Since we knew that the border crossing from Morocco to Mauritania would be stressful and would take a long time, we started very early in Bir Gandouz while it was still dark.
At sunrise, we had a quick stop at a beautiful sandy spot next to the road for a special task.
Hans is a huge whisky fan. He has a stunning collection of limited-edition whiskies at home and travels regularly to Scotland to sample the latest whisky creations. And of course, he always carries a bottle of good whisky on his trips. Sadly for him, any alcohol is strictly forbidden in Mauretania. If they found his bottle of whisky at the border, it would at least be confiscated, with the potential for an additional fine for Hans.
So in order to save his bottle, we needed to find a solution. Inspired by Pistenkuh (who did the same) we decided to bury it before the border, hoping to find it again on our way back.
We marked the point on Google Maps. Whether this was sufficient to find the bottle again later remains to be seen.
Around 8:00 a.m., we arrived at the border. There were already around 30 cars in front of us.
A long wait started. We used the time to grab a coffee at the nearby café and discuss the route ahead of us.
After a couple of hours, we reached the Moroccan border control, and the whole bureaucratic process started. First immigration, then customs.
Sadly, we had a small accident at the border. One guy parked his Mercedes without pulling the handbrake on a slight slope. My guess would be that the handbrake, or more correct footbrake, since it was a Mercedes, just wasn’t working anymore. The car started moving and crashed into Hans’ Tesla. Since I didn’t understand at first what was going on, I was shouting „stop“ when I saw the car approaching. But since nobody was sitting in the car, this was of course pretty useless. Luckily, the damage was minor, and Hans was able to continue the trip.
But this event did cost us probably an additional hour at the border.
And this additional hour meant we couldn’t finish the Moroccan side before lunch break, which led to another hour of just waiting.
Finally, we were able to leave Morocco and drive the few kilometers through the no man’s land. The road in the no man’s land is still a bit rough, with a couple of huge holes. But with careful and slow driving, it’s doable with any kind of car nowadays.
Since Mauretania is in a different time zone, the lunch break at the Mauretanian border just started when we arrived there. This meant another hour of waiting without any kind of progress.
Many hours later, we were finally able to enter Mauretania. Our passports were stamped, and we had the necessary passavants for our cars (temporary import permit). It was definitely an interesting experience. Altogether, the border crossing took 10.5 hours. We didn’t use a fixer, which probably delayed the whole process by about 1-2 hours, since the fixers always went to the front of the line with the documents of their customers.
For orientation at the border, a fixer is definitely not needed. There are enough friendly people there explaining what to do next. A fixer will just speed up the process a bit. I won’t judge anybody for using a fixer, but you are clearly supporting corruption by using one. If I had small children or a dog with me at the border, I would definitely use a fixer. If not, one or two hours more waiting just doesn’t matter that much.
On the positive side, I never felt unsafe or stressed during the more than 10 hours at the border. The fixers and money changers were never aggressive. About five officers asked me for money, but when I politely declined, they always stopped asking.
To summarize, this border just takes a lot of time, but it’s otherwise not very challenging.
Oh, forgot to mention: only three EV teams were able to continue the trip to Mauretania. Sadly, Friedwart had lost his passport in Morocco and therefore had to stay with his Kia in Morocco and drive back to Rabat to get a new passport.
From the border, it was a 57km drive to our hotel Delphin in Nouadhibo where we had planned to spend the night. Luckily, without any further incidents despite having to drive in the darkness.
At the hotel, Ayoub installed his charging box to charge all cars in parallel overnight.
EV Overlanding 
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