He Says - Nouádhibou, nice change!

1 - 2 October 09

From the border gates it was an easy 50k ride to Nouádhibou, the road was sealed and smooth and although had many a sand drift it took very little time. We had already had picked an auberge to stay in and even saw the legendary ore train (a 2+km long train that runs from Nouádhibou). We found the Auberge du’ Sahara without too much difficulty and Tam went in to sort things out while I guarded the bike from a bunch of kids. Who although were intent on climbing all over Anubis never once asked for money or anything else. I liked Nouádhibou already.

Once sorted we parked the bike in thier secure compound and went in to several glasses of tea and a chilled night. Our dinner turned out to be left over stale bread turned in to garlic bread and canned tuna. Not the greatest but I could not be assed cooking nor could Tam and neither of us wanted to look for a restaurant nor waste the bread.

The next morning Tam woke up sick again, it gave me the chance to write this blog entry and start to stress about the next leg of the trip. Her symptoms were a bit odd though. She still had a bit of a gastro problem but more worrying was a bone deep fatigue that she could not shake. At first I though it was just a lack off food, as she had eaten very little in the last few days. However during the course of the day it developed in to dizziness (pre-syncope) every time she would stand up. I was kinda worried about her, but let her sleep. The auberge had two English language books in the entire place (many French, a couple of German, a Japanese and a Russian.) One was a learn French the other a book about a fat guy who had a nervous brake down and without planning to or meaning to; one day he got on his childhood bike and road across the USA. I spent the day reading the latter, before I had enough and I went for a walk into Nouádhibou.

My mission was to try and find something that I thought Tam could eat (and keep in) and to find myself some lunch. Nouádhibou is the 2nd largest city in Mauritania. It feels like one of the smaller places in Morocco. I was not hassled once, I was said hello (Bon Jour) to many times, even had a guy walk with me and “chat” (in my very bad French) for 750m, before excusing himself and going about his business.

Nouádhibou is quickly becoming the antidote to Morocco that I needed. By random chance I ended up in a place that the Rough Guide suggested, it was a café/bakery type place and the food on the menu was cheap. Non-the-less I ordered the cheapest thing on the menu a minced-meat sandwich, and a Fanta. I was not hungry but I knew I too needed to eat. A few minutes later a baguette arrived, that was at least 40cm long and was stuffed with meat, veggies, and chips (fries to our yank readers). I stuffed as much as I could into myself before admitting defeat, I paid the equivalent of €2.50 and wobbled out of the café. I purchased some spaghetti makings for our dinner and made it home unaccosted. If Nouádhibou had more to do it would be a wonderful place.

Back at the Auberge, I spent the rest of the day reading the Fat-forest-gump-on-a- bike book and talking with one of the guys that runs the place. His name was (forgive me if I have spelt it wrong) Kanti, and he was a great guy. He is from Mali working here to make money with dreams of going to Europe (which I hope if he does he goes legally, he is too nice of a guy to be stuck in a camp somewhere, or worse). He taught me some French and I taught him some English. He was much better then I at learning. Kanti was also genuinely concerned for Tam, which always endears you to a person.

Many teas, pages, and broken French/English conversations later, I dragged Tam out of bed. She did tried to eat but in the middle of dinner ran to the toilet to be sick. Knowing she must eat something, she came back and tried again once everything was settling. I had no idea what was wrong with her, and when we when trough he symptoms to determine if we should go to the doctors we came up with tired, a little dizzy and a bit of gastro (one bout in 36 hours). I determined that if she was not significantly better by morning we would go to the doctors even though we did not have any definitive symptoms to describe. Funnily enough Tams 2nd attempt at dinner went fine, colour returned and she kept what she ate down. He energy levels were better and thing were looking up (all in a 30m period after threatening to take he to the Vet… I mean doctor).

The following day Tam was able to eat well enough although she was still very tired. This time I was sure it was just residual fatigue and a good meal and getting moving would do the trick. I went out to the market and found us some camel meat and veggies. The plan was to serve up a camel stew for lunch, nice and simple but hearty. This is what happened too, the meat was a bit chewy but I was only able to cook it for an hour and as everyone knows camel must be cooked slowly and for a long time. Tam ate her fill and had no issues, it did tire her out though. So we agreed that she should take a ½ nap and then we will go for a walk to get her blood moving again. Well I got distracted by Kanti and my fat-forestgump-book and the nap ended up being two hours. Finally I was able to get the cold molasses like Tam out of bed and on to the streets. She was a bit on the slow stepping side of things, but she made it all around town.

To be clear Nouádhibou’s town centre is not big or even exciting but it does kinda sprawl a bit. By the time we got back to the Auberge Tam was herself again, still weary but a clear-cut recovery. This was good as we had already stayed in Nouádhibou a day longer then planned. We are to head for the big smoke of Nouakchott the next day…