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