Atar & the evil Karim

Reaching Atar at 1pm, it was hot, very hot. No one was outside and it gave a creepy appearance to the town. The pick up left us in the taxi rank and a driver offered to take us out to Chinguetti for 12,000UM we tried to bargain him down; he wasn't having any of it. We knew the price should be 2,000UM a head to get out to Chinguetti another 2hrs away.

We walked to a house where we were told there was a pick up taxi usually waiting to go out to Chinguetti, it was behind the little street market. On arriving there, no one was around and there certainly wasn't a pick up. Armed with a bottle of water each we walked down the main street towards the roundabout and found a little restaurant run by a Moroccan guy from Larache. A good omen for me, I love Larache, a town on the NW coast of Morocco about 2hrs south of Tangiers. We decided to stop there and get something to eat. I was desperate to get my jeans off which had a pair of three-quarter length cotton trousers underneath so I was incredibly hot with the extra layer that I'd donned in NBD just before the train came to keep me warm overnight.

Chilling out at a table in front of the restaurant, Gianni & I were chatting with the owner, Julian had told him that he came from Canada as he was feeling a little insecure to declare himself an American in Mauritania .. with lots of banter going on we didn't see the Mercedes taxi pull up beside us.

Suddenly a large man sat down on the table next to us and starting talking to Gianni, he had a friend with him and a young guy who he told us was 'his driver'. Karim asked us if we wanted to go to Chinguetti, we asked how much and were offered 2,500UM a head with only 4 of us in a taxi. I agreed that if we could have the taxi as a '4-seater' rather than the normal 6-seater then I was prepared to pay the extra 500UM to get out to Chinguetti.

We piled into the taxi ... despite my tiredness I could still count .. there were 5 of us, Gianni had offered me the front passenger seat to give me some leg room, but in the back there was Karim & his friend making the back seat rather squashed for Julian & Gianni. I took umbrage abou this, I told him in no uncertain terms that we had agreed to pay the extra to give us room, Karim's friend suddenly got rather upset with my comments and an argument ensued between him, Karim and I. Gianni joined in as he was in the middle between Karim & Julian and exhausted from not sleeping on the train and was upset I was getting all the flack; Julian of course didn't understand a word of what was going on and was ready to sleep off his lunch. The friend told the driver to stop and jumped out of the car storming off into the dusty streets of Atar.

The whole way to Chinguetti, Karim sat crosslegged on the seat, still making it rather tight for Gianni & Julian, I was feeling rather guilty having the front seat to myself but Gianni wouldn't let me move into the back. We past the police check point with the minimum of fuss and whilst Gianni was gone I suggested that Julian take the middle seat and let Gianni get some sleep beside the window, the retort I got was 'why should I give up my seat?' despite my pointing out that Gianni had been in the same predicament on the train, hence he hadn't slept!