April 7, 2019 - Trip from Daklha, Western Sahara to Nouakchott, Mauritania in a Shared Taxi

A 12 hour day from Daklha, Western Sahara to Nouakchott, Mauritania (500+ miles and a border crossing) in a shared taxi with very nice people and just enough room to tie my bicycle on top of the trunk of a 40 year old Mercedes Benz (I like traveling in style😉).
The trip included: first flat tire replaced with spare, I was able to walk about 100 yards closer to the ocean and relieve myself; second flat tire with no spare and very sparse traffic,(but when I began walking to stretch my legs they requested that I stay close due to potential land mines). A phone call was made, apparently to a fellow grand taxi driver following from a distance, who stopped and gave us his spare. So we rode in a two taxi convoy to the border. Made a very smooth border crossing thanks to the driver helping with currency exchange, cell phone sim card purchase, guiding us to all of the immigration and sundry military checkpoints to get passports stamped, etc. And we were all very happy that I had procured my Mauritania Visa from their embassy in Rabat. To have waited until the border probably would have added at least an hour if not more to the process.

Once across the border the taxis parted ways, as we were going all the way to Nouakchott and they were only going to Nouadhibou. But first we stopped to get the spare tire replaced. Part of the payment was to deliver a large covered platter of hot food to road workers about a mile away.

We stopped and picked up two more passengers, a couple of nice fellows from a shanty settlement in the middle of nowhere. The desert impoverishment here in Mauritania reminded me of the deserts of Peru with the skeletal settlements which seem so uninhabitable, but somehow life seems to abide.

Departing Daklha at 8 am Sunday morning, April 7th. Left is Abdo, my very kind Airbnb host in Daklha. Center, the backup driver, a very interesting fellow, I liked immediately. And right à Senegalese fellow who travels back and forth from Madrid to Dakar buying and selling clothes. After the second flat the lack of conversion (due to my lack of French) was disrupted when this fellow said he had lived in Madrid for 30 years and speaks Spanish fluently. While I am not proud of my level of Spanish, we began making up time like old friends. It's always so rewarding when a language barrier is broken.

First flat tire

Second flat tire

'no man's land'

This is the 'non-road' in 'no man's land' where land disputes between the Saharawi tribes of the east are disputing Moroccan claims to Western Sahara. (seehttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerguerat) Thereby rendering road construction non-existent.