bugsonmyboard

The stretch of terrain designated as ‘no man’s land’ began to seem a bit more ominous as shadows grew long in the late afternoon.  A 5km buffer zone that lies between Western Sahara and Mauritania consists of tracks that criss-cross through nasty sharp patches of rocks and sand pits and is littered with burnt out vehicles. I thought that I’d planned plenty of time to get to and traverse the border, but again I’d underestimated the slowness of progress through the chaos of African borders.  Little offices with very grumpy attendants doling out little pieces of paper and no indication of the ordering of which office and which piece of paper needs whichever stamp on it first.  This is standard procedure, and while I told myself that I need to get used to it, standing in line after line sweating in motorcycle gear is exhausting.  On the upside, I am now quite good at interpreting anything on an immigration form in French.

Finally riding away from the Mauritanian border feels fantastic – I’m in! A twist of the throttle and I’m free, out into the open desert again.  Time to go find some surf.  But first, as usual, time to find some sand to fall down in.

Looking down at the GPS, I saw that I had been in and out of the red border that marks no man’s land all morning as I rode around looking for a wave.  Each time I approached a group of buildings or someone in a truck I expected someone to tell me to get the hell out of there, but it never happened.

Then I found a very big boat. While its location was rather unfortunate for the people who were on the boat, it happened to help create a nice little sandbar with a wave whizzing along in its shadow for me. It was an eerie feeling surfing right next to a massive ship in the wrong place as I heard the loud clang of waves smacking into the far side of it reverberating through the hull

A better surfer may have found his way out of a few of the little barrels being served up, but I just found myself a face full of sand prior to exiting. Chalk one up for Mauritania.