Rosso

Cross the Senegal river and enter Senegal at one of West-Africa´s most dangerous border crossings? We´re naive enough to give it a shot ...

In an attempt to feel the real Africa we want to cross the Senegal River by ourselves, without any of the other teammates. Our road book gives us two options: Cross the river in Rosso, a town renowned to be run by touts, bandits, and con-artists, or head 100 km further down the river to Diamia Dam, where the crossing is supposed to be much less dangerous. For both locations it suggests going in a convoy to reduce the danger.

Since we are not of the faint-hearted we decide to go alone, and at least have a look at Rosso. If we feel it is too dangerous we can always continue to Diama Dam. Worst case we wait for the others to arrive. At least that is the plan.

In Rosso the customs area is locked off by a big metal gate, behind which several customs offices and the ramp for the ferry are located. To get to Senegal we only have to take the 10 minute ferry ride. The first thing that happens as we stand in front of the metal gate is that a police officer asks us for our passports, which we hand to him. Next he opens the gate and gives the papers to a very untrustworthy looking fellow, who immediately shouts orders at us. How does he know what we want? And how did our passports get into the hands of a stranger so quickly? We are overwhelmed. Mario tries to talk to him in French, and gets a price quote for getting us through customs and across the river. The price is in Senegalese currency, and have no idea how much it is. The guy with our passports pressures us as the last ferry for today will be arriving soon. After some calculations the price seems to correspond to what our road book states, and even though things don´t feel right we agree to let our guide help us.

We are let into the gate, and within minutes the "guide" - escorted by Mario - has our papers ready: Our exit visa out of Mauritania, and the car insurance for Senegal. The visa for Senegal we will get on the other side. It is too good to be true, but after paying only 19.000 CFA - roughly 30 Euros - and waiting only 20 minutes we are already crossing the Senegal. This is a breeze in comparison to our last border crossing, and the border-crossing nightmare described in our road book for Senegal. Even though we are still uneasy about our guide we feel great about daring to cross over at the "infamous Rosso."

After seven days of wild camping without shower or alcohol, the Zebrabar - the hailed campsite just across the border in Senegal - was within the grasp of our hands. Soon we would be sitting on some porch in rocking chairs, still wet from the refreshing shower, sipping on ice cold beer, and telling wild stories about our treacherous crossing.

Our little dream bursts into pieces once we get off the ferry. Our guide leads us into a customs office, where he is joined by two other shady fellows to quote us a price for the customs escort. In Senegal, it is illegal to import and sell a car that is older than five years. To enforce this law tourists entering the Senegal with a car older than that need to be accompanied by a customs escort, a guy who stays with you and the car as long as you are in this country. Very strange concept.

The road book quotes a price of 35 Euros for the customs escort, while our gangster trio comes up with an official price of 240.000 CFA, which after some calculation comes out to 340 Euros. Great prospects: We have already paid the exit fee from Mauretania, left Mauritania, paid the ferry, bought Senegalese car insurance, and bought the visa to enter Senegal, and now this incredible escort fee will keep us away from our well-deserved beers.

Unable to pay the escort our only choice is to turn around and take the ferry back. As we get off the ferry in Rosso we thank the guide and try to give him 10 Euros for his troubles when things turn sour. He gets angry, accuses us of trying to trick him out of money, and soon we are surrounded by a gang of other guides putting pressure on us. Our guide now wants us to pay 140 Euros for the exit fee for Senegal, the ferry, the entrance visa to Mauritania, and his expenses. Surrounded by this angry mob we get a bit frightened, and Mario walks over to a police man sitting close by. A brilliant idea, except the police man agrees with our guide about the sum to be paid. Remembering back this was probably the same police man who gave our passports to the guide in the first place.

To get us out of this mess we pay the money demanded, and take off as quickly as possible out of this bandit town. Thank God we´re alive and well!

We are worried that the mob will rob us if we stay in Rosso, but a drive back to Nouakchott is impossible, as the sun is already going down. Our last option is to head over to the Diama Dam somehow. The road book explains that the road to Diama is very hard to find, as it doesn´t look like a road at all for the first kilometer or so, and certainly doesn´t have a sign pointing towards Diama:

At waypoint N16° 30.900' W15° 48.866' there is a Naftec petrol station on the right. Turn to the right (south of) after it. Turning off the main road involves driving down a fairly steep dirt track slope that is rutted from past rainwater run-off. It looks as if it goes nowhere but proceed at 90° to the main road with a wall on your left and the Naftec station on your right. (...)

We try to follow the instructions in the book to the letter, but there just is no road to find, and we feel our mob closing in on us. By now the night is pitch black, and we start driving aimlessly across the fields next to the main road. We get out the compass, as the Diama road should be pointing exactly west, but all the dirt tracks we are able to get to point somewhere else. Because we keep getting lost we place items on the road so we can recognize if we have been somewhere before. It helps, and finally after about two hours driving aimlessly about we are pretty confident we are on the right track.

The dirt track is very hard to drive on, because there is not a single track to follow. At all times there are multiple tracks next to each other, some on top of the dam, some on the side of it, or even up to 20 feet into the bushes. It looks like Africans make a new track every time the original dirt road has been washed away by heavy rains. While this bears a challenge when driving during the day, it makes our ride a nightmare in the dark night.

If we find a piece of track to drive on we are constantly slowed down by potholes of various sizes, some as big as the car itself. Around midnight we hit one particularly big hole and the car stops. Suddenly there is silence. The darkness all around us creeps in, and the car won't start again. This is great, since we're both not very good with cars. We open the hood and have a look. The whole air filter sitting on top of the carburetor has come off, and it does not look good from the little I can recognize.

Just as we try to asses the damage we hear a truck coming up for behind, the only car we have heard or seen on the whole drive to Diama. Immediately I get out the pepper spray my brother gave me for the trip. We turn off all the lights and pray this is not the angry mob from Rosso. An old Mercedes van stops next to us, and three fellows get out. To our relief they are not the guys from Rosso, and just want to help us. I explain to them what I found out, and they find a piece of old wire in their car to attach the air filter back. To my amazement it works and thanks to their help we can continue our tour.

Two hours later we think we arrived in Diama, but the darkness engulfs everything. We cannot see whether there are houses or other roads besides the one we are on, so we decide to hide the car in the bushes and sleep inside the vehicle. We are still worried, but at one time we do fall asleep after an exciting day.

tags: Plymouth-Banjul, Rallye, Paris-Dakar, Rosso