Jumbo (747) milage

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Sand storms

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Running out of petrol in the Mauritanian desert

Monday 4 Feb (528 miles, 4642 total)
The Auberge Sahara is surrounded by mosques, and from 5am onwards they start the call to prayer. Not the musical version that sounded so lovely in Senegal, but a true dirge that’s started by one mosque, then joined by many others. By the time the last one has stopped the first one starts again and at 5:30 it’s clear I’m not going to get back to sleep, so I make coffee, scratch the overnight mossy bites and start to pack for travelling on.

I’m on the road by 6:30 but at the petrol station there’s a pile of rags in the corner that is snoring and I don’t have the heart to waken the attendent. I reckon it’s something like 80 miles to the next station and the digital fuel computer on the bike says I have fuel for 95 miles, so I hit the road. After a few miles I encounter a serious head wind and the fuel computer readout is dropping like a brick. I lower my speed to 60 mph to conserve fuel and cruise on into the half light. I pass the Hungarians in their car who must have started even earlier than me. After 50 miles I start to have concerns, the fuel readout now reckons there’s only 20 miles to empty. I lower my speed to 50 mph—much lower and the engine is pinking against the wind, and I wonder whether the last fuel load is suspect, I’m only getting 45 mph. At a police checkpoint I find the nearest fuel is still 70 miles away. It’s clear I’m not going to make it. Woops!

But I have a plan. Thanks to my lower speed the Hungarians in their car are still occasionally visible several miles behind me and I decide they are my safety net, so I keep my speed at the level where the distance between us remains roughly constant. My fuel readout finally says, “That’s it, mate, all gone,” and I set the trip odometer to see how far I can go on empty. I’m using every trick in the book, including a slow acceleration to 50 mph, then letting the bike coast down to 35 mph, then a slow acceleration again. I know the bike will go at least 14 miles on empty but that’s without luggage. 20 miles comes and goes, then 25 miles. Then 30 miles—surely the bike will splutter any moment. To my amazement it’s 51.4 miles down the road that the engine cuts and I coast to a stop.

I quickly get off the bike and wait for the Hungarians to appear on the scene. I wave to them and they stop. After explaining the situation they immediately siphon 5 litres from their fuel tank and transfer it to the bike. Within five minutes of running out of petrol I’m ready for the road again, imagine trying that in the UK! As I’m about to start a British-registered Land Rover screeches to a halt and a guy jumps out who immediately reminds me of the aviator from MadMax. This is Nick who has been in Niger and other parts of Africa. He checks I’m OK and everyone hits the road again.

I meet up with Nick a couple of times on the way north through Mauritania, then finally at the border with Western Sahara. It’s my second border in 18 hours but once I’m through this one it’s plain sailing. The Mauri side might have been quite quick except there’s an official visit going on with the Minister of Tourism and we are told we have to wait until he’s out of the way. I set up my Jetboil and make some soup. Then some more soup. Then coffee.

Finally the bigwig comes walking down the road towards us with 30 or so minions, support vehicles and troops following. One of the minions is taking photos of everything, “Here’s the shack where we sell insurance, here’s the caravan where we fix the exchange rates, here’s the shack where we extract the money for visas…” The bigwig stops to talk to us. Now’s our chance to stiff the border guards and tell it like it is, but Nick and I decide discretion is the better part of valour and merely exchange pleasantries.

Then after only one hour we’re through and into the no-mans’ land between the minefield. Though the piste is only a few kilometers it seems much longer going north.

Head for the twin towers!

My new-found sand surfing skills courtesy of Senegal roads sees me through the rough patches, and I’m quickly at the Western Sahara (aka Moroccan) side of the border.

Waiting for border formalities I chat to a woman who’s part of a mine clearance team taking three 4x4s further south. She tells me she saw Nick Sanders’ group in Gibraltar three days earlier, apparently they all got to Timbuctou and back unharmed. The Moroccan side of the border is a real pain and it takes nearly two hours to clear.

80km north of the border I refuel at Motel Barbas, then head on to Dahkla. I had bypassed this on the way down as it’s stuck on the end of a peninsula and involves some backtracking to get going again in the morning. But I’m really glad I decided to stop on the way back–nothing in any of the guide books prepares me for the wild beauty and grandeure of the setting. This is somewhere I would stop again.

Tim

Solo crossing at Rosso

Sunday 3 Feb (353 miles, 4114 total)
I have some concerns about crossing back into Mauritania.  The border crossing at Rosso has a terrible reputation and there are additional problems regarding bike security when crossing solo. 

So when I leave Dakar in the morning my plan is to stop overnight at Zebrabar near Saint-Louis and pick collected brains on how to handle the inevitable hassle taking the ferry across the Senegal River at Rosso then the frontier crossing back into Mauritania.

I meet a couple of bikers from eastern Germany who are crossing into Mauritania at Diama and then heading for the wildlife lodge at Keur Massene but this is an option I can’t take as I don’t yet have a Mauri visa and Rosso is the only place I can get one.

On the way I encounter a dog holding off something like 300 vultures who are impatiently waiting to feast on a road-kill donkey. From time to time the dog wanders over to the donkey to take a bite to eat, then sits in the shade to digest. It goes to show the vultures have no pack mentality–between them they could easily overwhelm the solitary dog.

As it happens it’s too early to make sense of stopping at Zebrabar and I decide to carry on to Richard Toll so I can cross the border first thing the next day. I’m at Richard Toll quite early so I decide to make the crossing the same day.  Delaying things won’t make it any easier.

The ferry area is in a walled compound with the Senegal police control point on the left just before it. On entering the compound I’m asked for CFA1000 community tax which I suspect is a scam but the guy is issuing numbered receipts, so maybe I’m getting paranoid. I’m hussled by the many touts offering to exchange money and it’s difficult to negotiate not knowing the accurate exchange rate for £:CFA or £:UM, nevermind CFA to UM! I’m pretty sure I get an awful deal—it would have made more sense to spend almost everything before reaching the border by filling with fuel or buying provisions.

The ferry nearing the far side of the river

On the Mauritanian side of the river the police are waiting for the ferry and take my passport before I can disembark. The ferry is a massive UM4000 (about £8) to cross a couple of hundred metres of water. I can’t believe the locals pay these sorts of amounts. It’s then a very slow process interspersed with three unanswered requests for ‘cadeaux’ waiting to get a visa. My passport has disappeared ‘upstairs’ and after a couple of hours I’m fit to be tied. I find the office of the head honcho and give him a piece of my mind. It doesn’t matter that he might not understand everything, but I talk about how as a traveller I should be shown hospitality in his country, that the secretary of state writes in my passport that I should be given passage without hinderance, and how the experience at borders is bad for tourism. I talk calmly and he gets the message, within fifteen minutes I have my visa (€20) and customs honour paper (UM2000).

I’m then off to get insurance. Bearing in mind I paid CFA10250 for a whole month’s insurance in Senegal, I laugh as the first guy asks for UM8000 for three day’s Mauri cover and also reject his ‘final offer’ of UM7000. There are several other offices there and I get five days cover for UM2500. As I’m finally about to leave the Mauri ferry compound a big abrasive guy asks for UM2000 for community tax. He’s relying on his size to frighten people into paying. A local fixer confirms this is something everyone has to pay, but by now I am seriously peed off with the whole frontier business, so I tell him where to stick his scam, get on the bike and leave.

Thanks to the corrupt Mauritanian police and customs I now only have an hour of daylight left and it’s three hours riding to Nouackchott. Night riding is a bad idea in Africa, but I have no choice. The bike has two auxiliary lights that I have on all the time (so oncoming traffic can see I’m not a moped) and I also have two HIDs which light up the road as if it’s daylight.

Three hours later I arrive at the Auberge Sahara in Noackchott. There are two groups of Hungarians already there, one travelling by car, the other with a trailer full of bikes. The auberge is a safe haven but expensive (UM7000 for a room) and the whole place has an uncared-for air. The wardrobe door falls off when I open it, there’s rubble on the floor in the corner of the room. The room is lit by a single low-voltage bare bulb in the ceiling, the shower is a dribble of tepid water and the air conditioning doesn’t work. Mosquitos are everywhere, the flyscreens on the windows have holes in them and the mosquito net has a serious tear. Never mind, I’m through the worse border so look on the bright side, and at least there’s wifi access here. After checking email I give the room several blasts of flyspray, plug in the anti-mossy device and turn out the light.

Tim

Holiday in Senegal

We only stay at Chez Salim for a couple of nights.  You can hire quads but the cost is CFA 25,000 for an hour’s escorted ride which seems a bit steep. The food is rather repetitive (six variants of chicken and chips) and I come face-to-face (literally) with an enormous cockroach when I reach for a glass of water on the bedside table.  I study it for a moment and concur with those who think Mercedes used it as a styling cue for their latest designs, when consign it to the toilet before Irene notices.

Chez Salim accommodation is in separate huts

Whilst still at Lac Rose we visit the Turtle Village which is interesting. Turtles have an active sex life until 150 years old and copulation takes two hours. On the downside the shell limits their top speed to 1 mile per hour.

We hit the road for Saint-Louis which is 150 miles away. Irene has brought the conversion kit with her for my BMW System V helmet that turns it into a jet helmet. The flip-up chin protector is removed and replaced with jet side sections, and the visor is replaced with a deeper version. Now I can ride with the visor down and still get air flow around the face.

We spend a couple of nights at Hotel de la Poste (http://www.hotel-poste.com/accueil.html), then move down the peninsula a couple of miles to Hotel Mermoz (http://www.hotelmermoz.com/). To get there we pass the fish tables at Guet N’Dar where the women gut and prepare the fish for shipment. The fish are packed in ice and then loaded into the line of refrigerated lorries that are waiting to take the loads to Dakar and other towns within Senegal. The smell of rotting fish is everywhere, not from today’s catch but from the detrius of previous days, weeks, months and years of gutting. These people must live with the smell forever in their nostrils.

Pirogues on the beach at Guet N’Dar

The Hotel Mermoz has more guests arriving and if we want to stay we should have to change rooms, so we decide mid morning to move on further south. Irene has been reading about the Mbodiene area on the Petit Cote south of Mbour so that’s our target. We have to get cash from the bank to pay the bill and on the way back to the hotel we get pulled by a cop who tries to make out I made an illegal turn. I refuse to speak French and say what a nice day it is. He checks my insurance and gives up on the attempt to extract money.

Heading south out of Saint-Louis the next pull is the now infamous corrupt checkpoint at N15 59.141 W16 29.263. I make a play of carefully checking my mirrors and indicating when stopping, the policeman asks for my licence and waves us on–possibly put off by the fact that Irene is riding pillion.

The road from Saint-Louis to Thies is really boring and repetitive. Although it’s quite straight, goats, donkeys and cows crossing the road prevent speeds of more than 70 mph. There are occasional settlements and one of them, Mékhé seems to be a transport hub with several small cafés and restaurants—looks like a good place to sample the local cuisine. You can also get basic supplies at petrol stations. To all intents the area is completely flat, though looking at the GPS track log it seems the road gradually rose over the next 100 kilometres to 100m asl, a gradient of 1:1000. We take a smaller road from Thies towards Poponguine which has a hill and a valley. Gobsmacked at the sight we stop to take a photo.

Wow, a hill!

The hotels in Mbodiene area are full so we ride a bit further on and find the Hotel de la Plage in Joal. This is an unassuming place but very friendly with great ambiance and we stop for what turns out to be three nights.

Fadioth is twinned with Joal, via a long pedestrian bridge. It is said to be a 100-year old man-made island of clam and seashells, however it has baobab trees that look older than this. It has a sizeable christian community and a dual christian/muslim cemetry is on a separate island connected by yet another bridge.

Cemetry island in the background

Fadioth is extremely neat and tidy and well worth a visit—there are some extremely high-quality souvenirs and no pressure to buy. Lots of well dressed older folk around, the men wearing trilby hats which seems somewhat incongruous.

Masks and figures are popular

From Joal we ride north through Mbour to Saly NiakNiakhal and stop at Hotel Paradou (htp://www.paradou-senegal.com).

Le Paradou

We are in the middle of the high season for tourism and Saly is popular, but because the Paradou is fairly new it’s not in any guidebooks and we are able to get a room. It’s well laid out with lots of arty touches and we end up staying for four nights.

Sunday 2 Feb
Irene’s flight back to London via Tripoli is this evening. We make the best of the day by sunbathing until 3pm, then set off to do the 50 miles back to Via Via.

Leaving Le Paradou

Irene is amazed at the gridlocked traffic at Rufisque but in fact it is comparatively light as it’s the weekend. Back at Yoff we pick up Irene’s case and transfer back into my luggage all the things I had left at the hotel. Irene senses the change in me as my mood turns from being a tourist back into being a traveller. We get a taxi to the airport for CFA2000 and say our goodbyes. It’s been a really great couple of weeks having Irene share the experience of bike touring.

Tim

And the winner of the 2008 Dakar Rally is…

Sunday 20 Jan (28 miles, 3237 in total)
I’m really concerned about the horrific journey to come as we exit Dakar. I say it will be the worst possible introduction to Sénégal, but the roads are comparatively clear. Then we realise it’s Sunday.

I later check on the dates of previous rallies and they have all finished on a Sunday. Maybe this is to ensure that the competitors can at least get from the Meriden Hotel (where most spend the previous night) to Lac Rose through what would normally be totally gridlocked roads.

When we arrive at Chez Salim at Lac Rose there are seven or eight army-type lorries lined up to take a group of tourists out on the dunes. They think they are having an adventure, then spot our bike arriving and their jaws drop.

Le Cocq’s and Moneyron’s bikes

There’s the sound of engines in the dunes and there’s a Dakar competitor truck (sponsored by Senegal Airlines) and a couple of Dakar bikes on display. The noise is coming from a couple of Dakar cars playing in the dunes.

Nissan that was to have been co-driven by a Senegalese

After watching for a while I ride over to the official finish area outside the Niwa Oasis hotel. There’s nobody there, they are all still playing in the sand dunes, so I proclaim myself the winner of the 2008 Dakar Rally.

Afterwards I meet up again with the four Dutch guys on the WR450s that I last saw at Hotel de la Poste. I am chatting with Wim and he mentions the police road block below Saint-Louis and I find they paid €50 each for the same infraction as us. He says they paid the money as they were in a hurry.

There’s two ways of looking at this, one is to say that the more people pay corrupt police officers the worst it gets for those who don’t want to pay. On the other hand, faced with intransigent travellers who refuse to cough up, perhaps the corrupt officers will not push hard knowing there will be others coming along shortly who will be easier targets.

Tim

Dakar traffic!

Friday 18 Jan (mileage 14 piste, 78 road, total 3094)
There’s a cyber across the road from Via Via, so in the morning I check my email and add to the blog. A desk with LAN cable is reserved for anyone with a notebook, so at least I don’t have to queue for a spare machine. The place is full with Senegalese guys checking out English-language dating services and writing “Hello darling” letters to European girls they have met in the ether.

Via Via’s Lion of Sénégal

Via Via is OK as a refuge in a storm but nobody in their right mind would want to spend a holiday in Dakar. Irene’s flight arrives late on the 19 Jan.  I decide to check out the Lac Rose area, where the Rally would have finished on the 20 Jan. We shall be there even if the Rally isn’t!

It’s just 15 miles as the crow flies, and I try a direct route missing out the horrific road through Rufisque. Winding my way through horse-drawn carts and the fume-emitting buses and trucks, my progress is painfully slow with an average speed of just 9 mph. The sides of the roads are deep sand as are the smaller side roads, so I have to go wherever the tarmac leads me, which is round and round in circles. There’s no way I can get through and I return to ViaVia and take the Rufisque road.

There are several routes into the lake area and it’s not clear from the map which to take. I set off down a dirt track which soon becomes quite sandy. One-up without luggage I can manage this, but I have little two-up experience and we would be carrying luggage, so this route is out.

Eventually I’m at Lac Rose and there are many hotels, all with swimming pools. Some I reject immediately then I find one which looks OK, but when I ask a French couple what they think of their hotel they are not happy and suggest I look at Chez Salim. This is much more upmarket yet only CFA 20000 for double occupancy, so I make a reservation and head back to the madness that is Dakar. With the lake area only 15 miles away I would have expected a total for the day of maybe 45 miles, but I’ve covered more than 90.

Back at Via Via I am buying water from a shop with my new-found skills in Woloof, “Jockma benna boutelle d’ochh,” when I am approached by a guy who wants to talk to me. It’s a very involved story about his father dying and I don’t know where this is leading other than the end result will involve me somehow being expected to hand over cash. I cut him short, commiserate with him about his loss and say I cannot become involved.

I’m sorry that much of this blog is being taken up with stories of corruption and scams, but that’s life here.  There’s one group I do give small amounts to, and that’s the street boys, or ‘talibe’. The word talibe probably comes from the same root as taliban which means student, and these kids are given to the religious leaders to be instructed in the Koran in a madrassa. Any money handed over by the parents is kept by the teachers who send the boys into the streets to beg for their food.

Saturday 19 Jan (135 miles tarmac, 3209 in total)
If Irene and I head north to Saint-Louis we’ll need somewhere close by Dakar to stay the night before Irene flies back, so I head out of Dakar to visit the Petite Côte, the stretch of coastline that leads south from Dakar, looking for a suitable hotel.

As the Lonely Planet guide book writes, Saly-Portugal “is the sort of holiday destination found all over the world: palm-lined beaches, dozens of hotels, nightclubs, bars and souvenir shops.” Not what I had in mind. After some searching I find Saly-Niahnaikhale, which is much quieter with refined guesthouses. I make a reservation and head back into the Dakar maelstrom.

Irene’s flight is a two-hop, the first leg from London Gatwick to Tripoli in Libya, and thence on to Dakar. It is due to arrive at 2100 so I get to the airport ahead of time and find the arrivals information systems out of order, but never mind, I am told the flight is early and is due to land at 2050. By 2130 I am getting concerned, check again and am told the passengers will be through in five minutes. Twenty five minutes later the passengers from a Madrid flight materialise. Eventually at about 2215 the Tripoli flight turns up.

Irene’s not a particularly good flier and her first leg has been traumatic as the guy in an adjoining seat had suffered a grand mal seizure.

I’ve organised a taxi back to Via Via and am waiting there by the time Irene arrives. We then unload Irene’s case with her biking gear and helmet.  There’s little room on the bike so we refill the case with things I can do without for the next couple of weeks and leave it with reception.  Fine, we’re ready for the off tomorrow to Lac Rose!

Tim

More hassle on way to Dakar

Thursday 17 Jan (mileage 10 piste, 122 road, total 3002)
In the morning after saying goodbye to Steve and Bill I go looking for a cyber café but none are open as it’s too early, so I decide to look in on Zebrabar to the south and head out of the city over the seven-span bride. I’ve gone less than 500m from the hotel when I see Steve and Bill by the side of the road. They’ve been pulled by the same policeman who stopped me and he is refusing to let them ride further. I act as translator and volunteer to take Bill to buy insurance. We head back into the city with Bill riding pillion. I’m not used to having someone on the back and the metal ‘planks’ of the bridge set the bike weaving.

Part way across the 500m-long bridge

On the way back I see the French Transalp and Suzuki bikes parked outside a hotel. So they made it. Wow. On our return the cop tries to finger Steve for CFA 10,000 but he refuses. I take a photo of the cop with the flash ‘accidently’ set on so he knows I’m documenting this. He then waves us all on and shakes our hands with a very sour look on his face.

Smile, you’re on candid camera

A few miles further on we come across a national police roadblock. The guy waves us to the side of the road. I stop in the road and he waves me over to the hard standing, so I do as he asks. He then announces that I have incurred an infraction by not signalling as I moved over. It’s the start of the most blatent extortion attempt and I’m seriously annoyed. He takes our driving licences and we discuss calling the British Embassy–I have the numbers in my mobile for the British Embassy Dakar, the British Honorary Consul for Mauritania and the British Embassy in Rabat, Morocco. I get my phone out and say the magic words ‘Embassy Britanique’ and he goes beserk, but at least it shows we are not about to be cowed. He storms off into the hut with our licences. After a minute Steve follows him, the guy asks for €30 per bike. Steve grabs the papers and exits stage left. The guy runs out and is now livid and raving at us but we ignore him. Ear plugs in, helmets on, gloves on, ignition and start. What’s he going to do—shoot us for not paying a bung? As we pull out he says, “You can go.” Well thanks shitface, we were going anyway.

For me this experience will really put a damper on the rest of my time in Senegal. I part company for the second time with Bill and Steve; they are heading for The Gambia and I call in to the Zebrabar, a place with a legendary reputation amongst travellers. It seems a good place to chill out, especially for solo travellers who could do with some company, or those who want to camp.

I meet Martin who has a LandRover 101 (I think). It’s a military-spec vehicle which has been adapted with a camper section on the rear. Martin is carrying 200kg of spares but not the ones he needs to mend the gearbox, so is waiting for a DHL delivery.

Vultures clean up the roadkill

I can’t say I find the Senegal countryside particularly interesting. It’s very flat and repetitive and I can’t help comparing it to the wonderful sweeping bends and mountain roads of Morocco.

My first Baobab tree

Dakar is perched on the Cap Vert (green cape) peninsula and all possible expansion space has been used up decades ago. In fact Cap Fumé might be a better description given the vehicular polution. To make things worse, all traffic headed in and out of Dakar has to go through a narrow bottleneck joining the peninsula to the rest of the country. Dakar’s location is far from ideal and there has been talk of creating a new Senegalese capital elsewhere.

I’ve hit the bottleneck around Rufisque at rush hour and the traffic level is indescribable. It’s absolute anarchy, with thousands of ‘ndiaga ndiayas’ (white Mercedes buses), ‘car rapides’ (blue and yellow minibuses), trucks and taxis belching huge plumes of diesel fumes into my path. I wet my buff and pull it over my nose, though that’s little protection. I notice some moped riders are wearing medical-style face masks. Whenever there’s a junction the traffic is gridlocked. Some vehicles bypass this by driving on the shoulder of the road, but it’s deep sand and not an option for me. Hundreds of roadside sellers of sim cards, fruit, sunglasses, nuts and myriad other items walk between the halted vehicles making filtering even more difficult.

It takes almost two hours to cover the eight miles to Yoff, a suburb of Dakar that the guide books describe as being relatively tranquil and after checking out one hotel I start hunting down a travellers’ haunt called Via Via. A guy offers to hop on the back and guide me. It’s a mile or so and when he gets off he asks for €20. I don’t mind giving him something for his trouble and bung him CFA 2000, enough for a couple of beers.

The staff at Via Via are great and they really know how to enjoy themselves with much singing, clapping, drumming and wild dancing. They code switch like mad using Woloof, French and Arabic in the same sentence, with sometimes an English word thrown in for good measure. It’s the birthday of one of the girls and I’m invited to share the ‘cake’ a weird concoction that tastes of porridge with sweetened vanilla yoghurt over the top.

Tim

Sightseeing in Saint-Louis

Wednesday 16 Jan (14 miles, 2870 in total)
I can thoroughly recommend the Hotel du Poste. The oldest hotel in Saint-Louis, it’s another of the points of call for the pilots of the French colonial airmail service in the ’20s and ’30s. It was from here during the era of the “Aérospostale” company that Jean Mermoz set off, on 12 May 1930, at the controls of his seaplane “Comte de Vaulx”, for his first flight across the South Atlantic.

The dining room has a wonderful mural covering the entire ceiling showing the route and stopping places in Europe, Africa and South America. The staff are friendly and there’s a swimming pool and restaurant overlooking the river and the Pont Faidherbe.

Bill, Steve and I start the day with a walking tour of St Louis. The island used to the the European quarter and has a similar architectural style to New Orleans, through much dilapidated. We cross the bridge to Guet N’Dar, the fishing community on the peninsula where all but one of the streets are sand.

Local taxi

Young kids call us ‘toubab’ (white foreigner) and run. Good-humouredly we pretend to give chase. Immaculately-dressed leggy supermodels emerge incongruously from hovels and glide smoothly down the street as if mounted on rails. The reason for the smooth gait soon becomes apparent as we see many young girls balancing loads on their heads.

We then take a turn on the sea shore watching the pirogues navigate through the surf, spend some time admiring the roller blade skills of the local lads, then watch in amazement as a fisherman brings in catch after catch of large fish with nothing more than a hand-thrown net.

In the afternoon I head off on the bike to check out Hotel Mermoz on the peninsula for when Irene arrives. On the way back I’m stopped by a policeman that I noticed earlier stopping other European-registered vehicles. He asks to see my insurance papers which is a problem because I haven’t bought it yet. I tell him all my papers are at the hotel and he says I must leave the bike where it is and go and get them. At this stage a guy introduces himself in good English saying he’s from The Gambia. He says I’m in deep trouble, I should be carrying my documents, so will have to go to the police station and face a big fine, but if I give him £20 he’ll try and sort it out with the police.

I suspect he’s in cohoots with the cop, so I decline his munificent offer and set off for the hotel. The receptionist tells me there’s an insurance office just round the corner and I pay CFA 10250 (£10) for a month’s insurance which I ask to be backdated to the previous day as that’s when I arrived in the country. I crumple the certificate and hide it deep inside the other papers I’m carrying. When I get back to the policeman I dig out the certificate and also insist he also looks at my passport, passavant, innoculation certificate and everything else I have. He definitely smells a rat but can’t put his finger on it and we part company with a handshake and smile.

Back at the hotel four dutch riders turn up on WR450s with a support truck and trailer in tow. I exchange ‘war’ stories with Wim and he tells me they paid around €100 each to pass through the various controls on the Diama piste. I’m amazed at this, maybe in their little convoy with matching bikes and gear they looked easy pickings.

Tim

The Diama piste to Sénégal

Tuesday 15 Jan (mileage 60 piste, 149 road, total 2836)
I am woken pre-dawn by Nick’s group getting ready for the off, so I get up to take photos. They are taking the road south-east to Kiffa which is the area where the four French tourists were killed last month, so these might be the last photos of the group. I briefly wonder how much I could sell them for.

Last seen on a scooter leaving Auberge Sahara…

I’m heading south to Senegal and venture out through what must be some of the worst road/vehicle conditions I’ve seen (and that includes India). Designed for 50,000 inhabitants, Nouackchott is now the biggest city in the Sahara with population of almost 1m. So much water has been taken out of the underlying aquifer that there is danger of subsidence. There are sandstorms 200 days per year, but at least I’m in luck there. Ridges of sand encroach on and across the road in places, what the French call ‘ensablement’. The signs alongside the road read, ‘Ne quitter pas l’axe’ with a picture of a mine. A heap of rust pretending to be a car is broken down in the middle of the road. Another is stopped with a broken prop shaft. Then I see a terrible collision in which a car has rear ended a truck and finished up buried beneath it. Not much chance for the driver. Needless to say I am riding extremely carefully with all senses at emergency boost level.

Eventually I’m clear and into the country. I’ve slowed down looking for a loo stop when I’m caught up by two British bikers, Steve Bullen on a 1150GS and Bill Chaplin on an 1150GSA, both from Langport in Somerset. They are riding south to Cape Town, then plan to do South America and finish in Las Vegas. They are well organised with the biggest panniers and top boxes I think I have ever seen. We agree to ride together to the Senegal border and on to St Louis and are about to start off when three Austrian bikers on KTMs appear from the other direction and also stop for a chat.

The Austrians are riding light and say they have a support vehicle following them. A police car turns up and tells us to move on, insisting we are blocking the road. As we continue we see many more of the KTM group, then a massive tank transporter-sized truck.

We quickly cover the 120 miles south and as we near the Senegal river the scenery changes dramatically, becoming a sub-Saharan savanna. There are now two ways to enter Senegal, the ferry crossing at Rosso or the piste to the dam at Diamma. Rosso is supposed to be a nightmare, and I had already planned to use the piste, so we turn off the road into what looks like a rubbish tip and follow the GPS. Back in the UK I had used Google Earth to fine tune the waypoints and the preparation was worthwhile.

The piste is quite sandy at first, and then is mainly beaten earth with many loose sections. At many times we are riding along the top of the levee set up some 400m from the Senegal River to prevent flooding further inland. In total the piste is 60 miles long and although at some stages we are travelling at more than 40 mph, we take probably three hours with stops. One of the stops is total panic when I hear a high-pitched whine and realise a mosquito has got inside my helmet, another is caused by a warthog dashing across the track and distracting Bill with the inevitable consequence. The pannier is forced back on and the pannier frame will the dealt with later. I remember reading Dan and Linz’ blog that they also encountered a warthog, maybe it’s the same one that waits to ambush bikers.

Homemade panniers with massive capacity

We come to a village with many young school children playing with their teacher under the trees, so I stop and see what happens. The children are three to five years old, very curious but timid. We spend ten minutes shaking hands with them all and talking to them. It doesn’t matter that neither side can understand the other. As we leave the teacher is extremely grateful to us for stopping. Often I carry postcards of Eastbourne with six views of the area on them, and I wish I had one with me, it could have provided the class curriculum for the next week!

With their ability to stop anywhere, bikers have a unique opportunity to act as ambassadors for their country (and Europe in general). All too often European tourists blat through African villages in 4x4s leaving nothing in their trail but dust and maybe some sweets thrown out of the window. Rather than ride in a Darth Vader-style enduro helmet I prefer a flip top so I can raise the lid as I enter a village and it makes it easier to smile at people.

Since writing this I saw a post by craigcc on HUBB in the same vein, “One of the things that I’ve always liked about the travel and overlanding side of life is that even though risks are sometimes taken to complete a journey or country, people who would possibly not otherwise often see westerners get exposed to us and mostly in a positive way. We may not set out to influence hearts and minds, but we do leave an impression with the people we meet. I hesitate to use the term ‘ambassadors’, but in a small way we are. We show the quiet faces of ordinary people from our countries. Faces that are masked by the sometimes catastrophic foreign policy decisions of our Governments. If we stay away, then sometimes all that’s left is the propaganda of those who would wish to do us down. Fear and suspicion is fostered and in a few extreme cases radical views can gain a foothold.”

I have strong feeling also about giving things to kids. On some tracks I have been asked 200 times for ‘un stylo’ and I would like to throttle those who try to turn kids into beggers constantly asking for sweets, pens and money. If you really want to give pens away, stop at a village school and give the pens to the teacher! I’m in danger of going off at a tangent here, so on with the story…

Although better than Rosso, the border at Diama is far from easy. Some way from the border we are asked for UM 1,000 each for crossing through the national park. I ask for a receipt and the guard gives one receipt with ‘x 3’ added to it, obviously planning to pocket the other UM 2,000. The other guard asks for the pen he can see in my tank bag. “No, I only have one pen and I need it.” He then asks for a present and I ask him if it looks as if I am carrying presents. After some standoff we eventually leave having only paid the equivalent of €3 for three bikes. I know others have paid €5 per bike here, so we are well in hand.

At border crossings it’s always a good idea to act as if you have all the time in the world. If you are in a hurry, you’ll end up paying megabucks. Another idea is to save your food for the border and if faced with refusal to pass without bribes, set up your stove and have a brew-up. If alone, wait for reinforcements to turn up in the form of other travellers.

We first come to the Mauri side of the border and are ushered into the cool air-conditioned office of the police head honcho. I spend most of my time staring out of the window and acting disinterested. He’s a real cool dude and wants €10 per person to process our exit. We stand our ground and pay nothing. Then it’s the customs. Same story, and again we pay nothing. The guy who is about to ask us for the €5 each for the community piste fund senses he’s a lost cause, the barrier is lifted and we are through.

We pass over the modern bridge to the Senegal side and an official wants CFA 4000 (about £4) per bike to pass the barrier at the end of the bridge. This is an amount we know we have to pay, but don’t have any ceefas. We try to blag our way through and the official gets very bolshie and shuts and locks the barrier. We eventually pay some euros and are through. A dutch guy is in front of us at the Senegal police office and asks the police whether he has to pay. Not surprising the answer is “yes, €10.” He pays and exits. We don’t pay and there’s another standoff.

Whilst the officers are pretending to ignore us I have a conversation with Steve in English, but deliberately choosing words that would be understood to a French speaker, on how corruption has a bad effect on tourism. We offer some Moroccan dirhams which we know are useless to them. They want euros so I get some sterling coins from my top box and explain how England doesn’t use euros but has pounds saying, “Look, this is our Queen.” Eventually they give up and let us have our passports.

Then it’s over to the customs office. A long wait whilst the guy transcribes our details onto a passavant (a sort of carnet substitute) and we pay the officially receipted CFA 2500 and we’re done there. Finally someone asks if we have insurance. We know the rate at the border is scandalous—someone was charged €45 for ten days—so we reply that we have worldwide insurance cover and after two hours in total are finally through both sets of border controls and into Senegal.

Twenty miles later with the temperature at 30c we enter Saint-Louis, one time capital of this part of Africa. I do a double take as I see a guy who is the splitten image of Huggy Bear from Starsky and Hutch. The centre of the city is on an island in the middle of the Senegal river, reached via the Pont Faidherbe, a seven-span bridge with iron decking. Just across from the bridge is the Hotel du Poste where we stop. Steve disappears whilst we are parking the bikes, reappearing with three very welcome beers, and after a quick shower we’re off to try Yassa Poulet (chicken in an onion and lemon sauce) at the highly-recommended La Linguère.

Huggy Bear lookalikes apart, the Senegalese are a very good looking people and it soon becomes apparent Saint-Louis has a booming sex tourism industry. European men with young Senegalese girls, European women with young men. It’s open and apparently not frowned upon, all part of the rich offerings of Senegal.

Tim