The Derka Derka Sand Witches

Nouackchott, Mauritania. For the life of me I can't image why, in the sun drenched desert, where temperatures routinely hit quadrouple digits, the local populace insists on burying themselves beneath several layers of clothing. Long pants, long shirts, a turban, and a billowing robe are draped across the runway models of Mauritania. Given the intense heat, it is a tad perplexing. The best I can figure is that the blistering sun has reduced their brains to tapioca. Come mid-day, when the sun hits its peak, I've debated peeling off my skin as if it were just another shirt. I think the robes might be religious in nature, but Hell, choose another religion - something more appropriate for the climate, like the Church of Club Med, where you are encouraged to wear shorts and they serve pina colodas during Communion.


Mauritania was actually a bit of wash for us. You see, one of the problems with this official Islamic Republic, besides the sandy tasting food and the I Heart Osama t-shirts, is that they are officially required to hate us. At our first stop in country, at the port city of Nouadibou, a Senegalese man pointedly warned us not to discuss our nationality. They hate us, he said emphatically. Americans had always been tolerated out here but a mistakenly released copy of Team America, World Police may have pushed them over the edge. We definitely took his advice to heart. It was kind of nice being Canadian for a change. I miss my dog-sled and my hockey sticks but at least I have good health converage.



Nouadibou itself held little interest, with the exception of the one place we could find alcohol - a Chinese restaurant, run by Portugese speaking Koreans, who were watching a subtitled, English-language version of Garfield, The Movie. After that scary scene we decided to get out of Dodge. The longest train in the world, a mind-boggling 2.7km of locomotive, slowly works its way east from Nouadibou, deep into the Sahara, termintating at a iron-ore mine some 500km away. Hundreds of open top cars transport iron from the mine to the port, save two, which are reserved for the 600 passengers that fight for a small spot on the open floor. You are allowed to ride in the cargo cars for free. For eighteen hours you can inhale a steady stream of iron-flaked dust, which later allows you to cough up all manner of useful hardware. Need a screw? Haaaacckkk!!!. Still, this may be preferable to the crowded passenger cab, spending the better part of a day with your face jammed into someone's armpit at an awkward angle. We waited at the train station - a small, covered, concrete slab at the edge of the desert - for hours on end. This was what they call Africa Time, a zone where the concept of time doesn't really exist. The train comes when the train comes, or it doesn't come at all.



Now I want to remind those of you reading this - especially my mother - that I am alive and well, safe and sound, and have obviously survived the foolish incident which I will now relate. It can be mind-numbing, these hours in the dry desert heat; the brain stews, crucial details evaporate. I'll admit I didn't walk far, and I mostly stuck to some rocks that were protruding from the sand, but I kinda, maybe, sorta took a few hundred steps through the unmarked mine field that is directly west of the train tracks. If it makes anyone feel better, the view was incredible. But as it turned out, they may have been the least of our problems. Due to a long story I haven't the time to tell, we ended up skipping on the train, and essentially skipping the rest of Mauritania. We headed to the capitol of Nouackchott the next day, then south through the desert, to the border with Senegal. The ride was beautiful, we stopped frequently to help out broken down cars and to face Mecca and pray. The sun was setting, a new day would soon come.