…We decide to leave, but the member of the group, enlisted on board of the bus (Sidi Mohammed -mauro-) has to go to the police to get a document to come back to his Country because his Marocco entry visa is expired… so we go to the police but it is already closed, this is why we are compelled to sleep in Dakhla. We walk around for some hotels, but they are all busy (calling them hotels is a greatest word!), then our “taxi-cab driver – Dj (he has got an incomprehensible name which is summarized with DJ)” suggested to us to sleep at his house…

Really unforgettable experience, like the previous one in Zouia, we found ourselves in the middle of a whole Saharian family eating tajine altogether from the same plate by hand, and then sleeping side by side in the same room… everything was obviously offered (we tried to pay for something, leaving a little contribution at least… but you cannot do it at all… it is their custom!)

The next morning, we wake up at 8.30 a.m. and Sidi is already at the police station, we have breakfast (cuddling by the nigger mother of the family) and then we reach him there…

Also a woman and her baby join the car… we leave and at noon we are in the middle of the desert with our car BURNED OUT!

At that point, to briefly summarize:

1. We fuse the car and Gianni and I are the only worried ones… the driver and Sidi look after preparing some tea, the mum hits her child, the child pesters

2. A green jeep arrives with two armed people on board, I look at Gianni and state “Ok, mate, it’s over, it has been a pleasure… we are officially kidnapped”, instead two (real) soldiers - we do not know how they could see us - get out, but they are here to help us; they split their sides with laughter for our situation and then they bring us some water to put in the burned car radiator

3. We stop a car and make safe the woman and the child at least who part from us to reach the frontier

4. temperature: 30°C

5. we keep on working on the car with my swiss pocket-knife (awesome), and we “remedy the failure”

6. it is a “quote” repair, in fact after a kilometre the temperature warning light jolts upward above 120°C (I suggest to prepare a tea without light the blazer up)!

7. from the air vents inside the car a smelly smoke comes out from the engine that is definitely fucking itself up!

8. the car stops again and we remain until 7 p.m. preparing tea with the car smoking (we are in the middle of the desert!)

9. we leave again, going ahead by fits and starts doing long stretches with the keys took off and the engine turned out to avoid burning everything

10. we reach (thanks to Allah) the frontier, place that I would not wish; among truck drivers and adventurers Gianni and I are the only white ones, night spent frozen and really uncomfortable inside the car (broken)

11. waking up before the sunrise, last attempt – in vain – to revive the deceased car and never-ending tailback at the frontier with Mauritania

12. frontier cross. Taxi-cab change and other 6 hours to Nouadibou

Mauritania is truly a desert land, an absolute desert, flat, devoid of any life form apart from some rare camel… at noon it is so hot that you can die and a unique road (paved) that cuts, like a black snake, the infinite flat yellow surface of Sahara… above a sky that turns light-blue from white… very suggestive.