Mauritanian "Dakar"
– Traveler;
– Photographer;
– Computer network specialist;
– Candidate of Biological Sciences.
Punched by the study of high-mountain ecosystems, travel photography and human behavior in extreme environmental conditions.
The reason for the abolition of the rally served as the murder of Islamic terrorists of four French tourists on December 24 on the territory of Mauritania, where the eight stage of the race was scheduled. Some of the stages of the Moorish part of the route were designed specifically for the anniversary raid.
Next year Racing organizers decided to transfer it from the sands of Africa in South America. And Moorish special workers remained not passed by the participants of the famous rally. Well, let’s try to fix this annoying omission and go through the uncompressive route of the Thirtieth Dakar in the most difficult area of Mauritan Sahara, from the town of Atar in the north to Tijiki in the south.
We start our way from Morocco – and atar have to get on the freight train from the coastal nouadhib. The train is considered the longest in the world, although it happens only sometimes. When several accumulated compositions with ore are knocked down into one echelon, knocking off the clock on the jokes of the rail for three kilometers. But even the standard version of the train seems to be an endless ribbon ribbon steel, a curly thin jet of the sand-made deserted hills.
Car – cans with demolished partitions and a narrow bench around the perimeter of the room. Women, children and old people lie on the floor, underwing the blankets. Guys are trying to try to stay on the bench, but with a sharp braking of the train, it is not all possible. However, falling low and it seems to be all.
Night. False beep locomotive came simultaneously with the cod of braking cars. I, already in a habit, clung to the bench, hoping not to fall from a hard bed at the moment of impact. Push – and composition measurement among ringing silence station noise. Outside, only a couple of dilapidated horses were seen from the side of the driving path, on which there was a loaded composition.
A couple of moments and silence exploded the roar of the engines of the SUVs, shut up right between the paths. Looks like we were waiting. That’s just wishing to leave this desert half-hour to the nearest town turned out to be a bit – a man ten – and local cabins decided to die for it only one car. Six – in the salon, four – outside, on drawers and Baulas.
People quickly climb inside the car, because no one wanted to go outside under the cold wind of the night desert, but there are five ours in the temperature in a plus and we will calmly climbed into the trunk. Together with a couple of shared aborigines.
Sunrise, definitely, did not rush to please us with sunlight – we rushed with the breeze on the canyon for a long time of the river and the Mauritians from the cold shook. My legs are completely bored, and under the back some kind of piece of iron, pushing the intermons with every push. And the shocks, in sensations, happened more and more.
– Long before Atar?
– Insahalla somewhere. By the way, we are going on the Rally Dakar Rally.
"Oh how!"I was very surprised: it seems we will pass even a more complete route of the race than originally assumed.
Atar – the local district center and the stronghold of civilization on a hundred kilometers in the district – arose suddenly, painting the fresh asphalt, broken Mercedes and the unchanged garbage in the corners of the streets. However, as it turned out, asphalt was able to boast only a couple of highways. Well, okay: we still need to move on – in the town of Shingetti, from where the true off-road begins to the south. After a rapid and long bargaining managed to take the car and even at the same time to be in the cabin. And, of course, in a couple of kilometers a car broke ..
The driver was doomed to the mobile phone tube and became leisurely, but integrally express the situation. From the tube came the eall "Inshala" and our driver satisfiedly fell silent. We prepared to wait.
The tog came, surprisingly, quickly: we moved to another car – the old, but a strong jeep, whose driver carefully asked about our travel goals. Did we know then that this car will be our home for the next few days? Of course not. But chance, they say not accidental.
Shinetti. Abdurahman – a welcoming host of the campsite – with truly Moorish tranquility heard our wishes on the route later trip.
– Complex route. Used to go only on camels. Week or a little more. Now on a verified jeep you can drive for three-four days. Lucky, so as not to handle the car. Of course, if there is a barrel of fuel, drinking water and competent conductor.
We silently silent heads and, nele, we disappear by the thief of the tap of tea. The conclusion of the transaction is a serious deal to which it is worth treating with due respectful and leisureness. And a tea ceremony – a constant attribute of this action. Basil and mint in the composition of the Moorish tea makes the perception, and the abundance of sugar in the liquid makes the thoughts move a little agreed.
– I have such a person: he brought you here from Atara. And I will give to help the boy – he will prepare a simple couscous and help in the economy.
So, it was decided: four people, a proven Toyotovsk jeep, fuel reserve, food – and we are ready to meet the desert. A little trading, knocking down the price (without bargaining there is no pleasure, say Arabs) and lay out bills on carpets. Mauritians have money acceptance means making a deal, after which it is necessary to fulfill all the terms of the contract. Therefore, payment here is produced in advance and immediately. Even if you, for example, sit down in a taxi – you pay up to the trip, and not on the fact of arrival to the destination. Such an approach for us is unusual, but in someone else’s monastery with its charter do not go and we rely on the honesty of our Moorish partners.
Morning. One and a half hours the go on the rocky road, cleared by the grader, and the jeep leaves south of virgin virgin blackened stones from the sun. At the local deserts of the country Tarb-El-Bididan – namely, the names of the native of the Aborigines – a special smell. The smell of oblivion. It is difficult to imagine that at the time of the famous traveler Ibn Battuta, who has passed with caravans in 1352, has reigned Savannah here, and fortified Xaras stood along the transbsharic paths – medieval caravan trade and enlightenment centers. Some of them – Waudan, Shinetti, silence and Ualat – still stand, from the last strength while holding the upcoming dunes by the walls of empty houses.
Sugar comes at a speed of six to tens of kilometers per year, filling with sand stone ledges and narrow streets between old buildings sometime flourishing villages. Big camel caravans went to the past and the pilgrims of Maghreb countries no longer enter here on their way to Mecca. Only the wind of the memories remained, the stone of the dilapidated walls and thousands of handwritten works, carefully stored in private libraries.
Old, but strong jeep quietly moving through the stone hell, accelerating only on sandy areas. Our young assistant pops out from the car with each change of coating and disperse with the coupling of the front drive, forcing the wheels to move synchronously in a viscous sand or, on the contrary, allowing at least somehow crawling among the rages of the winds licked by the wind. I can not even imagine how you can drive almost 700 kilometers of this off-road over two days – namely so much time is allocated to this area in the rally "Dakar". Now it is clear why the race in the sands of Mauritania is always a turning point and why at this stage the backlog from the leaders of the race is measured in hours – there are no roads, but there are no detailed cards: the crawling dunes here are in continuous movement and choose the path only to the eye. In memory immediately comes the case of 2004, when the Leader of the Siril Dew Rally on a similar route dismissed from the course and for an hour moved incorrectly, because of what he lost all the chances to win the race.
We needed four days to get to the town of Tijik. And in the sultry shine of each half a day when the camels seek to hide in a scanty shadow of naked rocks or rare trees when salty sweat corrosive, and any stop of the car causes instant stool in an overheated salon – it seemed to us that we were in one of the circles of hell. But it was worth only the sun bent over the horizon and highlight the raspberry chain – the long-awaited coolness fell on these sandy lands, and the landscape was saturated with paints and mysticism. It was at these moments that the sugar struck our hearts forever, forcing something mysterious and inaccessible in every weathered form of relief, surprising the imagination of the majestic power of the natural element.
They say the desert changes man. After you see the dawn above the sugar, raw with hot air and you absorb the feeling of the eternity of this earth – I agree: it is impossible to stay the same as before. Those who once took a journey through Sahara, becomes part of this vast space and necessarily returns here. Again and again. And even more so it is a pity that the Rally "Dakar" seems no longer returns to the African Earth, although it seems to me that it is here, in the sugar sands, his potential was completely revealed. But this, I hope, will not prevent restless travelers to arrange their own Moorish "Dakar".
