November 15, 2007, Bus station in Ayoun el Atrous, Mauritania

The journey by bus from Bamako to Nioro du Sahel was fairly uneventful. A pleasant elder gentleman sat next to me and we chatted in French much of the way. I also occupied my time by swatting mosquitoes with my map of Mali until the window was so much covered with their bloody carcasses that it became difficult to take pictures free of the evidence of their untimely end. As we left Bamako, the terrain changed gradually from larger trees and bushes to more of a savannah environment, punctuated by the occasional baobab tree and its sister tree, apparently called the mobili.

At this desert outpost called Nioro du Sahel, I and a Mauritanian business woman named Amie changed to a car, actually a Mercedes, into which they packed a total of seven people, three in front and four behind. I felt really squished compared to the bus, even though riding in a luxury car. We went through the border and many police checkpoints, also without incident.

Then, we arrived at Ayoun el Atrous and I stayed the night at the Hotel Aioun after some difficulty in changing money with the taxi driver. I wanted to wait until the next morning to change US dollars to Mauritanian Ougiya at the bank. Well, it turned out that the bank only changes Euros and doesn’t accept dollars or even CFA from neighboring Mali. A number of money changers offered me poor rates of exchange until I found one named Mohammed, an insurance guy, who was really the only one serious about changing dollars. He changed at the rate of 220 ougiya to the dollar, the best rate I could find, but I later found out the official rate if more like 260 ougiya to the dollar.

Then, off I went back to the bus station, or garage as they call it here, to find a car for the Tamchekett virage, i.e. the turnout for Tamchekett.