Day 38: 500 km of desert
Soutpiel Safari
John & Jenny
Sun 12 Dec 2010 21:21
Day 38: Sunday 12 December 2010. Camping des Nomades,
Nouakchott, Mauritania. N18 05.346 W015 58.694. Distance driven 494 km. Total
distance 7.222 km
As we drove out of Nouadhibou at 0830 it was no better
than last night! Rusty cars everywhere, goats fighting in the street and still
blowing sand.
The road 500 km to Nouakchott is only 3 years old
and avoids driving down the beach as one had to before. The new road is pretty
straight and mainly in good condition and goes through varying desert
scenery. There is only one gas station the whole way and only a few huts -
no village of any significance. As one nears Nouakchott it becomes dual
carriageway - heavens knows why! We drove the whole way in company with Thomas
in his camper and kept close together, not letting any vehicles get in between
us.
Today was a 9 fiche day. What happens to all these
pieces of paper? We are running short and must make some more copies
tomorrow.
The main thing is that we are safely in the capital and
have not been kidnapped en route as happened to a group of Spanish and
French tourists a year ago on this road.
When we got to this small camp site in the middle of
town we found that the Oasis overlanders tour had arrived in their
truck. This is a group of 24 who are travelling from London to Cape Town,
then to Egypt in 40 weeks. By the time we had squeezed our Land Rover and
Thomas' camper into the site it was pretty full. Then along came the
Germans, Michael and Andrea in their truck and squeezed in as well to make up
the party! It is pretty tight but a convivial bunch. We'll stay here
until Tuesday and try to get our Burkina Faso visas here tomorrow and see if we
can get the liability insurance for the ECOWAS countries. This will cover
us all the way through from Senegal to Gabon and maybe
Congo.
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