Officials and touts at the border.
After having passed the gauntlet of the Mauritanian police for your visas, there is also the customs to be got through. This can be a truly testing time and a lot depends on good humour and ambivalence towards officialdom. After that you run into the touts that are (also) after your money, from money-changers to campsite managers to insurance vendors. In general any green card for insurance is now worthless, whatever your company told you. It is better to take one here, around 500 UM(15 euros) for 15 days, as at the first and subsequent police controls on the road it is one of the things you will be asked for. Negociate hard with the money changers as from one side of the road to the other it can and does change. Impossible to escape from this as the touts are right there where the customs men stop you. Not necessary to bribe the customs.









