A man dressed in camouflage was loading their bags into the trunk of his old Mercedes. He greeted me with English and a strong handshake. I sat in the front seat. Just before he started the car to leave, he changed his mind, went to his trunk, grabbed something and returned. He casually set a handgun down on the console between us. He didn’t say a word about it or look at me for my reaction, just started the car and started driving.
Yahya
Yahya Mohamed was a middle-aged captain and skydiver for the Mauritanian army. His tone could shift from goofy to stern in a heartbeat. He was the kind of persistent storyteller that could even shut Jonathan and I up. A couple of weeks before, he had skydived into the stadium in Nouakchott for the 50th Independence Day celebration, something that James had actually attended and had told us about. The military had sent him to America a few years ago to learn to skydive. He said he always thought that he hated America and Americans, until he spent a few months there. He still has his issues with America itself, but thinks the people are good, but a bit quirky. He had an American girlfriend once, that he got in a fight with because he re-gifted a bird she had given him. He gave it to a friend who passed it on to his own girlfriend, and when Yahya’s girlfriend found out she was livid, and demanded he re-obtain the bird. He couldn’t understand why.
We learned all of this before our first stop about thirty minutes later, when Yahya said he needed to stop for tea and prayer. We pulled off into the dirt, next to an empty hut made of sticks. He grabbed his gun as he got out. We offered to make the tea while he prayed and he agreed, wondering if we would really know what we were doing. After praying, he asked if we would like to shoot his gun. Jonathan was raised with guns. I had never shot a gun before, and was curious, but nervous. Susan, had never shot a handgun, so he let her try first. She emptied the clip, barely missing the can that Yahya had set up in the dirt. Jonathan continued to work on the tea. He reloaded the clip and let her try again. I was surprised that we could do this so close to the road. The tea was then ready, and I was disappointed to have missed my turn. Yahya tastes the tea, says it is not true Mauritanian tea, but forces it down anyway, something he must have learned about politeness in America.
Over the next couple of hours, Yahya talked enthusiastically, telling us hilarious stories about his own travels, and intense or sad stories about military combat. He had spent time stationed near the border with Mali, and told us about spats with terrorists and friends who had died. He told us about a recent drug plane that was intercepted by the military. The plane was carrying Colombian coke and was unloading somewhere in the remote desert. He told us about the recent outbreak of disease in the camel population in the Adrar region, which explained why we hadn’t eaten any camel since our second day in Mauritania. He told me if I ever see a crazy looking camel, bleeding from it’s nose, to get away from it. I flashed back to our day in Atar, walking out of town when I had seen a camel running from behind us. As it passed I had noticed blood streaming out of its nose, and a man was chasing it desperately.
Yahya was going all the way to Nouakchott to visit his young daughter from his first marriage, but would not go all the way in one day. He said he had a place for us to stay for the night if we were interested. We didn’t really have much of a choice, but he had earned our trust, and it seemed like the obvious way to go.
We arrived in Akjoujt the first town since Atar, and Yahya stopped at a small shop. We waited in the car as kids crept closer and started tapping on the windows and asking for money. He came back with a bag full of raw chicken, sandwiches and cokes to go around, waving the kids off as he got in. I don’t think I have ever appreciated Coca-Cola in America, or would ever want to, but in Mauritania it is the most pleasurable of guilty pleasures.
We drove through the town and continued for half an hour before turning off the side of the road. He said we were going to his place where his wife is. He told us that he works back in Atar, but he seems like the kind of guy that splits his time between many places. We continued in the dark along a series of dirt roads that were barely visible at points. It seemed like he was just hurling us through the desert aimlessly. Then he stopped and admitted he was lost. We meandered back toward the main road, and started again. He got lost again, but quickly recovered. Eventually we reached a small group of large white tents and we parked in the sand.
When I got out, it seemed silent, except for some barely audible murmurs. Yahya led us into one of the tents, and his wife was already waiting inside, preparing mint tea. The floor was lined with soft carpet, and luxurious pillows formed a rectangle along the edges. We took our shoes off before entering, and then stretched our tired bodies out on the carpet and pillows. Yahya’s wife served the tea, then disappeared. She returned thirty minutes later with an enormous platter of fried chicken and fries. This pleasant surprise further proved my point that Mauritania has less of a gastronomic identity than any country I have ever been to. The four of us (not Yahya’s wife) feasted, and then had more tea. After, Yahya said he would take us to where we would be sleeping. We got back in the car, but we were stuck in the sand. Jonathan, Susan and I couldn’t push hard enough, so Yahya rousted up a few young guys from a nearby tent, and we were able to make it out.
We drove through some more dirt/sand roads, and I was completely disoriented by the time we arrived at a little concrete hut. I don’t really know what this place was, but Yahya had the key. Like the tent, it had carpet and pillows on the floor, though nowhere near as comfortable. He said he would be back at ten in the morning, and that we should be ready.
We woke early and even had time to make some tea before Yahya arrived. But then he didn’t show up until noon, looking a little ragged. “I need some tea!” he said, as got out of the car. So we relaxed a little more and had another round of tea. Yahya seemed in no rush, even though we were only a third of the way to the capital and half the day was already spent.
Yahya wants us to try on his skydiving suit
We hit the road again, but Yahya desired more tea after a couple of hours. So we pulled off the road, found a tree, laid a blanket under it and took a siesta, Mauritanian style.
Back in the car, I was sitting in the front seat, and had started to doze. All of a sudden, I woke to a fat white man blabbering into my open window. We had stopped due to some sort of road construction and the man at the window, I think, was overseeing the operation. He was middle-aged, wearing lots of khaki and had a red face with a South African accent, though he said he was born in England. Although he was probably what I would consider a exploiter of the continent, a business man with a feeling of superiority over the blacks, he had me from sleeping to laughing in about three seconds. It was like he hadn’t spoken English/to a white person in years, and he needed to tell all the stories he could in the 2 minutes we would be stopped. I was lost in a haze, but I caught bits about Nigerian prostitutes in Mali, weird things from the nightclubs in Nouakchott, and tales from working construction throughout Africa. This guy was dirty, and I hated him, but at the same time, it was such a bizarre interaction that I thoroughly enjoyed. He just represents another segment of Africa’s…weirdness to put it lightly.
We started to pass through more military and police checkpoints. Yahya always played his “Captain card” to get us through without incident. He said if he didn’t do that they would be making up things that he had done wrong to extract bribes from him.
Somehow we reached Nouakchott in the same day. We pulled into the parking lot of the stadium, and Yahya passed us off to Mohamed, the young guy who we would stay with in the capital. I had arranged for us to stay with him through the website Couchsurfing. We said goodbye to Yahya and thanked him profusely for all of his generosity.
Mohamed lived in an unfinished home in a developing upscale neighborhood outside of the center of Nouakchott. He works as a painter and we weren’t sure if this was his home, or just one that he was living in while he worked to finish the interior. There was electricity, lots of space, luxuries like satellite television and internet, but no running water. We were surprised to find that he was actually from Morocco, and not just Morocco, but Guelmim, that black spot on our map where we had been ripped off on our donkey purchase and I had been robbed of my laptop. We made tea and Mohamed cooked us a dinner of past. We promised to make him dinner the next day, since I had noticed the tajine pot in his kitchen. That night we were attacked by mosquitoes in a more annoying and relentless way than I ever had experienced before. At 2 in the morning our patience wore out and we set up our tents in the living room.
Living room tents at Mohamed'sOur days in Nouakchott were not fun. They were busy and filled with the essential errands that come with being in a capital after spending weeks in the bush, and planning to move on to the next place. We didn’t really know where we would go next, but we wanted to get out of Mauritania for Christmas, and our visa was wearing thin anyway. It would either be Senegal, Gambia, Mali, or Guinea Bissau for Christmas. We all had different desires, and we had to weigh everyone’s wants and needs accordingly. Jonathan wanted Guinea Bissau for the coast and cheap beer. Susan wanted to go to Mali, as it was the one country she really wanted to go to in West Africa and she was running out of money. There was also consideration of The Gambia as there are many resorts there and we could potentially find work for the holidays. I didn’t want to go to The Gambia because I would be the only one of us to have to pay for a visa ($40 isn’t too steep, but it is the principal) plus it would be very expensive if we didn’t find work. We also didn’t know if Susan would have to pay for a visa for Senegal. Americans, Canadians and European Union citizens don’t have to pay, but there was a rumor that Senegal still hasn’t gotten the message that Czech Republic is actually in the EU. For Susan, the cost of getting to our Christmas destination was of the utmost importance. Jonathan and I had spent hours figuring out every different route from Nouakchott to the capitals of Mali, Senegal, Gambia and Guinea Bissau, and the approximate costs and time for each one. Of course, we would try to hitchhike, but we still weren’t sure how well it would work with the three of us. We figured we would split up into two groups, and race to the destination.
So, our first errand was to the Senegalese embassy to get the scoop on what they would charge Susan to enter. It turned out that a one-month visa was $70, and a three day transit visa was about half that. The one-month visa was probably a quarter of her remaining cash, so it basically made our decision for us, since we would have to go through Senegal to get to any of the countries except for Mali. At least we enjoyed the Senegalese restaurant across from the embassy. Next it was off to the Malian embassy, but they were closed already. We would have to come back the next day. Next we were off to the hospital to get Susan’s Yellow Fever vaccine, proof of which is essential to enter most African countries. Unfortunately, though, they said we had to get there before noon (it was 5:00), and that the two shots necessary are given a day apart. Susan was starting to feel sick and insisted on going home alone, while Jonathan and I hit the market to shop for stuff for dinner. We got some goat meat and the prices were high because camel was off-limits due to the disease. When we were buying the vegetables, a spat broke out between the woman selling them and a woman buying. The woman buying took revenge by pointing at every vegetable and telling us the real prices of each one. I had never had this happen before, but it was hilarious, and she saved us at least a few dollars.
Back at home, I was half-surprised to find Yahya sitting there with Susan and Mohamed. Yahya had seen Susan as she was heading home. He said there was a man following her closely that she hadn’t noticed. He didn’t seem very happy with us letting her go out alone. We wanted him to stay for dinner, but it took too long and he was getting angry phone calls from some woman and had to leave before it was done.
Our beautiful tajine, and baguettes...unfortunately the round Moroccan breads are tough to find here.
Susan's dinner option of rice and bananas...an upset stomachThat night, Susan said she had started to consider turning around and heading to England to work. I thought this was the only sane thing to do. After the cost of the Malian visa, another visa to return through Mauritania, and the cost of getting from Morocco to Europe, she would have very little money to work with (and anything but hitchhiking would be out of the question). I wouldn’t imagine proceeding in her state, and she was starting to come to terms with this being the only logical option.
In the morning, Susan got word that her mom had agreed to lend her some money, which she had asked for weeks before and had been told no. So it was off to the Malian embassy. While we were filling out our forms, Susan made friends with some Spanish guys that were also heading that direction. They said they were leaving for Bamako, the capital of Mali, the next day and might have some room for us in their vans. We said we would talk when we came to pick up the visas later that day. Then it was off to the hospital for that vaccine. It took some patience, but we finally managed the first in the 2-part series. I paid about $100 for the shot two years before, but here, it was only $4, as the government subsidizes it.
Back at the embassy, the Spanish guys told us that they had room and if we wanted to go we would have to meet us at their guesthouse at ten the next morning. It would be a tight squeeze, as Susan couldn’t get the second vaccination until 9:00 the next morning. It was also difficult for me, as I was having money issues. Apparently my bank had cancelled my ATM card, saying it was “compromised”. I think this means that I had withdrawn money from a country they had never heard of, so they shut it down. Now I was waiting for my new one to be sent to me. It was supposed to be sent to Nouakchott, but at the last minute I found that it would not arrive in time, so I waited to see if I could have it sent to Bamako.
So in the morning, Yahya picked us up early to help us with our crazy schedule. He dropped Jonathan and I off in the banking district, then went on with Susan to strong arm his way into getting her vaccine in an efficient way. Jonathan withdrew money for the two of us, then we went and haggled with the black market money changers so we could get some francs (CFA) for Mali. We met up with them at the guesthouse, where the caravan was waiting. They followed us to Mohamed’s house to pick up our bags. We said rushed goodbyes to Mohamed and Yahya, promising to come back to see them when we came back to Mauritania.
I was in the front seat of Blai’s big Renault truck with Jonathan. Blai’s companion, Ignazi, had moved into the front of Felix’s Mercedes van and Susan had climbed into the back of it. We would meet later with Alejandro in his Mercedes van, carrying a couple of Polish hitchhikers. I was disappointed to have blown through Nouakchott in a rush, failing to see the beach, the fish market, or discover some interesting quirks on my own. But when you get an opportunity to get a direct ride with some good people to a country that has always been on your short list, then there’s really no real choice.
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