Western Sahara/Mauritania border (No Man's Land)

Hi everyone, we´re ok. We´ve just arrived back in civilization after going off piste along the rail line in Mauritania. To update for the last few days; Monday night we stayed in Marrakesh camping, really nice place. Mostly french & Italian campers, but a few retired brits also.We left Marrakesh on Tuesday and drove all day reaching Bou Jerif at sunset. Wednesday from Bou Jerif we drove straight to Layounne a military town in Western Sahara, got stopped for speeding after the twentieth military check point, luckily the chief of police arrived at the same moment and let us off. We saw a fuel tanker overturned on route, no wonder there is no fuel in any of the petrol stations.

We stayed that night next to the military camp in the so called camping ( four walls and a hole in the floor), another windy night. Got up early again Thursday and drove all day to Hotel Barbas, the last building about 50 km before the Mauritanian border to meet the Dutch guy whose passport we had with us. We arrived at 5 pm, then drove like madmen to reach the border before 6pm closing. Well Sophie did, I´d been downing all the beers left in the fridge as we weren´t aloud alcohol in Mauritania.

We got there with 1 minute to spare (they shut the barrier behind us) and sailed through customs etc with no hassle at all from either side. All they wanted was a few beers, typical after I had drunk them all but we managed to find 2 I had missed and they were quite happy. Strange going through No Mans land and seeing all the stripped and burnt out cars. This is where all of the stolen Spanish/Italian cars end up.

Got our Carnet de passage stamped no problem, money exchanged and car insurance for 10 days then headed straight to Nouadhibou camping. What a town! Quite hard to discribe we expected it to be like Morroco, but it is more like a lawless city, half the people seem to be off their heads. We keep seeing people sniffing what we think is glue from plastic bags. They drive around like madmen with no lights on the cars. We didn´t get any hassle what so ever. That night we had a pleasant dinner out with the group of 8 Dutch birdwatchers/ tourists and had a good sleep in the camping compound.

Hola todos, estamos sano y salvo! para poneros al dia de nuestro ruta. Hemos llegado otra vez a la civilización, al la ciudad de Nouakchott.

El lunes quedamos en el camping en Marrakesh, el mejor camping de Marruecos hasta el momento. Lleno de autocaravanas Francesas, Italianos y algunos Ingleses.

Martes madrugamos, estuvimos conduciendo todo el dia para llegar a Bou Jerif para el puesto de sol, una paliza.

Miercoles lo mismo, conduciendo todo el dia para llegar a Layounne, un pueblo lleno de militares

con muchisimos controles militares de camino, vimos un camion de gasolina volcado, con razon no hay gasoil en las gasolineras.

Nos pararon despues del ultimo control con el radar, nos querian enpaquetar una multa.

Llegó el jefe de policia en ese momento y nos perdonó menos mal, porque nos nos quedaba Dirham! Fuímos al camping si se puede llamar así, cuatro muros y un bate tipico Marroqui.

Hacía un viento que no veas.

Jueves madrugamos otra vez de nuevo, otro día conduciendo para llegar al Hotel Barbas unos 50 km de la frontera de Mauritania donde nos estaba esperando el Holandes para que le entregaramos el pasaporte, llegamos a las cinco de la tarde.

La frontera de Mauritania cerraba a las seis, tuvimos que salir por pata conducia Sophie porque yo tenia que beberme todas las latas de cerveza que no cabian en el escondite reservado para el vino/cerveza. No esta permitido entrar con alcohol. Pusimos el coche a 150 km/h por las curvas

para llegar justo a tiempo, cerraron la barrera nada mas entrar!

Cruzamos las dos fronteras sin ningun complicacion, el la frontera de mauritania sacamos un seguro de 10 dias obligatorio, cambiamos algo de dinero y para el camping en Nouadjibou.

Vaya que ciudad, es de locos los coches tirado por todos lados y la basura amontonado por las calles, cabras muertas en medio de la calle. Los coches sin luces de ninguna clase, conducen 20 veces peor que en Marruecos y van altos de algo. Vimos gente nifando pegamento en bolsas de plastico. Esa noche salimos con un grupo de holandeses, no tuvimos ningun problema y se come muy bien y barato. Dormimos bien por primera vez en dias.