Day 13: Nouakchott (Under Mauritanian Sky...)

I was not the happy trouper when daylight came that morning in Nouadhibou. I felt pain all over and was in search of pharmaceutical relief but gave up after the first pharmacist offered me Paracetamol and then a second pharmacists in a tracksuit with missing teeth and chains that made him look like a your local 'homeboy' gave me a cream for fungi infection when I would've been satisfied with a simple Arnica for the bruise on my knee. Certified homeopathic medicine of a wide level of distribution is popular only in advanced countries.

We deposited our motorbikes and baggage an hour before departure time, then headed off to look for breakfast. Le petit dejeuner was not available just anywhere. It seemed like each shop had their own purposes. A restaurant is a place to eat only for either lunch or dinner and there is no flexibility in between. We entered a restaurant and saw a woman cleaning potatos who just looked at us and then continued with what she was doing, not even bothering to ask why we entered, as though the concept of a door was not to define inside and outside, nor does the differentiation of spaces and what it implies exists. We ask if they could serve us and they just mention another name and indicated for us to walk further up the street. The cafe in which name I do not recall consisted of a small veranda as its facade, door covered in multicolored vynil bands that tiered down and the room was a 3x3 all covered in newspaper excerpts of soccer, basketball, Obama and Al-Qaaeda news. He served only baguettes with onion omelettes with possible addition of homemade mayonnaise and nescafe long coffee with or without milk powder. As we finished eating, the man and his boy waited for us outside.

The bus ride to Nouakchott took more than 5 hours and it felt longer. Before leaving Red kept insisting on getting information regarding the next step of our transportation from the capital to Rosso but he never got answers. So we parted without really knowing what would happen when we arrived. Red was worried about moving on our problematic and extremely slow rides in the Sahel nearing the time of the kidnapping of those Spanish tourists. He was however suffering the ride and would've loved to have done this road with the bikes. I was destroyed and thought that this intermezzo had right timing. It's not a joke to me the pain, I felt on my back. I was at that point quite concerned about my health and considered even abandoning the SH50 and continuing via public transport. The Aprilia was already at its end anyhow.

The road was beautiful. The dunes are much more persistent in this part of the desert but winds blew strongly. This road bears now a name of The road of Hope. The Japanese financed it, I assume as an exchange of a deal on fish exportation. It's kind of funny to think that maybe some of Japan's sushi come from Nouadhibou's bay. The comfort of a bus was not as rewarding as riding. First off, inside the vehicle you saw through square windows and not a full view. Secondly, you were inside looking out and not right in the middle. It was however very entertaining to see the people. Such as the frog faced Chinese guy with cactus hair who got annoyed everytime the door opened and sand would come in. He panicked everytime and trying to clean himself after. It was ridiculous! There was a lot of wind and theres sand at 360°!

We arrived in Nouakchott at 4.30PM and found that no transportation to Rosso exists and but it can be arranged but always with the price of an eye. There were little options and the owner of the shuttle service was actually advising us to go with the bikes assuring us that it was save. We decided to leave almost immediately, bid farewell to reason and perhaps mental sanity and headed out once more to ride ignoring previous fears of kidnappers in the middle of the desert. I took a pain killer and overcame my preoccupation for my own health once more..

Getting out of Nouakchott was not easy. We were running around in circles for sometime trying to figure out where to go in a city where indications on directions does not exist. We ended up in the periphery again with high traffic of motorcycles, cars, buses, trucks and horses. The conditions of the streets were dramatic because holes on the asphalt and sand was everywhere. The sight of huge trucks inclining and jiggling sideways along sand crated roads was quite impressive.. We finally managed to get fuel and headed out for a 200 km drive to Rosso and it was already 6.20PM when we arrived at city limits. We jumped from being worried about possible hijacking by Al-Qaeda to going on a Die Hard ride to the border Rosso at nightfall... Just insane, actually!

Maybe, finally, just because we've learned our lesson from the past days that at 30km off Nouakchott Red stopped at the sign of Auberge and we decided to stop. I'm so happy we did because it was one of the most beautiful places we stopped at where is a space of 1000 m2 you had 12 cabins and there was nothing else near this 'complex'. The whole facility was lighted by a small car battery and as night came, the stars where as what I generally see at sea. The complex manager, Achmed, was nice enough to place a mat and mattresses in the patio in front of our room and I felt like royalty while laying there watching the sky.