I've been feeling sorry for myself for the past few days since my last posting. I've been in pain, with tooth ache! I apologise to any Dentists that might read this, but how many of us like the idea of visiting a dentist? The evening after my last posting on the 17th, I started to feel some intermittent pain. As the night went on it only got worse. I didn't sleep much. In the morning I asked Mo who runs the guest house for advice. He suggested some tincture that I could buy. I also asked where I could find a [View Full Entry]

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Gambia is one of the oddest shaped countries in the world. It is just a few kms either side of the Gambia river, surrounded on 3 sides by Senegal and the other by the sea. It has been 6 days since by last blog - in that time I have been in both Senegal and the Gambia. There have been several attempts in the past at uniting Senegal and the Gambia, which is not surprising considering the Gambia s strange geography. Some general points - the food in Senegal has been superb! I didn't come to Africa for the food, so [View Full Entry]

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I am now in Dakar, the capital of Senegal. I left Saint-Louis on Sunday morning. When getting the taxi to the Gare for Dakar, I had to bargain, one taxi driver tried to charge 3 times the going rate. At the Station they asked the going rate for the journey but tried to charge me 500 francs for the rucksack. I refused, so instead of taking a collective taxi to Dakar I ended up in a mini bus. Thinking about it I was arguing over very small amounts of money - 500 francs is 50 pence sterling. Having opted for the [View Full Entry]

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I'm still in St-Louis, relaxing. Yesterday I took a day trip to the National Park for birds at Djoudj. It is one of the most important bird sanctuaries in the world. Over 3 million birds migrating south from Europe stop at the Parc National des oiseaux du Djoudj. I organised a tour with a guide who works for the National Park. His English was non existent, but he spoke slowly and repeated things when I didn't understand. As a result I followed everything he was saying in French. The park was well worth a visit, if not cheap. I had to [View Full Entry]

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I'm now in St-Louis Senegal, which was the old colonial capital. It still has a lot of the old French colonial charm. St-Louis was a welcome sight after the trip from the Mauritanian Border. I left Nouakchott in Mauritania on the morning of the 4th of January. We left Patrick and Chris behind. Patrick still wasn't feeling well - so he didn't want to travel. We caught a pick up truck to the border - the journey was relatively uneventful. The fun started when we got to the border. Leaving Mauritania can be expensive, the guards demand all sorts of 'taxes'. [View Full Entry]

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It's been six days since I was able to get anywhere near an internet cafe - in that time a lot has happened. I am going to write this blog in diary format, day by day as I wrote the entries in my notebook. Some amazing things have happened in that time, including a bush taxi leaving for a 3 hour journey across the desert without putting any petrol in. It ran out of petrol after half an hour. So, we were stuck in the middle of nowhere. What was the driver thinking of! Did he expect the taxi to run [View Full Entry]

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This is the 2nd attempt to write this blog. I had to abandon writing this half way through yesterday. It's been a few days since I last updated this blog. In that time a group of us have been invited to the home of a local family. The Mama's family hospitality has been without bounds. Merci beaucoup! Also I've been trying to leave this town for a couple of days, each time I go to the train station, there's no train. It's becoming like a recurrent dream, where you can't move... More about that later. So, to update recent events... When [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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I'm now in Dahkla, in the Western Sahara. The journey took 22 hours. It might have been quicker if we hadn't been stopped at police check points and asked the same damn fool questions so many times. Governments always put up so many checkpoints when their authority in the area is in question. The other dead give away about the contested nature of this region was all the big White 4 wheel drive cars with the letters UN on the side! The questions that annoy me, include being asked my profession. If I told the truth, NONE! Place of permanent residence, [View Full Entry]

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Yep, I'm in package tourist land! I got here last night at 6pm afer catching the bus from Essaouira at 2pm. So, I had all morning in Essaouira. At the bus station I fell into the first hotel. I've gone down market again - 70 Dirhams a night with shared toilets and shower. I also booked my bus out of here. I'll be catching the bus to Dakhla at 7pm tonight. The guy on the reception of my cheap hotel was very helpful, he told me that he thought that, that bus took 20 hours! He also then predicted my intended [View Full Entry]

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