Chapter 3 – Mauritania

 Auberge Sahara - the place to be if car dealing in Nouakchott (but only if u like to be cheated)

Soooo extremely much has happened and i have hardly time on the net, just now, in a little moment we meet up to ceeeelebrate – but that i will tell a bit later ;)

As I had told Mauritania was tough for us, the prices they offered were bad and at the same time it was a huge legal risk to give our passport to someone for that so called dechargement. They just knew that we were in a very dependant situation as its near to impossible to enter Senegal and the border crossing to mali was 1000 km of rough terrain away – especially with our superlow city limousine, others who come here drive serious serious jeeps and such like…. Nevertheless, the vibrations there were just so negative that we decided to go for the rough drive through inland Mauritania – what an adventure! Now, that we left the ocean behind we finally were allowed to experience real heat. So from now on the overall ingredient wasn’t sand anymore but heat. The water in your bottle turns so hot that you just need to put a teabag inside if you want to have a tea.

Literally everthing gets cooked, well-through! Mauritania is the poorest place I personally have ever seen anywhere. The road was lined with cadavers of cattle, we had no clue if they starved or had diseases or died of dehydration… Additionally it is a military regime and on that 1000km we had to get through there were 31 police-stops. Each and every single time we were asked to pull to the side and give them a “fish” (in French that fiche and means document) – since we didn’t have a particular document all we could do was to give our passport and car-documents which then in an elaborate process would be copied by hand (and that by seemingly illiterate police guys). After the second post in 30km with an average holding time of 20minutes per post we knew – we will grow old and grey in Mauritania if we do not find another solution! Since copy machines weren’t available I had the seemingly hopeless idea of just writing little “fish” ourselves with just the stuff on them these guys always interrogate… with little hope we rolled into the next police post – and see! Surprise our little magic handwritten fish did work, all that was left to do was to auickly read it out to the police guy and leave him happily unoccupied! Its magic!

Now the only left challenge was to get behind the rue “desespoir” (road of desperation, as it is called)… we were already starting to wonder why it was named so; as besides the boiling heat the road was near to perfect and the stretches which were marked in the map as sandy had been clear due to the early season. That was until the road suddenly and abruptly ended. This was followed by 200 km of 10km per hour driving slalom around the crates in the road… which obviously took the whole daw and was even more nerve wrecking as alma suddenly started to make some sort of extreme noise at one of the front wheels… with every km Mali seemed to get further away and we were already wondering if we would be able to push the car across the border to it out of the passport… But our lovely Alma soldiered on and finally first trees started to be growing again and the amount of dead cattle seemed to decrease – we were finally leaving the desert and every leaf of green was a true pleasure! I totally understand why the desert living Tuareq think we tourists are crazy to just for fun go into that “hell” (as they call it)….

Uuuuh I am running out of time just this very moment so will just auickly upload some pics and hope to return later that night to write more, as after that again there wont be interet for ne for a few days and just soooo much to tell!!!!

Mauritania dessert

 First selling strategy - driving with "blasting" hiphop music out of my netbook speakers trhough nouakchott pretending it is cool to drive a white mercedes limo (it flopped)

 First time we experience extreme heat... even the road just seems to melt...

 Living animal transport mauritani style...

 Just beautiful

 Finally trees again!!

 Shopping in Mauritania... yes thats how it looked...

 Making magic fishes in the desert :)

 Well the pic doesnt belong here exactly but it shows the second stretch of route...

 Hot,hot; hot - is it me or is it you?

 Nightcamp African style

 An oasis

 Ueberfuehrungskennweichen aus Raststatt...

 La rue desespoir

 Petrol pump Mauritani style

 Village Mauritani style

 At night in my moskitonet

Thats how the roads ends and the rue desespoir starts...

 Towanda has to save the world - or at least the goat baby which lost its herd!!! (We made it !)

And something for my mother....;)

Liebste mama, dein Ruebenkraut war bis zum schluss dabei und gerade heute hab ich hier in mali die letzten reste aus der packung gekratzt... und dabei immer an dich gedacht:)