There are three newspapers in The Gambia. The Observer, which is still active, The Point, whose editor was shot dead last year (still ‘under investigation’) and The Independent, which has been shut down by the government.

Fourth day: I join Lamin, a neighbor in Mile Seven, to a small beach in town. Despite the clean water and the beach’s central location, it is completely deserted. It is enclosed by high, vertical cliffs, clothed in a lush green vegetation – an amazing sight only five minutes walk from town.

On our way home from the beach, we decide to buy a kilo of fish at a nearby harbor. After buying the fish, we learn that there has been a power failure for some time. There is no ice, and the haul might go bad in the heat unless the workers find ice shortly. So with us home comes a procession of four or five fishermen, each of them bringing a wheelbarrow to Mile Seven. There, most residents have their own generators, thus electricity and thus ice.

In the evening, after having grilled and eaten the fish, I and Lamin walk out to a nearby road and lie down on the tar. We chat for hours. I don’t know why we lay down in the middle of the road to chat – maybe it was a good, private place to be at, or maybe it was that the open space and faint breeze made us less disturbed by mosquitoes.

We cross the border to The Gambia – as swift and easy as the last one – and reach Banjul in the afternoon. Banjul is the country’s small capital, with a population of only half million. We continue some ten or so kilometers further south to Bakau – a suburb of the capital. There, Cheikh – a man we met a few days earlier in Senegal – has put us in contact with a friend of him: Commissioner Jallow of the Gambia Police Force. Jallow lives in Mile Seven, a residential area residing almost none else than military and police officers. We get to camp behind Jallow’s house, and stay for four nights – get a lot done (e.g. visa to Nigeria) and enjoy good times with Jallow, his family and his neighbors.

We once again camp in a small, roadside village. We are directed to the chief’s compound. The chief himself is not present, but his younger brother gives us permission to stay, and we pitch our tents on the open yard between the houses. They give us a bucket with water to shower with. A piece of fresh watermelon is another gift – it seems to be in season as they have plenty of it.

Here, like in so many other villages that we’ve passed the past days, they use solar power for light. In many towns and villages, we’ve also seen small, self-supporting phone booths, driven by solar energy and connected to the world by a satellite mast on the roof. It’s cool to see these villages that have developed from having no electricity at all directly to solar energy, thus skipping the bulky and costly work of building cable grids. Those villages are the future concretized – a long-term and durable society in the middle of the Africa that many people think of as undeveloped and old-fashioned.

We continue south through a Senegal less busy and for us more pleasant, than the country we met along the N2 north of Dakar. At times, the silence is complete. I remember one occasion, when men had gathered around a wooden gaming table by the roadside. They were playing games at midday, when the heat doesn’t admit much work. When I cycled past them, I could hear the faint sound as the dice fell to the board. Then again, complete silence as if in space.

From Fatick, we detour on a smaller road closer to the coast. It takes us through desolate, wide open wetlands. A few palm trees rise from the else low vegetation. By five p.m., we finally see a hut by the roadside. We meet three young men there who allow us to camp next to their dwelling. They’re brothers and work together in the surrounding fields. Apart from the agricultural farming, they also have some cows and goats – the latter ones corralled inside a simple enclosure of branches. The walls of their hut are made of straws. The roof is thatched. The sinking sun tints the surroundings in a beautiful, golden light. A lone wolf howls.

The brothers share us some of their water, which they’ve brought in bright yellow plastic jars – presumably from Fatick. We cook pasta for dinner; the brothers eat rice. We tried to offer them some of the pasta, but they said that only rice is good enough for them to manage the heavy labour in the fields. They cook the rice in a big, sooty cast iron kettle over an open fire.

After we’ve eaten, I go to lie down in my tent and write. I’m safe harbored from the mosquitoes outside, but still able to see through the net (no flysheet). Starry night. The crickets sing. On a cart, the brothers sit in the moonlight, chatting. A lone spark glows from the dying fire.

We leave around eight after having a cup of coffee. Bruno gives us some of the family’s homegrown bananas for the road.

In Mbour, we find an Internet café where we stop to surf a little, burn pictures on DVDs and make lunch. While the owner of the café burns the DVDs for us, we set up our multi fuel kitchen on the sidewalk outside and make lunch. Anyway, the burning ends up taking much more time than expected, so we leave only just past five in the afternoon. Just a few kilometers later, we start looking for a good place to camp.

We meet Cheikh in his Jeep, parked by the roadside. “Follow my car,” he says, and shortly after we’ve reached his family’s compound and pitched our tents. Cheikh turns out to be a traveled man, working at a radio station in Mbour. He is also doing an interesting project in the same town, in which he constructs a typical village compound. His plan is to use it in education together with screenings, concerts, etc. A kind of culture centre, that looked quite promising when we visited it the following day. Cheikh had a great energy!

In Keur N’Diaye Lô, we visit Bruno. We met him just after crossing the border between Western Sahara and Mauritania, and he invited us to his home nearby Rufisque (about 20 km from the capital Dakar). He was born in France but now lives here in Senegal with his Senegalese wife and their children. We have a great time together, and are served some of the most amazing Senegalese food – something out of the ordinary. A variety of vegetables and fish covers the usual bed of spiced rice. On top of their two-story house, Bruno has built a roof terrace. We stay there and chat until late at night, and then sleep side by side on mattresses under the stars.

On our second day, I go to the small village’s center to get a haircut. The hairdresser is not present, but someone goes to fetch him when I arrive. The small (about two square meters) tin shack is just big enough to accommodate a chair for me to sit on and the hairdresser standing. Along the walls, narrow shelves carry the necessities like scissors, razors and sprays. The walls are covered with various wallpapers – most of them Barça and Ronaldinho. In excitement over having cut a toubab’s (white man) hair for the first time – and with good result, too – he shakes my hand at least a dozen times before we part. His wide smile is infectious; I find it difficult to leave. To visit a hairdresser here is so much more than just getting ones hair cut – it’s also a meeting with a new friend.

When we wake up, everyone in the village is busy cleaning up – they even pick up rubbish from the streets. As we continue south, we see more signs of the approaching fête. In almost every village, groups of men stand gathered around a recently slaughtered cow. Some of them fiercely chop it with big axes; others cut it with machetes that they’ve sharpened against the tarred roadside. It is the big fête – the end of Ramadan. In Pout, I’m waved in behind a fruit stall. There, a man gives me some meat stew with bread as I wait for Lina.

Lina comes, and a short way further up the road, a man once again waves at us from the roadside. He sits together with some friends behind his butcher stall, and we are invited to make them company. They invite us to share three (!) different dishes, one after the other. First a bowl of couscous, a spicy, oily sauce, pieces of meat and lots of onions. Then another meat stew with bread, and finally a meat stew with macaroni. Soon, we’ve been invited to stay overnight, too. We join the man through the village to his home.

The radio plays cheerful music from Guinea-Bissau, and later a live recording with Jimmy Cliff. Between his two white plastered houses is a small open courtyard. It is, unlike most around here, covered with green grass. There are also a couple of banana plants, two big mango trees and a passion fruit plant, even though none of them bear ripe fruit at this time. Most Africans tend to keep their yards clean from verdure and instead only let there be dirt or sand, as the damp setting is also the where mosquitoes (and with them malaria) thrive. Another dinner is served in-between rounds of strong tea. It’s a great atmosphere!

We eat lunch in the village where the current president was born more than 80 years ago. On a small porch outside a shop, we sit down to cook our food. But – as usual here in Senegal – we are asked by the shop owner for ‘donations’ as we pack up to leave, since “we’ve used his porch.” That is despite us buying several groceries from him. The children shout “kado” (gift) and “bic” (pencil) after us. We don’t give anything – it is better to support those who work – but the nagging is still tiresome.

In a small village, we are allowed to camp on an elder man’s compound. Once again, we are assumed to give something in return. When they see something they’d like to have, they just point at it and say, “Give me that!” Intrusive, to say the least. The road along the coast has obviously seen way too many tourists through the years.

The border crossing is almost too easy to be true. There are none of the insistent salesmen and money changers that usually swarm around borders, and the Mauritanian immigration is helpful. It doesn’t take long for one of them to go inside the office and stamp our passports – possibly eager to resume the chatting and tea-drinking with his comrades by a table outside.

On the other side of the Diama bridge, we even have to wake up the Senegalese counterpart (immigration). There is no police or customs. The door to a small house opens up and an immigration officer peaks out – his eyes barely open. As Swedish we don’t need a visa, but he gives us our entry stamp. Soon, the man has returned inside the house and closed the door – as suddenly as he first came out – and we must lift the road barrier ourselves to finally be able to enter the country.

As we continue, we are met by the most wonderful green you can imagine, not the least after months of just sand or at best a few bushes. Sounds of countless birds and insects fill the fresh, clean air. The rainy season has just ended, so the difference couldn’t have been more obvious. A sudden change for us in only a couple of days.

We cash out some CFA (a common currency used in many West and Central African nations) at an ATM in St Louis. It’s a beautiful city, but the romantic image is lacerated as we pass the outskirts of town, where a group of children sniff thinner by the beach.

Here in Senegal, people constantly ask for money, pencils, or even our bicycles. From the kids on the street, which is acceptable, to the owner of the shop in front of which we just cooked our food after being invited. Tiresome!

In Barale Ndiaye, we meet French couple Elise and Brieg (www.unmondeavelo.blogspot.com – French). They are also cycling, but shorter stretches divided up on more or less every continent. Senegal to France will be their last, final leg on their tour. Together with some goats, chickens and birds, we camp on a family’s compound in the small village. It’s good to exchange experiences from the road; tips and ideas.

Thanks to the wetlands just north and the Sénégal River south, the route to Diama is well known amongst bird watchers. We meet a group of almost a dozen tourists from Germany and Switzerland, coming the other way in 4×4 cars. They show great enthusiasm about our trip; give us cookies and water. “May I take a photo? May I?” one of them asks. Seemingly deeply honored, she then snaps us with her small compact camera, strapped safely with a cord from her wrist.

We stay the night in Bohaira, a small village not far from our intended border crossing to Senegal.

Summary Mauritania

In the same way that Western Sahara resembled Morocco, Mauritania resembled Western Sahara. Again friendly, hospitable people, good food and straight roads through a flat landscape of sand, gravel and stones. And again even more sparsely populated; more desolate. Further distances between the villages. Cities like towns, towns like villages and villages just a few houses. Higher dunes. We experienced our very first sandstorm – although “not even half a real one” as a more experienced Dutchman we then traveled with told us.

In the southern half of the country, the gradual change from the dry Sahara to the bushy landscape of the south gave us a hint on the lush green that would meet us by the other side of the Sénégal River.

Anyway the desolate desert lands are so much more than the sandy, monotonous landscape one imagines. There is a wonderful calm and serenity. A physical simplicity that helps one find a certain peace of mind. The environment is the very opposite of our cluttered society where the materialism and the TV ends up being more important than our own thoughts.

It is a choking hot day once again. We stop to inquire for cold bottled water at most of the many small shops along the way, but without any luck. The least hot water we finally find, is in a shop where the fridge thermometer shows 27 degrees Celsius. But the water still feels cold compared to the heat in the sun outside, and our water on the bicycle frame that is by that time almost boiling hot after several hours in the sun.

Up to Rosso, the wind is against us. In Rosso is the main border to Senegal. Boats bring passengers across the mighty Sénégal River, which continuously constitutes the border between the two countries. We decide to cycle a detour – we take a small road west that follows the river on the Mauritanian side, until it meets the Atlantic Ocean. The small road – or rather roads – isn’t tarred, and follows a big dike. The surface of packed but soft mud is comfortable to ride. It is even fun, like in a video game, to cycle crisscross between the potholes; trying to find the best track.

About 15 km down the road, we start looking for a place to hatch. We depart from the road and moves into a small village. The sandy alleys are so deep that we get stuck when we try to pedal; we have to push the bicycle. At a small kiosk, we ask where we can camp. The man behind the desk refers us to the village chief. In front of the kiosk is an open ground, and on the other side is the chief’s house. We find the chief himself outside, sitting on a blanket in the shadow of a tree; resting. We repeat our enquiry for a place to camp, and get permission to pitch our tents on an inner yard of an adjacent house. The compound seems to be the usual place to stay for guests and travelers that pass by. It is enclosed by a high, concrete wall. Inside on the yard are three tall eucalyptus trees, reaching far higher than the wall, sending their fresh scent through the evening air. Beneath on the ground, they lay out a large mat for us to pitch our tents on.

“Rice with fish at eight o’clock,” says the elder man that has been chosen by the chief to be our host. And eight o’clock it is – one of the best meals I’ve ever had. Homegrown rice, fried crispy in a mix of tasty spices. On top of the bed of rice is a big piece of fresh fish from the nearby Sénégal River. The younger man that shares the food with us (possibly the son of the our elder host), tells us that his family harvests 1,200 kilos of rice each year. The food, the ethnicity (Wolof) and the climate already feels Senegalese – we just haven’t crossed the border yet. Watermelon for dessert.

After we’ve finished the food, we quickly get into our tents because of the many mosquitoes. We’ve now entered the malarial part of the continent, and have to stay a bit more careful. W won’t be able to relax fully again until northern Namibia.

As I turn my torch off, a thousand other lights emerge above me. The stars are so bright. I lie on my back in the tent and looking up at the eternity above. The stars almost fall down upon my face and my body; the ground lifts towards the sky. It feels as if I can stretch my hand out and touch them. So close. Beautiful!

After a rest day in the capital, during which we also apply for and receive our Mali visa without any problems, we make an early morning start on our continued journey southward. The Dutch group decided to stay another day in the capital. Not much further south we start seeing green grass and bushes. They cover much of the sand, and contributes to a cleaner air; it gets more easy to breath. The number of villages also grow as we move south. Soon, they are rarely more than five kilometers apart.

After some 90 km’s, we stop for lunch at a small roadside shop. Inside, three women cook a stew of camel meat and potatoes, but they let us use their gas kitchen for a while to boil pasta. An elder man stands behind the desk. Everyone is laughing a lot, there is joy and friendliness. The women go outside and hide around the corner of the shop to smoke cigarettes – at midday during Ramadan. The Mauritanians are definitely less strict than the Moroccans when it comes to religion. The owner of the camping in Nouakchott, who was born in Morocco, even complained about his local staff, “They drink alcohol, and eat pork!” It is a bit awkward since this country as opposed to Morocco is named an Islamic Republic, and to some extent even has implemented sharia (Islamic religious) laws.

We reach small village Elejama. Not that far from the road is a grand, square tent, placed on a sandy ground in-front of the actual village. Two of its four sides are open; the canvas rolled up towards the roof. Inside are a lot of people; the atmosphere is lively. We are invited to stay the night by the family that lives there. The evening goes by with a constant flow of friends and relatives coming and going. From the outside, it looks like a simple tent that most people would pass without noticing, but inside it is full of life. We are given tea; socialize.

Mamoune is our best friend in the tent. He is twenty-one years old and studies economics in the capital. We are served great food: first a meal of potatoes, onions and camel meat, and then an hour past midnight rice with mutton. Again tea. Like usual around here, we eat together from a big, common plate. A bowl with water and a soap is passed between us before each meal, and we wash our hands. A friend of Mamoune lights up the food with his cell phone’s weak, blueish screen light. “A white torchlight would attract too many bugs,” he explains. And even though there are a lot of bugs around, at least there are no sandflies or mosquitoes like in the capital. We sleep well on the carpets that cover the floor.

We decide to join the Dutch group further and further south in the good, north wind. During a large part of the day, the wind is so forceful, and contains so much sand, that it feels like half a sandstorm – for one that has never experienced a real one.

After 165 kilometers, we are forced to separate from the group. They have skipped lunch – just eaten sandwiches and energy bars – while we needed real food. We finally find a small wooden shack by the roadside twenty kilometers further up the road. We cook some spaghetti, take a well-deserved break, before we continue our bid for reaching the capital.

We arrive two hours after the group, just as dusk falls and the evening prayers ring out from the many mosques of sandy, dusty Nouakchott. The group applauds us as we enter the camping ground – maybe needed to regain some lost energy for the evening. They also treat us with a delicious dinner.

Today’s stretch became the longest that we’ve ever cycled during one day, although much thanks to the strong, north wind.

Midday, a Dutch group of cyclists catches up on us. Their two support trucks, with food and most of their luggage, pass by first. “Will you join us for coffee up the road,” asks a smiling lady, stretching out of the car window. “We’ll be waiting about twenty km further on,” she adds as we accept the invitation.

When we reach, the ‘crew’ has already parked the two trucks parallel to each other. Between them, they’ve tightened a big white canvas, and in the shade underneath a group of comfy camping chairs make a circle around a pile of drinks and snacks. Soon, the group of more than a dozen cyclists arrive. They begun cycling in the Netherlands, and hope to reach Ghana in a few months’ time. The project “Fietsen voor Onderwijs” (www.fietsenvooronderwijs.com) is a private initiative to raise money for various NGO projects in Africa, but particularly in Ghana.

It is a beautiful mix o people, between the ages of 35 and 69. After the break we join them a bit further, and camp together 20 kilometers further south. When we reach, the site is once again already set up. They camp just by the roadside, far from any village or house – making it a new experience for me and Lina.

We are served chili con carne for dinner, and the group has even bought some wine at the black market in Nouadhibou (alcohol is illegal to sell in this Islamic Republic). Come night, everyone has pitched their tents except me and one of the cyclist who have decided to sleep outside on mattresses – too lazy to put our tents up I guess. But the strong wind blows up a lot of sand into the air. The sand literally piles up by the side of my body, like small dunes, and my scarp isn’t much help in trying to keep it away from my eyes, nose and mouth. I don’t get much peace for sleep, but it’s cool to listen to the wind; the desert nightlife.

Before we leave, the customs officers give us six (!) large baguettes to bring with us. If you are for once invited by officials (police, customs, doctors, military) in Africa, it seems that they always turn out to be amongst the most generous of hosts. It is as if they feel an obligation, as the country’s officially employed, to show the good face of their country. Whatever the reason it is nice!

Shadow at noon

By noon, we halt by a group of houses that line the road. A row of several barracks stretch along the road. In each of them is one or a few rooms. One of them hosts a small shop, but the prices are close to double those of Nouadhibou. We wait to shop until the next petrol station or larger village, where prices are often better.

Attached to one of the barracks is a big canopy, and underneath it on the sand is a carpet. It is a place of shadow, perfect for a short rest and to wait at for the midday heat to pass. A weak breeze occasionally cools the skin. We boil some pasta for lunch. A bit later, some local men come to do their prayers at the same place. We move to one of the carpet’s corners, but are able to stay inside the shade. If we would have to enter the sun, we’d been better of to continue cycle. It is unbearably hot to stand still under the sun, but the breeze when cycling cools down a little.

The air is so hot and dry that my shorts rustle like paper when I move. A few meters away, on the straight, flat road, cars – mostly Mercedes – rush past fast. One every ten minutes maybe. Rarely enough to break a silence; often enough to create a kind of rhythm.

Desert rain

In Chelkha, we stop by the petrol station. The village is small – seemingly a quite new settlement – and the petrol station even so new that some people in Nouadhibou didn’t know about it yet. There are so few stations along the road, that if a new one comes it usually doesn’t take many days from that the first truck has passed until the rumor of the new station has spread to the cities.

The station is owned by a father and his son. As the sun sets, they walk out together to the roadside. There they turn towards Mecca and pray. Earlier, the son sang out a prayer over the small village; towards the dark sky above – grey-blue clouds closing in from the East.

We tell the owners that we intend to cook some spaghetti for dinner, and ask if they want some too. Instead they give us spaghetti from their shop, which they prepare in their own way. Cooked in small pieces and then fried together with dried camel meat, pieces of potatoes and some onion. They show a warm hospitality, and believe it or not but spaghetti with camel meat was delicious!

We sleep on our mattresses just outside the stations small shop, under the open sky. The father and his son also sleep outside, on beds which they’ve brought outside. There is a little rain during the evening and early night, but just a few drops – nicely cooling on the face. They evaporate from the day-heated ground almost as quickly as they fall. I lie down to rest; cover my face with a scarf against the wind and the sand that it carries. We are given tea. There is a beautiful mix of low, distinct sounds. The whining wind and some crickets’ assiduous chirping at distance. The crackling from the radio and the charcoal grill. And the tranquil sound as the father pours tea back and forth between the small glasses. A soft, quick gurgle – a sound like waves reaching land.