Lots of pictures of a road

December 16, 2010

We left Nouakchott, heading southeast toward Bamako, Mali, on a narrow strip of road straddling the border of desert and savannah. At times it was so distinct that we had sand dunes on our left, and grass and small trees on our right.
When we arrived at the first military checkpoint, Blai, our revolutionary Catalan driver, said, casually, “oh, we need to give them a fish.” I was shocked that he was so willing to give up a gift for a military checkpoint, and also that the gift would be fish. But then he handed us a pen and paper, and I understood. He didn’t say “fish”, but “fiche”, the French word for form. We wrote down our passport numbers, names, occupations on the paper, and passed it off to the officer and we were on our way. Then Blai put Jonathan and I to work, filling out forms for the dozens of military checkpoints we would be passing through. We got bored once and made our “fiche” on a large leaf. The officers almost found it humorous, but did not accept it.

Steamroller

Cows. I don't know why, but I felt compelled to put this in black and white.

By the fourth checkpoint, the officers began asking for “cadeauxs”, gifts, like children had done in Morocco. They were not aggressive, though, and usually a simple, “no, sorry” would do. Sometimes they made up excuses, that their kids needed shoes, or that they were very hungry. More than once, officers told us that they had a headache and wanted some headache medicine. I had never seen such childish and half-hearted attempts at bribery. If they really needed a bribe, I knew they could call us out on some small thing, and not let us pass until we paid. It never happened.

I slowly learned about the convoy. Blai and Ignazi, long-time friends about 25 years old, had driven from Spain. Blai was hoping to sell the truck in Mali, while Ignazi was just along for the adventure and would be flying back to Spain soon. Felix, a young German doctor, who had met them in Morocco, was driving his Mercedes van from Germany to Mali. He would be visiting friends that he had made when he had interned at a hospital in Bamako four years ago. Alejandro, also from Barcelona, had met Blai and Ignazi along the way. He was mysterious, and I learned very little of him for the time being.

Felix's van.

Ignasi in Felix's van, Blai's face on the left.

Felix, what's the problem now?

Jonathan and Blai

Can we please have a caption-writing contest? What is this boy yelling at us as we pass him?

In the afternoon, Blai mentioned that he had brought some beer from Spain and still had some left. This led to a brief stop on the highway. Jonathan, Susan and I got to enjoy our first beer in nearly a month. It was warm, bordering on hot, but it didn’t matter. Blai said he had crossed into Mauritania with his dozens of beers by simply giving a few to the border guards.
About an hour after sunset, we were still about 40 km from Kiffa, the halfpoint between Nouakchott and the border. I had dozed off, but woke suddenly to yelling. “Shit shit shit shit shit!” Blai yelled as he slammed on the brakes. I came to just in time to see a huge hole in the road, then nearly hit my head on the roof as we slammed into it. As we heard metal slam against asphalt, Blai was yelling again, “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!” Blai stopped and jumped out. Jonathan was right behind him. I was still trying to figure out where I was and slowly crawled out. Blai and Jonathan were moaning as they assessed the damages. A pool of oil was forming under the truck and flowing off to the side of the road. I am not a mechanic, so I was useless in helping and useless in explaining what the problem was. The oil pan was damaged. Not cracked, but we needed to replace a screw. Blai is a mechanic and Jonathan might as well be. Their prognosis did not look good, but it seemed they might be able to jury-rig something. Then we noticed the broken down shell of an abandoned car about 50 meters in front of us. Jonathan and Blai walked towards it, hoping to lift a hood ornament off of it or something. Then they realized that, like Blai’s truck, it was a Renault. This gave some hope, and they tore into the hood, digging into the car’s innards until they pulled out the golden piece. They were cheering and whooping as they ran back to the truck with their tiny plunder. They made the fix in a matter of minutes, and the flood of oil was reduced to a minor drip.
At the next checkpoint, the police said that we could not continue further. They said it was no longer safe to travel, and that we needed to stay at the checkpoint for the night. I wasn’t sure if it was because of driving on the bad road at night, or the threat of kidnappings, as we were now on the edge of the “red zone” for security. We conferred with Felix. Blai wanted to force our way through, Felix wanted to stay. After speaking with the officers, they permitted us to pass the checkpoint, but only to go off the road toward the nearby village to sleep.
The next day, we were slowed by the deteriorating road. At each checkpoint the officers assured us that it would get better soon. It didn’t. We had thought we would easily pass through the border today, but it looked like we would cut it close. Even where there was new road, it had been poorly constructed, and was destroyed the moment a heavy truck passed over it.

This road could not be more than a few years old, destroyed already.

We passed through a small town whose poverty shocked me for the first time in years. For some reason, this town was far worse than anything else I had seen in Mauritania. The accumulation of trash alone was staggering. Everyone looked desperate. We were now in farmable land, but it looked like nothing was being grown here. The donkeys looked sicker than the people, but barely. Every building was in ruins. I wanted to stop and explore, figure out what had gone so much worse in this town then the others along the same road. Unfortunately, I was the taker of rides, not the giver, and had no say in where we made our occasional stop.

Unfortunately this photo does very little to convey what I saw in this town.

Many Europeans come to Africa with their own vehicles; a concept in traveling that is completely foreign to me. I always assume that bringing your own vehicle is just for the rich, but I have learned that while it is more costly, there are ways around this, through being business-minded. Although Blai’s truck was a gift, he could buy it in Spain for much less than he could sell it for in Africa. Therefore, many Germans come to Africa, Mali in particular, with their Mercedes camper vans with the intent to sell them. They can buy them in Germany for 2,000 Euros, and depending on the year, sell them for a profit of one or two thousand Euros. They will then be stripped and turned into local busses. It is not a huge profit, but it covers the cost of gas for the trip. Some people also bring other goods with them, such as bikes and electronic equipment that can be sold at a profit. It sounds attractive. You can go wherever you want. You don’t have to wait for buses, pay for taxis and you can go to the most out of the way destination that you want. I have thought a lot about it. However, after a brief experience with this kind of travel, I have concluded that I prefer a more close to the ground kind of travel. With a vehicle, it is even more difficult than normal to not seem like a loaded foreigner. You don’t meet the same people that you would in a bus or when hitchhiking. Yes, you have the ability to go to that out of the way village, but you don’t go; 100 km off the highway and back costs too much in gas. You have too many pleasures; your own bed, a kitchen to cook your favorite foods, plenty of space to store treasures from home. Deprivation is part of travel. There are too many extra needs (parking space, gas, water, etc.). Too many things can go wrong, and I am no mechanic. Though I will always admit that having your own vehicle makes it easier to make impromptu stops in places that look interesting. The important thing is not being so destination-driven, so that you actually stop at these places.

I had an intense obsession with this new technology I saw in southern Mauritania. It is the THREE DONKEY SETUP!!!

Anyway, by the time we reached the border we had passed through 35 checkpoints in two days and filled out as many forms. We arrived about an hour before the border closed, but we were disappointed to find the line of cars stationary. We investigated, and the guards said the border was closed for the night. They said the computers they were using ran on solar energy and the battery was empty. This was a hard scenario to imagine, but there was little we could do other than find a place on the side of the road to settle in for the night.
In the morning, it took a couple of hours, but we finally cleared customs and Felix and Blai had to buy insurance. Then we drove thirty minutes to Nioro, where they had to do additional paperwork for bringing their vehicles into the country. In the afternoon we finally started heading on our way with some promise of making it to Bamako soon. I wanted to arrive that night, Saturday, to catch some of the live music in Mali’s capital.
Although the border between Mauritania and Mali is fairly arbitrarily drawn, the fact that we were now moving due south resulted in a quick change in scenery and culture. There were no more (or very few) Moorish people. The camels seemed to disappear, giving way to more donkeys and horses. The desert was now a memory, and the greenery we were starving for became a reality.

An afternoon stop outside of a village...ok, so it's not sooo green, but you get the idea.

We started a soccer game.

Blai climbed a tree

We moved slow, though, and by nightfall we were still a couple hours from Bamako. We stopped in a village to find some dinner, and I was thrilled to feel like I was finally back in black Africa. I already felt a million miles away from Mauritania, and like I had taken a first step into a new part of the journey. The single road going through town was dark, crowded and lively. It felt sweaty, dirty, louder, energetic. There were plenty of eating options on the street. Various tables were serving up chicken, rice and sauce, millet porridge, fried plantains and yams. I ran up and down the street, surveying the options, taking note of the popular stalls and the friendliness of the cooks. I landed on a bench in a dark corner tucked in between buildings. I perused the offerings, and pointed toward a ball of millet porridge and sauce that the man next to me was eating. They gave me a large sticky ball of the millet (I learned later that the dish is called “toe”) and poured on a slimy green sauce made from okra. I asked for the pepper, and they passed me a bowl of chili powder. I showered my bowl with it, tossed away the spoon, and dug into the hot mess with my hand. It burned my fingertips, and it was not even that good, but it was a tangible sign that I was back in the region I was looking for.