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: