After a restless night, we got up early to pack everything back in, ready to drive across border number three into country number four: Mauritania.

A quick self-made coffee helped us to speed up the packing amidst the heat and humidity already high in the early morning. An hour and a half later and everything had found its original spot in and on Eeyore. We were proud of ourselves. A nice breakfast by the Zebrabar kitchen was now in order as it will be our only food for the next hours until we arrive in Nouakchott in the late afternoon.
We paid and said goodbyes to Ursula who asked me to bring her some spices from the Marrakech market.

To reach the border, we had to pass by St Louis again and we used the opportunity to buy some more mineral water. This caused the navigator to reroute us through the modern centre of town. With disapproval I noticed this mistake that could have easily cost us valuable time. I turned around and drove through some small side streets back to the correct main street. It was interest to see those streets where the lower class locals live. Lots of sandy roads and quite a lot of standing water, as it is all built literally decimetres above sea level. We were discussing the consequences of rising sea levels for such people. All these little brown and green puddles are also a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes and other insects that transmit dangerous diseases.

As soon as we passed the international airport of St Louis and had turned left, the road became eerily quiet. We drove through wetlands on both sides with green bushes and small acacia trees. The next village was Diama. The name-giver to the border crossing and dam across the river Senegal making the crossing possible in the first place.

The Senegalese side was quick and efficient. We passed the barrier and crossed the dam. On the other side we entered the Mauritanian border station. Everything was somehow different. First we handed our passports to an official. A little later we were asked into a very nicely cooled down room occupied by two Mauritanian immigration officials behind a desk with computer and equipment to issue our visas for 55€ a person. Within minutes we both had our mug shot and finger prints taken. Further processing, i.e. stamping was done again in a different office. The police officer there asked me for the registration details of my vehicle and hesitated when he heard it was an Ivorian vehicle. That’s impossible here, he said, he came to us, gave us back our passports unstamped and told us to go to the only other crossing Rosso. My heart sank. It would have meant to go back to the Senegalese side, get stamped in and all the paperwork for the car, drive to Rosso, about an hour away and do the same procedure there again. We would certainly loose several hours as Rosso is the main border crossing with lots of trucks and also even more corruption and racketeering. I pleaded, wasn’t there anything we could do or try to get the papers for the vehicle sorted here and save time. A colleague overheard our conversation, came to us, grabbed my passport and the car papers and signalled me to follow him. Out of the building we went, across the parking to the next building, the customs office and straight into the commander’s office. He deposited the papers, quickly told him in Arabic that I needed a passavant and left. The commander studied my vehicle papers and my passport, asked a few clarifying details. Then he got up and signalled me to follow him as well. We went back to the first police officer, who was then told that, of course I would get a passavant here in Diama, only once my and Christoph’s passports had been stamped. He quickly did so and back we went through the heat to customs. There, I finally received my passavant that I had to fill in myself, the commander signed and stamped it. Before he could let us go, he ordered the obligatory inspection of the vehicle. This adjutant came and quickly threw a couple of glances into the car’s interior, asking twice if we had a alcohol that I denied. He saluted, declared the inspection finished and wished us a safe journey. We finished our last administrational tasks, such as buying insurance for Eeyore and some communal taxes. We were in Mauritania!

I knew how bad the road between the border post and the main road often is and that it is sometimes even closed after heavy rainfalls. It basically is a 50km long and 2m raised road through the Diawling National Park, that is situated in the river delta of the Senegal river. The road surface is hardened mud that had previously been formed by many truck and car tires trying to conquer the wet mud. It was very rough with many holes and washboard surface.

Three overlanders in Land Rover Defenders and a Mercedes van as well as two Dutch bikers on heavy BMW motorcycles passed us southbound. We paid our park entry fees and hobbled on.
Along the way, we saw many birds and four wild boars. Finally, we met the tarred national road coming from the Rosso crossing and headed north towards Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania.
The landscape started changing bit by bit. Very evident was the immediate difference in houses in the villages along the way. The houses all seem to be much smaller than in the south and some are large and square with a pointy roof and ornaments in the crown. Others with just a roof and open sides. The life stock we saw was many cows, quickly to be outnumbered by camels, or I should correctly say dromedaries.

Soon after the wetlands had given way to the more sandy dunes, the number of acacia trees became fewer and smaller. More bushes appeared. Sand got hold of the landscape more and more. Until the outskirts of the capital, we saw bushes and shrubs. The full sand desert that we had expected, is still to come further north.

From time to time there are roadblocks by the gendarmerie. They greet you nicely and ask for a ‘fiche’. That is a prepared form with all relevant information, your full personal details, the registration of your vehicle, where you are coming from and where you are going to. So far, we had to hand out six already but have been warned, that it could be many more.

Along the way, we passed through many villages. Two caught our attention: Doubei and Bagdad. We laughed and the headline was born.

We entered the capital and quickly turned off towards the harbour and the beach to avoid the notoriously bad traffic in town. A nice little sightseeing tour followed.

We headed north along the coastline and reached our camping spot for the night. A nice holiday resort with a few chalets, to stuffy to sleep in in our humble opinion, a suitable spot for Eeyore to stand for the night and us to sleep, a comfortable terrace at the beach with a delicious menu. We filled our tummies and enjoyed the sea breeze and view.

Tomorrow we continue straight north to the Moroccan-Mauritanian border we will cross the day after.
So far, we have covered 3,342km with about 2,000km still to go.