Day 56: Wild camp in Dawling Park – St. Louis / Zebrabar

We used the additive mosquito net in the car for the first time and stuffed two air holes at the foot of the mattress with a blanket.

In the morning we take another drive through Dawling Park watching birds. Magical. We realize how much we missed this: greenery, the scent of flowers, water, birdsong. We see an osprey, many, many herons of all kinds, kingfishers, wonderfully blue glowing birds, wading birds, flamingos (in the distance), storks and pelicans and... warthogs. They're just too funny on their short legs. And there are even iguanas.

We realize again that the color world of Mauritania is actually based on sand and brown and gray tones of all kinds with splashes of bright blue and light blue in clothing and front doors and roofs. And that there are actually no smells in the desert, at least not to our noses, apart from wood fire smoke.

After a while of bird watching we drive to the border – this time everything is rather simple: 100 Oyguia for passing the gate, having the car stamped out in the CdP, exit stamp in the passport on the Mauritanian side, bridge fee 4,000 CFA, entry stamp in the passport, car import with the requirement to have the Carnet de Passage stamped in Dakar until Monday (5 days). That's it.

In between, we change Mauritanian money into Senegalese money or the West African common currency CFA. We get a pretty good rate and exchange our remaining money for the equivalent of around 300 euros. There are 1,550 CFA for 100 Oyguya – one euro is 656 CFA. We will have to learn to calculate again.

And we're already buying a SIM card from Orange Telekom for Senegal. Actually, people also buy back Moroccan SIM, but Chinguitel is not attractive. Unfortunately, we also discovered that.

Next step is car insurance. In nearby St. Louis we buy the so-called Carte Brune including the Carte Rose (first for Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Sierra Leona, Liberia, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, the latter also for Cameroon). 28,000 CFA for six months.

A supermarket is listed on iOverlander – and once again we find that the information cannot always be trusted: The supermarket turns out to be a small little place with cans and dry food – the description "you can get almost everything you need here" triggered a different vision.

Great, we are in Senegal. Everything is more colorful, the women definitely wear pants and make-up. The cars aren't so old anymore, there are tons of taxis on the road, the traffic seems pretty relaxed.

Our destination today is the Camping Zebrabar in the south, located by the sea and at least with a shower. After a week, washing your hair is a pleasure! But first we jump into the sea. It doesn't matter that it's more of a brown broth – as long as it's cool.

In the evening we get something cooked for us (fried fish) – it's a really nice atmosphere here. The strange hotel bus (we already had it in Atar) has now arrived here – but unfortunately our cyclists haven't.

We are excited to see what the night will be like – we have monkeys on the campsite and many birds and the ocean surf in the “background”.