A couple of days ago we headed south from Nouakchott to the Senegalese border. Southern Mauritania gradually gets a little greener as one travels south which provides a relief from the desolation of the north. We hit the border in Rosso, a famously corrupt crossing point. Immediately we were surrounded by touts wanting to help us through the formalities, change money, sell us car insurance, ask for the contents of our car and generally find other ways to relieve us of the burden of our worldly possessions. We changed money and bought car insurance there (and got ripped off on both as we hadn't done our research up front) before we headed off along a 90km piste to cross the border at Diama, a much quieter and less corrupt crossing point. This didn't cost us any time since the Rosso frontier point closes from 12pm to 3.30pm for (a nice long) lunch. The route also took us through the wetlands alongside the River Senegal and the Djoudj National Park where we saw lots of birds among the reeds and warthogs regularly crossing the piste. The border crossing at Diama was quick and easy (although quite expensive). The whole day got more expensive when we dropped off someone we had given a lift to in Saint Louis, and a cop pulled us over claiming we had done this in an extremely dangerous place (which was absurd). Anyway after threatening furiously to hang on to our papers and send us back into town to pay a fine at the police station, he said that a small cash payment could ease the situation. It was late in the day, we didn't want to drive after dark and we still had a way to go so we relented and paid our first bribe of the trip. The policeman's fury was replaced by handshakes and broad grins as he insisted he was now my best friend. Its a shame to come across this corruption. While it doesn't really affect us too much, it acts as a huge drain on the local economy when almost every transaction is subject to the same costs and uncertainties and so dramatically holds back many African economies.
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