The longest and most exhausting stage until now. Savannah, bushes, villages with crazy children (throwing stones at our cars).

My internet access is too poor to upload photos or videos, will add a few tomorrow.

We crossed the border to Senegal today. My first impression of Senegal: nothing has changed. It is still the most corrupt country on the route, everybody is trying to rip you off, using the most creative justifications.

On the other hand Senegal has he nicest bread and the best beer.

In the evening we went to St Louis to have dinner in a very nice slow food restaurant.

It was not our best day, that’s for sure. First we missed the last gas station before turning off into the desert and had to go back, wasting half an hour of valuable daylight.

Then we broke through the thin salty crust covering a swamp (yes, such thing exists in Mauritania) and had to walk 4 kilometers and kill a bush to rescue the car. It was a lot of fun in 39 degrees.

It was after noon when we finished the first task, and we still had 300 kilometers of desert in front of us. The desert here in central Mauritania is green, there is grass growing on it. But that does not mean the surface is harder or the dunes are smaller.

As soon as we arrived at the dunes, things started to improve. The car was performing well and we had a lot of fun. And only had to use the sand ladders a few times.

Apart from a small incident in the afternoon (our airflow sensor broke again, this seems to be a must in Africa) we were lucky to finish the stage without any breakdowns.