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This journey has proven and disproved many thoughts and ideas I had about the world. Many of the ideas I have come from movies I have seen. Most of the time when I see an American Hollywood movie about a place I just assume that everything is dramatized and most likely adapted to make the movie more exciting.

“Blood Diamond” with Leonardo Decaprio is one of those films. In the movie the reoccurring phrase was TIA, which stands for This is Africa. When I saw the film I knew Africa would be different. I figured this phrase was just some Hollywood BS. I first heard this phrase when we entered Mauritania, and it seems to ring true at least once each day. In Mauritania we changed some money and when the man exchanging the cash gave us the local currency, it was tattered and ripped to the point that we could not believe that anyone would accept it. In Central Asia sometimes they would not accept bills that had even a small mark on them, so we argued with him saying we wanted better bills. He responded by saying, “Man, this is Africa, they will take it.” We agreed and moments later they accepted this battered currency without a second look.

Later when we arrived at the Senegalese border from Mauritania we were having trouble with the border guards trying to charge “taxes.” At the border we met a French Fish Scientist living in Dakar named Antoine. He helped us deal with it, loaned us some money to get in as we had no local currency and escorted us to St. Louis to a hotel as it was getting dark. We talked with him later and asked him what he thought about the bribes we were being asked pay. His response was, “You can try to wait it out and not have to pay, it is all just a matter of time, but it depends on how much time you are willing to give up to save $10 or $20.” He went on, “Once, out of principal, I decided I would wait over $20, I waited all night long, this is Africa.”

Since we have been here we have had trouble finding water, food, a place to exchange money, a place to get money, a place to get gas, and more. Just the other day I was fixing a leak in the tire on Little Pepe. It was a particularly bad hole, so it took well over an hour in blazing heat to repair. Then I needed to get air for the tire, before putting it back on the car. Just for a little adventure, I decided to roll the tire down the street to find a place myself. Immediately, I found a better more African idea…get someone with a pushcart to help me.

A young man was eager to make a little money, and with the dirt in my face and more difficult rolling through the dirt than I expected, I was ready for some help.

We made our way down to the closest tire shop and the kid working there dropped everything to help. Unfortunately, the setup he had for filling the tires led to a much more involved process than I expected. He had to remove the inside of the valve put air in and then scramble to get it all back together before the air leaked out. At 60 PSI this is a very interesting process. Diligent as he was the tire is now full and back on Little Pepe to a perfect 60 PSI. The tire is full, this is Africa.

It is Michelin, how can you go wrong.

 

 Filling a tire in Bobo Diassoulu [0:09m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (684)

When picturing a national park, most of us probably think of rangers that help to protect the wildlife and answer visitors questions about the surrounding area and the flora and fauna that reside there. As you get farther and farther from the main tourist tracks in the world, the standard and definition of national parks changes dramatically.

In Mauritania there is a park called “Banc d’Arguin National Park.” It is a World Heritage Site, and like many other World Heritage sites we have visited on our journey, it has a long way to go before one could call it protected. It does, however, offer something that no other national park has that we have been to…vastness.

The “entrance” to the park is a GPS coordinate listed on a small map provided by the park office in the small town 200kms away. This map has a list of GPS coordinates that we tested before we left for the park, of which over 30% of them were incorrect. We knew this going in, but figured that we navigated Mongolia with just binoculars and compasses so with the GPS…how could we go wrong?

The local population is only approximately 500 Imraguen tribesmen that live in seven villages within the park. We visited most of these villages and with so few people inhabiting over 12,000 square kilometers of space with no real infrastructure, it is safe to say you are on your own if something goes wrong. For three days we navigated the park, digging out of sand traps and motoring over sand dunes with a moderately accurate map and a couple of boards to help drive over soft sand.

I would not call this the most stunning or spectacular national park in the world, but it does offer a playground for a real deep in the dunes style Sahara experience. We left the park at the end more dehydrated and dirty than any of us have ever been in our lives, nearly out of gas, with sun and wind burns, but for three days we gave the largest desert in the world our best and came out triumphant.

At least you get the beach to yourself when there are no roads to it.

 

 Banc d'Arguin National Park - Mauritania [2:35m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (701)

A couple of years ago the TWBR route began to take shape. When first planning a route for a grand voyage like this, the sky is the limit. Countries that you never even knew existed become possibilities; geography becomes a daily topic of conversation. It is quite interesting just how large some countries are that probably 90% of people do not know exist. Mauritania is one of those places. With a population of only 3 million people in just over 1 million square kilometers, this country is a giant desert with large expanses containing very little signs of life. For most of us the Sahara desert is something that we read about in books or hear about in romantic adventure stories while we are growing up.

The last week or so, however, the Sahara desert is the place that we have been calling home and although signs of life are few and far between, they are quite intense when you do find them. A year ago Mauritania was a country that we did not even know how pronounce and was a place that we decided we would not be traveling through. Since our original route became basically impossible as Libya would not issue us visas and Algeria’s borders are closed, Mauritania has officially become our second country in Africa and we could not be more pleased with the new route. The first day we spent here is like no other day on the trip so far. We are staying a town called Nouadhibou, and here there is a ship graveyard with well over 40-50 ships that fill the coastline. Ranging in size from small dinghies to giant industrial ships, the coast has a post apocalyptic feel like something really bad has happened here. The beach is full of all kinds of different trash ranging from the standard plastic bags to pieces of heavy machinery.

The truth, as we have been told, is that the harbor master over the last handful of decades allowed people to decommission their boats for free here. The “decommissioning” process here is to simply leave the boats on the shoreline to rot. Certainly the large amounts of industrial trash and toxins that are released from these boats are not good for the environment, but the spectacle they leave behind is something that all of us will never forget.

Mines are all along the road on the way here.

Some people have taken the trash on as a home.

It is hard to understand how this ended up the way it did.

I heart goggles and turbans

 

 Mauritania and the Shipwreck Coast [1:18m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (619)

Have you ever done something that was completely unnecessary and totally necessary at the same time? Instances like these can only really be understood in retrospect, but I suppose that is how one might define some of the most memorable experiences in a lifetime. After recently crossing the straights of Gibraltar and officially starting what may prove to be the most intense part of the whole expedition, Morocco has proven to be a place full of color and excitement. The markets, touts, ancient cities and delicious food are enough to keep you occupied for months here and the citizens of this country, although intense at times, are always helping to make each moment more interesting than you planned it to be.

In Fes, the city that Lonely Planet notes at the “Soul of Morocco”, the first impression of walking through the narrow streets of the Medina is something reminiscent of an Indiana Jones like epic, searching for a lost antiquity or mythic scroll that has the answers to all of your questions about life. These narrow streets are far to slender to accommodate a smart car in places, let alone two oversized American trucks. As the Medina’s narrow streets begin widen closer to the city walls, the locals take it upon themselves to fill this extra space with vegetables, car parts, coffee makers, and tons of other goods in a winding loop of a marketplace. Here, although the streets are considerably wider than the streets in the center, they are by no means a thoroughfare to get from one side of the Medina to the other.

The first night that we spent in Fes, we were led to a hotel near the bottom of the Medina by a tout. We were tired when we arrived, so the first night we stayed at the hotel the tout had delivered us to, even though it was booked for the rest of the weekend. The next morning the owner offered to take us to another area of town where we could find another hotel. This was the necessary part of the day. Tasks like these are the makings of a normal day, getting the things done that need to get accomplished that day.

The twist that made this more than just a transfer from one hotel to another was the ingenious idea of our friendly hotel owner to have us take the not so direct route. This route was actually so indirect that it caused us to go in a complete circle from a point we had already passed on the way to the other part of town. Looking back on this incredible experience, it now seems hard to decide whether the necessary part of this incredible day was moving to the new hotel or driving on this longcut. Have a look at this clip and decide for yourself, and then at some point give this a try…

 

 Fes Markets [1:47m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (722)

Here at The World by Road, we have many different ways of saving money. From the full service kitchen we can setup out of the back of the truck or even sometimes bring with us into the hotel room for late night snacks to the faring we are working on to increase gas mileage, we have many ways to cuts costs across the board. The floorspace in hotel rooms many times is a sea of foam pads and sleeping bags filled with crew members and in some cases like our latest room in Agadir, Morocco, a 4 little bears setup keeps the four of us just an arms reach away all night long in our $22 per night room. We eat local food and sometimes just don’t eat at all. Coca Cola has enough calories to count as a meal, right?

At the end of the day we are still struggling for money and sometimes it is nice to treat ourselves to a top notch hotel to break up the monotony of our streamlined budgeting techniques. At place like the Hyatt or the Hilton, everything is taken care of, and there is something to be said for that. All of the backpackers and self-proclaimed hardcore travelers out there are probably scoffing as they read this, but from time to time it is nice to check into a hotel and when we ask the question of where we can park the cars the immediate answer is, “Where would you like the valet to park them, sir?” The truth is that I prefer to camp over staying in a hotel at all, but in a city where there are security concerns about the cars, a ton of work to do and enough grime caking everything you own to raise concerns with the local health department, a couple of nights on the other side of the tracks is welcome.

Since the beginning of the trip we have been honing our skills on getting everything discounted or free when possible. In Casablanca we may have gotten a little too confident in our skills of persuasion when we approached the Hyatt in the center of downtown with the grandiose idea of getting accommodation for the entire crew at a moments notice, but hey, how do you get better if you do not try for bigger fish?

 

 How not to get a free hotel [1:49m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (657)