Mali to Mauritania via Senegal....

Its been a while......put it down to a rotten cold on Eric's part and on mine- a serious dose of travel fatigue.

Bamako-Jerusalem-Bamako in 72 hours was a tichy bit much. Felt like id been violently run-over after it, and am ashamed to admit to being tempted to hide under the counter of the patisserie in Paris airport rather than get on that next flight back to Mali.

I mean, I know I didnt like the place but to entertain the thought of life as a refugee under an airport pastry counter as an acceptable substitute...!?! Things must have been bad...a sign of impending age and cantankerousness ? Oh Yikkes!

Either way, old or not, the nasty weather we had towards the end of the trip in Mali made us decide to leave Casamance and Guinea Bissau for another time and head directly towards Dakar and then turn north.

And WOW...What a city. Dakar is fabulous.

2 days of travel to get to Senegal and already as you (rucksack-induced) waddle across the bridge which spans the Senegal river and creates the border something changes. The lethargic apathy which characterise Mali dissappears in a sudden hive of activity.

Things get neater, cleaner, more efficient, less hassle-y and, ALHAMDULLILAH, friendlier. Not to mention that the sheer size of the people shoots up! After two years of being the overgrown giants in Liberia, we found ourselves midgets. No wonder Sengalese door bells are to be found above the door lintels! We had to stand on tippy-toes to reach them!

We came down through the north. Its a pretty flat country, but covered in a beautiful green haze after the rains and the forests of twisted Baobabs gives it a strange charm.

Then 3 days after leaving Bamako we finally limped into Dakar.

And what a city! I mean, its a real city. HUGE, Chaotic, noisy, beautiful, ugly, hassle-y, friendly and everything else all rolled into one. I found it mesmerising.

And what a location - on a peninsula surrounded by the ocean on three sides, overflowing with flame-trees, Bouginvillea and tall palms; crammed with semi-derelict as well as immaculately restored colonial buildings from the turn of the century, the 20's, 30's and 40's (In some districts it looks like photos Ive seen of the Art Deco district of Miami); and at the same time it appears to be a constant building site with new elegant buildings going up as fast as you can blink. In between all this sprout market stalls, small buisnesses, nescafes, women frying fish, donuts, anything that can be rolled in batter and kids selling all manner of things that fell off a back of a truck. If you cant find it in Dakar, you dont need it. If, as some say, this is the urban future of Africa, bring it on.

From Dakar we travelled a bit south down the peninsula to a small fishing village turned horrible 'Artistes' colony to visit the charming elderly uncle of a friend of Eric's Dad. We were given a wonderful reception by Louis and his dog, Toubab. They showed us around the area taking us out for a wander around the 'brousse' including the obligatory, but not premeditated, stop in a mud hole - but only a a baby mud hole...not a patch of Liberia's monsters but Eric and I still had to push the car out.

From there we returned to Dakar and turned north towards St Louis, another beautiful town on the border with Mauritania and indeed, its old capital. Its location on an island in the middle of the Senegal estuary is stunning, as is the island itself, with its small streets and musty colonial buildings painted in russets, deep golds and browns, their upper stories wrapped in wrought iron balconies.

Whilst in St Louis we landed an unusual stroke of luck - the offer of a free hitch in the comfortable 4x4 pickup of a Mauritanian Logistician on his way back to Nouakchott...an offer we jumped to. It was a fun if long long long day as the border formalities took forever. However, this was amply made up for by Ahmed's chatty company and ended with a pleasant evening chez his family and a sumputous dinner. If we hadnt already reserved a room for the night, we would certainly have taken them up on their offer to stay. What a welcome to Mauritania!

And what an odd, end-of-the-world kind of place. The amazing thing is that it looks like someone has drawn a line between the two countries, you go point blank from green and luxurious to stark and sandy and once you cross the Senegal river you immediatly hit the first dunes. After that its a rolling landscape of shifting sands, dunes of varying heights and colours from deep rich red to palest white-gold. And all this being within spitting distance from the Ocean.

On top of that its a land of houses with no walls! Villages of roofs on stilts or conical white tents, flaps up, inside life on display for all to see. The floors are usually covered with matts and carpets, around which are ranged some mattresses and pillows to recline on. The most equipped had low shelves for the pots, pans and bedding, small round tables to eat off and a couple even had their mattresses ranged on elegant low wooden couches. Outside a lot of these stood shiny 4x4s. As it was the evening cool, people were out and about dotted over the tops of the dunes, standing out in small black silhouette against the evening sky. Individuls and family groups topped all the dunes, watching the sunset togther and boiling up pots of tea. It seemed to be 'the thing' to do of an evening.

Most tents did seemed to have some kind of small square housesbut it is quite clear that here the tent is the important living space, not the house. None had a fence around them and only a few had some kind of netting on the walls - more to keep out the bugs rather than people. Infact much to my consternation Ahmed left our and his bags in the back of the pick-up when we stopped for lunch and again when we got to Nouakchott - AND they were still there when we got back ...Phew! But, Ive been told that thievery is practically unheard of in the country..but still. However, people in general seem extremely helpful and seeing the level of non-security practiced even in the capital, they may have a point.

Nouakchott is a small, dusty, friendly little town - despite its one million + inhabitants... and is a complete contrast to Dakar. Its odd to think that they are both capital cities preforming similar functions. Nouakchott certainly feels like the back of beyond and looking at the map its a long long long way to that first city in Morocco and an even longer way to the first city/town of any interest in Morocco...

But before that...Atar, Chinguetti and some of the Northern Desert next

In the meantime, a presto...