Nouakchott

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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 driving us to another building around the corner where we were promptly treated like foreign dignitaries, whilst a nice young lady completed our visa applications, took photocopies of our passports, plied us with mint tea & then drove us round the corner again to yet another building - it wasn't like this at the Mauritanian Embassy in Casablanca, where it was every man for himself, we marvelled. We soon realised that we had indeed been given preferential treatment as we promptly ran into all the other tourists jostling for their visa applications! Two hours later we collected our visas and Neil set about trying to find a welder to help him repair the landrover.

Two days later, with the old shock absorbers re-fitted and the springs cut down, we were glad to be driving rather than bouncing on to Senegal.

We enjoyed Nouakchott - it had a nice friendly safe atmosphere - highlights were definately the trendy cybercafe, Fastnet & Naf Burger where we devoured tasty chicken & meat burgers that put McDonalds to shame. K

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