Chapter Two. Kev.
Day 14 Thursday 24th November
It was with some reservations that at about 2pm I headed out of Dahkla with Vilis and Maruuta, but as we headed back towards the main N1 south through Western Sahara it at leastfelt good to be moving again.
The journey south was uneventful, and we made good speed but was still able to take in the stark beauty of the desert either side. Amazing colours, from cappuccino through caramel to chocolate. This country seemed to go on forever.
Completely missed crossing the Tropic of Cancer (just south of Dakhla) and encountered my only fuel refill from plastic bottles. After about 2 hours or so and 178 miles finally arrived at Motel Barbas. It was as described an “oasis” in the middle of nowhere. The façade of this amazing place was a canvas covered atrium bedecked by tamarisks and other foliage.
The Spanish owner immediately got me to drive the bike straight into the hotel. The next couple of hours were spent converting room 114 into a Chinese laundry, as with my little packet of washing powder I managed to wash my dirty clothes from the last fortnight.
We had a late lunch, or early evening meal with my Latvian companions serenaded by hundreds of sparrows and other small birds that were roosting in the tamarisks. I spent the rest of the evening plotting in the waypoints of the Nouadhibou to Atarpiste into my GPS from Chris Scott’s Sahara Overland and reading the off-road and sand riding tips in the book.
Friday 25th November
After an early rise and a quick coffee, we filled up with fuel and water and were on the road by 8am for the last 50 miles or so to the border. We stopped briefly to assist a breakdown……… but even with Vilis donating a bottle of oil and 5 litres of water it wasn’t going to be enough to help someone with a knackered water pump and by the looks of it a blown head gasket.
At the border we were greeted with a decent size queue of European cars (French, Italian and Spanish) all probably stolen and being driven down to Senegal
Next the joys of “No Mans Land”.This 20km stretch between Morocco and Mauritania Rabat
Next the Mauritanian border. Fortunately with the aid of a fixer for a fee of 10 euros the process was relatively painless if not speedy. Country number 5.
It was by now early afternoon. Next, the search for the piste. In the book the piste goes from Nouadibou to Atar but we would be intercepting it several km along where it crosses the main road to Nouakchott, so my first waypoint was about 15km further along the piste.Vilis and Maruuta had a piste plotted onto their netpad but it transpires that this was another parallel piste that ran 20km or so further south……..my misgivings where starting to resurface! After asking at several of the police checkpoints we opted to head south and look for the piste that Vilis had. Eventually the road crossed the green line on the Latvian’s computer screen so we turned east off the road.
Quickly it became apparent that this wasn’t a piste at all……….just desert and on top of that the edge of a small dune field. Vilis was keen on me leading (not sure why) so I called up the next waypoint on the Sahara Overland route and simply make a beeline for that. As good as my day spent with Chris at Ride any Road was, nothing could fully prepare me for this, truly a baptism of fire.
How I managed to stay as upright for as long as I did I’ll never know, the only way to get through the areas of deeper sand was to gun it in 3rd gear (about 35-40 mph) to avoid getting stuck, holding on “loosely” to wildly jerking bars and trying to balance a rear wheel sliding from side to side like an eel with its head in a vice. Never have I maintained that level of concentration for as long or as hard. I was mentally drained, soaked in perspiration and physically knackered. The sandy areas were punctuated by more solid gravelly sections some covered in small sharp-thorned shrubs……….a puncture would be just great!! And areas with significant sized rocks strewn everywhere, that required careful route selection. We progressed like this for a couple of hours, with frequent stops to catch my breath and steady my nerves.
Gradually, the sandy areas started to diminish in frequency and for a while I almost was starting to enjoy it. It was at that point I had my first proper spill. Just crossing a relatively benign looking oued or ditch of sand across my path when it seemed to spit me out the other end. Apart from some fairly superficial scratches to the bike’s mudguard and pulling the left indicator surgically off its stalk both the bike and I were unharmed. It did however remind me that there was no room for complacency!
It was at this point we started to notice increasing evidence of vehicle tracks so whilst although not strictly speaking a piste I started to feel that at least we weren’t quite as removed from humanity as we had been. The wind was still quite strong (it hadn’t really relented since the Spanish border 12 days earlier) so as evening was drawing near we made for a line of sand hills on the horizon to provide some shelter.
Well that was the plan. In reality the hills just seemed to channel the wind forming a wind tunnel. I battled against the wind, soft sand and fading light to try and get my tent up. Note to self…if there is a next time a cheap pop-up geodesic tent is the way to go. In the end I had to fill my Ortlieb dry bag up with sand and tether the tent to it using one of the guy lines. By now it was completely dark and dinner was served. Maruuta had made a kind of pasta soup with bits of bacon in it…………it was the tastiest thing I had eaten for a week it was also the only thing I had eaten all day.
I then spent a fruitless half hour or so attempting to get the Chris Scott waypoints onto firstly an old Tom Tom unit that Vilis had, and then onto his netpad. Alas no joy.
That was it for the day, an early bed which was just what the doctor ordered. In the early hours I awoke to a distant droning noise that went on for ages.………still have no idea what it was.
Day 16 Saturday 26th November
Up with the sun, 7.30 ish and managed to get the tent and everything packed away in relatively quick time. The kettle had boiled just as I finished. What seemed like a very Latvian breakfast; cooked bacon, raw onions and bread was washed down by strong, black freshly brewed coffee. I t certainly woke me up!
Then, on our way again…..well after I realised that I had sort of deliberately parked in deep soft sand and that the bike was actually sunk in. So Vilis and I had to lay the bike down, fill in the hole where the rear wheel was, stand it back up then walk/push it out in first gear. Then we were on our way.
We carried on towards the next waypoint; north east about 40km. There was ridge of deep soft sand not long after setting off which required walking the bike through in first gear again (after initially unsticking it). Vilis’s Discovery managed to get through with no problems!!
I was more relaxed this morning, we were making good progress and heading for the proper piste. I had already made the decision that I would finish my off-roading exploits at Atar and re-join my colleagues on a slightly smoother route to Timbuktu
The only shadow on the horizon was the description of the current piste in the book that said from the waypoint we were heading for it got progressively sandier!! Perhaps it wouldn’t be any worse than I had already done!
We (I) stopped every hour for a breather, and made good progress. By mid-morning we had hit the piste proper and despite the warnings about increasing sand it did at least present opportunities to sit on the saddle and take the strain off my legs for sections. As if to remind me not to become complacent I did take another, sand derived off at about 40mph. Miraculously again, no ill effects.
By midday we had covered well over 120k but were now entering the Affezal dunes which could only mean one thing………. more sand.
Then it happened. A section of deep sand just like many previous ones. I can’t remember exactly the details but I think that whilst following a deep rut through the sand, the side of the rut caught my right foot, and at the speed needed to maintain momentum wrenched my foot and hence my lower leg clockwise. I knew even before losing the bike that my leg was broken despite (or perhaps because of) never having broken a bone before. I lay there in the sand, the bike on its side, engine still running. The pain wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be but I could feel things moving that just shouldn’t move. The Sidi’s were acting a pretty affective splint.
Vilis and Maruutaarrived, they seemed not to want to believe that my leg was broken. Villis managed to get the bike upright but from the righthand side so I needed to call Maruutaover to get the side stand down so he could let go without it falling over.
It was a no brainer really. There was no way I could carry on. There was no room for me, let alone the bike in the Discovery. At the moment it wasn’t a life or death situation despite being literally in the middle of nowhere. No need to trigger the SOS button on the SPOT and pointless using Vilis’s Sat Phone….who could you phone anyway? We had passed through a small village, well a motley collection of ramshackle buildings, about 30km or so beforehand that seemed the best hope of help. Vilis set off, leaving Maruuta and 3 litres of water with me.
After almost 3 hours in the midday desert sun we had reached a natural pause in the conversation, Maruuta’s English was only a bit better than my Latvian. Still no sign of help. We then heard and spotted a vehicle, coming from the north east (not the direction that the village was in). We managed to flag it down. The Hilux stopped next to us and out poured 5 very unlikely looking characters…this could be interesting. In my diabolical French I managed to convey that I wasn’t just stopping for a sun bath on the piste but had broken my leg. The most unlikely looking of the lot in filthy jeans and t shirt, bobble hat, aquiline nose and no teeth seemed to grasp what I had said more than the others, thought that as I could still wiggle my toes my leg couldn’t possibly be broken and was all for taking my boot off. I managed to convince him otherwise. At this point these rough diamonds, who were apparently laying a fibre optic cable alongside the railway, were about to load me into the Toyota, and insisted on leaving someone with Maruuta who perhaps wasn’t quite as keen on the idea. However at that point, the sound of engines and dust clouds arriving from the west announced that the calvary had arrived.
Together with the fibre optic guys, I was loaded into one vehicle whilst being reliably informed that the bike would be loaded into the other. I managed to get Maruuta to salvage my tank bag which contained the only things of real value. We then roared off cross county eastwards!! I was sharing the vehicle with a hotchpot of 4 people only one of whom seemed to possess anything which resembled a uniform. They informed me that I was being taken to a village further along the railway track whilst the bike would be deposited at the gendarmerie in the village where Vilis had gone for help. Vilis had just reappeared as I was being taken away.
After what seemed like an hour, I was convincing myself that I was being transported directly to the AQIM stronghold in northern Mali
Eventually we arrived at a sprawl of buildings spread along the railway track, apparently the town of Tememichatt
Apparently Saturdays were the ambulance driver’s day off but no worries, the town mayor came to the rescue (not for the first time). CheikHabib took up his unofficial driving duties seriously and it was his personal mission to make sure that the 250km to Nouadhibou were covered as quickly as possible. The down side to this was that most of the this distance was rough off-road piste and that although loosely strapped to the stretcher in the back they had made the decision not to put the strap over the broken leg for fear of hurting it. The net result was that every time we hit a bump at 60mph my right leg would bounce up and hit the roof before bouncing back down on to the stretcher, to say this was a bit painful would be an understatement. At one point the foot of my broken leg took out the rear light fitting.
Despite their urgency to get me to hospital they stopped for regular cigarette breaks and also to pick up a rather elderly gentleman in full Mauritanian robes who had apparently sustained an injury falling off a camel. Early in the trip we crossed paths with Vilis and Maruuta who had where continuing along the piste, they had kindly removed my GPS from the bike and also had a hand written note from the gendarmes who had taken custody of my bike. We stopped briefly for them to take a picture of me in the bag of the ambulance,Cheik was keen to be in on the action, and to inform me that they had managed to contact Jon and Jason with the Sat Phone.
Not much further on I got a glimpse of my faithful bike sitting dejectedly next to a rundown building, presumably the Gendarmerie. It was around this point I noticed that I had started to loose sensation in my toes. At the next fag break I drew Cheik and his assistant’s attention to it. Initially they seemed reluctant to go against anything the doctor had done but eventually I managed to convince them to loosen the bandage. Almost immediately normal service was returned to my extremities.
Eventually, we reached tarmac and the main road to Nouadhibou. It was well and truly dark now as we reached the town. Cheik was still on a mission, we were driving through the congested streets of Nouadhibou at break neck speeds with lights flashing. This was the most frightening bit so far, how we managed not to hit anything I’ll never know and eventually we screeched unscathed at the entrance of the hospital. After a brief consultation I was trolleyed to the X-ray department, where after a long wait a cadaverous radiographer took a couple of x-rays of my leg, then confirmed with somewhat disconcerting glee that I had indeed broken my tibia.
I was then transferred to another room. Cheik had kindly obtained a Mauritanian SIM card for me and proceeded to make all the subsequent arrangements………..which were; basically pay 64,000 Ogiyua for the treatment so far and then 100 euros for an ambulance to transfer me Nouakchott. Apparently, Nouadhibou didn’t have the facilities to treat me and only in the capital would I get the appropriate treatment. He assured me that I was being taken to a reputable place, initially he described it as a “private clinic” later it became a “military hospital”, either way I was assured it wouldn’t be the public hospital!!
There was one surreal point where I’m sure Cheik was being reprimanded for something, I’m sure it had something to do with driving the ambulance. He certainly looked a bit sheepish. However, he had been my saviour so far and just to prove it he then asked if I wanted anything to eat or drink. I had not eaten anything since my Baltic breakfast and I suddenly realised how hungry I was. At about midnight as I was loaded into the back of the Nouakchott bound ambulance he turned up with a bag of goodies; cartons of orange juice, cakes and more apples that one person could possibly eat.
Sunday 27th November
The long drive to Nouakchott
I was deposited on a bed in the emergency room. A small room about 6m across with 6 beds arranged around the outside. I amused myself watching my random assortment of room-mates with various ailments…no such luxury as screens or curtains and watching the cockroaches scuttling around trying to avoid being trodden on. Someone, who I assume was a nurse, tried about 4 times to set up a cannula in the back of my hand. I eventually convinced him that he would have more luck in the inside of my elbow. I was then administered what I had already observed was the Mauritanian cure all;- a saline drip with a 1000mg of IV paracetamol. It was about three hours before I was eventually confronted with a group of white coated individuals who I presumed were doctors. Their first question was have I got means to pay! I sort of lost it at this point. They eventually looked at the x-rays, prescribed another bag of saline and continued with their rounds. I still had no idea what treatment they had planned for me.
Not long afterwards another doctor and nurse set about putting a partial cast or back slab on my leg. My main concern at this point was that my right leg was obviously shorter than the left and my foot was twisted further out than it should have been so I knew that more than a simple cast was needed. It was probably mid to late afternoon when I was visited by a team of orthopaedic doctors including a consultant. He informed me that I also had a fracture at the top of the fibula and that surgery was required sort my leg out.
Communication was proving difficult. No one spoke English and I was struggling to understand Mauritanian French as much as they struggled to understand my Franglais.
Throughout the day I was continually trying to communicate with the insurance company via my wife to sort out means of getting me back home. There was no way I was going to have the operation there.
I was getting increasingly more frustrated, bored and hungry. Despite my gloom there were some glimmers of light. In the afternoon, a young women who with a sick women on the opposite side of the room, came over and asked if had eaten. She was a teacher, spoke English and she said that she would go home and cook me something and bring it in for me, in addition she offered to buy me a toothbrush and toothpaste (my wash kit was still on the bike). She was as good as her word, she returned in the evening with a fantastic chicken dish with rice, a banana, a cup of mint tea and the toiletries. She also warned me not to have the operation there!
In the early evening two French ladies appeared on the ward, and made a bee-line for me. Martine spoke English unlike her friend, and offered their assistance.
Another person went on to become my guardian angel, he was a young Malian lad called who worked in the Emergency department as an orderly. He saw how much I appreciated the tea, and suddenly appeared with another cup for me.
Eventually after having initially been promised a room I was then transferred to what appeared to be an empty ward in a run down and derelict maternity unit. I at least had the place to myself, or so I thought! As soon as the lights went out, I heard the high pitched whine of dozens of mosquitoes. I tossed and turned continually trying to fend off the attack. After a few hours a sick child with her parents joined me, but despite everything I did manage to get a bit of sleep. The morning light revealed over 50 mosquito bites…….bizarrely all on one arm!
My hero turned up with a bowl of water for a wash and a cup of tea. I had now been wearing the same clothes for 4 days continuously and I was beginning to offend myself. I was optimistic that I might be going home if not that day then the next so I got Ab to track down Martine and her friend and I asked them to get me a new set off clothes and a bag or holdall for the journey home.
At around lunchtime the assistant director of the hospital paid me a visit. A room had become available and she was to personally escort me there. The room was basic, and there were some interesting looking splashes and stains on the walls but it was a step up from Mosquito Mansion
Wrong! Over the next three days the food stopped, I had to try and attract someone’s attention to get water and I had to empty the piss pot myself using a plastic chair as a zimmer frame. The only place to empty it was an already foul smelling shower room, whose plumbing had long ceased to work, which was inside my room. The reason for the smell quickly became apparent as during the night it was not unusual for someone to come in and use the shower room as a toilet. Each day there would be the hope that a flight had been organised for the following day only to find out each time that there had been a problem and it wasn’t to be. To make matters worse I was rapidly running out of charge on my phone and with no means to charge it would lose that connection with home to find out what was happening. The tedium getting to me, I managed to make some playing cards from some blagged paper so that I could play patience.
My daily excitement would come at about 6.30pm when I would watch the fruit bats leaving their roosts in their thousands to disperse over the darkening city.
My other high points were my regular visits from my little friend. When he was working he would regularly turn up with more tea, the occasional apple or banana, bowls of water for washing in the morning. On his day off he virtually spend the whole day sitting in my visitors chair struggling and failing to stay awake. We could barely understand each other at times, he couldn’t read or write but we would kill time playing noughts and crosses.
Wednesday night things started to improve, I had a visitor from the British Consul and when he found out I hadn’t eaten he returned with food from the consul itself. Mashed potato and beef stroganoff……….I don’t know if anything has ever tasted so good.
Thursday, I got the news that I would be going home the next day! I sent Ab out to get me another set of clothes…after 4 days I had started to smell again. That afternoon, Jon arrived after having miraculously retrieving my bike from the middle of the desert and getting to Nouakchott
In the evening another visit from someone at the Consul, he made sure that all the arrangements had been made so that there was no hiccups in the morning. I needed to leave the hospital at 5.45 to get the airport on time.
I was up and dressed by 4.30am, I was convinced that no one would turn up to pick me up. But thankfully I was wrong. I was wheeled and put on board a slightly dilapidated ambulance, and we drove through the dark back streets of Nouakchott
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