She Says - Hot, Africa Hot – Nouakchott!

1-3 October
My illness continued while in Nouadhibou, though more fatigue and general unwell-feeling than anything. We ended up staying three nights in Auberge Sahara – kind of like a backpackers’ hostel, where the staff were nice, especially Kanti who helped us practice our French, and it was very secure, relaxed, comfortable and cheap (4800 ougiya, about 12 pounds). I was sick again on the second night but after that seemed a lot better, while the third day it was just an effort to get myself moving and I was having real problems dealing with the strong sunlight. Xander went shopping and made us a big stew of camel meat, potatoes and capsicum for lunch, which went down a treat. Yes, camel! There are camels everywhere here, we even saw groups of females with babies as we entered the city. After that and a bit of sleep, he forced me to get out walking across town, and while it was thoroughly exhausting and I walked at a shambling pace, I managed to walk for about an hour. Through the rest of the day, I felt a lot better and we decided we could now move on. It was also the day we reached 3 months on the road! During the night, we went from being the only guests to nearly a full house, with the arrival of two French guys travelling to Guinea by car, a businessman from Ghana, a solo male backpacker, and a group of women backpackers! Unfortunately that made our peaceful accommodation a bit noisy and we didn’t get the best night of sleep, but it was nice to chat to some other people. Xander’s French has been coming along really well while I’ve been ill, as he is trying hard to learn grammar and phrases, helped by a textbook in the auberge’s ‘library’, and has been having a lot more interaction with other people.

So NOW we finally hit the extreme African Saharan heat we’ve been expecting for the last month! We arrived in Nouakchott last night after a scorching 480km or so ride from Nouadhibou through true Saharan desert. Wow! Unlike what we saw in Western Sahara, this was real desert, of sand dunes ranging everywhere from small shifting horseshoe shapes to giant dunes in the distance glimmering like mirages, to mostly seas of sand and featureless rocky desert with only the occasional tree or big-leaved bush to add any interest. It was a long tough trip, thanks to the heat, the burning howling wind, and the monotonous landscape. The bike was at a lean for much of the trip, and there was frequently sand blowing across the road, even some areas with dunes right on each side of the road. While we knew the tarmac road was fairly new, which made the travel pretty fast, we didn’t know if there would be petrol available, so Xander found two oil containers to use as petrol jerry cans and strapped these to the panniers using the much-sought-after strap mounts he found in Fes. Turns out we didn’t need them as there was petrol, but there were very few stations available. At 11.30am and roughly halfway through the trip, after travelling in a light sand storm where we couldn’t see anything but haze in the distance, we stopped at a petrol station for a much-needed break. We hadn’t been willing to stop in such strong winds, but more so, the bike provided us with ‘air-conditioning’ that would rapidly vanish if we stopped out in the exposed desert! To our surprise, the French guys from the auberge were there and with them the guy from Ghana. They apparently had some trouble with the sand-covered road, saying their wheels had locked up at times and even hydroplaning (sandplaning?) off the road into deep sand at one point. Seeing as they left over 2 hours before us, I guess they must have had some big problems! I guess we were doing OK. We had a much-needed break and cold drinks and biscuits (at ridiculous cost in the middle of nowhere) and then got back on the road.

Without really thinking, we didn’t eat our lunch during our stop – I guess we both thought we could stop somewhere on the way (though god knows where!) or that we would be in Nouakchott soon enough. It turned out to be a bad move, as I had a massive attack of hypoglycaemia. On a normal day, I have to make sure I keep up my food consumption or else I get shaky or at the least, very hungry. Sometimes I will crash rather rapidly and bypass all the warning signs that I need to eat. So while I thought I was doing fine after our petrol station stop, about 60km outside Nouakchott I had my biggest crash ever. I had to get Xander to pull over and then basically collapsed next to the bike. I can’t really describe what I was going through – essentially my whole body felt full of pins and needles and everything seemed to be a huge effort, especially talking. So when Xander asked what was wrong all I could tell him was “need food, too hot, going insane”. The “going insane” part was a reference to a feeling I had when we travelled back from Romania last year, when it was so hot on the German highway that I felt I was going to go mad and start screaming inside my helmet if I didn’t get off the bike at that moment! But poor Xander wasn’t to know. I found myself pacing, sometimes laying down, sometimes trying to walk or draping myself onto the bike in an effort to get the pins and needles to stop. I picked slowly at the bread he gave me to eat and tried to answer his questions when he spoke to me, but I was trying to focus on myself and get things working properly again. I found breathing to be a huge effort, basically I was panting, and food didn’t seem to be making any difference. Normally at a time like this, I’ll eat sugar, and after asking for sugar Xander eventually realised he could make up a sweet mix of powdered cordial in one of our water bottles. This should have worked really quickly, but I felt no better. I kept trying to eat, move, lay down (better blood flow to my head to get rid of the light-headedness I was now feeling), anything to make myself able to move again. Xander stood over me to shield me from the harsh sun, and eventually poured a bottle of water over me to try and cool me down, as we had both started thinking maybe there was more to it and the heat was the real problem. I can’t say the water actually helped, as it had been strapped to the top of the tent pannier and was quite hot - in fact Xander refilled the water pack and when I drank from it, I almost burned my mouth (or so it felt, it was hot but I don’t think that hot!) - but the idea was sound. I was getting really frustrated by this stage, really forcing myself to move and get over it and almost started crying, when Xander made the decision to lift me up and put me on the bike and just get us moving; he would have strapped me on if he had to! I was worried I would fall off, that I would get too light-headed, but something worked. My wet clothing was dried by the burning wind, and Xander kept forcing me to talk to him, as I was very tired and kept trying to fall asleep. I forced myself every few minutes to croak out a weak ‘hello’ to let him know I was still awake. We reached a police check and I was still not well, I don’t know if the guy could tell but he didn’t keep us too long. By the time we reached the next police stop, I was feeling suddenly better – just like that, it was over. I’ve never had a crash take so long to get through, well over an hour, so maybe it really was the heat. At the next police check, I was able to answer questions from the police and then we were in Nouakchott! A very bizarre experience, and one I don’t want to go through again.

So like Nouadhibou, Nouakchott is a sprawling city that just suddenly has a city centre, not that you can tell. Unlike cities we are used to, there is little to demarcate the centre from anywhere else, as few buildings are more than two stories high and nothing is exactly ostentatious-looking, not the hotels or even the banks really. We had GPS coordinates for Auberger Menata where we planned to stay, and for once managed to follow the GPS and get ourselves here, only messing up by driving past the turnoff and having to do a ‘blocky’. We were welcomed by the manager – ‘I tried waving as you went past but you didn’t see me!’ – and three large tortoises hiding in the shade under a trailer. The complex is quite big, with a number of rooms, small shop, and a rooftop terrace area where you can also sleep under a tent called a khaima. We decided to take a room, so we could unload our luggage and spread out to relax, plus it was only a bit more than both of us sleeping in the khaima (5000 ougiya). Unfortunately the room is incredibly stuffy, and the fan going all last night didn’t do a lot to help me sleep until it finally cooled in the early hours. I’m also super-paranoid about mosquitoes, as we didn’t start our anti-malarial tablets quite early enough (only in Dakhla just before entering the malarial zone). I was still sick at the time, so every time I felt something on me last night I was swotting it, even if half the time I think it was just air being pushed over me by the fan!!! Our exploration of the city last night went as far as trying to find somewhere to eat, and basically everything seemed to only just open at 6pm as we wandered around, so we settled for some really tasty pizzas at Pizza Hot, and picked up a watermelon that became our breakfast today. While waiting for the pizzas to cook, we sat outside and got to see the best sight in ages – fruit bats!!! Dozens of them started passing over us on their way out for the evening’s feeding. As we walked back to the auberge, we tried to pinpoint where they were coming from to hopefully track down their day roost – there were so many in the distance, and we think there may be a park nearby. That really made my night.

So far, Mauritania seems quite good. There is very little hassle, people genuinely seem to want to say hello rather that trying to get something out of us, and there has been little hassle from kids asking for money. Today’s wanderings around the market were the most hassle we’ve got - a few people wanting us to go to shops, quite a few wanting to change money plus more kids that we’ve seen so far - but it’s low key and easily moved away from. Many people just say ‘bonjour’ and/or ‘sa va’ (how are you) as they pass us and smile, nothing more than that. I think they are just surprised and happy to see us here.

We haven’t done much today, after a lazy morning we walked to the market and around town, but it was so so hot that I just kept flagging behind Xander. We escaped to our room for a while, then went out for a late lunch to a nearby café for a chip sandwich thing and Senegalese eggplant & meat stew, yummy! I came back while Xander went exploring further, as we have to find the Mali embassy on Monday to get our visas – yes, by luck we’ve arrived on a weekend but it seems nice enough to stay here.