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December 23, 2003: Nouakchott Last day at camping La Rose in Nouakchott. We update the website, write stories, categorize all our pictures from Atar, Chinguetti,... A lot of people arrived here last night, so it's very crowded now.

We spend our last night with our friends Gauthier and Victoria (who's leaving for Belgium tonight) with good food, fruit cocktails, beer,...

December 24, 2003: Nouakchott - the beach further south The three of us (us two and Gauthier) go to the city to do our Christmas shopping for tonight. We fill up on diesel and water and off we go.

We head south and after some 70 km on tarmac, we leave the main road and take the piste to the West. This is a very nice sand piste that leads us straight to the ocean. We drive along the dunes and find a perfect spot to spend Christmas eve: in the sand, the ocean only 100 meters further, the sun high in the sky and a mild 35°C!

We just jump out of the car and head for the cool water and swim, play with the crabs, sunbathe, ... Wonderful. Perfect. There are no other people around for miles.

We make a small Christmas tree and decorate it with one little angel.

After the water melon starter, we can finally open the German ham, we saved for this special day. It tastes delicious of course, and the champagne goes perfect with the Belgian fries and hamburgers!

We have a splendid Christmas night at the camp fire, in good company, excellent food, under the bright stars in the middle of the "desert".

December 25, 2003: the beach - Keur Massene - Senegal Dam Christmas day. We get up late. We think we have all the time in the world to get to the Senegalese border. But we forgot we are not on the main piste to Keur Massene and Diama, but on a smaller piste that runs closer to the coast. So first Gauthier gets stuck in the sand (very deep!). and a few kilometers further, the tracks totally disappear! So we have to get back a bit. There's also a swamp between our position and the main piste to Keur Massene.

We manage to find our way to that piste, and now we can drive more comfortably to the south.

Then we take the piste on the dam along the Senegal river.

It's getting dark, so when we see some huts, we get off the dam and ask the eldest of the family if we can sleep here. No problem at all.

December 26, 2003: Senegal Dam - Diama We say good-bye to the family, and hit the road again. Only 100 km to the Senegal border.

Here in the Diawling National Park, the views are very beautiful: lots of green, water, and hundreds of water birds: pelicans, cranes, flamingos and all kinds of herons. We're still in Mauritania, but it's a complete other world for us, coming from the desert.

Then we cross the border into Senegal.