The Silk Route Motorcaravan Club.

Bulletin 93 (Part 2 of 2).

Mauritania/Senegal 2002.

For lovers of African adventures, here are some details about our trip to Senegal (January-February 2002), from which we returned sooner than planned because it was very hot at the end of February (42° by day and 32° by night) except on the coast where the nights were cool.

Formalities: At the Moroccan/Mauritanian border, at Dakhla there have been no convoys since the 1st February and there are three petrol stations between Dakhla and the border. Fuel is cheaper after Tantan, around 80 km away, where there are 3 stations all on the left (e.g. gasoil 2.80 Dh, that's 2 Francs!) Crossing the border, on the Moroccan side no problems and it's free. (Open from 8 to 18 hours.) On the Mauritanian side as described in the Guide du Routard, except that it's open all the time. Cost of a visa at the border 55Euros, while it's 100 DH (10Euros at Rabat. (The address has changed but it's very near the old one). Obligatory insurance! (at the border).

At the Mauritanian/Senegalese border: essential to go through the barrier [translator's note, not sure if this should be barrier or dam, the French use the same word for both] at Diama, a good track except for the holes on the embankment and 20 km of corrugated road after the border (everyone we met who told us about the Rosso route said it's a nightmare.) Everything happened the way Routard said it would, except that on the Senegalese side troubles with the police almost led to fisticuffs.

Visas: for people intending to return to Mauriatnia after 1 month in Senegal (or elsewhere), get a return visa from the DST at Nouakchott (get someone to go with you or go by taxi), which will cost 2000 oughia for 1-3 months (1Euro= 240 oughias). You can get this visa at Dakar, but there it will cost you 115Euros!

Foreign exchange: in Mauritania you can get better rates of exchange on the black market (2.60), but take care. The Mauritanians are born traders and when we were there they'd already got to grips with the Euro!

Police: in Morocco, at the checkpoint after Tarfaya you have to prepare cards for the police which helps the process go more quickly. The police are very friendly to people like us who bring in foreign exchange. In Mauritania, between Nouadhibou and Nouakchott there were no checkpoints and for good reason. Elsewhere there are fairly frequent checkpoints and that soon gets tedious. Returning between Rosso and Nouakchott there were a dozen checkpoints and some of these asked for gifts. In Senegal the police had obviously received orders as, contrary to what we'd been led to expect, we had no problems except the actual number of checkpoints. They love stopping tourists!

Thoughts about our travels: I won't say anything about the journey itself. The guides cover that very well. But I think it would be better to go in November and not in January to avoid the extreme heat we encountered in Senegal. (Is it always that hot?)

Safety: We stopped all over the place and even out in the bush without any problems except children near the villages, but no aggression. We didn't go to Casamance because according to the authorities we met the troubles had begun again, though we don't know whether that was true or not?

Highpoints: I loved Djoudj Park (boat trips with lots of birds) in the north-east of Saint-Louis, dilapidated stalls along the river where the people are very friendly, and the region of Bassari, within Mali and Guinea. Very welcoming villages around Thies (where the majority population is Catholic).

Special mention for Daka, where the traffic is hellish and polluting and it takes 3 hours to go the 45 km from Thies to Dakar.

Nouadhibou/Nouakchott - 600km. We were alone as our team-mates had left us at Nouadhibou, and we had a lot of problems crossing the desert at this point because we used the Veillet method (thanks to him), with a 20 litre can harnessed to the cow-catcher and the pipes of the tank drawing the precious liquid into the can (it's true that in cases like that it's better to be a bit mickey-mouse). All this was thanks to Loge Mobile/Polycomposit who, when joining the tank to the cell, dropped a number of bits into the main tank so that as soon as we had to deal with a section of corrugated iron the bits obstructed the suction and every ten km or so at most the engine began to slow, then stop altogether, need to be cleared, etc. Once we reached Mouakchott the tank was taken off and washed out, which is when we found the bits. Then we left for Senegal and at the first corrugated section, the same thing happened. At Saint-Louis the tank came off again, was opened in two places, washed out, soldered and after that no more problems. At last... I wrote to the company on 18 March and until now M. Contre hasn't deigned to respond. This comes as a warning to future customers of his!

Guides: 200Euros for up to 6 vehicles on the way, and free or almost free on the way back as very few vehicles go back.

This initiatory trip to sub-Saharan Africa made us really want to go back as soon as we can, but possibly with a lighter 4x4 and with some club members? So, to be continued. Obviously any future African plans we may have will be for longer and will cover more countries and longer distances. We met a Belgian couple (around 65 years old) who go to Africa every year during 'the six winter months'.

As far as train journeys are concerned, depatures for both Mouadhibou and Choum are entirely uncertain. We met several groups who had waited 5 days and more before leaving. The journey itself is very special, as they say, because during the 10-hour trip there is little danger of sleeping the train shakes so much. So it would appear to be a trip for the sensation-seeker! For the journey between the border and Noudhibou vans and possibly even large motorcaravans will have no difficulty if they use the old Spanish road (we didn't go that way). Then you take the train to Choum. It's then that there are difficulties because to go to Atar there is a section of the track that's bad even for 4x4s (according to a team of C25 we met at Saint-Louis who were still having nightmares about it, though what memories!) But, as Veillet said, 'Travel in numbers as you need quite a few people to push', and with a van if the atmosphere is good then everything is possible. But what's the point of doing it in a large motorcaravan? especially as you're bound to spoil the equipment unless you have a specially adapted vehicle? And people with luxurious camping cars will never know what it is to bivouac alone or almost alone in the desert, the magic of the fire, the myriad stars. We had a mission to inform the fishermen/morotcaravanners-all-winter-in-Dahkla (there are thousands of them) and we told them that we didn't want to be responsible for ruining their vehicles and that it was better not to go there.

In fact I forgot to pass on one piece of information which may be imnportant to some people, namely that a carnet de passage is not absolutely obligatory, whatever Routard may say, as we didn't have one.

Nello and Marie-Claude Di Giusto.

Paris-Goa... Seoul

After driving from Seoul to Paris with a photo-video work team on a journey that was minutely organised months in advance, we decided not to fly back to Seoul as we'd intended but improvise a return journey via the southern route taking just Mi Ae, the children, a chicken and me.

We set off from Paris in mid-January with 1000 Francs in our pockets. In Nice we met up with a team from a Korean fashion magazine, where the bus reverted to its original function as a mobile studio for a few days and we earned enough money to reach Istanbul.

The Indian consulate there stated expressly that 'The Pakistani-Indian border is closed, if you want to go to India, take an aeroplane.' What with that and all the Taliban fleeing to west Pakistan and our income being very low, progress towards the east was looking very unsure.

Hyundai Assan in Istanbul has a heavy vehicles department. They did their best to alter the bus, almost free. The Turks also succeeded in repairing our generator which had broken down three months earlier and which so many others had failed to fix.

That was balm to the soul and we left with our sights set on Islamabad.

Anatolia was covered in snow and it was difficult to promise palm trees to Marc known as Igouroum. I told him we'd try to find them. At the Iranian border we began a series of border crossings that became increasingly difficult. In this part of the world a carnet de passage is required for vehicles and Korea doesn't provide them. Moreover our transport isn't really a tourist vehicle.

The Iranian truck drivers are friendly. They like talking about their travels in Europe. They invited us to drink tea in the warm in their cabins. Igouroum was interested and asked to see the enormous engines. That is how we spent our days held up at the Iranian customs. One morning Igouroum, suddenly pausing in the middle of his maths exerecise, said, 'Papa, I told you it's impossible... Let's drop it, we'll never get there... We'd be better going back to my grandmother in Paris.' A few hours later the Iranians had seen enough of us. They gave us 7 days to cross Iran. We had to pay for transit papers but we escaped a tax of 400 dollars for lorries intended to compensate for the almost complete freedom from fuel and roads...

In winter in France a few hundred kilometres of motorway takes you to the south. After Ankara we had to drive more than 3000 kilometres before we left behind the continental winter. In south-east Iran, we followed an endless descent which led us straight down like a big toboggan. At last we were out of the high plateaus and in an oasis with date palms. The weather was good, the water barrel no longer froze, we could take a shower.

In the town of Bam there was a motorcaravan in a garage. The only person aboard was Manfred who was coming back from a trip to India. So we knew that the border was at least open in one direction.

At the Pakistani border the customs officers said they weren't competent to deal with a vehicle going through. An employee was to escort us as far as Quetta and we had to get there the same day 'for your safety'. We left at midday. 600 kilometres of road to Quetta, some of it single-track, some wider and some no track at all. After filling up with diesel some Pakistanis had themselves photographed with Mi Ae; above their heads, lined up in a cloudless blue sky, a large aeroplane escorted by two smaller ones passed overhead. 'Americans, boom boom,' our escort informed me, that being the full extent of his English. Otherwise there was nothing to distinguish him from the Taliban being chased by the aeroplanes. He had a big beard and a turban. We drove on. When we met another vehicle the smaller gave way to the larger. If both were the same size the one with flatter tyres went on to the verge and risked getting stuck. Our escort went to sleep, night fell, the army announced its presence above us in the mountains by signalling with torches. Mi Ae was awake and reminded me that should the occasion arise I must remember we were supposed to be driving on the left!

We were to remain for 8 days at the customs office in Quetta. The chief officer appeared to have taken a real dislike to us... What's more he was terrifying to look at with his hennaed beard. After we'd called the Korean embassy to ask for help, it was in the end the French embassy which extricated us at the request of the French cultural services in Seoul. The embassy had to guarantee to re-export the bus.

From there we had several more days of dry plateau before we reached the Punjab plain. Many people invited us into their homes; their hospitality was warm. But there were very few who introduced me to their wives, even less their sisters. I'd have been glad to drink a beer. A young man gave Marc a tame parrot. It was called Meetoo and liked bicycling on his shoulder.

Coming into the plain of the Indus is a shock. Suddenly everything is green and there are lots of green parrots like Meetoo flying round in all directions, though that doesn't stop Meetoo being entirely unique, of course. It was hot, and with so many people about we couldn't stop to buy some tomatoes without attracting a huge gathering. The small children banged on the sides of the bus, the taller ones on the windows, to attract our attention. It was deafening.

And Manfred, how was he managing doing all the driving, with the steering wheel on the left, on roads swarming with lorries that are highly decorated (obviously with much love), with buses loaded to the roof and tractors buried under mountains of sugar cane? Mi Ae stood on the step, protecting her contact lenses with a pair of 20 rupee sunglasses, and told me what was coming on the right and on the left in the order of their arrival. In the back Lilas nicked a toy from Marc, he snatched it back, she started bawling, the parrot got jumpy, bit Marc on the ear and he started crying...

In this way we finally reached Islamabad where we obtained our visas for India in three hours - a record. Aren't the Indian strange to claim that their border is closed when it's open, if only to tourists? It's as if they want to make it clear to the world that nothing and nobody coming from Pakistan will be accepted in India, but once you've reached Islamabad it doesn't matter any more, the harm is done, welcome to India!

But the bus wasn't welcome. The Indian border was the most difficult to cross although we had prepared for the crossing. 'Yes, we did receive a fax from the French embassy about your bus, but our reply had to be negative because we are bound by law.' The French embassy took into account the exceptional situation we were in with our Korean number plates and pushed the boat out for several days, so that the bus finally obtained permission for a 2-month passage through India.

During our first days in India we tried to keep some control over both the distance we were travelling and opportunities to see the country. At Amritsar, Marc and I left at dawn by bike to see the Golden Temple of the Sikhs. The decor was a bit kitsch but I was struck by the atmosphere of equality. Women, men, locals, foreigners were all treated in the same way, with a free breakfast.

At Agra entry to the Taj Mahal costs 30 times more for foreigners than it does for locals. So although we'd gone out of our way to spend the night near the gates in order to enjoy a magical dawn view, we decided to leave the Taj to the Indians and we carried on towards the beach we'd promised the children. And the more we drove the further away the beach seemed. Driving in India is exhausting. You need all your energy to cover 400 km in 12 hours. The roads are chock-a-block with lorries and strewn with overturned trucks. As you approach the towns there's a sudden increase in car drivers who pay no attention whatever to the punning road signs 'Overtakers give jobs to undertakers' and 'Cats have nine lives, you have only one.' The car-driving Indian caste insists on going faster than lorries, cows, pedestrians, us, camel carts, rickshaws, pigs, monkeys, cyclists, come what may.

After 6 days of pitiless struggle we finally reached our coconut palm. I rested a lot and swam a bit. Marc hung out with third-generation hippies, Lilas messed about with the small Indians, Mi Ae got herself some dreadlocks. Meetoo adored the scooter trips, and the chicken, in the heat, had lots of mangy suitors. It was Goa, it was a holiday. Once we were over the tiredness of the road we began to take photos again, portraits of local women and tourists.

The rest of the journey: as it's very expensive to enter China we had envisaged sending the bus home in a boat from Madras, but it was almost impossible to find a boat that would take loose cargo and our bus wouldn't go in a container.

We had managed three-quarters of the Seoul-Paris-Seoul round trip and we wanted to complete the circuit, especially as crossing Tibet and Yunnan should be superb.

We need two months to prepare getting the bus into China and the same again to ensure that the thaw is advanced enough for us to get through the passes. So we are looking for a video cameraman and/or a television series to cover this last stage.

The 34th Friendship rally.

Paul Boby is organising the 34th Friendship rally, Auvergne/Languedoc from Thursday 4th to Sunday 7th July.

Meet on the 4th from 15 hours at the municipal camping site in Laroquebrou (30 km from Aurillac). The programme is very attractive. The rally is being held under the auspices of the FFCC but Paul will be happy to welcome his colleagues from the club. He may even organise some other visits to make the tally longer, either before the 4th or after the 7th.

Let me know if you want to participate by sending a letter with a cheque for 35 Euros made out to Comité régional Auvergne FFCC.

For further information contact Paul Boby, 05 71 623 991 or 06 13 832 264