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Mauritania, Tuesday, 28th February 2006 (Patrick) Should haves and hindsight… The date on this journal doesn't match reality, since I submitted it much later than I should have, so ignore it and pretend you are reading it somewhere around the 14th of February. We're finally leaving Nouadhibou, which is a good thing. Not that it wasn't a nice place, but there wasn't too much to do or see, and we spent most of our time working on the education program, so we're definitively ready for a change. We probably should have gone to Cap Blanc, but we thought we'd get our fair share of birds in Banc d'Arguin, so we didn't. It's a hot and windy day. Sand dust is blown into the far-from-dustproof cab of the car, hits the almost dead air on the inside, and covers everything with a film of orange yellow dust. Yep, we definitively hit the desert now. In spite of the engine running great these days, the car feels as if we're dragging an invisible trailer, so I stop to make sure the roof tent didn't blow open (again). It didn't. During the 15 second stop, sand managed to find its way to even behind my wisdom teeth. I can feel it grinding. And I didn't even open my mouth. I wonder if it's my skin that's dry, or the layer of dust that covers it. In the mean time it remains a mystery why the car is holding back so much. I know the wind is strong, but I have a hard time believing that that would have such an effect. But after 20km, we are off the peninsula, make a 180 degree turn towards the South, and the car starts speeding like it never has before. I guess the wind can make such a difference. After two hours, Corinne makes the mistake to go for a pee break. Should have know better than to take your pants down in the middle of a sand storm. Should haves and hindsight. The sign for the Parc Nationale is supposed to turn up after about 230 km, but it doesn't, so we head back to the only sign of life we have seen in the past 30 minutes, and find the park entrance. We have a bit of trouble getting in because apparently vehicles over 3.5 tonnes aren't allowed in, but since our papers state that the total weight of the car cannot (as in is not allowed to) exceed 3.5 tonnes, we manage to convince the park official to let us in. The ride begins. There's supposed to be a piste, but since at the park office they gave us GPS waypoints that roughly mark the route, we should have know that it can't be that much of a piste. It isn't. It's sand, sand and more sand. Our first desert drive. Very cool. We didn't really anticipate this, and because of that we ignore rule number 1 - deflating the tyres - which makes it unnecessarilly hard on us and the car. Not that it makes too much of a difference for the mog, since it effortlessly ploughs through everything anyway. Should have though, cause the next day we do deflate a little, and the difference is huge. The car runs through the sand as if its on tarmac - we don't even come close to engaging 4 wheel drive and average a clean 50 kph (on a normal, 'on-road' driving day we average about 55-60). We get to the little village of Iwik, in the heart of the park, and are directed to the local 'campsite' - bush camping is strictly forbidden. The woman who runs the campsite comes walking towards us, her 5 year old son following a little behind her. She says hello, and offers me a warm friendly smile, but keeps about a meter and a half distance between us. But then Corinne gets out of the car and she steps forward and offers her hand. Mauritanians are very strict Muslims, and in rural areas - and in the upper levels of society for that matter - men and women don't shake hands. This part of the continent however is also very male dominated (at checkpoints, border crossings and the likes, Corinne stays in the car and plays the submissive wife - a part she at those moments plays better that I would expect), and so I had never been on the receiving end of this 'I'm sorry but I don't shake hands with you custom'. It's a bit strange to say, but in some way you do feel a bit left out. Guess I had a great day for getting in touch with my feminine side. The woman, her name is Soukeyna, invites us in for tea. In Mauritania having tea is not just 'putting the kettle on' and throwing a tea bag in a cup, but a long and elaborate ritual. Tea leaves, water, and, what tastes like a pound of sugar, are heated on a little gas burner. After that, she pours a bit of tea in one of four little glasses. She pours it from high up, which cools the tea a bit, releases the aroma, and make the tea look frothy and foamy. She then tastes a sip, pours it from this glass into the next, and then from that into the next, and the next, and from the last glass into the teapot. She repeats this three times, and then pours three small glasses of bitter and sweet tea. While we drink our tea, she tells us a bit about the area, and the birds that come here from Europe to escape the cold winters. In the mean time, her son is practicing the alphabet on a small blackboard. He starts at the top right hand corner, which gives away that the lingual part of his brain thinks Arab, but his mother corrects him. After that she rinses the glasses, carefully saving the water, and goes through the ritual of making three glasses of tea again. I ask her about the ritual, and why it is done that way. She smiles and says: "that's just the way it’s done..." Over our second glass of tea, we help her son practice counting and adding numbers. I realise he is not just learning how to count, add and subtract, he is doing so in another language. With Mauritanian tea, everything comes in threes, so she goes through the ritual one final time. After we finish our third glass of tea, she covers the teapot and glasses with a cloth. This is our cue to leave. We get up from the carpet we sit on, thank her for the tea, put our shoes back on, and go back to our tent. Sometimes tea is not just tea. Sometimes tea is a long conversation, the beginning of a friendship or, like for us, an introduction to an unknown, fascinating culture. In the evening the wind picks up again, and we are confronted with the well know fact that wind, sand and cooking on a fire on the ground are a bad combination. Should have known better after Corinne's peeing incident. Our sand burgers are delicious anyway. We make it an early night, so even I should have any problems getting up the next morning to watch the millions of exotic birds we have been promised. We are both really looking forward to this, since we're ready to really 'see' something. That may sound strange, since we see wonderful new things every day, but when you're on a trip like this you sometimes really want the overwhelming 'national park experience' rather than the 'dusty little town in the middle of nowhere experience'. I have to say, I'm not to much of a bird watcher (I'm a bit of an American when it comes to birds - unless they are really big, really colourful or there are really a lot of them I don't really care that much), but this is one of West Africa's most beautiful bird sanctuaries, so I'm ready to be impressed. But the next day is nothing but a raw 'de kinderen moeten tegen een teleurstelling kunnen', which is an old family saying which means 'the children must learn how to cope with disappointments'. We wake up extra early, hoping to be greeted by millions of colourful birds, but find nothing but a lost sparrow hopping around a piece of tomato that we must have spilled last night during our dark sand dinner. Maybe we have to be closer to the beach. But after walking the coastline for an hour and a half we find ourselves surrounded by thousands, no millions of grains of sand... and not a single bird. So far, we've seen 5 seagulls and a lost flamingo. Seriously, I've seen more varied avifauna on a day at the beach of Scheveningen. Scheveningen may sound very exotic to you, but if you've ever been to Holland, you know it's not, and definitively not the place to go bird watching - not that kind of bird watching anyway. Maybe we're just too early. Maybe in that patch of wetlands over there. And though we both know that these are the maybes of disappointed children, we walk on and hope that things get better. They don't, and eventually we cut our losses. We spent 15 euros in park fees, made a 130 km off road detour (another 35 euros) and then another 10 euros on a bush camp (I mean, I don't mind digging my own hole for a crap, but if I do, I don't want to be charged for it), and lost 2 days. OK, we did have a really nice desert drive, but I heard there is this really big place called the Sahara close by where you can do that for free. I make it sound really bad, which it wasn't, but we should have gone to Atar. Should haves and hindsight. Somehow the past few weeks were should haves and hindsight. Should have spent less time writing the kids about Africa, and more time experiencing it. Should have accepted that invitation to come over for diner in Dakhla. Should have come in for that coffee when they invited me. Should have brought that extra change of sheets. Should have just gone backpacking. Should have, should have. Should have had our hindsight a bit earlier than we had. But then we break the spell, by moving further south in a couple of long hauls, which is exactly what we should have done. We decide to avoid the border crossing at Rosso (which is commonly referred to as the worst border crossing in the world) and take the one at Diama. Exactly what we should have done, because this brought us to the other bird park in Mauritania, where we more than made up for Banc d'Arguin just by driving though it. And then it's Senegal, which is an entirely different story. Should have written this journal earlier... |