Sahara Crossing by Greg Clarke

There is no road from Nouackchott to Tiouilit. For the last hundred metres of our five-day desert crossing we had to wait two hours for low tide so we could drive along a beach to the Mauritanian capital. After land mines, bribes to soldiers and countless breakdowns, the last 50 metres of journey took three hours as our convoy sank in soft sand, within sight of the salvation of bitumen.

The traditional Sahara crossing has been through Algeria via Tamanrasset. Internal conflict has made this difficult, if not impossible, and the crossing via Morocco into Mauritania has become the preferred desert-crossing route. However, the legacy of war and the very fact of the desert itself means this route is not without risk. We crossed it in an old Peugeot.

The journey begins in Dakhla, 1700 kilometres south of Casablanca in the Western Sahara. The desert south of Dakhla was the site of war between Moroccan and Polisario forces after Morocco annexed the Western Sahara. The area is heavily mined. This crossing is controlled by the Moroccan Army and limited to two days per week – Tuesday and Friday.

I arrived in Dakhla on a Saturday in late September. It was early in the desert crossing season and though I had heard hitching a lift was easy, I had forgone a night in Layounne and endured an eight-hour taxi ride to arrive in plenty of time for the Tuesday crossing.

South of Layounne, a flat rock-ridden landscape punctuated by a road built for war affords views of the Atlantic, occasional camels and isolated villages. Yet the road is remembered most for the police and army checks along the route. Out of Boujdour, two stops are barely a kilometre apart.

Countless forms, all the same. Name. Passport details. Father’s and mother’s name. Some are completed by two-finger typists who had done their best to look like LA cops. It is time consuming and requires patience. It was my introduction to the desert. And to West Africa. On Sunday, I registered my arrival at La Surete hotel. After filling out an embarkation card, I was told to meet at the army barracks at 9.15am Tuesday. With no car, the formalities, until then, were over. I needed a lift.

Aybich Brahim sells Winston cigarettes around my hotel, the El Wahda. A turban sits atop a darkened face that is deeply lined. Blind in one eye, he speaks French, Spanish and Italian as well as his native Arabic.

“Some French arrive this morning. Blue Peugeot. They are staying at the campment but go to Customs now,” he said. I bought two cigarettes from Brahim even though I don’t smoke.

I found Emile and Annie in a small café near Customs in the centre of town. Emile was mid-40s, balding but fresh-faced. Annie was petite and fragile, perhaps a one-time ballerina. They were from Brittany and were driving the 13-year-old station wagon to sell in Dakar. I introduced myself and asked Emile about the road ahead. I had been told it would take anything from two days to two weeks to get to Nouakchott and I wanted to know – uncertainty can be such a long road. Emile was as uniformed as I, but a Moroccan had assured him “la piste est bonne”.

Some year before, travelling solo in a 2CV in the Moroccan desert, Emile had become stuck fast in sand. In 10 days, surviving on the water and food he had, Emile cut up his car, built a motorcycle, and rode himself out of the desert and perhaps from death. I asked Emile and Annie for a lift. “Of course, of course,” said Emile in what was to become a typically smiling manner. “The piste is good.”

Monday afternoon I bought food and water for the journey to Nouadhibou. I had read of the notorious uncertainty of Mauritanian border guards. Two to 10 days to cross the border. I bought enough food for three days: tins of food, cheese, baguettes and biscuits, six bottles of water. It all fitted into my pack.

By 10am Tuesday a small convoy of four cars, two 4WDs and a motorcycle waited patiently outside the army barracks. There were Portuguese in a new Toyota smothered in advertising, and a Swiss couple in a Land Rover with food for a month. There was a chain-smoking Frenchman in an old Nissan I wouldn’t have driven to Cockfosters. A refrigerator was strapped to the car’s roof. There were forms of course and these ones required photos. By 1 pm we had moved to the army check-point at the entrance to the town. More forms. Our passports were taken.

Finally we could go. We followed the road back toward Layounne before turning south. The road soon became white with shifting sand. The strip of bitumen became ever-thinning. A towering and shifting dune blocked the road completely. The car with the refrigerator became stuck for the first time.

It was almost dark by the time we arrived at a campground that was simply a space in the desert without rock. Two tents were already pitched in the sand, one belonging to a German couple who had spent four days trying to cross the order without visas. We were 10 kilometres from the Mauritanian border and had had our passports returned at a checkpoint not far from the camp.

Over dinner it seemed everybody had their own story of doomed crossings. Gassan, the motorcyclist, told of three Frenchmen who on crossing into Mauritania, turned off the trail and were blown up in minutes. I heard the story of a Belgian couple who had not even bothered going to the border. They too were killed. The mines were closer than the border.

Benoit, a production manager from Paris, and I, the only two without tent, found a slope of sand protected (a little) from the howling wind. I had a sleeping bag and a piece of cloth to wrap, Tuareg-like, about my head. Throughout the night I was far more aware of the relentless wind than my sleeping bag filling with sand.

The next morning our convoy queued at the border without acknowledgment of our presence. A soldier sat at a table and chair by a ramshackle barricade of piled rocks. This was passport control. A large register in front of him looked like those used to record hotel guests in the days of the quill pen. What a place to wait. It was desert-hot. Sand, rock, sun and wind. Mostly silence. There were soldiers in the surrounding rocks and dunes.

Then slowly passport details were recorded. If I had not been standing I might have fallen asleep. If the soldier’s pen hadn’t shown occasional signs of movement I could have been convinced he had.

It took nearly (only) two hours to cross the border. Forty kilometers to Nouadhibou. We followed an old Spanish road under the guidance of a Mauritanian soldier who rode with the Portuguese. In the intense heat of early afternoon the cobble-stoned road disappeared into sand. The cars stuck. The Swiss had sand tracks: Emile, old metal shutters. There is much pushing in the desert.

The endless plain of sand which surrounded our trail had wind-blown grooves. It looked like the virgin sand you hope to find on an early morning stroll along a beach, but nobody dare leave a footprint here. Stick to the trail and this crossing is a relatively safe process.

The chaos of shanties, welcoming children and too many cars on a too narrow road signaled our arrival in Nouadhibou. We had been in the desert less than two days but the welcoming chaos was intimidating after the solitude and silence. We sought refuge behind the protective wall of a campment.

In the camp ground that night, after washing away tow days of sand (most of it collected while asleep), the Portuguese shared their only bottle of a sponsor’s wine with the 12 members of our group. A bond had formed. Those who had though of catching the iron-ore train to Choun now decided to share the expense of a (essential) guide to Nouakchott. In the desert there is safety in numbers.

The formalities of arrival in Mauritania took most of the next day – currency declaration forms, police stamps, car insurances. In the face of boredom the everyday became interesting: the race of donkey carts to meet the fishing fleet, games between half-naked children. Apart from a well stocked Supermarket, desolate Nouadhibou did not offer much else.

We left Nouadhibou at 4pm. There were more patience-testing army posts to be negotiated on the drive out of town. These were small decrepit huts with drying pieces of meet hung from the roof. Pierre, impatient and hot-headed, hurrying to meet his girlfriend in Senegal, had filled out his currency declaration form incorrectly. He paid a sizeable bribe to continue.

The road to Nouakchott is much more difficult than the journey to Nouadhibou: not the slightest hint of a trail, dunes that are impossible to skirt. All the cars but Emile’s punctured fuel tanks. One broke down and was towed by the Portuguese. There were two more cool desert nights.

The wait at Tiouilit afforded a chance to swim. The water was too warm to refresh but there is something about water after five desert days. While I swam others shaved. Some put on fresh clothes. Anticipation. Tiouilit was the first sense of accomplishment.

The beach was hard and smooth. Occasionally waves crept too far up the beach and exploded over the windscreen. Fishermen, interrupted at work, were forced to wait to cross the beach like children at a school crossing. Flocks of gulls took flight, their rest disturbed. And in sight of a city, sun bathers basked in the soft sand. For the first time during the crossing we passed another vehicle, by the rusting hulk of a wrecked ship. It was a crowded taxi making its tidal dash from Nouakchott.

It took almost five days to travel 1000 kilometres. Sand slowed the journey, of course, but so too did the inherent tasks of travel through West Africa. But despite some concerted efforts we had made it and in the dark and empty atmosphere of the Oasis Hotel we bought a beer to toast relief.