Mauritanian Visas

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Still in Casablanca - we had the misfortune to arrive over their equivalent of a bank holiday weekend - the end of Ramadan - so today was the first day we could get our visas sorted for Mauritania. Unfortunately many other travellers were in the same boat = massive queues of French, Spanish, German, American & Australians all jostling to be let in. Having dragged ourselves from the roof tent nice & early - 7am - we eventually got our visas at 2.30pm! By the time we'd found a bank to change some travellers cheques, which believe me was no easy feat, it was too late to set off for pastures new, so another night at the lovely Camping International Oasis in Casa - a 100% improvement on Sunday night's campsite further out on the coast; I was completely smitten by the guide books description of "bar, games room, hot showers & laundry facilities"...'OK, the guidebook is a little out of date; but only 6 years - this place looked as though no care had been lavished on it since the 50's! We spent a lovely evening playing travel scrabble surrounded by stray cats & dogs, as bemused locals walked by our little 'pigsty' plot on their way home. Photo of pigsty attached...

So, Casablanca has been somewhat of a ghost town during our visit - only today has it seemed to come to life. Just reminds me of many other european cities - McDonalds & Pizza hut signs everywhere. The Moroccans have 2 types of taxis in the cities - Le Grand Taxi - merecedes benz for longer journeys out of the city centres - and Le Petit Taxi - 100s of little red peugeot & fiat hatchbacks zooming all over the place, jam packed with passengers & yes, you take your life in your hands when you try to cross the road - especially when you forget they drive on the right & not the left hand side! I dont know what I expected really but I guess the Bogart/Bergman film has alot to answer for in romantising the city. Anyway, looking forward to departing nice and early tomorrow morning...just have the small matter of re-visiting the man in a Sony electrics shop who gave us an out of date 50 dirim note in our change! K

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Photos

Camping Pigsty!

En route to Casablanca

Skinning monkey for dinner!