| § ¶An unexpected breakfast and haman visit.....

Tetouan, january 31, 2006.

Since I had spent more time in the Atlas mountains as planned, there remained a lot of driving to do. I passed Marrakech at about 7 pm and drove on the highway till well after midnight. At 2 in the morning I got sleepy and decided to find a spot to pitch my tent. As always when pitching a tent after dark, you only find out where you actually have placed it until you wake up the next morning.The spot I found now didn't promise much good: An aweful amount of dogs started barking, but I was too tired to care and more or less accepted the fact to be kicked out of my tent in the morning by an angry farmer on whose terrain I probably was.

And so it went: In the morning I woke up with a couple of angrily barking dogs around my tent and a some arab voices talking loudly to each other. I jumped into my clothes ready to explain my unexpected appearance, as a man approached carrying a plate with hot water, thea and freshly baked bread! They brought me breakfast and hot water to wash!!! This was a perfect start of the day: we couldn't really talk (I don't speak arab) but we had breakfast together while a woman brought in more thea and bread and butter. In the end, the whole family was sitting around my tent and we had a lot of fun, especially when I tried to ride the horse they had come up with. Without a saddle  this wasn't as easy as I was used to. It was already close to noon when I finally said goodbye to this friendly family.

The driving through the Rift mountains is beatiful, the countryside is not as spectacular as the high Atlas, but it offers lush and amazingly green foothills with lots of lovely villages. It happened to be the day that that the king was visiting the region and tens of kilometers of road where decorated with red banners and flowers. The king must have a peculiar image of his country, as all these flower pots and flags are immediately removed and loaded back into trucks as soon as the king has passed.....

Since I could use a shower after a night camping in a muddy field, I searched for a Haman (public bath) in Ouezzane that was accessible for non-muslims. When asking around, a man explained me he wanted to go to the Haman anyway and invited me to go together. (with a lot of explaining that in the muslim world it is a common thing to go to the haman together, not to make me think 'wrong' things!).
 So half an hour later I was sitting in the town's haman, while Abdullah was rubbing my back and pouring buckets of hot water over me. Later Abdullah told me about his life as an illegal worker in Spain. He made the crossing to Spain twice but was caught by the Guardia Civil when working in a greenhouse. The crossing itself was a horrible experience: 20 people packed into a small zodiac that took 20 hours to cross the Medeterrian. The zodiac was sunk when reaching the shore and everyone was left on the beach. Abdullah has been lucky, as often these boats never make it and people drawn into the waves. Fortress Europe is still a much wanted destination for lots of (mostly young) african man.

Initially I wanted to take the ferry to Spain in the afternoon, but all todays events had made me miss the ferry, so I stayed the night in Tetouan instead. (this is a must-see, it offers stunning moorish architecture, one of the most beautiful villages I know in Morocco). In a sweet store I met Omar, a Dutch-Morrocan man with an interesting past in hashish smuggling ("it earns well, but you spend a lot of time behind bars" as he put it) and we had a pleasant chat about life in Holland and in Morocco.

When taking the ferry from Ceuta to Algeciras I realised that one of the most interesting and friendly countries in Africa is actually the one that is closed to Europe: it's Morrocco!

| § ¶Mauritiania

Atar, january 18, 2006

The piste from Tidjikja to Atar offers a remote 2 day drive through very beatiful desert. The piste initially follows a series of Oueds before crossing several stretches of sand dunes that are not too difficult to pass since there is solid ground between them. The tracks are sometimes difficult to find as they have been blown by the wind, but finding the right way between the sand dunes makes a lot of fun. The last 100 km is stony and less interesting, but the whole trip definitely worth doing.

In Atar we stay at Bab Sahara, a dutch-run campsite with a lot of overlanders camping. Here you will also find a place to park your car for a longer period of time in case you have run out of vacation days..... We spend a day on changing the front leaf springs as they had broken and then we make the dull and uninteresting drive to Nouakchott.
The drive up north from Nouakchott to Nouadhibou along the beach is very much worth doing. Although there is a brand new tarred road right down to Nouakchott, it still is worth taking the old piste along the beach. The stretch that follows the beach can only be done by low tide (don't think too lightly about this!!) and is passable for 4wd and 2wd vehicles, the latter with some effort though (deflate your tires and keep your vehicle light!). The piste passes through the national parc de Banc D'Arguin, where you will find lots of migrating birds in the shallow sea and sand banks. It is amazing to see that most tourists don't drive this piste anymore and take the tar road instead, which is a pity as you will miss a fabulous ride along a very rugged and beautiful coastline.

In Nouadhibou we say goodbye and split up: Joris E. is flying home and returning to work again, Bally is travelling down to Dakar again for some meetings for his wind turbine project and I am driving up north into Morocco and on to Europe alone.

| § ¶A (not entirely legal) visit to Paris-Dakar

Bamako, january 11, 2005

It just happened to be that the Paris-Dakar rally passed in Bamako the very same day we were there. We couldn't let this occasion pass without visiting the bivouac at Bamako Airport. We already heard in advance that the stop in Bamako would not be open for public, but we wanted to give it a try anyway. Luckily we entered the airport just behind a car with a diplomat numberplate, so we could easily pass the first checkpoint in its slipstream. We were now at least within the fences of the rally bivouac. Though we didn't have proper badges, security was so badly organised that we could easily enter the place were all the racing teams did their car maintenance. And thus we had a wonderful night walking around between the racing teams, service trucks and mobile field garages that we knew so well from television. We even enjoyed the racing team's catering services and then we thought it would be a nice idea to try to drive our car on the terrain between all the racing cars and pitch our tent for the night to be able to see the cars leaving in the morning again..

This meant we had to enter the rally site via the same route all racing cars came in, so we tried to make our car look at least close to something like a support vehicle. With sandplates tied to the bull bar and all headlights on in an attempt to blind the poor policeman guarding the entrance we just followed one of the rally cars through the gate. It worked wonderfully well, however we then accidentally took the wrong turn and ended up on....... the airfield platform! Ooops...  We carefully drove between the airplanes, making sure not to hit the wings that we actually quite low above the ground. I don't think our Malian car insurance would ever cover a collision with an airplane. Luckily we there wasn't any fence around the platform and we could cross to all other racing trucks and cars. We pitched our tent next to the dutch racing team so at least our number plate looked the same and tried to get some sleep in the noisy camp. We had huge respect to the racing teams that are driving all day in severe conditions while at night lots of them are still working with the mechanics to get the cars fixed for the next day. All night long the air is filled with noise from air compressors, power generators and car engines being tested. Not a quit place to sleep, but definitely an interesting one!

At dawn we had breakfast again in the rally restaurant and shot more pictures as the terrain quickly emptied as cars and planes were leaving the site. When leaving the site there wasn't any problem at all, Balthasar drove a show off round between the airplanes again and at the gate we were friendly waved goodbye by security. Thank you guys!

| § ¶Mali the east

Bamako, january 9, 2005

We almost missed the border control post when entering Mali at Ladbe Zanga, since it was well after dark and the traces where not too obvious at night. We only realised we passed the border checkpoint after we almost bumped into two emty oil barrels on the middle of the road. Should this not be the best introduction to the customs officer, we made it worse by interpreting a flashing light to the right of the track as an invitation to pass by the roadblock until we saw a soldier running into the office and coming back with a rifle in his hand. Wrong move! The officers where pretty pissed off and asked us whether it was common practice to drive past border checkpoints without stopping in Europe. (We didn't think it was the time to explain the advantages of a borderless Europe, let alone to mention the fact that the border post was no more than an unlit shack that was impossible to see in the dark night). The Malian customs where much friendlier and we quickly made camp some km's after the border.

The next days we drove via Gao along the beatiful river Niger to Timbuctu. Gao and Timbuctu are both interesting and laid back places and we did the regular tourist stuff. When leaving Timbuctu we took the 6 am morning ferry, something that was a pity since it was still dark during the crossing, so we didn't see much of the river. We then headed straight to Douenza and visited a beautiful Dogon village nearby.

We then wanted to make an interesting shortcut to Songa via the village of De. Although the track is on the Michelin map, locals were very pessimistic about this being possible at all by vehicle. Some locals said there wasn't such a road, others said there was one, but it was in a very, very bad state. We decided to give it a try and soon were driving on donkey trails through a beatiful valley. After we got lost several times, we found someone on a bycicle that showed us the way by cycling in front of our car. Cycling quickly became walking and finally we were driving straight through river beds and crop fields at walking pace. Just as we thought the man didn't know he was going at all we reached a steep hill that we were told would be the most difficult passage. The hill looked so difficult we decided first to check it out on foot and we then quickly were convinced that driving this 'road' would either be the end of our car of (in the best case) cost us half a day of road construction work to make it passable after which there would still be 100 km of unknown road to go. We decided to head back and take the tarmac road instead so we arrived in Songa at midnight.

The next 3 days we made a beautiful trek in Dogon Country and then drove to Djenne and  finally Bamako where we met up with a friend of ours (Balthasar) in the Catholic Mission post. It was a cheerful reunion and the remaining weeks we will drive with the 3 of us into Mauritania where we intent to sell our car, or (if the bureaucracy is too complex) drive it back into Europe.

| § ¶Tenere crossing

Niamey, december 30, 2005

Crossing the Tenere from Agadez to Bilma is a slightly more serious business as the Michelin map would suggest. It officially is forbidden to cross this desert with only one vehicle and without a guide (this only affects tourists, as locals can roam freely) and this is effectively checked at the police roadblock just east of Agadez.
We arranged a guide in our car and since we are still only one vehicle we also arrange a satellite telephone in case things might go wrong. The guide later appears to be a big joke, since he hardly knows the way, so I doubt that taking a guide is a guarantee for a safe crossing. The sat phone however is a useful thing to have and also (though we didn't do it) it is a good idea to have at least two vehicles in the Tenere. After taking in 250 liters of diesel, we first take the piste to the Arbre the Teneree (it actually is a national road with an official roadnumber, which seems weird as you find yourself following no more than 2 vage tire tracks) and then the southern piste to Fachi. This part is extremely remote: Every kilometer or so, you will find a large pole to indicate the right direction and it indeed is a sea of sand from horizon to horizion. The Teneree consists of sand dunes in a east-west orientation, in such a way that you drive through large corridors with sand dunes on both sides. The problem arises when you need to switch from one corridor to the next one: at these points the poles may be hidden by the dunes which led a few times to the mistake of driving to far into a corridor and loosing the poles out of sight. We make camp about 60 kilometers west of Fachi, at an oil plant and the next morning we reach the oasis of Fachi, which is well worth the visit.

The next part, from Fachi to Bilma is even more serious as the first part. Our guide decides to take a route that is entirely different than the marked track, so we quickly find ourselves crossing sand dunes without any tracks or evidence anyone has been here before. Orientation is fairly easy (straight on to the Bilma waypoint in your GPS) but we still think it is a risky thing to do this with only one vehicle. Since you need to cross multiple sand dunes, there is a risk of damaging your car. Should this happen, you are in deep trouble, as the chance of someone passing by is virtually zero and it is impossible to walk your way out back to Fachi or further on to Bilma.
Everything goes smoothly however and just before sunset we reach the oasis of Bilma where we stay the night with the family of Boukar (our guide).

From Bilma on we head north to Dirkou and Segedine via a sandy but easy piste. The tracks are obvious and orientation is easy since you follow the mountain range that lies on the eastern side. We stay the night at the fortress in Djado that seems right out of the tales of 1001 nights. The following days we drive onto the Djado plateau, which is again very remote and really rough and beatiful. Also here it is a better idea not to drive in a single vehicle.
When leaving the Djado plateau, our guide knows a nice shortcut directly to the well of Sara. This route is not on the map, but as we had seen before, there are numerous tracks that are not mapped and only known by locals, so we give it a shot. About 30 km further, the car is stuck in a large plain of huge boulders. It then appears that our guide has actually never crossed this route by car, he only used this route before with camels. We explain him a car and a camel are two different things, and the fact that his camels may be able to pass these boulders doesn't necessarily mean our car is. It takes a lot of walking and the whole next morning to crawl between the boulders and reach the oasis of Sara, where we find a clear track again.

Not far from the deserted well of Blaka we make an interesting discovery: a shiny (almost) brand new Toyota Avensis without number plates is hidden behind a sand dune. As the nearest tarmac is about 1000 km away, we feel there is something wrong here, probably a stolen car on its way to Lybia or so. As we report our trouvaille next morning at the military post, the officer is very interested in the exact location of this car. Then something strange happens: the military wants to use our sat phone to 'call someone' and as we suggest they can use their radio for that instead, they immediately back off and tell us not to tell anything to the police in Dirkou. We suspect the military is just looking for a bribe from the car owner, something that is confirmed later by our guide that calmy explains us he knows the owner of this mysterious car and didn't expect us to tell the military about it. The next village our guide jumps out of the car and tells the owner to get his car removed before the military finds it!

Later, as we spend the night at the Maires place in Dirkou it is clear that this part of Niger lives on smuggling and other dodgy businesses: the maire is selling illegally imported diesel from Lybia and the town is full of people that (in our opinion) are looking for smugglers to take them to Lybia and later maybe Europe. This gives the places a living and nice atmosphere however....
The next morning we trade my old GPS for 160 liters of diesel and say goodbye to the maire, a very nice and empathic man. (Actually, he is the son of the famous 'Jerome the Lybian' that is known for smuggling diesel from Lybia into Niger. Jerome died a couple of years ago though).

The drive back from Dirkou to Agadez takes a long day and is significantly easier as the Fachi route although it is very sandy. The locals prefer another, non marked route that is less sandy, but then you don't have the poles anymore.  We have a slight problem when the diesel tank runs empty and we need to bleed the fuel system about 30 km east of the Arbre de Tenere, which is a bit stressful, as this is about the last place on earth you want to have engine troubles.
Just before midnight we reach Agadez and have a good night sleep at our -home sweet home- hotel Agreboun.