La Fleuve

Mauritania on the left. Senegal on the right. Women washing clothes. Men washing goats. Fishermen in pirogues. Children waving ballistically. “Toubab! Toubab!”. Kingfishers. Herons. Boobs. Goat stampedes. Laundry blowing in the wind. Mosque towers. Dusty villages. Barack Obama tee-shirts. Barack Obama underpants.  Camels. Sweltering heat. Withering mielie fields. Sardine paste. Wind. Exhaustion. The Senegal River.

Above all else it’s the place where ‘Sunburn: McAlpine in Africa’ finally became an apt title. My transparent thighs haven’t seen as much sun since I was seven and my mother used to dress me in lumo ball-crushers to ridicule me with her friends. They are white no more – they have taken on a worrying purple hue. Now the nightly moths gravitate towards Tough Guys torso instead. The only part of me aching more than my seared legs and tendonitic shoulders is my bottom after sitting in the bottom of a damp pirogue for six solid days. Haemorrhoids are strongly on the cards.

It took four days and three towns to organise but eventually we managed to convince a crew to take us upstream for roughly 160kms from Matam to Bakel. The fact that no one knew of any crew who had ever gone this far had its perks and drawbacks. The perks being that it was exciting and felt pretty intrepid of us. The drawbacks being that our crew had no idea about anything. From the length of time it would take to how far the next village we could camp in would be. And they seemed to have had a bizarre obsession with the number ‘six’ as every departure and arrival time was estimated as ‘six o’clock’ which, needless to say, proved wildy optimistic on both fronts. Not such a problem for them – two guys with the combined upper body strength of a baby hippopotamus. More of a problem for Tough Guy and myself – two guys with the combined sunburn of all of Margate in December. Worse still, not only did we have the natural flow of the river to fight but also found ourselves with an unremitting adversary in ‘the Harmattan’ – the wind that blows across the Sahara from East to West and has been known to kick up enough dust to completely block out the sun for days. She wipes her arse with ‘the Cape Doctor’. And did likewise with our pirogue.

Despite all these frustrations the time we spent paddling up the River were some of the most spectacular I’ve ever experienced. There was the plethora of exotic birds swarming all over the banks in every shape and colour imaginable. Tough Guy was throwing out names like ‘red-breasted bee-eater’, ‘Senegal cuckle’ and – dubiously – ‘Green Parrot’. He shed light on many ornithological questions. He also shed light on why exactly he doesn’t have a girlfriend. Then there were the people we encountered along the way. The Pulaar that inhabit most of the riverbank on the Senegalese side are famous for their hospitality and yet we were still regularly blown away by the constant offers of food, accommodation and gifts we received at every stop. Massive grins of straight, pearly-white teeth at every stop – and not once was anything ever asked in return. There were the subtle differences between the Senegal and Mauritanian sides with Mauritania’s towns obviously smaller, dustier, less developed with less imposing mosques. Even the mielie fields on the Mauritanian side just seemed to be that much more buggered. And the language: Arabic on the Mauritanian side, Pulaar on the Senegalese. Finally there was the tranquillity of the river itself at sunrise and sunset when the wind had died down and the only sound was the chirping of nesting birds and the splash of the ores in the glassy water.

Weird. Obscure. Untouched.

Words cannot do it justice.

        

We also have some killer short films that many have earmarked for the Palm d'Or at Cannes this year so check out the 'Footage from the Journey' Section. David Attenborough is said to be retiring as a result.

Win Some, Lose Some

The crowd around us begins to swell exponentially. More and more voices thrown into the fray and all growing louder and louder. The naartjie seller nextdoor wades in with his two cents. The horse-cart driver quickly parallel-parks his steed in a feat of extreme oneness between man and beast, and gets stuck in with the argument. The woman selling cellphone cards gets so worked up her boob keeps falling out of her throw but mindlessly she keeps stuffing it back in like a very big handkerchief into a very small pocket. They are speaking some Ouolof, some Pulaar, a little French and absolutely no English. So Tough Guy and I stand like idiots as the instigators of the throng but completely superfluous to it. You would think the dilemma was over how to rid the world of the plight of poverty or whether shoes should be allowed in mosque. But alas all the fuss is about whether or not we’re able to take a boat up the Senegal river to the next major town of Matam. And the stumbling block is that the boat owner doesn’t know how much petrol it will take to get there. We are now beginning to gesticulate wildly to convey our frustration. Tough Guy looks like he’s doing the mating dance of one of those Guinean Birds of Paradise. We convey:

“Does he have a friend who might know?”

 No.

“The distance is 250kms, so how many kilometres does he usually get out of 1 litre of petrol?”

He doesn’t know.

“Ok, then how many days are we looking at?”

Maybe 3, maybe 7 he at last says definitively. It seems that 4, 5 and 6 are completely off the cards.

So went negotiations. Just one of the many frustrations we have had to deal with during our travels thus far. That for every silver lining there is usually a mother of a cumulo nimbus cloud. For every yin, a yang. And for every idyllic spot, a mountain of frustration to precede it.

Senegal has proved this as much as anywhere. The previous night we thought we had hit the jackpot by finding a cheap camping spot in an otherwise pricey country. But as Dire Straights blasted out of the ‘eating area’ and a drunken patron came knocking on our tent at midnight, we knew better. Our only consolation was that after we told him to bugger off he turned round, and in his best English, bewilderingly said “Guys. I am here. And I love you.” In the quaint colonial town of St Louis we marvelled at the intricately coloured boats that laze in the harbour – only to witness a local bum in their midst, squatting down for his morning ablutions. And waving at us. Watching a tranquil game of boule by the side of the Senegal River in Podor but knowing that the local tout was doing his best Cape Fear impersonation and creepily watching us from behind a tree. And, of course, for every person that selflessly goes out of their way to ensure you get through a border crossing safely there is one who dresses like a sorcerer and demands payment in powdered milk after being chomped in the face by a pelican.

The womans nipple is now back in the mix. But she hasn’t noticed it so it lingers. And as it does so it points accusingly at me. “Hey toubab” it seems to spit in its own Mammarian language “Why would you even think of coming to French Africa without speaking a bloody word of French?!” I would desperately like to explain to it that if I could turn back the clock I would give anything to have taken French at school. That this powerless feeling is akin to that sensation that I hadn’t had since I was fourteen and Tough Guy used to belittle me infront of an entire guffawing class. That I really should have listened more to my Collins Easy Learning French CDs while I was doing nothing in Ladysmith. But I don’t say any of these things. Because I am talking to a boob. And now not only do I appear ignorant but also like a gigantic, ogling creep.

The end of negotiations comes only when we slip away, largely unnoticed. The crowd continuing merrily along in our absence.We may have lost this round – in fact we may have lost the last five rounds in Senegal – but who knows what the next one will bring. We will lose some more, for sure. But it only takes the occasional win to make it all worth it.

*    *    * 

Also this week we reached another landmark for our trip - we passed the R10,000 mark for donations given to the Key School! So thanks a million to everyone who has kindly donated. Still quite a long way to go, however, so for anyone still reticent about it, Tough Guy has offered pro-bono Thai massages to be dished out on our return for any monies given.

Angsty-pants

Mauritania has been stressful. More tourists have been kidnapped here in the last five years than anywhere else in the Sahel region. Both the Frenchies and the Poms have got almost the entire country in their ‘red-zones’ meaning ‘go there and not only will you end up in an orange jumpsuit but your travel insurance is off the hook’. The country is an Islamic state which means that public lashes in the town square are still on the cards if I were to utter a religious comment in bad taste or fire off some untimely gas. And on the back of this, almost everyone here wears turbans that they wrap around their faces so that only their eyes peer out. The only images of these types I’ve seen have been in their own home videos and have generally had a translator relaying a list of demands that basically require the West go and fornicate with itself. So throw whole bakkie loads of these guys together, driving around the streets of most towns and it’s enough to get my frail white nerves playing like a Tuaregs banjo.

And yet my experiences with the people here could not have been more different. The gendarmes that diligently man the roadblocks that coat every road, pathway and camel track, are always friendly and keen to find out if we have a good time in Mauritania. When strangers come up for a talk in the street, I keep waiting for the inevitable “Ah my friend, now you come look in my shop. No for buying.  Just for looking. Looking is for free. You have a nice beard”, but it never comes. When I ask for the price of things, I’m actually given the real price and not one that requires thirty minutes of haggling to drag down to a level that doesn’t require me to pimp out Tough Guy for a night to pay for it.  The women – far from being the brow-beaten stereotypes – are completely insane. The lumo-coloured, tie-dyed  shawls they wear a clear indication that they intend to make up for the lost years of fashion in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s and combine them all into one cataractic combo. Bra’s will be burned. And to match their plucky outfits they pack a tenacity that is, at times admirable and at others just exhausting. But never dull. And always combined with tea.

So it is with an odd mix of relief and sadness that I leave these sandy shores. This place has at least been an extremely pleasant surprise. The landscapes of the Sahara (that dominates ninety percent of the country’s landmass) are as surprisingly varied and colourful as the people within them. While I’ve definitely had to examine my own prejudices while I’ve been here, I still haven’t quite been able to rid myself of that sinking feeling in my stomach every time a car load of turban-shrouded men has come hurtling in my direction. And this is a feeling I will not miss.

Life in the Sahara

Baked meringue topping as far as the eye could see. It would have looked deliciously edible if my stomach was not suffering the explosive effects of an errant carrot. Not ideal in the middle of the Sahara desert, sure. But then not much about the world’s largest desert is ideal. The small number of creatures that have managed to call it home all have a gritty aura about them. The hardened black beetles that tattoo the virgin dunes with their footprints stop at your feet and look up at you as if to say “Hey! You’re a dick!”. The unlucky crows that have somehow landed here from the back of some old trading frigate seem to know that their brothers elsewhere on the planet just have it so much better. Tufts of grass like steel wool house hardy grey grasshoppers and the occasional gecko.  Small, unlikely pockets of life have sprung up all over the Sahara and – begrudgingly –  have adapted to these harsh and unforgiving conditions. The same certainly cannot be said of myself and Tough Guy. My headache, thirst and abdominal fireworks were not the signs of an organism that had mastered its environment.

And yet it had all started so peacefully. It was just going to be one – heck, maybe two – days in the ancient Islamic town of Chinguetti. I would stock my camera with images of this crumbling thirteenth century town, Tough Guy would have his annual fill of culture taking in the thousand-year-old manuscripts kept in the six local libraries and we would both have a bartering chip with extremists by stating that we had been to the seventh holiest city of Islam. Whether this would carry greater kudos than visiting the eighth holiest city, we were unsure. Or, for that matter, how exactly this religious rating system is done in the first place. Does Hanover Park, for example, bring up the rear at twelve-thousand-and-fourth? We attempted to extract these answers from the local scholar-cum-librarian. Unfortunately, all he could keep telling us was how quickly Mauritanian women put on weight after you marry them. And so it was from the rooftops of these locations of such millennia-old sage knowledge that the silver-caramel dunes of the surrounding Sahara called to us. “Dave and Tough Guy,” they seemed to say in a whispy hypnotic voice “Come to my bosom. I am unfathomably vast and enticing, edgy and a little dangerous. I span the breadth of a continent and etch over the borders of thirteen countries. I may house some Islamic extremists and induce chaos in most nations I touch, sure. But hey, c’est la vie? You know you want to…” And she was right. She cut to the core of me, that old rascal. For one thing was undeniable – that desert has a peculiar hypnotic pull.

So there we found ourselves. Not as much in her bosom as between her toes. Tricked. And yet, despite suffering all these ailments, that experience in the Sahara was nothing short of spectacular. The endless shapes cut by the dunes in the early morning light, the impossibility of the night skies above us, the view of an oasis after hours of nothingness, the penis-shaped footprints left by the camels. But above all else: the silence. No crickets, no mosquitoes, no cars, no dogs barking, no electrical hum of a completed circuit. Just a vacuum. At night it really feels like all life but your own has ceased to exist. But with the rising of the sun, the hardy creatures of the Sahara continue to eke out their existence. Some quite successfully – like the desert fox. Others less so – like Dave McAlpine. And most of the others somewhere in between – like the desert hare that sheepishly bolted behind the nearest dune as soon as it saw us. I fear the poor bugger must have eaten the same carrots as I did.

  

 

And now the coup de grace...

  

The Mines of Mauritania

We left Morocco and entered an active mine field. And I don’t mean this in any metaphorical sense. The gutted, charred carcasses of old vehicles were quite literal. We had entered the infamous 3km no-mans land that exists between the Moroccan and Mauritanian border posts and it was an unnerving place. The thin film of cloud bleached the sky and landscape alike creating a Mad Max-like apocalyptic feel to it. What was distinctly unapocalyptic about it, however, was the care-free herd of wild camels that nonchalantly strutted in amongst these primitive explosives - blissfully unaware that every two-toed footprint may be its last. We asked our taxi-driver – who may or may not have been Ben Kingsley taking time off from making Santam ads – to stop so that we might behold the frankly awesome spectacle of a camel being blown to smithereens. But he wasn’t keen. I think he had seen it all before.

So from our very first moment in Mauritania it became apparent that the comfortable but somewhat unexciting journeys we had made around Morocco were no more. The Mauritanian border official who processed our paperwork hinted as much. After swatting away swarms of flies that seem to have materialised out of nowhere the minute we left Morocco and chasing a toothpaste-eating goat from the entrance to the hut, he finally attended to us. As his official stamp hit the plush page of the passport – the point of no return – he didn’t offer the usual immigration jargon of “Welcome”, “Enjoy your trip” or even the stoney silence of bureaucrats who know they are, in fact, your daddy. No, he looked us straight in the eye and, with no discernible tone to his voice, ominously muttered the words “Good luck”. I don’t think people skills are big in this neck of the desert.

We soon found out what he meant, though. Our first journey within Mauritania – to the desert town of Atar – had no roads linking it to the grimy coastal hovel of Nouadhibou. It did have a train though. Good news. At 2,3kms the longest train on the planet, in fact. Better news. But it’s not designed to carry humans. Not such good news. It is a train created exclusively to collect vast quantities of iron ore, eviscerated from the bowels of the Sahara, and lug it to the coast to be exported. Probably to Russia. They seem to like iron ore. And it seems that they accept payment in the unlikely form of Soviet condensed milk. Tins of which ply the shelves of every shop, household and dingy coffee den. It seems the Cold War has found an unusual outlet in Africa in the form of confectionary. Its unsurprising that it’s not produced locally as Mauritania has no industrialisation to speak of, so all it can rely on to fill its sandy coffers are its sparse natural resources consisting almost exclusively of iron ore and fish. Tinned sardines can only do so much to stimulate a nation’s economy so this ore forms the backbone of what pays the salaries of the vast armies of gendarmes manning the roadblocks. And reserves of it are apparently dwindling fast. This was in no way apparent as we found ourselves in an one of the thousands of open-air iron ore carriages, hurtling through the Sahara towards the vast mines of the intimidatingly-named Zouerat . We had imagined golden dunes slipping by, universes visible beyond the untainted starry sky, man-love. What we got instead was iron ore dust which not only blocked out all in its path but also managed to penetrate every bodily orifice imaginable.  We emerged after thirteen gritty hours looking like the workers of Zouerat and feeling like one of the camels of no-mans land. After they had stood on one of those mines.

       

      

   

Morocco Roundup

Our time in Morocco has drawn to a close as we cross our first border into Mauritania tomorrow. Its really been quite an experience on every level. With landscapes as unpredictable as the meat hanging in the local markets, the bizarre tussle between their ancient way of life and the unstoppable march of modernity and a host of characters both generous and horrific, it certainly has never been boring.

So here are just some of the highlights of the last 4 weeks. Tough Guy has managed to put a little movie together so go check it out on his blog page 'South with Scott' which I have link to on this page.

Just a quick thank you to everyone who has generously donated to our Key School fund. Especially Timeless Tents and Netherwood for their continuing support of our trip and of autism. But we've still got a long way to go so if anyone has any ideas or contacts we can get hold of who may be interested in what we're doing. it would really be appreciated.

So without further ado...

Trip Statistics

Monies raised to date for Key School: R7300

Modes of Transport: 4 (grand taxi, bus, train, feet)

Mileage: 3211km

Tea Consumption:  320 cups (1cup/10.3km - efficient)

Peaks: 3 (Jebdel Toubkal 4200m, Jebdel El-Kest 2750m), found 5 dirhams on the floor.

Troughs: McAlpine's cartogrpahy. Tough Guy's French. Moroccan peak socialising hour: 01:00. Flashed by the village loon (he also kissed Tough Guy's head).

Things thrown at us: 3 (banana, bottle, brick)

Long Drops Used: 9,  Successfully: 1

No. of dirhams swindled: 250 (conservative estimate)

Times addressed as "my friend": 272

Actual friends made: 2

Public Bathhouses visited: 1

Verucas contracted: 2,5

Favourite Quotes

McAlpine (to Tough Guy): "I'm realising more and more how great it is you came on the trip. Splitting costs is cheaper than I could have imagined."

Snake-charming hype man: "Behold the squirrel! Fiercest and most well-known enemy of the snake!"

Polish women: "When I was in Western Sahara, I had a chicken tagine. But, the meat was not like anything I had ever tasted. Also, I had not seen any chickens. What I had seen lots of, were seagulls. I believe I had a seagull tagine. I was sick for days."

Favourite Pics