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Mar 14 2008, 02:33 PM
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Ourjeïma, Mauritania
In Mauritania there is a park called “Banc d’Arguin National Park.” It is a World Heritage Site, and like many other World Heritage sites we have visited on our journey, it has a long way to go before one could call it protected. It does, however, offer something that no other national park has that we have been to…vastness.
The “entrance” to the park is a GPS coordinate listed on a small map provided by the park office in the small town 200kms away. This map has a list of GPS coordinates that we tested before we left for the park, of which over 30% of them were incorrect. We knew this going in, but figured that we navigated Mongolia with just binoculars and compasses so with the GPS…how could we go wrong?
The local population is only approximately 500 Imraguen tribesmen that live in seven villages within the park. We visited most of these villages and with so few people inhabiting over 12,000 square kilometers of space with no real infrastructure, it is safe to say you are on your own if something goes wrong. For three days we navigated the park, digging out of sand traps and motoring over sand dunes with a moderately accurate map and a couple of boards to help drive over soft sand.
I would not call this the most stunning or spectacular national park in the world, but it does offer a playground for a real deep in the dunes style Sahara experience. We left the park at the end more dehydrated and dirty than any of us have ever been in our lives, nearly out of gas, with sun and wind burns, but for three days we gave the largest desert in the world our best and came out triumphant., You would think that the similarities between the countries here in West Africa would far outnumber the differences, but for me, nothing could be farther from reality. Driving from Senegal to Mali and most recently into Burkina Faso has been interesting because although the terrain and topography is very similar in the areas we have been, the culture seems miles apart.
Almost immediately after crossing the border from Senegal into Mali, I got a sense that Mali was different. Not that I did not enjoy Senegal, but I immediately got a warm feeling from the people we saw in Mali as we drove down the road and the people we met as we stopped for food and fuel. The same held true when we crossed the border into Burkina. I guess that is why they are different countries… different cultures, different attitudes and different people. Sometimes the change is good, sometimes the change is bad, but if there is one thing that remains constant on this trip, it is that change is never that far down the road.
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