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.