Blogs from Mauritania, Africa - page 9
Expedition to Nouadhibou
Published: December 23rd 2004Africa » Mauritania » Dakhlet Nouadhibou » Nouadhibou
December 23rd 2004
I said in my last post that it would be a 6 hour journey to the border. Some hope! More like 30! But I am now finally in Mauritania, after an interesting expedition. The Mauritanians have proved to be very friendly and helpful, throughout the journey. The journey began when I checked out of my hotel in Dahkla , just before 9am on the 22nd of December. There were 3 other travellers waiting in the square outside my hotel. All 3 were French. Soon after 9am a number of Mauritanians started to arrive and greeted all of us. Except that the young French woman was surprised to find that the men wouldn't shake her hand. I was somewhat surprised that she didn't know that Mauritanian men are not supposed to touch women. I didn't say anything ... read more
December 5th 2004
Tired, hungry and feeling very much like two dirty beach bums we spent some time trying to find a budget hotel. We struck gold & were given directions to La Auberge de la Dune, which we discovered was run by a former guide. After a blissfull shower & a wonderful night's sleep we set off to find the Mali Embassy. Having consulted the Lonely Planet we felt pretty confident of our directions and knocked on the door of what we thought was the Embassy. I have to say we were a little taken aback to be shown into a very formal reception room by the doorman and marvelled that there were no other tourists applying for visas! We were warmly greeted by whom we later presumed must have been the Mauritanian Ambassador himself who insisted on ... read more
December 1st 2004
Have at last found a cyber cafe with a decent connection - in Noukchott, the capital of Mauritania. We arrived in Mauritania nearly a week ago, after a fairly uneventful last few days in Morocco. Our French friend, Christophe, met up with his friends in Dahkla, where we camped for two nights before setting off for the border crossing into Mauritania. En route we made some new friends - a couple of German travellers - Dietmar & Cisco in a large old bus and a couple of guys from Finland in a Landrover Defender. We camped with them in the dunes 60km from the border - and joy of joys they had beer & whisky - our first alchohol since Spain! The border crossing was pretty uneventful - I don't know what I expected really - ... read more
December 12th 2002
As you are not allowed to take alcohol out of Morocco, and Mauritania is almost a dry country (upwards of US$4 for a beer, who is going to pay that!?) we spent the last night in Morocco/Western Sahara burying all beer, wine and spirits deep inside the truck hoping they wouldn't be found. On all previous trips apparently the trucks had been searched and alcohol removed (lucky border guards!). So after all that effort, we didn't get searched at either border, all we lost was a jar of coffee (Tesco value instant coffee!) and a few tea bags to the Mauritanian guards. As soon as we left Morocco, we lost tar sealed roads. The 10-15km of no-mans-land was all soft sand, so it didn't take long for the sand matting technique to be perfected! We were ... read more
