Border formalities

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A lot of banter in several languages was going on between the six of us. Two of the three Moroccan women were in the back with Gianni, Julian, Brendan and myself. Having been firmly shut in by a bar across the back door of the van we couldn't see much at all and were trying to talk above the noise level of the engine. Occasionally Gianni would peer out of the dirty rear windows and tell us that there were camels out there ..

I started reading my first guide book on Mauritania which Brendan had thoughtfully brought along. First things first; the import of alcohol was strictly prohibited into the Islamic Republic of Mauritania - did that include Bombay Sapphire? Would anyone take away my prized possession that I bought on the Algeciras-Tangiers ferry??
Secondly, no one seemed to know that if I could pick up a visa at the border if I needed a photocopy of my passport (I had one such copy) or a passport sized photo (which would have meant a long trek back to at least Dahkla). Gianni & Brendan being rather more intelligent than I; had picked up their visas in Casablanca. I was relying on information posted on Lonely Planet that you could now get your visa processed at the border.

The van was suddenly pulled off the road and we hit a bumpy track, I thought we'd reached the border, the guys came to the rear of the van and let us out; we'd broken down - in the desert .. nothing for miles, just the odd BMW whizzing past doing what seemed to be a test run at 200kph or so ... one of the guys lifted the bonnet, the ladies went off with bags and later called me to join them for tea.

Falling asleep on the blankets with my head happily banging the side of the van (I was up to date on tetanus!) I decided that if I didn't get my visa then at least I'd be able to keep my bottle of Bombay Sapphire ... the downside was that I'd let Julian do the same as I, so I would be responsible for his non-entry into Mauritania.

We arrived at the Moroccan border, complete bedlam with trucks everywhere .. I started realising that I was back in Africa, the Africa I knew and loved, the 'tsking' noises by the men, the warmth of the sun, the smells .. suddenly at this border post I felt like I knew where I was!

The customs guys got a little annoyed with us and slammed his door shut with our passports inside, then he called us in one by one, I was the first and he stamped my exit out of Morocco .. the others went in, after maybe two of them he came out and got me - and asked me which vehicle I had come in; I pointed out the van. He dragged me back inside and got my immigration card out and said 'that's a Mercedes not a Peugeot' - uuumm, well it's a van to me and I'd just scribbled down a make of vehicle - how was I meant to know it was a Merc?!!!

We piled back into the van, leaving the Moroccan border we were now on piste in no-mans land, with the comforting thought that if the van went off the piste, the area's got a few unexploded land mines! With a few bumps and unappreciative groans from the six of us in the rear, we made it to the Mauritanian post. Friendly faces all round, they seized Gianni and nicknamed him Monsieur Spaghetti so he & I returned the taunts with Messieurs Poissons - the Mauritanian coast is famous for it's fish! I handed over my 30euros for a visa, nothing else was asked of me; we refused the offer of a lift in the van down to the customs post 300m away where they weren't too worried about our bags. Funnily between the two posts there's a sign pointing into the dunes saying 'Auberge 500m' - couldn't see one but I was sure there were several land mines to negotiate if you did find it!

Once we had got past Mauritanian customs we hopped back in the van, then horror of horrors a tout from Nouabidhou (NBD in future as it's a pain to spell!) jumped in too. He started telling us the best place to stay in NBD, another hour away despite protestations from Gianni who had been there before and wanted to go to La Baie du Levrier (which didn't pay touts!). Brendan was following some of this French, rolling his eyes in horror after what had been a long day, Julian as with the earlier part of the trip didn't really understand what was going on.

I finally lost my rag, I was tired, I had been on the road for over 30hrs now without a proper sleep and turned around to our baseball capped tout and said to him firmly but politely; 'we're tired, we've got another hour to go and we do not need your sales pitch the whole way to NBD, please shut up'. Incredibly he did!!! He didn't utter another word the whole way! We got to the police post 15km from NBD where the border roads splits between Nouachkott (capital, some 5.5hrs away) and NBD, this passed without incident and the van rolled into NBD.

Suddenly the van slowed down, the front doors were slamming and someone was trying to lift the bar off the back doors to let us out. In front of me as I scrambled over the cargo of our van was an English guy with a London accent, behind him was a French car I'd seen go past me at Dahkla when I'd been looking for a lift. Well, we were somewhere but I didn't have a clue which hotel/campsite we had arrived at but there were other travellers, a brand new BMW off road bike with a UK registration parked in the hallway and there seemed to be enough rooms for all of us. Five days after leaving a cold Carcassonne by bus on 15th December, I was in NBD on 20th December ...

We walked in, feeling a bit like space aliens after the ride in the van .. my thoughts suddenly turned to money - it had been impossible in the amount of time we had had in Dahkla to buy Ougiya, the currency of Mauritania. Finding Amadou, the guardien of the hotel, we discovered that I could share a room with Alexandra a girl from Paris, Julian & Gianni were sharing with a Japanese guy & Tony, the Londoner from Wales with the bike, Brendan was able to get his own room as he had hoped. But it was 8pm at night, we were all starving hungry, we didn't have any money. Tony & Alexandra were wonderfully helpful and said that Amandou could organise a banker for us, I asked Amandou about this and sure enough he made a phone call to have us meet someone as the banker usually came to the hotel in the morning to do foreign exchange. The next problem was that Gianni remembered that we hadn't picked up a foreign currency declaration at the border, we had not been offered one either, Amandou didn't see this as a problem but Gianni wasn't so sure.

We all trooped out of a side door into the street with Amandou leading the way to the bankers office. We arrived in an office with a desk, two chairs and a safe, our party of 4 became five as the Japanese guy needed money too. A few Mauritanian guys came in and hastily organised chairs for all of us. Gianni (the only other one that spoke French) started the proceedings asking for the rate, a mere 280UM to 1euro. Seemed odd as he had got 360 or so earlier in the year in April, but the banker explained that due to oil prices the Ougiya had become stronger. Gianni & I were still suspicious, then it turned out the Japanese guy had US dollars. I translated for the Japanese guy who didn't speak French and not much English to boot which completely puzzled our 20year old turbaned banker. A female in a room with 4 men and SHE was leading the negoiations in three languages. He refused to talk to me, he spoke directly to the guys in French, I pointed out that only Gianni spoke French but couldn't translate to the others, so if he wanted any business he had better get over his problem of dealing with a woman and speak to me ...

Due to this situation and the dodgy rate of exchange I gave him 10 euros, enough to buy me some food and see me through until the morning when I would have to give Amandou 2,500UM for my B&B.

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