Nouakchott

We arrived here yesterday around 1pm and returned to the Auberge Menata. Unfortunately there was no wifi until this morning so were unable to read emails until now. Thank you Ian and Ellen for your replies. We intend to leave today for the border but hope to get time to visit the fishing port before we leave.

The morning we left  Bamako we walked up to the local bank for some cash and spotted a European hairdressers on the way back, so Chris now has a very smart haircut by Joseph, the Lebanese. We had been given a time to collect our extended Mali visas from the Police Station and that was not until 3pm. However we were already to leave at 11.30 so Chris thought we would call in before they closed for lunch at 12.00 and they had them ready. This meant we were able to make good progress and were at Diema at 6pm, deciding to drive straight through and not stop to revisit Pam. We found an ideal track off into the bush at 6.30 and Chris immediately set to gathering wood and stones to make a fire. He soon had it hot enough to cook a delicious meal. We had a lovely quiet cool night, no bats, roosters, call to prayer or even traffic noise as there was little about.

We filled up on cheap Mali diesel at Nioro de Sahel, a real bustling frontier town and found the roads very good, as reported, on the Mauritanian side for some considerable distance and were able to make good speed. We knew there was to be a bad patch and eventually hit this - broken tar, pot holes and dirt track so back to crawling speed and dust. We had intended to find another bush camping place, but just before 6pm we came to what was labelled on Trax4Africa as a bus station. This turned out to be a police post and they demanded our passports to prevent us driving further 'for our security'. All other traffic was allowed to pass through although this was mostly trucks and buses. The buses disgorged their passengers for toilet and prayer stops. At 7pm we noticed a line of 20 men lined up for prayer, facing Mecca which also happened to be in the direction of the Enterprise, parked on a rubbish tip!

The journey on Friday continued at a slow pace. There was a brand new road being constructed alongside us which stretched for miles and miles but traffic was prevented from driving along it by big mounds of earth every 100 yards or so. The diversion alongside this was rough and in some places very soft and sandy and big trucks had become bogged down, up to their axles. The Enterprise did well to get round some of these. Once back on tarmac we were able to pick up speed again and were in the next big town of Aleg by late Friday afternoon. As it was a Friday, the roads had been quiet, the Muslim holy day, and in Aleg the streets were lined with tents and lounging mattresses with carcases of sheep hanging up, ready for cooking. As we could see no hotel in town and our preference was to desert camp we continued for another 45 mins until we again found a track leading off into hard desert away from habitation. Apart from donkeys in the distance, it was quite 'desert'ed although very windy. Chris saw a camel the next morning, which wasn't surprising as there were many many camels along the roadsides or crossing in front of us as we drove. We believe we were really into Harmattan territory as it was much cooler and we had to sleep with duvets on at 20C.

Yesterday's drive to Nouakchott was very very windy with sand dunes blowing across the road and poor visibility. The roadside villages looked very desolate and the people battling against the wind and blown sand to go about their daily lives. As we passed through  Boutilimit I was surprised how busy the little town was and how cheerful the people looked. In Mauritania bread is sold by boys carrying loaves on a board on their heads. We had bought some very good crusty French sticks and sweet buns the day before when passing through a town.

The Menata is very quiet compared to last time, mainly French motorists, an older couple from Spain and 2 young Belgians with a small boy who are driving up to Atar in their sturdy truck, and then across the desert. Chris would like to do this with them, but timing is difficult. We are sending a bottle of Pastis to Just at the Bab el Sahara where we stayed last year.

We are going to take the driving easy on our journey north and stop near the beach if the wind drops. On the way down it was windy so not worth beach camping in Western Sahara.

Whistling Windy

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Over nighted in whistling windy desert. Camel and donkeys in distance. Had some bad roads but ok from now on.

Police Post

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Stopped at police post for night for our security.

Bush Camp Spagbog

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Bush camp cooking spagbog over open fire. All ok as we head to Mauri.

Kumasi market area - Kokrobite - Bamako

Driving through Kumasi Market

Buying papaya and oranges, roadside stall

Fishing boats on Kokrobite beach

Pulling in the nets

Another Ghanaan fishing port

Heavy rain on way to Kumasi

Palm fruit in back of truck

One of the mud & stick mosques on road to BK border

Sheep washing in Bamako

The Driving (by Chris)

The driving has been harder work than we had imagined. The large cities are like being injected into a very large 2 dimensional swarm. There appear to be no rules at all. We have seen many vehicles driving the ‘wrong way’ down dual carriageways, coming to red traffic lights and jumping them. There are multiple police at most city junctions who ignore local traffic violations but if we foreigners stop 2 inches over a white line they blow their whistles and wave their arms for us to stop. This is only to get hold of our driving licence to extort money from us. This fails because I refuse to speak or comprehend French and the licence we give them is a copy we made, one of a few, so if the worst comes to the worst we would drive off.

There are very few road signs and we only find our way by running 2 separate GPS systems with 2 different maps on them. About 90% of the distance and 70% of the driving time has been on tarmac roads which vary between very good and easy to cruise at 50mph to so bad that it is very, very hard work to average 10mph. It’s hard work because to achieve an average of 10mph you may drive 30 yards as slowly as possible in low range first gear over large craters and then have 80 yards when you get up to low 3^rd and 20mph, then back down 3 gears to crawl for another short distance, while weaving off the road altogether on one side, then to the other.  The dirt roads and pistes (tracks) are worse as there are corrugations or ‘wash boards’. The African drivers accelerate up to 40 or 50mph on the corrugations for two reasons: at that speed their vehicle wheels just skim the tops of the bumps so the ride is smoother for them, but means they have very little grip for braking or cornering. They also tend to be driving someone else’s vehicle so if they destroy the suspension they do not have to pay. All the roads are either built on mounds or have large ditches so there is very little room.

We have passed hundreds of large trucks that have driven off the road and several hundred that have broken down. It has not been unusual to see a lorry crankshaft lying in the middle of the carriageway with all the rest of the engine components strewn around like confetti.

In Ghana the ‘good’ roads had a lot of ‘sleeping policeman’ (donkey backs as they are called here) and rumble strips that would rip your wheels off at 10mph and low first at tick-over was too fast, which meant riding the clutch to creep over.

The other thing has been the dust. At 15mph we didn’t create or suck in much dust. At 25mph you could write your name on the inside in 5 minutes. In a day the inside of the vehicle at the back is more like the beach without the sea and takes another day to clean it, so we spend a lot of time driving slowly.  We have scraped the rear on the ground several times and had to use 4-wheel drive and diff locks about 10 times so far, mainly getting on and off the main carriageway and on the dirt pistes. We have more of that to come on the Mali – Mauretania route.

Heading home from Mali

We arrived back in Bamako Monday afternoon and returned to the Sleeping Camel. We had thought to try one of the other places as recommended to us by fellow travellers but Chris was feeling very unwell and we wanted somewhere easy to find. Last time we were here it was very crowded and noisy but we are the only overlanders here and the place is almost empty. The only noisy things are the bats but we are so used to living with their loud squeaks and shrill shrieks that it no longer bothers us. Bats seemed to get bigger the further we travelled: in Tamale, Ghana they looked like flying foxes and were out swooping around even during the day when they were not hanging upside down in the trees above us,

Since my last long post in Kumasi our first task was to escape the city without going directly through the centre and the chaos of the market. We managed to set off in the right direction to get on to the bypass only to find it was one big roadworks so it took just as long. After that, progress was good but on the main national road south - north every small settlement has multi big rumble strips and at least 2 huge roadhumps so we have to virtually stop to go over them. We had thought we would stop overnight in Techiman (the home of Ghana Nuts!) but with more than an hour of daylight left, we set off on the road to Wa. We were pleasantly surprised with the road quality and the picturesque scenery, and no more speed humps. Before dark we came to a larger town called Wenchi where they had 2 hotels advertised off the main road. They took a bit of finding down rough back streets, the worst tracks we have seen as in places the road was washed away. The first one we came to was very smart, with a beautiful garden to sit out in, air conditioned reception advertising free internet and expensive rooms. We asked if we could park in their carpark overnight and offered a good payment for doing so but were firmly refused. They had no other guests so we couldn't understand the logic. Anyway we eventually found our way to the older big hotel down an even worse track and it was hideous. By then it was dark so we had to retrace our tracks rather than trying an alternative as we could not see low hanging wires. There were frogs hopping about in the road in our headlights. Back on the main road we decided to use the new filling station forecourt as our night's stop and that worked out fine, if a little noisy with Friday night traffic and goats.

On Saturday I was not feeling particularly well (a virus I think) so was not up to doing any driving on the really good road. We had a short stop in a village called Banda Nkwanta where they had an old mud and stick mosque and we were offered a tour by the future tribal 'king' nick-named Japan Boy. To raise funds for the upkeep the village had opened the mosque to tourists, including women. It was all very low key and I really enjoyed seeing the inside, hearing a brief history and climbing on to the roof through a very small hole while balancing on steep steps. We passed the turnings to Bui National Park, the Wechiau Hippo Sanctuary and a sacred crocodile lake but we did not feel like leaving the lovely paved road to trundle down dirt tracks. The hardsurface eventually gave out 80 kms before the border so we were back to slow going. Chris had driven over 400 kms in the heat (42C) by the time dusk was approachig. We only had another 16 kms to Hamile, or Hamale, on the border with Burkina Faso, so we stopped for the night at another filling station but this time it was still being built and there were workmen on site all night for security. We were woken next morning when they were trying to bump start their tractor. The only charge - Chris bought the men a beer as one of them had gone off on his bicycle to get some for us when we arrived.

It took an hour to drive the last stretch to the border on rough dirt road but after an early morning rush of heavy traffic it was very quiet. We were through both border formalities by 9am. We had successfully used our Visa de l'Entente to re-enter Burkina. There was a good new road all the way from the border direct to Bobo Dialassou, then back on to the Trans Sahelian Highway. By then Chis was really suffering from heat exhaustion and I was better so I did a lot of the driving. We were at the Mali border at Koloko at 3.40pm and no question about our expired visas from before. We decided to find a hotel in Sikasso so Chris could get a proper rest in cooler conditions as the vehicle heats up so much during the day when driving continously. There were a lot of mosquitos in the room and the net provided had holes so we were pleased to be able to use our own. I left Chris to sleep while I made myself something to eat.

We arrived at Hotel Tata, Sikasso almost at the same time as Maurizio, the Swiss cyclist we had met at the Zebra Bar at Christmas. I met up with him later to hear of his travels. He had continued south in Senegal, then to Gambia, the Cassamance, Guinea Bissau and Guinea, then on his way from Bamako to Ouaga via Sindou and Banfora to be in Cotonou, Benin by the end of March, then onwards to Nigeria.

Chris was still feeling pretty rough in the morning so once out of town I did all the driving to Bamako. There is always so much interest on the roads: people walking and cycling, often with strange loads, small buses packed to the roof, schoolchildren in their smart uniforms, villages with thatched houses and compounds, women pounding millet or mashing yams, roadside stalls with wood fires for cooking, pots being stirred or meat barbecued, pumping water and washing at wells, markets and people travelling to them (for family - yesterday I saw women with large loads on their heads walking along the main road to market, the distance from Castleton to Hathersage or Chagford to Moreton). I have seen a motorbike with a bundle of goats in a net, bicycles festooned with live hens and guineafowl, a cow sitting tied to the top of a full-sized bus and sheep stuffed in the back of cars. Then there are people holding up their hunting catch for sale: partridge, rabbits, lizards or more frequently ground sqirrels or rats spreadeagled on wooden 'skewers'. When driving, you always have to be alert for broken down lorries and buses, with leaves and branches placed in the road as a warning.

I am relieved to say that Chris is much better (still shaggy haired - I did exagerrate a bit about the ponytail, Paul!) This morning we left early to find the Mauretanian Embassy through the busy traffic of Bamako. I had fogotten how many mopeds there are. With our visa applications in for collection tomorrow, we then went to the Police Immigration Office to extend our Mali visas from our first visit at very little cost, so we were pleased we hadn't wasted time in Accra getting new ones. Our application had to be accompanied by a letter and fortunately there was another European who gave us his letter to copy the wording. We bought some provisions at the nearby supermarket and had cheese and pickle sandwiches for lunch. All being well we should leave here tomorrow afternoon ater collecting our passports and visas.