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We were driving at 8am this morning, and set off at a fast pace. We had to reach the beach before 4pm to catch the tide and get to Nouakchott, so we were tearing along. In my enthusiasm to make up time I tailed the Renault too closely and smacked into the back of it - my first two-car accident and what a place for it!
The Portuguese had been driving the 19 with such vigour that we'd got used to them flying through the sand. When they did get stuck, we were too close behind and couldn't bounce out of the sand ruts - of course braking was out of the question - so the bull bars on our Patrol smacked into their rear quarter. They lost their rear light cluster and suffered "a fair bit" of bodywork damage. The bars on the Patrol bent back a bit and dented the wing. Neither cars had any mechanical issues and he sadly refused my dodgy Mauritanian insurance details, so we set off again.
Almost immediately we stopped again for the Escort - BOTH front tyres were punctured! One we fixed with the spare but the other was truly buggered. As it happened they had a second spare tyre (but no rim), so we swapped it onto the old rim with three screwdrivers, some fairy liquid, a big rope, and a touch petrol and a match (yes, really). Then we had a puncture on the Hyundai front nearside - fortunately they had a spare as well. During all the bouncing around we lost the weatherstrip off our rear window, but we're making do with gaffer tape for now.
We made fairly good time with fewer stops than the day before, but we had a long stop for a big barney between the guide and the Portuguese. Unfortunately the Portuguese let on that they were running a GPS; the guide accused them of stealing his route, and was understandably touchy about losing his livelihood! Apparently GPSes are prohibited by the Federation des Guides, but were weren't told that at any point, so a standoff ensued with the guide refusing to continue and the Portuguese being argumentative.
** Too tired to write any more, will continue this whenever I find another Internet connx. Obviously we got out of the desert, we're now in Nouakchott. We're heading off towards Bamako tomorrow, will probably make it 2/3rds of the way, should be able to post from Bamako in 2 days or so. Goodbye until then! **
2 comments:
Wow, thats a lot of stuff to read! Yay for the camels, I like the picture, I'm happy now, and hoping you have managed to squeeze a baby one into the back of the patrol for me?
Look forward to hearing more :-) have fun and look after yourselves
Elly xxx
Welcome back! Much relieved to hear from you - must have been my note of yesterday to your many readers that did it! Well - what a journey - you are certainly having a testing time one way and another, but glad you're in a group now. Have much enjoyed reading all the latest entries; it gives a very good taste of all your experiences, be they good or not so good. Allez!
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