This was how it was with travel: one city gives you gifts, another robs you. One gives you the heart’s affections, the other destroys your soul. Cities and countries are as alive and feeling, as fickle and uncertain as people. Their degrees of love and devotion are as varying as with any human relation. Just as one is good, another is bad. - Roman Payne

5 February 2020, Thiѐs to Kelle, 62.9km
Residence Coumba Andal 25,000XOF (R607)

We have recently downloaded the Windy.com app, don’t ask me why. With it we can get (apparently) relatively accurate current and future weather information, including wind direction and speed. I am anxious about the Harmattan, which blows at this time of year from the northeast, essentially straight down the road we will be travelling up through northern Senegal, Mauritania and Western Sahara. Knowing how strongly and in what direction the wind will be blowing on any given day is likely to be more depressing than just getting up and facing whatever the universe throws at us each day. Maybe… On the other hand, if we know it will be gale force on Friday, perhaps we can aim to be tucked away somewhere nice by Thursday evening…
Today, the wind, directly in our faces, was 13 knots, with gusts of up to 23 knots. According to disastercentre.com, 11-16 knots is a “moderate breeze” that “raises dust and loose paper, small branches are moved”. 19-24 is a “fresh breeze” in which “small trees that have leaves begin to sway”. I don’t think “breeze” accurately names what I would call a “fairly strong wind” that “impedes progress and makes one work hard to conquer flat terrain”, it is by far too benign a word.
A headwind always slows progress, and today was no exception. The wind was by no means unmanageable, but was a bit of a challenge, blowing dust into our faces. On the plus-side… the wind cooled us in temperatures that rose to 35 degrees centigrade.
We took a series of breaks for crisps and mandarins and meat pie in puff pastry and ice cream, and to admire and hug a giant baobab, one of several hundred seen today.
13km shy of our planned stop, we were lured off the road by the Coumba Andal and have broken our budget for a swim in the pool and an aircon room and a decent meal in the little restaurant next door.

For today's route see below photos
For overview route, click on ROUTE tab above…