October 9, 2019
I walked across the unmarked, unpatrolled border from Saint-Louis, Senegal, into Mauritania this afternoon, achieving my 129th country.
After spending a few hours this afternoon exploring the former French colonial capital of Saint-Louis, I walked 1.2 miles from the end of the road in northwestern Saint-Louis along a track through the sand into undeveloped far southwestern Mauritania on a narrow spit of land called the Langue de Barbarie. It separates the Senegal River from the Atlantic Ocean. It’s my first time unofficially/illegally crossing a national border!