Slaves in Africa

Two long, bum-numbing bus rides through Morocco into Western Sahara and we found ourselves in Dakhla, a small town full of soldiers. The food was shite, the shops were few and mostly empty, the hotel was cheap, and after two days my guts were singing Hare Krishna! We spent a lot of time registering with the military and the police for a place in the twice-weekly convoy South towards the next border... And then we were faced with the next task of finding a car. There was no room with the military boys so we had to hitch a ride. The task was made even more trickey when we worked out that we were not allowed to travel in Mauretanian vehicles, and so we were left with a choice of just five cars which we could take... all of them were packed up to the ceiling. It took three hours of friendly conversation and tactful negotiation before Bones and Ian (Aussie dude) found themselves places in a fairly spacious van, whilst I found a place crammed into a ropey old Peugeot full of luggage and stuff. The radiator also kept overheating, (not good in the desert), but it was conveniently equipped with a pipe from the windscreen washer to the radiator, so large chunks of the journey were spent with the wipers going mad, whilst we kept a clost eye on the temperature gauge... which finally gave up the ghost aswell!

So off we went in a convoy of a dozen or so vehicles through miles and miles of desert. As we travelled further South, the road dissintegrated into a narrow, crumbly, sand-covered track. It was about 11 pm when the convoy finally came to a stop somewhere in the desert and we all rolled out into the sand for the night. Instead of looking up at the stars, we found ourselves watching huge flashes of lightning in the sky, as a desert storm made its way over us, offering no more than thirty seconds of heavy rain before passing on to the West.

And so the Moroccan military left us and we were joined by their Mauretanian equivalent for an escort through the minefield to the border. It's a fairly bracing feeling, driving along an intermittant sand track lined with blown up cars and trucks. We were silent in the car, concentrating solely on the route and keeping to the sand tracks of the previous vehicles until eventually we made the border. With only two convoys passing each week, the border was nothing more than a temporary tent at the base of a sand dune. It took a while to sort out all the paperwork and in the meantime I watched the customs officials arrive not 50 yards away to set up their own tent, boil up a pot of tea and prepare for our little convoy. It's just the craziest border - but I don't think it beats the insanity of the Albanian borders last year - It was just different, I guess.

And so we moved on, gradually abandonned by the more experienced Mauretanian locals, we were just five cars follwing our noses through the desert down to Nouadhibou. It took a whole day of driving, over sand dunes, around sand dunes, even through sand dunes. The cars regularly got stuck in the sand, or overheated, or just failed to start without being pushed... there were several occasions when we thought we would be spending another night in the desert - either because the vehicles were bu99gered, or because we were lost... quite an unsettling feeling in the middle of a minefield! And so the journey went and my stomach got worse and worse, until I gave up on the sardines and stuck solely to water. It was about 6pm when we finally rolled into Nouadhibou, the first town in Mauretania, and the road started again. We drove through acres of shanty, with dozens of little black faces waving at us along the roadside. Little children running after us, or just standing in the sand with their brothers and sisters, wondering what all the excitement was about.

Nouadhibou is full of smiles. A medium size fishing port with people from all over West Africa, working in the port, cleaning boats, or mending fishing nets. These are supposed to be the worlds richest fishing waters and it seems to be about the only industry. We walked around and chatted with the locals and the workers. One of them told us that his master paid him 10000 OU per Month. Kinda shocking, when Bones and I had spent nearly the same amount in two days! Another young man was sat outside a tent with an old mechanical sewing machine, mending the sailors overalls. He told us he was from Guinea Conakry and that life in Mauretania was very hard and that they had very little money. Wnen I asked him why he came to Mauretania, He looked me in the eye and said "I think you know what brought me here." I frowned and looked again in his eyes. He put a hand on his chest and said "If you look in your heart, you will know what brought me here." We continued our stroll, but ten minutes later when we came back, all his things were packed up and he was gone