I've been offline for a day and in fact was out of commission for all of yesterday after a chicken skewer meal at the "Top Fresh" restaurant in Noueckchott, clearly I'll not be recommending it on Trip Advisor. In the meantime Simon has been running around getting visas, chasing insurance, buying a spare alternator belt, shopping and looking after me, all in 40+C temperatures. A great partner to have.
Before taking to my bed I tried to buy a sim for my spare phone the day we arrived here. The security guard recommended a young lad selling from a stall near the hotel. I approached him and it seemed that he could sell one for about £6. I had a long discussion with him in our limited French. I was trying to establish whether it would allow me to have access to the internet. He seemed to assure me it would, so I agreed to have it installed. I handed him my phone which needs a pin to release the sim compartment and another for the SD card. This is when things got interesting.
He first poduced a bent keyring which was clearly to large for the hole and would not release the catch. Then he searched around in his drawer but could not find anything which would work. You might think a pin was a requirement of someone selling phnne sims. He then started to look on the ground, which really puzzled me until he came up with a wooden match. He broke it in half and chewed the end and tried to insert it into the hole. After some fiddling miraculously the catch opened and the SD card was revealed, sadly not the sim. He then tried with the sim compartment but it seemed the match only was up to one opening and he gave up. I then said I'd take the phone into the hotel and release it with a needle from a sewing kit and he seemed to approve of the idea. I returned with the sim compartment open and we inserted the sim. It worked in connecting me to the phone network but not to the internet. He took some time to understand the problem and then involved a guy sitting under a tree nearby. He had better French and we discussed the problem. It seems I would need to purchase additional credit to allow internet access. At this stage, after a day riding across the desert I lost the will to buy a sim and retired to the hotel with its air conditioning and WI-FI. I will revisit the purchase of a sim later this evening.
Once I surfaced this afternoon I and had a bit of energy again I was keen to have a look at the Sena intercom in Simons helmet. He'd complained that one speaker had failed and on investigation one if the fine speaker wires had come loose and after it was handled a few times both wires had become detached. I had a 12V soldering with me and began a repair. Just at this point a guy arrived who was proposing to sell us a carte brune insurance for Mali, Senegal and Gambia, and other countries of course. Simon then went off with the guy and I set up to solder.
To protect the battery I wanted to have the bike running before plugging in the soldering iron which was 20w. To test the iron I started my bike and it began to warm up. I could just reach the helmet on Simon's bike and soldered the wires.
All looked fine but when Simon had finished with the insurance discussion, (which I'm sure he'll describe later) we replaced the speaker but it did not work. We tried a few times with resoldering but no joy. My conclusion is that the channel may have failed, possibly with the wires touching or grounding. Sadly Simon will only have one speaker operating for the rest of the trip. An unsatisfactory outcome of the attempted repair.
A few further photos below, including Simon sampling the swimming pool.
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