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Jul 14 11

Wherever you go ~ there you are

by Marc

Right, so we’ve gone so far and we’ve so far to go. (Truly an Irish turn of phrase if ever there was one!) But seriously, it’s a time to reflect on the joureny so far and what lies ahead. Lately the roads, the terrain, the scenery and the amenities have changed and a new pattern develops. No longer are there easy convenient stopping places – whether for food, fuel or a bed/camp for the night. I find myself projecting in my head the next few days of travel and comparing them to the last few.
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Jul 28 11

I nearly forgot ~ Tan Tan, the town

by Marc

Worth a mention if only because it was a nice town. Not big, nor fancy, but friendly people and just a nice ‘vibe’ off the place. The hotel was a welcome retreat from the sun, with good rooms of a high (relatively) standard. We parked the Bikes in a big shed out the back, which was handy as for the first time on the trip some serious mechanicking was required.
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Aug 2 11

Sunday 13th March ~ Laayoune to wild camp Approx 100 miles north of Dakhla

by Marc

There’s actally little to say about the journey itself. Not because it’s boring  – quite the reverse – it is totally absorbing. But hard to put into words – more a feeling, a mindset an emotion maybe. But certainly nothing i can write would do it justice.

So, all i can report is what’s going on in my head.

I’m repeating myself now but really – this is really the real Sahara now!… really.
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Aug 5 11

Meanwhile ~ back on the road…

by Marc

…And inside my head.  We had left Tan Tan  with renewed vigour, added keenness and Dennis’s Bike with a rebuilt top end. Would it make any difference? Short answer is no. But we had to travel some miles to find that out.  There is an expectant air about us. A feeling that we should be alert and observant. Wait, wait – I may be assuming a lot here. Maybe it’s just me that feels these things? As with this entire Blog, i write purely personally (selfishly?) and from one persons perspective – perhaps i wear blinkers when it comes to the thoughts and feelings of others?…… (that’s a cue for “you’ve upset and offended me!” type comments from other trip participants that read and lurk.)
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Aug 10 11

Monday 14th March ~ wild camp north of Dakhla to Dakhla town campsite.

by Marc

Notes from my journal;

Approx. 124 miles done today. started at 9.a.m. finish at 16.00. Long straight desert roads. terrain flattens. wind stronger. Colour of the land; starts off mid tan/ends with light brown.

We’re only about an hour into the days ride when one of us gets a phone call from a friend that ‘knows about these things’ as it’s information he would get in his line of work. The gist of the message is “do not go into Mauritania – it’s all kicking off in the north east of Africa. They’re targetting Westerners. It’s not safe.”
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Sep 5 11

due to unforeseen……

by Marc

yeah. right. sure.

To all (both?!) my readers;

apologies for the absence of posts lately – i had the audacity to take 2 weeks off. Worse yet – i’m taking another 2 weeks off at the end of this week. So, normal (i.e; slow, erratic moody) service will resume some time after that.

I know, I know –  I’m not doing the book deal any favours, am I? (anyone would think I had a life….) 🙂

Jan 21 12

Monday 14th March ~ wild camp north of Dakhla to Dakhla town campsite. Still not there … yet.

by Marc

The plan;

blunt, basic and to the point – get to Dakhla and find out as much as possible. Then keep on going as planned to the border and see….

They may not even let us into Mauritania if it really is bad. But we should get some idea between here and there of the likelihood of trouble. One thing we have is a ‘Plan B’. Sounds good – but talk is easy / action not so.

Plan B.
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Feb 4 12

Giz a lift mister….

by Marc

… or ‘Sir, may we charter your vessel?’

Sounds grand doesn’t it? The reality was somewhat different and surreal in the extreme. It was such a simple idea, get to the port. Find a likely boat and haggle with the owner to take us by sea to Senegal. St. Louis would do nicely. The car and trailer, driven by Ian would go on as originally planned, by road through Mauritania. Seems a lot to place on his shoulders, and it was, but he had the most experience at this and without us could maintain a much higher speed and importantly a much lower profile. He would meet us at St. Louis.
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Feb 24 12

Last night in Western Sahara – next stop Mauritania

by Marc

 

arrival

This is it - settle down now

Fidgety. That’s my main memory of that evening in the campsite. I fidgeted a lot. I fussed and fiddled with my gear, my camera and getting the pics downloaded and the journal written. I noted that though the day felt long and had a lot of work in it – We’d only “done a total of 124 miles, we’d arrived at the campsite at 1600 hours and the road had been straight, flat and with a fairly strong wind.”

It told very little of how the day actually felt.

I felt it was a time for tying up loose ends. Of getting things ‘sorted’. Of putting the journey so far ‘behind me’ in my head and clearing it out to leave my mind clear for the next leg.

There was no sense in having distractions / but then without distractions I might think to much, too hard and to no good end.

So – we settled down for the evening in the campsite. A basic, no frills gravel car park with washing facilities and not much else – apart from the low hum and rumble of planes taking off and landing at the airfield on the other side of the road. Most seemed to be military, which did not exactly inspire confidence. Some executive jets on god knows what business. I did not see any traffic you might call commercial.

We had met some Germans that were going through Mauritania on a Rally. They were upbeat and confident – they had the benefit of government support and local ‘fixers’. We told them of our concerns. We chatted about the fact we’d seen many rally vehicles going the other way – away from Mauri –  They said they’d have a word with their organisers and report back to us any issues that we might need to take into account before venturing on toward the border.

They never got back to us…

The chat that evening was a strange mix. Tom went around the group filming head and shoulder interviews. Not everyone wanted to talk. To me it seemed we were all wrestling with our feelings and being ‘sensible’ to contain them. That could be me / not anyone else at all. But it was a strange mix of moods all the same.

In shaa’Allah

By now my head was clear – I was doing this, unless I was physically stopped at the border. The Islamic way of thinking; “In shaa’Allah” (loosely translated; “God willing”) just seemed so appropriate now! Basically – I would go for it – if I was let!

A lot of the chat tonight inevitably revolved around Denis. There’s not much I can say about that. Suffice to say if the old saying about your ears getting hot when someone is talking about you was true – we could have sat around his head that night for heat and light.

We drank the last of the beer – you dont bring alcohol into Mauri – in theory anyhow and certainly not deliberately. We cogitated. Yes – good word that and the last one for now.

We cogitated and then went to bed.

Mar 6 12

… and finally; Tuesday March 15th – Into Mauritania

by Marc

Up, packed, on the road at 7.45a.m.

This is it.  Off we went, wondering just how today would end up. In the journal I wrote, “Fairly straight open desert road. Border crossing / ‘no mans land = NO road. Rock and sand piste for some kms.”

So, there you are – Yes, we did get over the border and into Mauri.

If that seems anticlimactic it shouldn’t. I felt that way myself for all of five minutes after the first checkpoint within Mauritania until a faint memory of a previous ‘Adventure’ in my life came up and tapped me on the shoulder, so to speak.  The memory was that, then, as now, the situation was easy to get in to, and hard to get out of. That certainly gave me a chill along my spine.

The journey across.

The journey up to the border was uneventful. Apart from Denis’s Bike finally giving up the ghost and deciding to die completely. It had been somewhat ‘ill’ for a few days and the slowest of all the Gappers. Led by Andy – it had got a top end rebuild of the engine last night, (it had previously had a clutch rebuild) but despite his best efforts, and Andy is a seriously good mechanic, it had only lasted a short while. Now it was unceremoniously dumped on the back of the trailer. Denis took Callums Bike and Callum rode in  the car with Ian.

To this day I have never worked out how that happened; Denis on Callums Bike and Callum in the car!

The border.

This was like a scene you see in the movies where the heroes reach the border and the tension noticeably rises. The uniformed officials, in this case were military and had guns to match. The locals gabbling away in a language that to me seemed to hold secrets  – only because I couldn’t understand it. I felt a twinge of paranoia for a moment thinking, they’re talking about us! But then thought – yes, they probably are ya pillock – if you were them – you would too!

French is the language of commerce here, but best to appear ignorant and if you do understand what’s being said – keep it to yourself. You’ll learn a lot more with your ears than your mouth. I take a mental snapshot of the crowds and clusters of people, all dealing with their own personal stage of the paperwork mountain to climb to get across the border. There are tense, worried faces on travellers,  serious and weary faces on those staffing this place and going about their job and clueless faces trying to look cool and blasé and in all likelihood failing, looking.. well, clueless ( that would be us).

Denis does his border routine.

This means a lot of faffing about. This is no complaint about Denis (for a change) it’s just the way of it with border crossings outside of the E.U. in general, and particularly in Africa. It was our first real experience of the phenomena as entering into Morocco was positively cosmopolitan by comparison to this!  So off he goes with a mix of various bits of paperwork, passports, fiche with all our details duplicated ad nauseum, with an air of I’ve-done-this-all-before – I’m a confident man of the world manner about him. Good so far.

Not only, but also

an unfortunate attitude of condescension toward the officials, speaking to them only in English, but louder if they didn’t understand the first time  – oh – and dropping into a French accent  occasionally – to match their stumbling but well intentioned English.

Bad, definitely bad.

I’ve often wondered since, if any of us could’ve done better – for my part I’d Smile sweetly at times, speak in obviously badly pronounced French, play dumb (and poor!) tourist and also play the Irish card.  This ploy has often confounded officialdom in the past when I’ve travelled. In Europe perhaps because I have an English accent. In Africa, first there would be a doubletake – a look of wtf?!  Then a smile- or at least a visible relaxation in the manner of the official. Sure us Oirish are friends with all nations! What threat could I be?

To be sure, to be sure – if a racial stereotype will help – damn sure I’ll play along.

But I digress. The border was hardly a place of warmth and congeniality. Stark, modern concrete and marble,but already well worn and shabby. The first thing you note is the huge aerial mast that the wind howled through, and a blustery wind that whipped up litter and sand in the very exposed checkpoint. Hustle and bustle all around as people more local and more experienced queued and handed their own paperwork in to be allowed exit the country…. or is it territory…. or is it disputed area? Whatever you may call it – there’s a sense of readiness, of being alert. The issues between Morocco and Mauritania have never been resolved – just put on hold until the financial backing is there to continue. So to my mind at least it looks as if the whole border area could go from ‘wary’ to ‘full alert’ in double quick time. You see it in the layout, that aerial mast is obviously to ensure good communication over a large area. The strange ramps we saw all through the sahara look to be for long range gun emplacements – all face south  – at Mauritania. even the architecture of the border post is set so Observation from a distance is to assist those defending it.

Whatever,

while Denis could do some of this paperwork on behalf of the group, some we had to do solo and stand and speak for ourselves. This would have been amusing if not for the wind, the heat – now we had no shade and the fact we were after all, in the Sahara proper. To my eyes it reminded me of checkpoints I’d been through as a child going ‘home’ to Donegal in the north west of Ireland / but not in ‘Northern Ireland’. You still had to queue, get scrutinised and maybe searched. As I’ve said – checkpoints like this have a specific architecture; you are exposed to view and those that check you are set up for observation of you. You are vulnerable, they are not. You have a long lead in to the ‘set’, they have time to assess you on your approach. It’s all in the detail. The Booth of Last Anointing as I thought of it later, was a good example. This was our last stop before actually leaving – where we got all our rubber stamped bits of paper finally dealt with.

Here’s how it goes; you join the queue, single file, clutching the precious papers. Never has a grubby photocopy with scrawls of biro and smudged rubber stamps upon it been so important. You finally get your turn. It’s like a confessional! I almost start off with “Bless me father for I have sinned” I resist this as I would be the only one that found it funny. Inside their cool shady retreat of an office I see what I guess is, a Customs official, an obvious military man, and a not quite so obvious man in … ‘Plain Clothes’. The Customs guy has the hard work – asking the questions and punching, almost literally, an ancient keyboard on a battered old computer. In French (of course) He asks my purpose of visit, vehicle details and occupation. To hear him and to be able to reply is in itself a palaver. You see, the window in the booth is set at just the wrong height. You cant hear him unless you  and lean your head right into his window – I feel like I’m sticking my head in a lions mouth – but to the bureaucrat, it’s just his personal space and he looks harassed and we are just an unusual headache.

Now, that plain clothes man is right in my face, taking in every detail, looking for … what? To me it’s obvious he is the one in charge, but he says little, just the odd muttered comment to his colleagues. They do the face to face / he’s the alarm bell. He is obviously curious, but keeps that in check well. Not a man I’d play poker with. The questions are basic. No suprises there. Name, nationality (ya have the damn passport in front of you!) d.o.b. occupation, purpose of visit. The last one always get more attention than any other. “Aide Humanitaire”. Charity. This got raised eyebrows every time we said it. Often followed by “why there and not here?”. In some form or another that was the single most common question; “why would you go all the way there when it is needed nearer to home?” whether the inference was their home or ours I was never sure.

That was it. Apart from some of us having to rapidly change professions, because if answered honestly in bad French – we couldn’t find the right words for them to understand – we passed muster and got ready to exit.

We left as what’s most accurately described as a clump. Ourselves and a mixed group of local vehicles ranging from saloon car filled to bursting with entire families. To pick up trucks stacked vertically up to twice their own height. To trucks and buses – both classes of vehicle maximising capacity with every available nook or cranny containing something valuable to someone. It could be anything from a live chicken to a child.

Within yards of the gate, the tarmac roads just peters out into sand and rock. Literal ‘No Mans Land’.  The rock foundation polished to a bright shine from constant traffic over it. Some locals try to get us to fork right. Ian had already warned us not to follow but stick to the path most travelled, following the majority, but not all of the traffic, slightly left and on into a barren scene of burnt out cars left and right. Not all were ancient wrecks, some looked modern. They may have been the ones that wandered into the minefield that is on either side of this ‘road’. No, it cant be called a road. It really is just a case of follow the leader in a southerly direction. This would be impossible at night. This is dangerous. Well, the most real danger on the trip so far. Apart from the time Denis tried to lead the group into a minefield on the road for lunch a few days ago! Mauritania might be a threat- but this is here and now and real. I am taken aback though when I see people going ‘off piste’ and taking some severe direction changes and disappearing off into the horizon. But there were no muffled explosions, no one blew up. Obviously locals that know where they are going and have a destination worth hassle of the border crossing. I suppose that the fact some governments somewhere decided this place was a border means little to them. They live here, it’s their home ground.

So surreal I laugh out loud 

I cant quite take it in when I see the logo of a certain well known world class courier firm, faded on the back of a grubby lorry, as it slows to a halt and pulls up at what looks like a familys tent to one side … to make a delivery!!!

It’s only when I see Toms film of the trip that I realise he had actually filmed the crossing! Probably a definite no-no had it been known, but brilliant footage* to see that in ‘No Mans Lands’ in between two countries border.

*The DVD is now available in Ireland. More on how to buy it soon! Message me if you just cant wait for your copy (€20 including delivery to anywhere) All money after postage costs goes direct to the hospitals appeal. 5 hour long episodes. An hour long ‘Cinema edition’. Blunt, frank and often bleeped! Tom did a professional job on this and it is a very watchable quality film.

Soon thankfully – that last 5 (?) miles was torture, we reach the Mauritanian side and begin the slow process of getting IN to another country.