The muezzins start at 06:00 again, but here the harmonies and cadences have a more African tone to them. Andrew, as usual, sleeps through them. There's a planned and unplanned parting of the ways this morning, some of the teams on the Bamako run are heading in the direction of Mali and our depleted convoy (those that did not do the off-road section in the national park already left Nouakchott yesterday) gets split even further at a petrol station when the front section pulls off in heavy traffic and loses them. When we are pulled over as biker George goes back (unsuccessfully) to see if he can find them, Toubabs George notices that the freshly-repaired Cinema Team is losing water, something with their engine rebuild wasn't quite right, so they go back to the garage whilst we all agree to forge ahead.
There are two choices for heading from Mauritania into Senegal, either via the main crossing at Rosso (which everybody says to avoid like the plague as it takes hours and you can be bilked to within an inch of your life), or via the Diama Dam which is a sleepy little rural border crossing. Trouble is that to get to it you have to go via the "Washboard road", nearly 100 kilometres of unpaved road with legendary tales from previous Challenges of cars literally shaking themselves to bits. Everyone assures us that the road is much better now as it was repaired last year, so in the hands of our guide Mohammed, we set off.
We reach the Diama Dam turn-off at 11:00 and wait an hour or so for Banjul Baby and Spirit of a Star (Keira and Cassie) separated from us since the petrol station incident, to catch up. A local chap is most insistent that we buy insurance for Senegal from him, but the Roadbook tells us not to, so we say no thanks and that we will buy it at the border. "But you can't buy it at the border any more," he says, "so you should buy it here from me! Only 50 Euros!" Thanks but no thanks, we'll get it at the border. He tries a different track "Well yes ok, but the guy selling there is my agent working for me, so it's the same if you buy it here from me!" (He doesn't seem to notice the teeny little flaw in his logic on this one). So uninsured and with the tales of yore running through our minds, we set off with some trepidation.
The first 10km or so are ok, apart from the blinding, choking dust that is being thrown up as we bump along at 60-70 km/h, trying to avoid the worst holes and bumps on the road, snaking from one side to the other as there is mercifully virtually no traffic heading the other way. The first incident is caused by a truck that is spraying the track with water to keep the dust down. Unfortunately this means that you cannot differentiate between hard and soft ground as everything becomes a universal muddy brown, biker George hits a hidden soft spot, the front forks dig in and he's off. Sod's law dictates that he falls on his already poorly leg, so Bob volunteers to take over on the bike and George rides shotgun in Banjul Baby. Meanwhile, the front of the convoy hadn't noticed what was going on and had carried on, leaving us at the back, so noticing there's nothing behind us we pull over in the middle of nowhere and watch as the others disappear over the horizon. Great!
We're just on the point of heading back when Banjul Baby and the others arrive and tell us what's happened to George. A minute or so later, Toubabs Taxi arrives from the front and Matt reports that there's a nasty section ahead where the Masseykissed dug in to a soft section and stopped dead and Iditotz Abroad following close behind didn't see them because of the dust and ploughed into the back of the Rover, leaving it dented but the occupants unhurt. If yesterday was like Mad Max, today is more Whacky Races.
We agree some convoy discipline; keep it slow and keep your distance, and are off again.
The landscape is becoming greener with more vegetation and large lakes. Every so often we pass through little villages and if stopped we get mobbed by groups of children demanding "Cadeaux, cadeaux!" (pressies, pressies).
The road (if you can even call it that) deteriorates considerably and is now little more than an off-piste dirt track with terrible horizontal ridges that make everything rattle and vibrate to the point where the fillings are almost coming loose in your teeth. We are following behind the little Lancia Y10 which is making a noise as if someone was shaking a sack full of aluminium saucepans, surely it must have shaken itself to bits by now! Keira imitates a World Rally Championship driver as the battered Toyota is flung back and forth across the track as she skilfully avoids the worst of the bumps. Trailing behind in between his teeth being slammed together Andrew manages to mutter "If this is it after it's been fixed, I'd hate to have seen it before!"
Just as we are starting to think that the shock absorber is going to start poking through the bonnet again, we reach the border which runs down the middle of the Senegal river with a road running across Diama Dam. The Mauritanian customs and police controls are a lot harder as we do not have a fixer with us this time and everything seems to cost 10 Euros, 10 to process your car documents, 10 to stamp your passport, 10 for a district tax, etc.
A short drive across the dam and into Senegal where everything also seems to cost 10 Euros; 10 for the privilege of crossing the dam, 10 for stamping your passport again, although at this point there is a minor revolt. "10 for the car and each occupant?" There is some haggling over 30 Euros per car and as the "regulations" apparently are open to interpretation, it comes down to 10 per vehicle including occupants. The customs authorities however are not so flexible. Although we know that officially it costs 30 Euros for the privilege of driving a car through Senegal for 48 hours, some teams yesterday hadn't bothered to haggle the 50 Euros they had initially been quoted, so the precedent is now set. "ah yes, but your friends yesterday they paid 50. So you pay 50 today."
So with considerably lighter wallets, we are finally into Senegal and it turns out that Steve has managed to negotiate a group deal with the insurance salesman (who is selling insurance and who hasn't heard of the guy back at the turn-off in Mauritania) for only 20 Euros per car. Bargain!
The sun is already setting across Senegal as we head to the Zebrabar just south of St Louis and we only find it by the grace of biker George's Sat Nav.
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