Morocco, Mauritania and Senegal travelogue
It took 58 years to be able to share a hostel room with four beautiful girls, one Swiss, one Austrian, one German and one Canadian–super!
A salute to Tarifa in Spain and then, off by ferry, destination Africa, with French bikers complete with wicker basket…super!
And then off to Rabat, the capital of Morocco-super!
The Wasp sleeps in the lobby of the hostel, safe and so do I, in a boys-only room!
Bikers, exceptional meetings
Yesterday 400 km in the Sahara desert, beautiful weather, more than 30 degrees and the sunlight in a clear sky as rarely seen.
The road is deserted and I run, slowly, immersed in my thoughts, I notice at the last moment the two cyclists “encamped” on the right side of the road, I stop and go back.
She is Ursula, he… eh nothing, I can’t memorize the names of the boys. They are Swiss, from Lucerne, they set off on their bikes at the beginning of September this year and will arrive in Dakar in February next year.
They offer me a coffee, on the bike they have an Italian mocha for 6 🔝🔝🔝
Let’s talk about travel and this increasingly difficult world where it would take little to live in peace and serenity. We take pictures, we joke, Ursula gets on the Vespa, she’s as happy as a child at the rides.
Today still 570 km in the Sahara desert, with the wind against and the sand penetrating everywhere. There are fewer and fewer cars, even trucks, everything is more rarefied, I feel that I am getting closer to Mauritania.
At the bottom I see a dot that gets bigger and bigger, it’s a bike, it’s alone, I pass it and I stop to wait for it. He’s from Casablanca and he’s going south, then maybe he’ll take a ship to Brazil.
There is immediate feeling, 10 short but intense minutes to share emotions, ways of being, thinking, joys.
Then the discovery, above the front left bag a puppy dog, he picked it up on the street, it was abandoned, he will keep it until he can find a safe place for it… Incredible!
And finally Renato, a 68-year-old from Rome who left in April, I don’t understand if this year or last year and who has toured a lot, but I don’t understand exactly where. With his bicycle I found him in the desert of Mauritania, full of energy and enthusiasm he has sworn that as long as his strength allows him he will continue to pedal. He wants to get to Dakar and then go back too, great!
Sahara Desert and Mauritania
It is 6 p.m., I have been traveling continuously for 10 hours in Western Sahara, 570 km at an average speed of 65 km/h and the maximum speed at 75 km/h.
From 200 km a strong crosswind makes driving challenging, the sand rises and for 30 cm from the ground forms a compact layer that makes that little tongue of asphalt almost invisible…, I can feel it penetrating everywhere. I have 60 km to go to get to Bir Gandouz, near the Mauritanian border.
In the “middle of nowhere” I pass a gas station, the first one after 150 km, but I continue, I have enough gas to get to my destination, I cannot waste time because it is already too late and it is about to get dark. A little further on I have to turn left, strange, I change my mind and go back to the gas station. I fill up and the guy tells me that the border is not on the left, but straight ahead at 89 km. There is nothing after that, he points me to a small building near the gas station, the only one, “sleep there tonight and leave tomorrow morning, customs is closed now and it is not safe to travel in the evening.”
I think, “Good thing I went back, who knows where I would have ended up turning left.”
It’s 8 a.m. and I’m already ready to go, I can feel my clothes still full. of sand, I also remove a lot of it from my shoes, the Vespa has it everywhere. After an hour and a half of “nothing” I arrive at the border. I leave Morocco fairly quickly and travel a mile or two of unpaved road in no man’s land until I reach the Mauritanian border, which presents itself to my eyes as a small cluster of low buildings enclosed within a fort. At the entrance two or three people ask me for my passport, I don’t trust them, I understand that they are people who want to get money out of me…, however, there are also Police. I put the first one on and continue, inside same story, one with a reflective vest with “ASSISTANCE” written on it offers me help but I do not accept. I go into the first office where I see someone, they send me to another and the rigmarole begins.
In the meantime guys repeatedly approach me offering to exchange currency or sell me the SIM card but for the moment I am not interested in anything, my main goal is to cross the border.
I make the permit for the Vespa (10€), while I wait every two minutes I go out to check on it because I don’t have it in sight.
They send me to do my visa in a place where there are only “unofficial” people who approach me like vultures, I go out without doing anything and head for the exit from the square, I think “if I try to cross the border someone will stop me and tell me where I really have to go.” In fact, the Police send me back to the real visa office, it is closed. I wait an hour and finally the official arrives, I make the visa (55€) and finally head for the exit.
The Police still send me back to the customs office, I go in, they check my papers and put a stamp on my passport.
I try again, I made it, I am in Mauritania!!!
I look for the office to insure the Vespa (9€ for three days), change some money (little because I don’t trust the exchange rate) and buy this blessed SIM card that I later saw was used, with only 2gb promo offered by the operator, whatever.
I make 44 km to reach Nouadhibou, the obligatory stopping point for tomorrow’s crossing, almost 500 km in one day, without distributors, to be done all in one breath.
The city is very dilapidated, only the main roads are paved, there is a lot of poverty, and the cars on the road are the most wrecked I have ever seen before, not even to be compared with Indian or Pakistani cars.
I prioritize gasoline, with the money I have I manage to fill up and get another 5 liters that I put in a can of reclaimed oil. Fortunately, I know a Frenchman in an RV who gives me three more liters, which I pay to him in euros.
I arrive in the evening with the travel equipment of 20 liters of gasoline, 3 bananas, 1 persimmon, 1.5 liters of water and with the equivalent of two euros in local currency in my pocket. I spend the night in the camper cell of a pickup truck, ready for my crossing tomorrow.
From Mauritania to Senegal – Diama
I am in Nouakchott in Mauritania and need to prepare for entry into Senegal. Yesterday I rested because the 500 km of desert exhausted me.
Ever since I began studying this trip, I have always heard of the Rosso customs, between Mauritania and Senegal, as one of the most difficult in the world because it is in fact controlled by fixers who run their trade. Over the past few days, I have been doing a lot of research in the FB groups I am a member of, and in fact from several quarters I have been confirmed the situation. Those who have gone through recently seem to have had to go through grueling negotiations, with stops in customs for 10 to 12 hours, only to give in out of exhaustion, going on to pay sums ranging from €80 to €200 per person in order to get through.
There is an alternative, however, which is to abandon the road to Rosso (outlined in red on the map), and take an alternative route (outlined in green) to enter Senegal from the Diama customs house, which appears to be much quieter. The only problem is that this 80-km detour involves 50 km of a long dirt road within Diawling Nature Park. On this road I have read everything, difficult to travel, even more so with a Vespa.
Yesterday I decided to try the way of Diama, wanting to submit to the border of Red I just don’t have any.
I arrive at the fateful Red-Diama junction, stop to rest, it is hot (32 degrees) but it feels good, eat some rice I took from the morning and drink plenty.
I set off again, leaving the main road and turning right towards Diama. The first 30 kilometers are of a nice paved but deserted road, I feel like I’m going into uncertainty…. My big fear is soft sand, two nights before I planted myself in the center of town in a small street where there was less than 10 cm of it.
I arrive in a tiny village, turn right again to go to Diama, here begins the dirt road…, now it’s getting serious.
I continue on, thinking of enduro bikes, envying their off-road capabilities, the road is dirt but beautiful….
Very long straights begin, I enter the nature park, the road always good, better than I expected and what I had been described. I travel well consistently in third, almost idling but in third.
There is not a soul, no one passes me, and I don’t pass anyone. after 15 km a tiny village with a few people, I stop for two shots and continue on, I think it would be good to avoid puncturing this very stretch.
Further and further into the park, left thick vegetation, right water, almost swampy.
I start to see wild boars, they cross my road in groups, I am careful that they don’t pop out at the last moment. At one point one, to my right, as a dog would do when it sees a motorcycle pass by, hints at an attempted pursuit…, I downshift second and accelerate to full throttle, with an internal blood pouring out of me.
Eh no, I don’t really have to puncture now-I can’t get into tire changing with boars running around me.
To the left, the road is better, but there is dense vegetation and I am afraid that I will pop out a wild boar to say the least. Better to stay to the right, even if there is water and heaven forbid there are also crocodiles, which fortunately I did not see.
I cover the 50 km in a couple of hours, arriving sweaty and tired from everything except the road which was nothing compared to what I went through in Pakistan and Nepal, I see the border at the end, finally!
In customs (Mauritania) I enter the first checkpoint and the official is in a bunk, has a fever and asks me if I have any medication. I give him the passport and he stamps it without even looking at it.
I go to customs, again the customs officer is in a bunk, he just sleeps (it is not a busy customs). I wake him up, he gets up, opens the office, and stamps me out of the Vespa.
Then from the Police, there is no one here, I wait 10 minutes and the policeman arrives with two others and a watermelon, two stamps, they offer me a slice which I gladly accept and off we go, towards Senegal.
In Senegal everything is even faster, in 10 minutes and I’m in.
30 km and I am in St. Louis, dubbed the New Orleans of Senegal, tomorrow a tourist day.
Good, very good, thanks to my Vespa that took me among the boars and crocodiles, where many enduro bikes did not dare, thank you very much!
FOR LOVERS OF NUMBERS
Kilometers driven: about 8,000 of which 80 were on highways
Speed: 79 km/h the highest and 47 km/h the average
Fuel consumption: 32.6 km/l
Differences in readings: Odometer 8,131 km – GPS Navigator 7822 km (4% deviation)
Costs: €1,899 over 40 days equal to €47.50 per day inclusive:
-370 € about gasoline
-468 € for ferries, visas, insurance and SIM.
-1061 € for room and board + miscellaneous, amounting to about 26 € per day
FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO FOLLOW AND SUPPORT ME
To make a donation to the mission in Africa (you really make me a great gift, any amount – as a company you also have the tax deduction)
To purchase my book NEPAL IN VESPA (making this second trip made me realize even more the value of what I wrote)
To follow me in real time during my journey
Thank you from the bottom of my heart
