Kung Fu Camp

Friday, July 4
Dakar, Senegal

My guidebook to Dakar is worthless. I found this out after I spent two hours trying to find the "must-see" Piscine Olympique. It's a swimming pool. And my map is wrong more often than it is right. Thanks, Lonely Planet!

I went down to the main local's market to try to buy a motorbike today. There's a Chinese brand called "Sanili" that is pretty popular in West Africa. The bikes aren't high quality but they aren't bad either. For $1,000 to $1,500 I'm not expecting a Honda Africa Twin. I got off the bus and started asking around for motorcycle vendors. I got pointed in a number of different directions, not all of them particularly helpful, but nevertheless I had a great time walking through the market. It was my first "real" African market. Since it's a market for the local people, not tourists, no one hassled me. I couldn't find the moto vendors but I did stumble upon the cow head vendors. Finally, I came to a break in the market and stumbled upon a guy driving a Moto Sanili. I found out that his name was Cheick Kane and that he is a business school student at the Dakar International School of Business. I asked him where he bought his bike and within two minutes, I was on the back heading for the dealership.



Of all of the stupid things I've done--running with the bulls, going to Mauritania, not buying stock in google--getting on the back of this bike is at at the top of the list.


CHEIK: David, hold on. Inshallah, we shall arrive at the dealership.
ME: I'm ready.
CHEIK: Driving in Dakar is very dangerous.
ME: Shouldn't we rely on your driving skills and not Allah?
CHEIK: Allah knows best.
ME: Fuck.

Somewhere between the time we drove about 8 inches behind a dump truck and the time we drove 40 mph against our right-of-way into a blind intersection, my heart rate hit about 200 beats per minute. I didn't know the French word for "heart attack" so I mimed for Cheik to slow down. When this had no discernible result, I began to calculate the damage from jumping off the bike and taking my chances with the pavement. Not worth it. I stayed put and we arrived a few minutes later at the Sanili shop. Cheik negotiated a great price for me on a new bike. I told the dealer I would be back on Monday with the money and I returned to my hotel to try to figure out how to get enough money in cash.

To the Shores of Tripoli

July 3rd
Tripoli, Libya

30 hours by air from DC to Dakar, Senegal. DC to Munich. Munich to Paris. Paris to Tripoli. Tripoli to Dakar. Needless to say I got my flight from a cut-rate discounter. The only benefit outside of spending 5 hours in Charles De Gaulle airport--pronounced shar d gaw in French as best I can tell--was spending 3 hours in Tripoli. For a scary sounding place like Libya, Tripoli was surprising. Neat, orderly rows of houses and olive trees as far as the eye could see. Though the Sahara rides herd on the small fertile belt by the Mediterranean. At times the desert is only a few kilometers from the shore. The farmers and shepherds have to subsist in that narrow band. At the airport, I poked my head outside, walked around for a bit and then retreated out of the sun to send a postcard. It was a kitschy tourist print of a nomad riding a snowboard down a sand dune. Nothing but the best for my friends.

While I was on the plane to Tripoli, there was something about the enormity of my upcoming trip that stuck with me and made me tear up a bit. I'd been reading a biography of Warren Buffett for business school. That reminded me of a friend of mine who had died a few years ago in a swimming accident. My friend was the only person who I've ever met who could truly think for himself. He was someone who brought a unique perspective to *everything* from April Fool's day pranks to the stock market. In the seventh grade, we'd played the stock market game in our math class. I bought the standard run of blue-chip stocks--IBM, Caterpillar, Coke, etc. He bought Berkshire Hathaway. Sixteen years later that is so awesome it is hard to describe. Whenever I think about independent thinkers, Kyle Hurdle and Warren Buffett always stand above the rest.

Before we took off from Tripoli to Dakar, two African passengers got into a fistfight over their seats. One man had to be restrained by the flight attendants. I wasn't sure whether to cheer or fear for my life. Thankfully there was no more violence over the next five weeks.

The flight to Dakar was interminable--massive thunderstorms blocked our path, but we finally arrived. The Dakar airport is the smallest international airport I have ever seen. If there were more than two terminals, I would be surprised. I walked out into a smothering humidity that seemed to suck the light out of the air. I paid a guy 1 US dollar (an actual dollar bill, mind you) to help me find my guide. 4 minutes later, I was in a cab to my hotel in Yoff, a surprisingly run-down neighborhood 6 km outside of Dakar. When I got to my hotel I drank a beer, turned on my fan and slept like a rock for 10 hours.

It Doesn't Take a Weatherman

Wednesday, July 23
Nouakchott, Mauritania

Before I start, let me say three things:

1) Bald Pete has now taken to calling me "CIA Dave" because of my unrivaled capacity for misinformation (see previous posts)
2) Apologies to my two faithful readers (thanks Mom!). I have been sidetracked by school. I will try to do better.
3) My blog has more time changes (past, present, flashbacks) than a Christopher Nolan movie. I will take steps to correct that in today and tomorrow's post.


Today is the big day. The day that I have to head either north into the Sahara or south into Senegal. Last night I finally met some travelers who are making the overland trip north by car. They are two 20 year old girls who are driving back from their 6 month volunteer job in either Togo or Benin. I can't remember. Since then, they've driven their super-micro mini van here to Mauritania and are planning to make the run all the way across the desert back to France. One girl is French, one is Canadian, and both speak fluent French, definitely an asset in the desert. This is a big step. I've been waiting four days now for travelers who are heading north. However, they don't have any room for me in their car should my bike break down. The best they can do is bring some extra gas for me. And they don't have a cell phone. For a backwards country, Mauritania has an excellent cell phone network, even in the middle of the desert.

One of my friend's forwarded this YouTube post to me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6VrzGWCq2I

You only need to watch 30 seconds of it, but it will give you the queasy feeling about Mauritania that I've been feeling for the past 9 days. I feel like there's always something creepy around the next corner.


I woke up this morning undecided about which way to go. My mind raced all night about what to do and as a result, I slept like a mexican jumping bean. I'm generally pretty risk-averse--some might say reckless--but Pete's stories about the bandits have stuck with me. At the same time, if I can just make it 1000 kilometers north, I will re-enter civilization in southern Morocco where there is a bus system, highways, and even such luxuries as hospitals. on my bike, I can handle about 500 km per day as an absolute max. That puts me two days out from Dakhla, a sheisty resort city/border town/windsurfing mecca in the Western Sahara. There are no easy choices here and nothing underscores that fact like the lack of gas for the next 600 km. I woke up at 5:45 am with a jolt. The Mosque next door was *blasting* ALLAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH AKBBBBBBBBBBAAAAAAAAAAAAR at the ear splitting level of a Guns 'n Roses concert. There was no hope of sleep after this. I rubbed my eyes for a second and decided before getting out of my tent that I would go whichever way the wind blew. Riding against the wind is unpleasant on a 7 Horsepower motorbike, and after the last few days, I needed nothing more than the solace of few hundred desert filled kilometers--north with the girls into the Sahara or south into Africa...

Through the Looking Glass

Tuesday, July 22
Nouakchott, Mauritania

My visa expires tomorrow and I still have not found a caravan going north. I am getting concerned. I heard about a camion--french for "big ass truck"--that goes all the way from Nouakchott to Agadir, Morocco. That's about 1500 km for a very reasonable $100. I drove my bike down the Moroccan Market to ask around. I finally found a young guy who could give me some information. He said I could get on a truck that day--but I couldn't bring my moto. [start soapbox]


[in French]
ME: Why is it that I cannot bring my motorcycle?
MOROCCAN: You cannon take it. You can sell it to me.
ME: I will not do that. I will go only if I can bring my motorcycle.
MOROCCAN: Ah, it is decided. You will ride on the truck today and before you will sell me the motorcycle.
ME: [in English] You can suck my awful french diction.
MOROCCAN: Qua?
ME: J'ai dit que ce ne pas possible. Au revoir.

And that was that. Exchanges like this piss me off because in each case the local person's desire to make a killing off a foreigner stopped the flow of normal business. Each local who deals with tourists inevitably gets one big score from either a hapless or desperate foreigner. This leads them to believe that all foreigners are either stupid, fantastically rich, or desperate. This guy would have benefited from a compromise, but his greed got in the way. When I suggested that he set a surcharge for the moto--I offered another $100--he just stonewalled me. To him, the mere chance of getting my bike at a favorable price set him salivating. In Africa, I ran into situations like this on a daily basis, but the difference in Senegal was that if I held firm the Africans were always willing to settle for a reasonable price--one that was higher than for locals, but less than extortionate. Unfortunately for both of us, the Moors and Moroccans were as stubborn in their ways as I am in mine. [end soapbox]

Inexplicably, Mauritania is somewhat similar to America--in purely negative ways. If Alice fell through the evil looking glass somewhere in Kansas, she would inevitably end up in a David Lynch nightmare world in Nouakchott.

To wit:
Moors drive big cars
Moors live in soulless tract houses
Moors--at least the Arab half--are unaccountably fat*

*A few weeks later I talked with a Canadian hotel manager who relayed a rumor that Mauritanian girls must get fat before their father can marry them away. She went on to tell me some stories about mothers force feeding their daughters that turned my stomach. Stories like these may or may not be true, but they often tell us as much about the culture that tells them--white expats--as it purports to tell about the local population.

This is my last negative Mauritanian post. Promise. I actually love the place, but just had a few bad experiences...

No Man's Land

Monday, July 21
Nouakchott, Mauritania

No Man's Land is the name of the 5 km wasteland between Mauritania and Morocco. Once you leave Mauritania, you are literally in no man's land until you reach the visa checkpoint in Morocco. There is no road. Just a mishmash of trails. Some go the right way. Some dead end in a sea of rocks and landmines. Mathieu and Julie, my erstwhile gurus and experienced desert travelers had once gotten lost in no man's land. Their van broke down right before sunset. In no man's land, there is no rule of law, no government, and nobody to account to. The area is ruled by desert nomads, and I'm sure there are a few travel horror stories attributable to the crossing. luckily, Mathieu and Julie did not become another one. They flagged down a truck, got their van running and made it through without any further problems.

I offer this as explanation for why I am still waiting here in Nouakchott for a caravan going north. Mauritania is not fun and I would prefer to leave as soon as possible, but unfortunately there are very few travelers right now. Mauritania is a particularly strict Arab country and alcohol is illegal. Normally, I'm not too keen on drinking in foreign countries--it's expensive, it leads to stupid decisions, and it makes the desert heat unbearable. But Mauritania is different. There is no intellectual stimulation. All I can think about here is drinking. But there is no beer here.

Pete, Cam, Dan, Adam (the aforementioned brits) and I drove around town for a good two hours looking for alcohol. Everybody seemed to "think" they knew where we could buy alcohol, but none of the locals could tell us for sure. Mauritanians have a very loose grasp of concepts like "facts" or "truth." The great Homer Simpson once said, "Facts, schmacts, facts can't be used to prove anything even remotely true." He would have made a great Mauritanian. Person after person would tell us, "a guy will sell you alcohol in that store over there" or "ask at the hotel. One of the bellhops will sell to you." It reminded me of driving around with my delinquent friends shoulder-tapping beer back in high school. But here, it had none of the exhilaration or sense of purpose. It was just a depressing schlep from one unhelpful store owner to the next.



The constant evasions, lies, and half-truths wore off on me. I became unable to process facts in the normal way--things that I had seen with my own eyes became distorted and muddy. As we drove around, I became convinced that a place I had stopped at a couple days earlier sold beer.

ME: Let's drive back to the hotel. I know a convenience store that sells beer.
PETE: Nope.
ME: No, seriously. I stopped there on my bike a couple days ago. The guy behind me bought a few cold beers. Maybe Castel brand. I wasn't sure.
PETE: Absolutely fucking impossible. Nobody sells alcohol openly here.
ME: I'll put money on it.
PETE: I wouldn't want to make you feel bad.

We drove back to the aforementioned convenience store. No alcohol. The beer I had seen was non-alcoholic. The bottles of liquor I had seen turned out to be obscure and very expensive bottles of olive oil. The desert mirages were extending past the sand dunes and into my head.








Later that afternoon we went down to the fish market. The coast off Mauritania may very well have the most fertile fishing grounds in the world and the fish market is hard to describe. 200 lb. Tuna, Captain, Monkfish, and Dorat(?) in astounding quantities and at great prices. We bought some monkfish and some tiger prawns intending to grill them back at the hotel. But as always, man plans and Allah laughs. When we got back, Pete discovered that we'd been ripped off with the tiger prawns. The box had a few tiger prawns on top and then just regular shrimp underneath. He estimated we were out $20, or so. Pete grabbed a baseball bat and got back in the van to return to the fish market. He warned me that it would get ugly, but I'd rather spend a few days in jail than miss all the fun. I joined the impromptu posse. We brought some of the hotel staff with us--local Mauritanian guys. Deep down, I knew that things wouldn't get too out of hand because the hotel staff knew the culture and the language and I was certain they would reel things back when they got too heavy. We showed up at the fish market 6 strong and with the righteous anger of the recently ripped-off. We shouldn't have bothered. The haul must have been a pretty good one for the merchant because he had already closed shop and gone home to gloat.

Pirate Pete & Other Adventures

Sunday, July 20
Nouakchott, Mauritania




By Mauritanian standards, today was pretty uneventful. I hung out in Nouakchott with the intention of doing very little. I was still fatigued by my monster journey from Noudibou, and mentally, I was in no shape to make the potentially life or death decision to either continue north or retreat south to the comfort and relative safety of Senegal--and Sub-Saharan Africa in general. My goal is to make it from Mauritania north into Western Sahara and then up in Morocco and finally into Spain. But I knew how scary the desert could be and I was waiting for a caravan of westerners who might be headed north. Or better yet, wait for a pickup truck that could carry me and my bike north through Mauritania and the no-man's land into Western Sahara/Morocco.

I spent a good portion of the day talking to Cam and Bald Pete. They are two very cool expats with a fairly untraditional outlook on life. Cam is a bit younger--closer to my age--and he's sort of Pete's apprentice. Bald Pete is a grizzled veteran pirate whose profession can best be described as that of Camel Trader. Though while he seemed to know the price of camels in various parts of the Sahara--$1,000 in northern Mauritania and $4,000 in southern Morocco--I don't think he'd ever actually traded camels for a living. He preferred importing and exporting less cumbersome trade goods. As far as I could tell Pete has lived in Istanbul, Bangkok, South Africa, England, Namibia and Morocco, and the closest thing he's ever had to traditional job has been "property development." He's a businessman in the classic sense of the word--someone who exploits massive disparities between supply and demand and keeps a little profit for himself. Pete was in Mauritania attempting to set up an import/export business for self-contained solar power units, chinese made motorcycles, and anything else that nouveau riche Moors might want. Pete has a healthy disrespect for authority that makes me look like a corporate yes-man in comparison.


Quick Note:
Mom and Dad, if I leave business school without prior warning and you have no idea where I am, I have probably moved to Morocco to become an apprentice pirate/desert trader. I still love you. But, please do not follow me. If you must find me to tell me that I finally got that spot on "Road Rules" you can fly to Agadir and ask for the Dread-Pirate-Dave at the British Pub. Do not eat their food.

love,
your son


As I mentioned before, Pete and Cam had driven through the Sahara from Morocco in their tricked out Ford Turbo Diesel Cargo Van. They drove about 160 km/h and it still took them four days. That was a bit of a concern for me as a I could only drive 90 km/h, absent sandstorms, camel trains, and greedy customs officers. I asked them about the road.

ME: Is the road in good condition?
PETE: Absolutely, I'm an exceptional driver so I rarely needed to slow down under 160.
ME: Are there other cars and places to get gas and whatnot?
PETE: There are gas stations and occasional cars and trucks.
ME: Bandits?
PETE: That might be a problem. At one point we drove by four guys standing outside of a white land rover. We couldn't tell if they had guns.
CAM: I'm pretty sure they had guns.
PETE: Well, they did have boards with nails in them to stop cars.
ME: How did you get by?
PETE: Mate, we were doing 160 kilometers per hour. We weren't stopping. I had two choices, veer off into the desert and go around them or hit the fuckers dead on. Of course, I wanted to hit them, but wiping the blood off the car may have been a hassle. We were around them before they could even turn their heads.

The Kids are All Right

Saturday July 19th
Noukchott, Mauritania




This is Cam and Seleka. I am now staying at Auberge Sahara where I have met Cam and his "mate" Pete. Cam and Pete are British and South African expats who live in Morocco. They drove down from Southern Morocco in Pete's Turbo Diesel Van. Seleka lives next door to the Auberge with her family in a well appointed tent (note TV in upper left hand corner and Seleka on the left). You can click on any of these photos to get a bigger version of the original.

This is what Moors do. They pimp out their tents. Oddly enough Moors drive pretty pimp cars--all Mercedes, all almost new, all unfortunately stolen from Europe and sold for a pittance in this backwater Saharan Country. Seleka is about as cute as they come, so she would come over--by herself--and hang out with all the western travelers who would ooh and ahh over her. You may be tempted to ask the obvious questions, like what is a 2 year old doing wandering around by herself, but I will answer your foolish questions with an all purpose response. This is Africa.





For the first time I am excited to be in Mauritania. My experience so far has been hellish and the dare-I-say that the people have been less than welcoming. So I was a bit shocked to check into my tent and find that they were 4 brits at the hotel. I left the US on July 3, and since then, I have not spoken with a native English speaker. I had started having dreams where I was shouting in English. Not at anybody in particular mind you, but just because my brain needed to speak in its native tongue. "THE FLOWERS ARE ON THE TABLE. THE GIRL CROSSES THE ROAD. YES, MY GOATS ARE FATTENING UP NICELY THIS SEASON." I was tired of communicating by slowly speaking my French with somebody for whom French was their 3rd or 4th language.

One of the brits had some contraband gin--alcohol is illegal in Mauritania. So we had a great little party which somewhat eased my mind that the day before I had paid $8 for half a gallon of gasoline. I had been driving from Noudibou, just under 500 kilometers away and the wind changed direction during my drive, killing my gas mileage. I calculated that I needed two extra liters to make it back to Noukchott. In the middle of the desert (see illustrative pictures below), there are not many gas stations. I began to ask around and sure enough, a man came out of his shack offering to sell me 20 liters of gas at $2 liter. Not unreasonable considering the circumstances. Our negotiations went like this:




MAN: I have 20 liters for sale
ME: I have a moped. I have no room for 20 liters. I am only looking for a few litres.
MAN: You are in the middle of the Sahara desert. You will buy what I sell or else the vultures will eat your spleen before you die of thirst, infidel.
ME: I will pay well for a few liters.

Desert nomads, while excellent at goat-herding, camel trading, and exploiting the occasional Westerner, aren't always very quick at math. While he was pondering my offer, I did a few calculations to broker a compromise. I ended up paying the guy the same profit for 2 liters (about $5) as if he had sold me all 20 liters. This took me a bit of explanation, but it got both of us closer to our goals and saved me $32. And there is a great silver lining. Now, no matter where you are the planet, when people complain about high gas prices, you can stand up and proudly say you know somebody who has paid a good deal more.

Counting Coup

Noukchott, Mauritania
Friday, July 18th 2008

I paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld when I say that there are some things you know you need to see and there are some important things that you don't know you need to see. Seeing the guy in the pickup truck drag his dead camel into the Noukchott city dump today fell into the latter category. I was a bit loopy from riding 500 clicks across the desert, and the truck was going in the opposite direction from me so I didn't see it until the last second. When I looked back to doublecheck, I expected to see a truck towing something reasonable like a small trailer. But everything was still in its proper place: Toyota Truck. check. City Dump. check. Dead Camel Towed by its Two Hind Legs. check.

I can only imagine the preceding conversation:

KIFAH: Mustafah, the dead camel has become malodorous.
MUSTAFAH: Woman, you don't exactly smell like cactus blossoms.
KIFAH: I want it out of our front yard.
MUSTAFAH: I will bury it tomorrow. Right now I am enjoying drinking my cold non-alcoholic beer and watching this man read the Koran on television.
KIFAH: If that camel is not gone in the next ten minutes, I will call my parents and tell them that you have invited them to stay for the month of Ramadan.


History
Some quick info to bring you up to speed on Mauritania. Mauritania is nearly twice the size of France with a population of only 3 million people. The desert country was a French colony until 1960 and since then has had a bloody history of racial tension, war, and numerous coups. In the early nineties the dictator expelled or killed tens of thousands of black Mauritanians--the population is split nearly evenly between Black and Arab citizens. As far as I can gather, they were the only country other than Syria to support Saddam Hussein's right to take over other Arab countries during the first Gulf War.

Elections are rarely held and the victors of those elections rarely serve for long before being deposed by a coup. Two weeks after I left, 4 generals arrested and deposed the democratically elected President. Despite the fact that Mauritania is an awful place for Americans, I think the guy was pretty effective--he pushed an anti-corruption measure that kept the police from hassling me and was working with the French to improve nationwide security. Four french tourists were shot by desert bandits in December 2007 and the Israeli Embassy in Noukchott was bombed by an Al Qaeda cell in February. Not the friendliest of places. I was only there because I needed to go north into the Western Sahara and then into Morocco.

Goal Sheet

In honor of an old friend of mine and the ex-Mauritanian President, I am going to start my blog in medias res. This may be a bit confusing at first, but I will try my best to be clear and concise. Luckily, I have the benefit of hindsight. My trip ended safely last week and I am writing this from my notes.

Travel Goals
My travel goals were very simple, straightforward, and not the least bit idiosyncratic:

• go somewhere where there are not a lot of Americans
• go somewhere where I have to speak French
• travel solo across the Sahara from Dakar to Paris
  

Therefore (using adverbs makes this next part sound more logical) I flew one-way from DC to Dakar, Senegal and bought a motorcycle*. A week or two later I found myself in the most exciting city in the world, Noukchott, Mauritania.

*profound thanks to Mathieu and Julie--more later. merci et mes homages