Border Run

Before dawn the next morning I was awoken by the now familiar call to prayer that echoed out across the city from the choir of rickety loudspeakers perched on mosque roofs and dangling from lamp posts. It was an eerie awakening being unsure of where I was, with the intertwining wails of the various imams reminding the population of their obligations to Allah. As was my ritual, I started the day with a healthy serving of anxiety, mixed with a bit of excitement and a sprinkling of disbelief.

I started packing and gearing up (my vestments more complex and less suited to the climate than those of my North African brothers) and soon came the inevitable tap on my door. Ibrahim was here and we needed to get on the road—apparently urgently. So without breakfast it was on the bike and off before sunrise, following Ibrahim's bombed out silver Corolla as he picked his way around potholes and obstacles (stationery, moving, living and dead), heading south along a shortcut through a densely populated suburb, ostensibly to pick up his mother. The Canadian-Argentine backpackers were dozing in the back seat—her head bouncing uncomfortably against his shoulder with the traversal of each significant imperfection in the road surface.

I needed fuel so we made enquiries at a number of petrol stations along the way, rousing many a dozing, young pump attendant, but it took six attempts before we found one that had any fuel to offer. The next stop was to pick up a woman but one far too young to be Ibrahim's mother. I kept anticipating that final stop, where I'd witness an older, possibly frail lady being assisted carefully into the car, but as we continued along the sandy, littered back-streets and out onto the main road to Rosso I realised that lady was probably a mythical one, no matter how much I hoped her to be real.

Despite some apprehension about Ibrahim's motives I had little time to think about them. The arduous road, of which possibly only half of the surface remained, required total concentration. Being on a bike normally has the advantage of manoeuvrability but on this narrow, ancient ghost of a two-lane road between the capital and the border the potholes are so severe and sharp-edged that on a bike as heavily loaded as mine the constant risk of bending a rim requires vigilance.

You also face oncoming vehicles swerving unpredictably into your path as they focus on their own battles with the patch of road surface in front of them, pressured to keep their speed up by whatever small economic prize encourages them to deliver the abundance of goods, people or animals that strain their tired chassis.

The rules followed resemble those of a waterway more than a road, with a class system determining right of way organised from trucks downward. The entire width of the road and both shoulders are available for negotiation and barter between oncoming vehicles of the same class, and is to be given without question to vehicles of a class above one's own. On a bike that can be a fairly humbling proposition.

I got into the rhythm of things and we put a couple of hours of slow progress behind us, the sun beginning to climb into the bright, clear sky and the Saharan heat beginning to rise with it.

Despite Ibrahim's assurance that his police credentials would enable us to sail through the numerous, normally tedious police checkpoints, most of the officers manning these posts appeared to have some difficulty recognising their superior officer (and ignored his half-hearted gestures to allow me through without interrogation).

Locals generally get waved past without having their papers checked, but a foreigner on a big, expensive bike needs to have their movements recorded carefully, lest they fall prey to Islamist kidnappers and create further reputational damage for the country. Despite his suggestion that I just stay close behind him and blow through (the backpackers slouched out of sight in the back seat) I wasn't game to irritate any well-armed, uniformed officials this early on in my trip so I stopped whenever requested, much to Ibrahim's annoyance.

Mid-morning, Lady Luck brought me my daily kick in the proverbials and I felt the front end wobble and squirm with the now familiar protestations of a tyre losing pressure. The part of my psyche that reacts to this particular situation was effectively fried by now, so as a matter of routine I found a relatively wide patch of flat ground next to the now busy road and pulled up to start the repair. In the dust and chaos Ibrahim had gone ahead, but I wasn't too fussed about catching up later as I could always nick off to the Diama border if we got separated.

I got the wheel off and discovered a pothole-induced pinch tear on the thin tube I'd bought in Nouakchott the day before. I patched it up with my thankfully well-stocked patch kit. Just as I was clumsily levering the tyre back on to the rim a huge refrigerated, modern semi-trailer pulled up in a cloud of dust behind me. Leaving the engine running, the driver jumped out and ran over to me, waving his arms excitedly and signalling for me to stop what I was doing.

It appeared that from about 100 metres back, whether by laser-sharp vision or some mechanical sixth sense, he had clocked me pinching the tube again as I wrestled the tyre on. He brushed me aside cheerfully, grabbed the wheel and tools from me and had the tube back out in about 15 seconds, holding it up like a doctor does a newborn and giving it a demonstrative squeeze. I was given a sympathetic if disapproving smile as the last remaining bit of air hissed out.

A few excited gestures and the odd common French word were exchanged and my spare "chambre à air" was extracted from the panniers. I watched in awe as he had the fresh tube installed and the tyre remounted within a couple of minutes, using mostly his hands and just a little tweak with one lever to get the last lip of the tyre carefully over the rim. He grabbed an air line from the truck's compressor and had my tyre pumped up and ready to go. I was impressed—and grateful.

As I started re-mounting the wheel Ibrahim turned up, having turned around to look for me after realising that I was no longer in tow. The backpackers were still asleep in the back seat and Ibrahim stood around sulkily while the truckie and I finished off the job. Ibrahim asked the truckie a few questions in Arabic and with a bit of translation I understood that he was Moroccan and an ex-motorcycle mechanic who had moved into the more lucrative profession of truck driving, this explained his incredible tyre-changing skills. Ibrahim mumbled to me out of earshot that I was not to give the truck driver any money (which apparently he was bound to ask for) and that he had warned the truck driver that he was a policeman so that he didn't "mess with me".

While we'd been working the truckie's offsider had fired up a little coal stove and was preparing some traditional, sweet mint tea for us all. In gratitude I sat with them for a moment and respectfully shared a tea, as well as some generously offered lunch of cheese and bread. Ibrahim refused both and remained standing a little way away to nonchalantly assert his self-assigned authority.

Despite Ibrahim's whispered warnings no money was requested and in parting only a big hug and a pat on the bag was given to me by my truck driving friend. We wished each other well with what words we could and as quickly as they had stopped and unpacked they were ready to roll again, both occupants skipping up the stairs into the cab and the still running truck roaring confidently as it built momentum over the rough ground.

A couple of hours later we hit Rosso—a small, crowded and dirty town with a rough edge and many a frowning young African man milling around on the main street—any hint of order having frizzled up in the mid-afternoon sun. We made straight for the border gate at the end of the main road into town (the same we've been on all day).

Ibrahim pulled up amongst a jumble of vehicles and jumped out of his car, introducing me to a rotund, scruffy man who had appeared suddenly next to me and placed his hand on the handlebars of my bike casually but firmly. This was the so-called brother, Mohammed the customs official, whose uniform consisted of baggy jeans slightly too long for him, a grubby blue shirt with too few buttons to conceal his belly and a pair of dirty sandals from which a set of well-travelled toes protruded ungracefully.

Mohammed was a big man—solid, rough around the edges and immediately aggressive. He looked and sounded nothing like lanky, charming and well-presented Ibrahim.

While Mohammed barked a series of confusing orders to me about where and how to park my bike Ibrahim quietly slipped away taking the backpackers with him. Mohammed insisted that I should come with him immediately and bring my paperwork and money to be changed. A few scowling sidekicks loitered near my bike and made not-completely-convincing gestures that indicated that they would watch it for me while I went off to deal with the "formalities".

I looked around for the now familiar, tall figure of Ibrahim and my backpacking moral support team, but they were nowhere to be seen amongst the teeming scene of cars, trucks, donkeys, goats, people, litter and dirt. With not a friend in the world or a working grasp of the local language, as Mohammed's orders became more insistent, I came to the realisation that I was all alone in the worst border town in Africa.