DAY 19 MONDAY 25th JANUARY 2010

Considering the overall standard of the hotel the breakfast was disappointing with only a few bits of bread, some hot water and milk and an empty jar of Nescafe. I asked the waiter for more coffee but he couldn't find any and after making a few phone calls, he told me it would take 10 minutes to send out for some.
We left just after 9.00am and had to double back 15 miles up the peninsular to rejoin the main road south. The sand was blowing so hard over the road that it was difficult to even see where the road was, We made good progress and got down to the border just after lunchtime. Firstly we had to exit from Morocco/Western Sahara. Just my luck but the passport office's computer system crashed when he attempted to enter my details. After that was fixed all 7 passports were processed and then it was on to the customs office to process the bikes. It was a relatively painless operation before moving to the first part of the Mauri process. I collected up all 7 passports together with the V5 logbooks and took them to the man in the next office. He had a massive book on his desk in which he wrote down all the details from your passport on the left hand side and all the details from your log book on the right hand side. The poor chap must have writers cramp atthe end of each day and must dream on one day getting a computer to ease his workload.
Once clear of the Moroccan side it was time to enter the few miles of no-mans-land between the two countries. To show there was no hard feelings from last nights discussion the rest of the group suggested that I could lead the way here as I liked going first. So I rode away with the border guard kindly reminding me "Be careful out there, remember it is a minefield. Do not wander off the path or you might hit a landmine. Good luck!".
We had 3 main options for transversing the minefield.
1. Pay one of the many guides who will alledgedly lead you through the safest route although there are many tales that they lead you into soft sand and then charge you to be towed out.
2. Simply follow another vehicle. Fine in theory but they took off too quickly for us to follow.
3. Get some suicidal idiot to volunteer to ride first and hope that he doesn't blow himself up.
We took the thrid optio with me as the volunteer as I had crossed this minefield before. I forgot to mention to the other guys that I did it 5 years ago, in a car, in the dark and ended up being towed out.
I charged into the minefield and made a mistake with the route but choosing a path with too much soft sand for our fully loaded bikes. We managed to select a firmer path after I took a shortcut between tracks whereas the others had lost all faith in my navigation and chose instead to retrace their tracks and take the other route.
Once at the Mauritanian border we had to join a long, slow moving queue of vehicles waiting to gain entry. It took nearly an hour just to reach the barrier to get into the compound with us moving up one car length every few minutes. During one attempt at moving up, I lost my footings and the bike crashed over onto to its right hand side with me underneath it. Several people came to my aid and it was soon back upright and I was completely unhurt. Once through the barrier at about 5.30pm, the first task was to give a copy of all our fiches to the military looking people in the first building. Next task was to take more fiches, passports and logbooks to the next building where another policeman repeatedd the process of writing down all our details in an even bigger book. Once he had completed this labourious task (which took about an hour) he passed everything to his colleague who wrote the details of our vehicles into our passports. Whilst all this was going on, Gert and I started to arrange to insurance. This was of course also very time consuming with lots more forms to be filled in. We had to buy insurance for Mauritania at Euro10 for 10 days and had the option of buying it for Senegal and The Gambia at further cost. I needed to extend this for a period of one monthto cover me for my return journey. Time was dragging on and we still had not got our passports back so we were starting to get concerned that it would be dark before we left the compound. Everyone from the Foreign Office to fellow travellers had told us that we absolutely MUST NOT ride in the dark in Mauri. All the recent kidnappings had taken place after dark and the 3 Spaniards had been captured on this very road. Our fears were not reduced when the Head of Security said he would phone through to each police check points to check we made it through to Noadibhou. It was then pointed out to us that there is a new camping faciltity within the border compound so it was the obvious choice to stop here. We were shown to a large new tent with 7 mattresses and pillows in what was a sharp contrast to our usual 4* luxury. I was fainally able to retrieve our passports at 7.30pm but there was still customs clearance to be finalised. The customs office consisted of a very broken down wooden hut lined with bits of cardboard nailed to the internal walls. It was a bit like the sort of old shed you might find on an English allotment but this was the official customs office for Mauritania. By now it was dark and the only light was from an oil burning lamp on his desk. The character behind the desk had his whole head and face wrapped up in Arabic headwear leaving just his piercing eyes staring at me. "Come back tomorrow. I am very tired. It is 8.00pm and I've been working all day" he advised. With the help of the fixer we had acquired, the customs man was persuaded to process out forms that evening to allow us an early start in the morning. We got chatting and he turned out to be a very helpful and friendly person and unlike my previous visits to Mauri he did not ask for any bribes to speed things up. I had to fill out a customs declaration form for each bike and forge every riders signature on different bits of paper just like Ihad done on all the insurance forms. The friendly customs chap kept telling me how much he liked the British and that we were very welcome into his country. A frenchman poked his head around the door to enquire if his forms could be processed that evening but my friendly official gave him a very firm "NON".
The delapidated shack also served as his living quarters so he told me I could wake him in the morning to lift the barrier to allow us to leave the compound. He smiled and siad that it officially opens at 8.00 am but as a special favour to his Bristish friends he would open up earlier if we wished.
By now it was 9.00 pm and dark so we moved to the tent where we were supplied with cans of coke, large bottles of water and a wonderful meal of chicken and vegetables. After all the dire warnings from the Foreign Office and others the welcome we received in Mauri was far better than we had expected. We all went to sleep very early in preparation for a big day to follow.