a huge salt pan at great speed (for Ollie that is) then we were back into soft sand again. At one point we lost sight of the three cars in front and could only just see Fillip's Toyota, in the distance, and then we even lost sight of him. We are so much heavier than the others and we were finding it difficult to keep up. The wind was blowing away their tracks and making it difficult to follow them, but eventually we spotted them again and soon caught up. They had stopped at a small salt pan to talk to some French guys who were driving in three cars; these guys had asked us back in Nouadhibou, if we would like to share a guide with them, thank goodness we had declined the offer. Their guide didn’t have a clue and had got them lost. They had been driving most of the night trying to find their way. On the way they had suffered thirteen punctures and were now mending another one. Fillip lent them his hand pump as theirs was totally inadequate. At this point we suddenly realised that we were missing Jan, so Joss and Fidel set off in search for him, they returned with him about ten minutes later. Jan said he lost sight of the lead cars and had taken the wrong track. As soon as he realised he was lost he found a high point and waited until Fidel found him, (sensible bloke Jan).
We set off again with the Frenchmen and their guide in hot pursuit of us. This made life very difficult for us as they kept weaving in and out of our little convoy; Fidel was not amused and stopped us. He said it was their own fault that they were lost, for not getting a good guide. He let them disappear into the distance and then he turned us onto another track, back into the dunes, to stop them following us. We carried on for some time through difficult terrain and then turned south west back towards the beach. The piste became much flatter again and the driving was faster. We were soon overtaken again by the three French guys and as the last one went past, a Renault 9, I saw a tyre thrown across the sand and thought that he had hit an old tyre lying on the track and sent it flying, it wasn't till we saw them later that we learned that it had come off the back of the Renault and the driver had continued driving for another twenty five K's on the rim!
Our little convoy arrived at the seashore and the border of the Banc d'Arguin National Park, a World Heritage site and a major breeding colony and migratory area for birds. From the shore we could see Flamingo's, Pelicans, Egrets, Herons and soaring above us, West African sea Eagles. We stopped for a short while and saw hundreds of Fiddler crabs with their one huge claw, racing around the beach. Very soon we came to Louik a village at the boundary of the Park. Louik, 250 k's south of Nouadhibou is the home of the Imragen people. The Imragen people are fishers who fish with the help of Dolphins. At certain times of year the Dolphins drive shoals of yellow Mullet inshore for the fishermen to catch. The village appeared to be very poor, piles of rubbish a few reed huts and fish drying racks along the shoreline. We had to report to the parks board office housed in a small stone building where our permits were stamped and we were told to report to the military to show our Passports. The soldiers insisted that we had to pay 500 Ouguiya each, but would not give us a receipt, knowing that this was a bribe we refused to pay unless given a receipt at this point all our passports had been returned except for Phillips. Arguing was getting us nowhere so Philip grabbed his passport from the hand of the soldier who was holding it and before they could react we had all jumped into our vehicles and driven off. We drove for about five k's and arrived at a point where the road ran out and we could go no further, we would have to drive the rest of the way on the beach.
At this point Fidel said that he wished to leave us because while we were at the village, he had managed to arrange a lift back to Nouadhibou for that night. He said that because the next part was along the beach it wasn't really necessary for him to guide us. He told us what time to leave in the morning and said that we should drive for about 75 k's until we came to a fishing village where we would find a track leading from the beach to a piste going to Noukchott. He said that the piste was very bad but because of the full moon the tides were very high and it would be safer than trying to drive all the way to Nouakchott on the beach. We then re-negotiated our fee with him as we had engaged him to take us all the way to Noukchott. He finally agreed to 180 Francs each instead of the original 200. We said goodbye and he disappeared up the beach. We set about making camp for the night, it was a pleasant spot, parked as we were, only 20 metres from the sea. After our meal we sat talking over our day and wondering how the others in our convoy from Marocco had fared. It was a wonderful atmosphere, the waves lapping on the shore, bright stars, a full moon, the peace of the desert. We turned in at 22.15 wondering what the morrow would bring. Day 3. Mileage 170.
Saturday 13th December
After a good nights sleep we awoke to a lovely morning with the tide right in and the sky a beautiful pink in the early dawn light. We set up our table and chairs on the beach near the sea and ate our breakfast while watching the Pelicans, Terns and Dolphins fishing, with the Dolphins in hot pursuit fish were leaping right out of the water. After we had eaten we had a general tidy around the truck and then washed our hands and faces, in preparation for leaving. While we were waiting for the tide to fall Steve decided that he would do a little fishing needless to say he didn't catch anything. By eleven we were packed up and ready to go for our drive along the Beach.
At eleven forty Joss decided that we should leave, Steve said he thought that it was too soon, but the car drivers wanted to push on. It was not a problem for them as they were light and they thought the sand was sand was firm enough for them, but we were carrying a lot of weight and wanted more time. They started out but hadn’t gone but a few yards before one of them was stuck. We all had to set to and dig him out. Steve said we should wait a little longer for the tide to drop and he also let more air out of our tyres, now down to 2.5 bar. After the tide had receded a little more we decided to move off again, the three cars were in front with fillip and us in the rear, but we were soon bogged just getting onto the beach. Luckily, Fillip realised we were in trouble before he had gone too far and came back to lend a hand. We dug around the wheels and Steve lowered the air pressure in the tyres down to 2 bar and we were successful in getting going again. It was really awful driving at a thirty five degree angle over sand humps with the waves lapping at our wheels. By driving in the low-gearbox Steve managed to keep going but much more slowly than the other cars that by now had disappeared from sight, but Philip kept us in his rear view mirror.
After about an hour we came to a fishing village where the three cars had stopped to wait for us. Steve now decided to let more air out of the tyres and went down to 1.5 bar, just about the minimum pressure and once again we set off. By now the beach was beginning to flatten out but the sand was still very wet and soft. We came across an abandoned overland truck that was bogged deep in the sand; it had Ghanaian licence plates, that one wasn't going to make it to back to Ghana. A while later we caught up with the cars once again, they had stopped because their way was barred by some rocks. We all set to work making a bridge with our sand-ladders for the cars to cross, but neither we or fillip needed it, our 4x4's were quite capable of getting through. A little further on we passed through another fishing village where we saw a large orange overland-truck pulling onto the beach, they must have camped there overnight. By now the beach had become much flatter and firmer so Steve decided to put Ollie back into the high-gearbox, enabling us to travel faster and to relax and enjoy the quite spectacular scenery. The beach stretched away as far as the eye could see with huge Atlantic rollers crashing onto the shore. Thousands of sea birds rose up off the beach as we passed by. We came across the wreck of a ship and stopped to have a closer look speculating on the disaster that must have overtaken it.
Fidel had told us to look for a village after sixty five kilometres, where we would find a track leading from the beach to a rough Piste road. We finally found the village but by now had covered 100 kilometres. The cars were there waiting for us, Jan had enquired as to where the track was located and we stretched our legs. I made the big mistake of giving two children a sweet each, within seconds I was surrounded by about twenty more children all trying to grab at the sweets that were left. We had to beat a hasty retreat through the village and onto the track, a horribly corrugated Piste. The track was covered in fine white dust which exploded into the air and obscured our vision so that we soon lost sight of the other cars as there were tracks leading all over the place made by vehicles trying to find a smoother route. After a while we caught sight of Joss and followed him and an hour and three quarters later we reached an Army post where fillip, Nele and Evo were waiting for us, but no sign of Jan. We waited for ten minutes and then decided that he must have got stuck somewhere, so Fillip and Evo went back along the track in search of him. It was about an hour before they returned, it transpired that Jan had got bogged down in soft sand and some Mauritanians in a passing truck had pulled him out. They had asked for two hundred francs in payment, he had said it was too much and had given them 100 francs and had thrown them some old clothes and while they were fighting over them had made a quick getaway.
It was late in the afternoon and beginning to get dark there were still another thirty two kilometres to Nouakchott, Joss said the camp site in the city was very overpriced so we drove on for about another five kilometres and left the road to find a spot to camp for the night. After a meal of mixed veg, onion and Herb Omelette, followed by fruit, we determined that as we had not washed properly for some days we would have a shower. We filled one of the shower bags with lukewarm water out of a Jerry can off the roof and hung the bag from the driver's door then we took it in turns, standing in the washing up bowl, to wash off the previous few days dirt. Feeling a little more human we climbed into the truck at about ten pm and fell into another exhausted sleep. Day 4. Mileage 93.
Sunday 14th December.
After a reasonably peaceful night, disturbed only by the occasional lorry roaring by on the nearby track, we emerged from the back of the truck at about seven-thirty. After a cup of tea and a bowl of Cereal, we packed up, put some air back in the tyres and by 9.00 we were all ready to leave. Although we only had about thirty k’s or so to go to Nouakchott the Piste was still very bad and we arrived on the outskirts of Nouakchott at a quarter past ten.
Nouakchott had the usual filthy dirty, litter strewn streets, shacks and mud houses, although here and there were some more, affluent, looking dwellings. We stopped at a garage and filled up with 58 litres of fuel which cost 4000, Ouguiya. (about 28 Dollars). We had now covered over 4,000 miles since leaving Jersey. It was decided that we should visit the camp site, to see if Nick and Sarah had been, or were still there, when found it turned out to be a bit of a dump. We showed a photo of N & S taken standing beside their Landy to the Arabs there and, although one of the guys said they had been, we were pretty sure they hadn't. The owner was delighted to see five vehicles arrive and was rubbing his hands together at the thought of a thousand Ouguiya per head. The general feeling amongst us all was that it was not very inviting and too pricey and that we would be better to push on down to Rosso. We left, saying that we would return later, but in the event we did not even bother to return to the city centre.
Instead we took the main road South to Senegal and in the space of about an hour and a half were stopped in three Police checks. At these checks the Police scrutinised our papers and while doing so looked around inside the cab to see what they could ask for. We managed to get away with a broken Biro a couple of cigarettes and two Aspirins.
At one thirty we stopped by the side of the road to stretch our legs and have a quick bite to eat, half an hour later we were back on the road. This area is semi-desert and along the way we passed tented UN camps for the displaced people of the Western Sahara, although you see very wealthy Arabs in big expensive cars, the majority of the people, especially the displaced Saharan’s, live in wretched poverty. And from what we had witnessed it is quite obvious that Mauritania still has a slave system. As we travelled south we saw more villages and noticed that the occupants were becoming more black skinned. It is easy to determine the downwind side of these villages by the acres of plastic bags strewn across the ground and festooning the trees and shrubs.
The road to Rosso was tarred all the way and quite fast, it was a very hot afternoon, but before we knew it at a quarter to four we arrived at Rosso and drove into the compound of the ferry terminal that took cars and people across the River to Senegal. After discussion with Fillip and Nele it was decided that we would not travel across on the Ferry, which by the way, was 2,400 Ouguiya each. We decided instead that we would take the road west along the river bank to Diama and cross over there on the Barrage or dam. We said goodbye to Joss, Jan and Evo who were going across on the ferry, we wished them luck and a safe journey and set off back up the road to find the Piste that would take us down to Diama. We had some difficulty finding it but, after asking the way we were shown a small track leading between some shacks. For most of the way the Piste was quite good and ran along the river bank, with some sections better than others. After about an hour we came across extensive wetlands on our side of the river, with thousands of birds, including, Cranes, Flamingos, Egrets and Herons of all kinds, we had never seen so many birds all in one place before. It was a shame that we could not stop but we were trying to reach the border before it closed at six O'clock. At a quarter past five we were still driving with no border in sight and after stopping and discussing the situation it was decided that we would try and locate the border post and then drive back up the road we had just come along on and find a spot where we could Bush camp till morning. Little did we know that this plan was going to go awry
Fillip went on ahead and just before six we arrived at the Mauritanian border post. By the time we got there Fillip and Nele were already out of their truck and in discussion with an Arab. He had told them that the border was closed but if we would sell him some fuel he would fix it for us to cross as he knew the officials. Fillip could not settle on a price with him, so we took ourselves over to Customs where the official said that he would process the car papers if we would pay a thousand Ouguiya Tax. We were told that there would be no problems on the Senegalese side, as they were open 24 hours a day. The car papers in order we then went to the Police office to have our Passports stamped. They at first said they were closed, but then if we were prepared to pay, Guess what, a thousand Ouguiya, they would stamp our Passports. We only had one thousand eight hundred Ouguiya left, so we said that we would not take a receipt, which they were happy with, that wouldn't be going into the governments coffers! So now we were in no-mans-land crossing the Barrage into Senegal, thinking great, we’ve made it out of much money Mauritania, little did we know what was in store for us on the other side of the Barrage.