Driving 'The Beast' through Africa
Agadir
by Isabelle Demaeght, December 13th, 2024
We concluded the previous episode with the departure of Jean and Nicole. With Yves, also aboard the boat from Antwerp to Montevideo, I also still keep in touch. Yves and Nickie (the latter came to Montevideo in 2018 not by boat, but by plane) are also in Morocco and we drive a detour to their campsite 30 km south of Agadir. Super to meet Yves and Nickie again. We pick up where we left off and it feels like 6 years ago.
For the third time we are going to Agadir. Not only do they have good restaurants and large supermarkets, but also a Decathlon where we buy petanque balls for an acquaintance of Jean and Yves (in Mauritania).
Adriaan has our air conditioning repaired. (My condition for traveling on.) The old gas (unfortunately) flies into the air and everything is refilled with new gas. The Beast blows, if there is enough driving wind, 10°C cold wind.
Third time Agadir, final time: now finally heading south, through the interior. Immediately it gives us mountains and views. We choose as our pitch for the night a beautiful horizontal circle made of flat stones next to a ruin. There are a few more of these circles as terraces above and below us. What are they for? Who made them? The place is quiet - two mopeds pass in the 16 hours we spend there.
During our morning coffee stop, the gérant invited us to tour the Agadir. We hadn't seen the fully restored, 900-year-old building above us at all. It is the “bank” where families used to centrally store their valuables. Olive oil, wheat, as well as party and or winter clothes and deeds (written on wood) were kept there in a 24/7 guarded and fortified building, in 'vaults', one for each family.
The doors have wooden locks, operated from inside. To do so, there is a hand-sized hole next to the door. That hole is also there for the cats, because every grain store eventually gets mice. Oh - that grain was threshed on.... circular terraces. We suddenly know where we slept last night. And where the name of the town comes from.
It's a beautiful piece of preserved history that we could now enjoy in silence. Next year a staircase will be built to the top and tourists will be able to come in bus loads at a time...
In Tafraoute we camp at a campsite ("Tête de Lion" (or "Lion's head") - Adriaan doesn't understand how they come up with that name, but I 'see' it). I take a (shared) cab to go to the hairdresser in the village. Cabs are different from what we are used to. No seat belts, doors that don't really close anymore (but also hard to open). But this is also how you get to the spot. The hairdresser cuts a piece of my hair on her own initiative. It is clearly a better competence because the coloring she performed completely failed.
Following a tip from Yves, we drive a smaller route (to an oasis south of Tafraoute), but first pay an obligatory visit to painted rocks in the middle of nowhere. The (Belgian) Jean Vermare used 18 tons of paint with some firefighters in 1984 to paint rocks blue and pink as a tribute to his wife. It is indeed a peaceful place but the rocks, by now faintly discolored and some sprayed with graffiti, have not left a super impression.
The Mansour oasis, on the other hand, is very beautiful. Another place we drive through quietly because here it was the floods last September that caused a lot of havoc. Fallen palms and pieces of bridges or roads are everywhere. We sleep somewhere along the road. Everyone in the village knows we are there but no one bothers us.
In South America, the cardan shafts suffered, probably because they were not lubricated often enough. Now we do it ourselves every 5,000 kilometers, so we can be sure it's done (properly). At a campground with relatively clean gravel in Laayoune, it becomes clear why no one “felt like it”: the skid-plates (the heavy aluminum plates for protection) have to be removed. That's okay, but when I help Adriaan reassemble them, I get acute lumbago. Despite my fierce back pain, we manage to drive 512 kilometers through a desolate landscape, to an apartment on the Dakhla peninsula, where I can recover.
The peninsula is known to many Europeans for the sake of good kite-surfing winds. We particularly remember the numerous fishermen, the delicious squid and the thick, fresh oysters. In a trendy restaurant, we meet two Franco-Moroccans who are here to prospect. They both have business in France and want to invest in their parents' country. Morocco is indeed experiencing a great expansion. There are beginnings of subdivisions and construction everywhere.
When we visit the beach where the fishermen come ashore, we are immediately stopped by a soldier who warns us about “dangerous” dogs and tells us that taking pictures is not allowed. We guess he doesn't want any prying eyes on the “harbor grounds".
The squid in Dakhla were caught with old plastic water bottles. Something was found in the plastic, so these water bottles are no longer allowed to be used. They are collected and with a bulldozer they are thrown onto a pile and set on fire with gasoline. There are some soldiers, but also a few politicians standing by in distinguished clothing. We don't take pictures. Because of the gitz-heavy smoke from the plastic fire, it seems to us that one health or environmental problem is being replaced here by another.
The sea belongs to everyone. A little further on, we see two men with padded inner truck tubes working. They wear worn neoprene suits and have a barrel of sardines and PVC tubes with lots of hooks. They attach the fish to the tubes with rubber bands. “For squid fishing,” they explain to Adriaan. A kilogram of squid earns them (converted) €5.50. They enter the water sitting in the band and lower the lead-weighted tubes. Attached is an (approved) water bottle as a float. It seems to us no mean feat to catch fish this way.
It seems like every discarded European car gets a second life here. Mercedes 190D through 240D are very popular, but old Renaults are also numerous, as long as it is a diesel. The engines are old, the injectors worn out, there is a lot of smoke. Our 20-year-old (Euro-3 standard) Land Cruiser does not stand out here. Or rather it does, because ours doesn't smoke.
The border crossing from Morocco to Mauritania is slower than the Belgian-Dutch border. We choose an overnight stop only 80 kilometers from the border in a nice hotel with a courtyard with lots of greenery (and that's special, because the landscape is mostly sand and dust). Our intention is to be at the border by 11:00 tomorrow morning.
The hotel manager had to be found, but disappears after we get the key. There appear to be no towels, no hot water either, and the manager now appears untraceable. Soccer fans do come in the evening to watch a game on TV. They become, even without alcohol, quite noisy. Not our best night.
The border between Morocco and Mauritania is an exercise in patience. We get there at 11:00 a.m. and join a line of about 30 passenger cars. The trucks are in an even longer line next to them. Someone says, “Africa begins here.” It is agonizingly slow, after two hours we have advanced 7 cars. Suddenly it's lunchtime - the border closes for an hour. But there is entertainment enough:
I have to go find a toilet, and I find a place so dirty that not getting infected with “something” becomes a challenge. Adriaan mounts two extra turn signals in the bumper (which had to be removed for the Belgian technical inspection). Someone rolls a car wheel ahead of him We buy meat from a butcher and have it grilled, while Adriaan arranges a salad elsewhere. The car wheel turns out to have a flat tire. Adriaan sacrifices one of our tire plugs for a repair. Someone tries to cross in front. A riot of excited Arabs ensues. We manage to regain our place in line.
Finally, after 5 hours of waiting, we are allowed to enter the border post. Stamp passport, export car, scan car, then manually search anyway and send two different dogs into the car, stamp here, sign in that office there and we may enter no-man's land. It's 4:30 p.m. by then. But we get an hour gift: in Mauritania it is only 3:30 p.m.
Arriving at the Mauritanian border post, we are sent from one little office to another: for a visa (and payment elsewhere), immigration, temporary car import, tax for temporary import and handing in the statement that the third dog inspection also yielded nothing. All in very dusty offices with officials bravely retyping European names on ancient PCs. One is a bit newer: it _scans_ passports and fingerprints. We figure it's all fine - we stay friendly and smile as if our lives depended on it.
Just after sunset, at 7 p.m., we reach the hostel (which also welcomes camping guests) of Dutch Victor in Nouadhibou. We are now in Africa for real!
