| All about Heinz |
| First Trip My wish to take off to see the world was always there. I had lived in different countries and took every opportunity to visit different places. Hitchhiking trough west Europe or by car East Europe Prague, Brno and Budapest. Eventually the decision was forces “upon us” through different circumstances. Private because I did not want to get married, so she gave me a pass and connected to another boy in the group. Politically because the contrast between “we finally live in a democracy” and the reality was too big. As to work, I could have gone to Hamburg to work at one of those traditional Import/Export Companies. All very proper but “Young Man you first have to work with us in Hamburg for a few years and afterward…” I wanted to go now. My friend Harald Vogeler was ready to leave too. The question was now, how fast do we get out of Berlin? Harald had a friend who worked for Pan Am. He marked us down as Pan Am employees for a Charter flight to Malaga. Unfortunately the flight was overbooked. Not to be undone they had a flight to Las Palmas. We were handed the Papers of the Travel Group to hand over to the person in charge in Las Palmas. We did and went to town. There we were. We were finally away from Berlin, with little Money and no further plans. In the harbour was ship going to South America. The trip would have been too expensive for us. But there was another ship, cheap and going to Spanish Sahara. Africa here we come! Very soon we found out that the ship was a supply ship for the Spanish Foreign Legion. Arriving in Africa all we saw was sand. The place Villa Cisneros (see map) had no harbour for bigger ships. Villa Cisneros a dusty and bugs infested place took away any romantic notions one would have about Africa. In order to travel to Spanish Sahara, at that time still a Spanish colony, we got a daily pass. So we got through custom and wandered around. After a while I lost sight of Harald. He wandered around town and thought to hear people playing Skat. It is a very popular German card game. Harald being himself an avid player thought to find those persons in one of the small houses. To his surprise they were Germans. They were members of the Spanish Foreign Legion. Two of them had a little place in town where we could stay. We, of course, drinking cheap brandy with warm orange juice, wanted to know everything about this Legion and how and why those two got to join this Legion. Those two were driving around southern Germany, run out of Gas and Money, tanked, beat up the Pump Guy and took off. In Panic they drove on all the way to Spain to join the Spanish Foreign Legion. Anyway that was their story. Eventually we could visit the Barracks of the Legion on a Saturday. I have to admit that I was worried about the old practice of the Legions to get you drunk and to make you sign in. The “Pup” was of course full and the soldiers could advance to the bar when the first line and consequently the other rows in front were on the floor. Quite a scene! As the "Pup" was full and other legionnaires had to wait outside being angry anyway because there was no pay for the last three month pretty soon there was a riot. Back in Berlin I saw the US Military Police in action as some American soldiers started a big fight in one popular Disco. At that time I was shocked. In comparison with the Military Police of the Legion it seemed rather civilised. Those Legionnaires had to fight the Bedouins who wanted to liberate Western Sahara. Beside the hopeless fight the outfit was brutal. The officers were left over from the Blue Division of Spain (Division Azul) fighting with Germany in East-Europe and Russia. The Legionnaires came from everywhere. They came from the Israeli Foreign Legion, going to the Cuban Foreign Legion, and so on. They told a lot of stories. We took it all in with an open mouth. Back in Las Palmas we visited the docks every day in order to find a ship to go on with our travel. On day we met a Swiss hanging around penniless. He told us about a French guy called Michel Brisson. We met him a few days later in Villa Cisneros. He in turn had met an old French guy, who wanted to visit his son in Mauritania. Somehow Michel convinced him that there is the possibility to travel on to Mauritania from Villa Cisneros. We watched in amazement the transferring of the VW 1500 from the ship to a small vessel. We thought that any moment the car would fall into the sea. Like a miracle eventually the car was on solid ground. After some discussion we could travel along.
So we traveled south towards La Guera at that time the very end of Spanish Sahara. In La Guera Michel, the big talker, invited us all to a restaurant and paid for it with an uncovered French Postal Scheck. After finding out when the border control went to sleep we drove on to Port Etienne.
Port Etienne more a fishing village than anything else smelled accordingly. Everywhere there was fish to dry.
As we Harald and I were there illegally some new found friends locked us into a garage for the first night. In this area of the country there is rain once a year and the rain came that night. So we spend the night standing up and of course not beeing able to get out.
After some preparation we started to leave Port Etienne. Curious people asked us where we were going. After hearing that we wanted to go to Nouakchott, we were declared mad. Nobody drives down there. Just outside Port Etienne we got stuck in the sand. Get out of the car, push, shovel again and again. We traveled on along the railway to a camp with French specialists who looked after the rail. The railway was build to transport iron ore from the interior of Mauritania to Port Etienne. The longest Train in the world with up to 200 fully loaded cars. In this camp we had the last good meal for a while. I remember that I eat too much and so had to spend the night drinking Perrier in order to digest as fast as possible. The next morning we saw our first Caravan passing by. A huge amount of camels, quite a sight. |
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