Crossing Mauritania with family...
 

I work in Guinea-Bissau with an NGO and will be driving down a new Land Cruiser with my family in July of 2008. I have done the trip before, but am now seeing a lot of news about safety and tourists being targeted in Mauritania. In understand the "official websites" by State Dept and others usually make things a lot more serious than they are. Has anyone crossed the Maroc/Mauritanian border and driven across Mauritania lately? Would bringing my family and kids make me stick out. We plan to spend 2 nights in the country before getting into Senegal. Any thoughts would be welcome.

I presume you would be sticking to the coastal route?

I did the return trip solo on a motorbike in Jan and Feb, despite the dire warnings from the French Foreign Ministry. My thinking was that if the Mauri government couldn't control the coastal tarmac they might as well give up and go home.

The trip was most uneventful, other than running out of fuel.

I have been in RIM for the past two months without incident.

Since the death of the four French tourists at Christmas there has been a heightened security presence which is very noticable. There have also been three widely reported shootings in Nouakchott in the last few weeks - the first two relating to tracking the alleged killers of the French tourists, and the third being a French national who was accidentally shot at the Presidence (allegedly after ignoring security directions).

There are also potential banditry issues near the Malian border.

Despite these high profile incidents, there are generally very few problems in crossing Mauritania and the country is relatively safe.

cheers

jwilson
 

I´m planning on driving the same route in september 2008 with my three kids to stay in Guinea-Bissau for 5-9 months. I saw by your post that you live there and was wondering if you could advice me on where to find accommodation? We would like to rent a house in Bissau or it´s neighbourhood, isn´t it the best place to stay with kids?

reply...
 

I have lived in Guinea-Bissau since 2000. You can usually find a place to rent very easily. If I can be of any help, I can get you my email and I can help you make connections. I have been in contact with the US embassy and some NGO's in Mauritania and none are discouraging the trip across Mauritania. Wish you were coming in July, we could caravan together. I did it once in 2006 and enjoyed it.

I just crossed Mauri from Western Sahara to Senegal. I was with 2 French families in campers (I was on my bike), one of them with a small child. Everything seemed very safe on the coastal route. You can actually do it in one day if you want. I'll post my experiences in this forum in a new post.
Assaf

jwilson
 

Thank you so much for that, I will contact you when we are sure of the dates we will be arriving.
Unfortunately we can´t make the trip in july, we will depart somewhere between august - october :(