Day 18. Into Nouakchott.

Up at dawn for a quick breakfast and decide what to do with the Pajero. It was decided that Kiss the Gurus would tow it to Nouakchott, but Sidi wanted to try and get it going. We found that if we could get it moving it could just manage under it's own steam. After about 2km we reached tarmac, which was a hell of a relief. We then set off for Nouakchott, the Pajero covering about 70km under it's own steam, before the clutch finally died and it had to be towed the rest of the way. We reached a hotel called sahara Auberge just before lunch and all sat down with relief and ordered coffee. After this rest we set about tidying up our cars and sorting any problems. Our car was still running perfectly apart from a bit of wheel wobble and uneven tyre wear on a front wheel. The hotel had rooms, a roof terrace with tents and 2 rooms on the roof. Rachael and I opted for the privacy of the room on the roof terrace. After lunching on tagine, we whiled away the afternoon, whilst John and Andy tried to find someone to repair their clutch. They finally decided it was going to cost more than they were prepared to spend, and they were able to sell the car to Sidi, our guide, for about €500, which was some compensation.
Stan and Dimitri were happy too, as there were some Latvians there who had been turned back from the Senegalese border for not having a visa. They had to fly home, but were happy to give their car to Stan and Dimitri to complete the journey. This was a Vaz, which had belonged the Latvian fire service and had a siren. It also had a broken rear spring, but they found one of a similar size off a Mercedes and soon had it fixed. There had been rumours of rioting in the streets of Nouakchott in response to the Israel/Gaza conflict and there were quite a few riot police about. However, we went into the city in the evening for a meal and all was quiet. 111km today and 6,088km in total.