We left at 5am today to get to the border and to Dakar as early as possible. Everything went well until we passed the Moroccan exit checkpoints and Senegalese border control. But then at Senegalese customs we were facing Africa at its best again: there was one single guy preparing the car documents, taking approx. 15 minutes per car. Extrapolate yourself how long that takes for 177 cars… We were lucky to have been one of the first cars, but some of the teams are probably still there waiting for the guy to manually copy all the data of driving licenses, car registrations, and passports into a checkered notebook.

The landscape in Southern Mauritania is changing very quickly from desert to savannah, and there is a huge fertile area at both sides of the Senegal river. The Senegalese seem to be much more open and accessible than the  Mauritanians, but also much more persistent in begging and requesting petit cadeau. We also had two harsh encounters with the police, once for not flashing the warning lights when stopped by the police (which would be OK, but the reaction of the cop when he saw that I successfully warned the other teams via CB radio clearly showed that he was only after short term money), the second time for overtaking in the city (which we were told is forbidden in Senegal, hehe). At the end we did not pay anything, but it took some time to discuss with the sly and arrogant guys.

Due to the brutal traffic around Dakar we only arrived in the evening there, just in time to have dinner with our colleague Xavier who has recently moved to Dakar. We are skipping the official camp today and spend the night at Xavier’s place, with private shower, coffee, etc.