The road to Nouadibou.
Today we set out to take the un-road; crossing the Sahara to get to Nouadibou. We spent the night in Atar at the Auberge Bab Sahara and spoke to some other over-landers who have just come from the route we are hoping to take. They gave us some GPS coordinates from them just to ensure we are on the right path while crossing the desert. The road was straightforward for a while; it was even paved for good deal of the way. Once the road was bumpier, David decided to get off onto the sand and the next thing we knew, we overshot the waypoint of the GPS markers we had. It doesn’t take long to get misdirected in the desert. Luckily, we came across tire marks and followed those until we came across another set that appeared to be main one and thankfully reached the village where the train tracks began. The train tracks will lead us the rest of the way to Nouadibou. From here on, the route is simple, we will camp at the monolith like the over-landers suggested and just continue to follow the tracks until we reach Nouadibou.
Ben Amera, our campsite for the night.
When we arrived at the monolith Ben Amera we set up camp for the night. It is election night in the US and hopefully the shortwave radio will work to let us know the results. It is very windy here and I’m not sure if our poor tent will withstand the pressure. I’m a bit worried. We tried to bury the edges with sand and rocks to keep it secure from blowing away but considering we have only a stick taped to the side of our rod for support I am not sure how the rest of the tent will hold up.
