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...