That's me at the Cafe on the Cassa-Dakar
Highway near Chami. This petrol pump cum cafe in the only place to get
diesel and food between in 500 km desert stretch from the Morrocan border
to the Mauritanian Capital Nouakchott. This is one of the most
important road in the world. This is the only paved which connects the
North Saharan Africa to the Sub Sahran Africa. So it’s the only paved road
which crosses the Sahara. The Cairo-Dakar Highway project in the
Trans-African Highway network also passes through Mauritania, and has
recently been paved between the capital Nouakchott and the Moroccan
border, work on which began in 2006.
The Cairo–Dakar Highway is
Trans-African Highway 1 in the transcontinental road network being
developed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA),
the African Development Bank (ADB), and the African Union. The major
part of the highway between Tripoli and Nouakchott has been constructed
under a project of the Arab Maghreb Union. It has a length of 8,636
kilometres (5,366 mi) and runs along the Mediterranean coast of North
Africa, continuing down the Atlantic coast of North-West Africa. It
joins with the Dakar-Lagos Highway to form a north-south route between
Rabat and Monrovia across the Sahara and around the western extremity of
the continent. But the only issue is that the land border between
Morocco and Algeria is closed currently completely, so the Cairo–Dakar
Highway cannot be used in its entirety. That’s why I couldn’t travel by
road from Senegal to Egypt, otherwise it that would have been one hell
of an adventure car drive.
I had to travel the 500 kms from the
border of Morocco at Nouadhibou to Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania in this large
tanker trailer. All North African Arabs take huge quantities of high sugar tea like every two hours. I was wondering how many tea breaks
this trucks driver and h is assistant will take on this journey. But too
my surprise the assistant took out a small stole and a tea pot and made
tea in the moving truck. He had also improvised an empty engine oil can
as trey for setting the tea pot and glasses in a way that they remain
stable while truck is moving. The interesting part is that while
preparing Mauritanian tea, the tea is tossed from great high vigorously
from tea pot to the glass many times to create a thick froth. This guy
was able to do this quite effortlessly in a moving truck.
