The Mauritanian border has a fearsome reputation. Despite relations between Morocco and Mauritania being more or less normalised now since the dispute over the Western Sahara, the area is still heavily mined and there is a demilitarised no-man's land with no marked road for several kilometres through the minefield between the Moroccan and Mauritanian border posts. (Biker George's satnav says it all...)
Together with biker George, Dukes of Dakar and Toubabs Taxi we decide to make an early run for the border as we have heard that combined formalities on both sides can take the best part of a day and agree to RV at the police checkpoint on the main road out of Dakhla. We haven't even left Dakhla before biker George has an off; the Dukes brake for a speed hump, George notices too late, skids sideways, takes a tumble, slides down the road and bounces off the speed hump. They pick him up, dust him off, stick his helmet together with gaffer tape and meet up with the rest of us at the RV.
George is unhurt apart from being a bit shaken up and has a bruise the size of an grapefruit on his thigh. We get together to see what we can do to fix him up. Toubabs George has a huge tub of assorted screws, bolts, nuts and washers in the back of the Peugeot. We have the technology, we can rebuild him! The helmet is soon as good as new and bits are fixed back on the bike and a new flasher lens is fitted with more gaffer tape.
With everyone patched up we head off out into the desert. We're still on the N1 but this section is even more deserted than the previous section to Dakhla as apart from the odd filling station every 150km or so, there's nothing between here and the border. With the scent of Persil wafting through the car from our washing drying on the back seat we merrily bowl along, I note a 100 kilometre stretch where we see not one person, not one car or lorry and absolutely no indication (apart from the road and camel warning signs) of human existance whatsoever, we could be on Mars...
Driving through the desert you get into this strange almost trance-like state, with the Sahara stretching from horizon to horizon you could almost be the only people on earth and time ceases to have any meaning. The hours and kilometres roll by as the road snakes from inland along the coast, then back inland again with occasional views of the Atlantic rollers crashing on to magnificent but deserted sandy beaches.
About 50km from the border we see the first "Attention! Mines!" signs at the side of the road. (Some teams following later behind us decide to have a little play off-piste and are only made aware of their peril when some locals see them and start jumping up and down, shouting, waving their arms and miming mines exploding. The danger is very real, some German tourists going off-piste died in the minefield only a few weeks ago.)
Reaching the border at 14:00 an incredible sight greets us, a massive queue of assorted vehicles snakes back across the desert from the crossing. I wander forwards to find out what's going on and get embroiled in an International Incident. Aparently someone was stopped leaving Morocco at the Tangiers ferry port a few days ago with 40kg of cocaine. They'd come over the Mauritania-Morocco border so now the Moroccon government has instigated a policy that all vehicles coming over this border have to be passed through an x-ray scanner, both traffic in and out. Trouble is that it takes 30 minutes to scan one vehicle and the scanner overheats after one hour so they have to switch it off to cool down. Yesterday only 26 cars in total passed the border and we are now 154th in the queue. Some people have been here for 2 days and more are still arriving. How long are we going to be here? Do the maths...
A large crowd of very irate Senegalse people are fomenting revolt and look like they are going to storm the border crossing, but the only thing to do is sit and await the arrival of the district Commissaire. By late afternoon the bush telegraph is signalling that the Moroccan authorities have decided to waive the requirement for scanning all vehicles except HGVs and things start moving forwards, by 18:00 we are 57th in the queue and the other teams have been arriving during the afternoon and are scattered in the queue behind us. It's the embassy all over again, only this time with cars.
However all for nought, at 19:00 the Mauritanian border is closed and nobody in their right mind would want to spend the night out in no-man's land so it's clear that we're going to be spending the night here. So like a caravan of gypsy travellers we set up camp at the side of the road. This is Andrew's first experience of camping and he's not looking forward to it, but we get the tent set up in no time, get the gas cooker going for some tea and a bite to eat and I crack open a bottle of wine I've brought that I've had for years and have been waiting for a special occasion to open. Camping at the side of the road in the middle of a minefield in the Sahara seems to fit the bill...
The sun drops remarkably quickly and the temperature with it, pullovers, wooly hats, fleeces and scarfs are now the order of the day. There is a perfectly clear sky and we are bathed in the light of a full "hunter's moon" as by 23:00 everybody is wrapped up in their bivvy. Let's see what tomorrow brings...
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