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.