Nouakchott

Well Nouakchott (the capital) was a most uninspiring city, where we had to stay for 5 nights to obtain my visa for Senegal (Swedes don't need one). Of course when I returned to the embassy, it wasn't ready. Thus I was put to work & directed through several rooms to collect my stamps. The officials were nice though, as throughout Mauritania. 

Here is the Senegal embassy:

Nouakchott's one sight of interest is the Porte de Perche fish market. Along the beach were boats as far as the eye could see, and many men hauling in huge nets of fish, or running up & down with big tubs on their heads. Lots of women were just sitting around with their tubs of fish, waiting around for buyers or something I guess. Probably just waiting. Add lots of children, teenagers, hustlers & it was a colourful, if not smelly, sight. Unbelievably I forgot to take my camera!!! So here is as interesting as Nouakchott gets:

For the most part, it's more like this:

Even food was tough to find, there's only so many times a day you can eat shawarma. At least it gave us something to do, but walking around looking for a restaurant for over an hour every day gets tiring & on the last night we gave up & decided just not to eat. Mauritanians love their fast food. Here's some of the crap we ate:

But we did discover fish! Huge portions for around $4:

More desert photos!

Here are some more pics I couldn't resist putting up :-)

See facebook for even more viewing pleasure! 

Poisonous melon tree 

 Camel in the sunset

Flies flying towards dirty smelly Swede's

 Fenec tracks, among the many nocturnal animals that come out at night

Sand dune, or sand sable in French

Sid'Hamid, Sheena & Johan in Arabic

Exhausted!

 Leaving the sand dunes behind...

 Change in the landscape...

 The road towards a rocky mountain

 The view from above the mountain / sand dune: another world

 Yep again from the 700m high sand dune

The dry Sahara

 Waking up to striking sunrises every morning

 Followed by beautiful days of blue skies

Camel bones, approx. 3 years old

5 days across the Sahara

From Chinguetti, we headed off into the Sahara for 5 days, with 2 camels, our guide Sid’Hammid & camellier Mohammed. It was nice to leave the rubbish of city life behind:

Each day we walked around 20km to cover the distance between Chinguetti & Terjit, a trip which would’ve been about 2 hours by car. The days begin early in the desert, with fresh bread baked in the sand the night before. Then we would walk around 4 hours, before stopping for lunch & a siesta. After the hottest part of the day has passed, we would continue walking again for a couple of hours, before finding a spot to stay for the night.

The Sahara was mighty hot. Nights were cold, sandy & windy, which we experienced for one night sleeping under the stars, before getting a tent put up for the rest of the nights. However, overall it wasn’t as stirring hot or freezing cold as I feared, and the trek not as arduous either.

The desert food we experienced was pretty good! It was a luxury to have 3 good meals a day cooked for you, a nice break from having to find a restaurant or two every day. Lunch & dinner was rice, couscous or pasta, invariably mixed in with tomatoes, potatoes, beetroot, carrots & onion. We were also constantly plied with the endlessly decanted & sickly sweet Mauritanian tea, the camel milk was optional.

Our 2 guides were so amazing & generous, they did everything for us. And between a combination of broken French & English, we learnt a lot about the desert & Mauritanian culture. Makes me wish even more for tourists to return to Mauritania, for more people to experience such warmth & hospitality, and so the local people can live a better life. Just in the many auberge signs that are all around Atar, Chinguetti & Terjit, one can see that tourism was once flourishing here. You can really see & feel the effects of the blacklisting of a country – which is a shame for everyone.

It was such a wonderful trip, the landscape being incredibly diverse & ever-changing. The first 2 days was a little tough, heading up & down sand dunes stretching endlessly over the horizon. The following days, the terrain was mostly flat, dry, rocky, mountainous. 

On day 4 we came across quite a large village, where I felt like a celebrity again back in Africa, waving to the kids below from atop my camel.

 The trip ended in Terjit, a lovely oasis village wedged in a huge red canyon, surrounded by palm trees. Then we continued by car back to Atar… oh it was nice to be back to civilisation, even if that still only meant a cold shower & mattress on the floor.