Mauretania

“Donnez moi la fiche” is the command we heard at least fifty times on the Mauretanian roads. At the outskirts of every self respecting town we could expect a police stop, and in between towns, at times, a gendarmerie or douane stop, where we were expected to hand over a “fiche”: a copy of our personal data (passport) and licence plate number – occasionally also phone number or visa data. Sometimes the officials were serious, but most of the time good humoured and curious about our well being. I have to add, that after our running stop in Southern Morocco, where we did not stop exactly at the stop sign one hundred meters ahead, and patiently wait until gestured to approach, we religiously stick to that rule. It makes them happy.

Getting out of Morocco was as time consuming as getting into that country. Long lines formed at the police and immigration windows, where the officers took their time to check and recheck every single detail. For customs, our camper, like every other car, had to be thoroughly searched – with a rolling X-ray machine, followed by a personal-  and dog check. What were they looking for, to take out of the country?

Morocco is only the second one on our long list of border crossings, to check our camper on the way out. The first one was Panama on return to Costa Rica, but they just seemed curious about our interior.

Before the search could happen, it was lunch time, which would take an hour. One more hour, and we were already there for two hours! After the camper check, there were still three more windows to get the paperwork checked and approved, and we could proceed across the border, while fighting off a swarm of “fixers”, who offer to help you get through the border, for a fee.

The Mauretanian side was a bit more efficient, but here, entering, we had get a visa and insurance. We tried to ignore the fixers: a couple of them tagged along, pointing us to the offices we were already heading to. After the final check for forbidden items, like guns, drones and alcohol, and quick check inside, we could proceed. It was late afternoon when we reached Nouadhibou and Villa Maguela. At that campground  we were well received by Dutch host Victor and Scottish Tish, who made sure we got a good tasting of the local seafoods.

In a slightly chaotic Nouadhibou we withdrew money, and shopped for groceries and local SIM cards. On the dusty streets, the number of rickety old Mercedes cars blew us away! People were friendly and eager to help us find our way.

Nouadhibou’s downtown consists of low buildings and a lot of empty lots, where heaps of garbage provide fodder for roaming goats.

Old Mercedes cars everywhere…without lights, mirrors, bumpers… patched up and still going; the rejects of Europe, and even Morocco.

This guy noticed we were looking for a supermarket. He pointed us to one around the corner while he engaged us in some small talk. I told him I admired his robe and asked if I could make a picture….no problem!

As soon as the necessities were taken care of, we headed inland. We heard Atar and the oasis areas to be special. It took two days of driving through the desert to get there. One wonders where people  here survive off … the land is harsh, with endless sandy plains, where an occasional acacia tree struggles in the company of sparse little shrubs and dry grasses, interrupted by an occasional row of dunes. A sandstorm blasted dust across the road, invading our truck through the smallest cracks.  When we were hoping for blue skies, the sun would bring heat, while the dust-muted sun kept the temperature sweater level- comfortable. The nights were wonderfully cool.

On our way inland, we passed the Iron Ore train. This train, which carries iron ore from far inland to the coast, sometimes needs five locomotives to pull up to 2.5kilometers of loaded wagons. This one was a bit shorter.

Along this horizon on the left you can see the long line of iron ore wagons disappear in the distance. Glad we did not need to wait at a railroad crossing!

When the weather cleared,we could enjoy the sand dune landscape.

After some clear weather, the wind decided to blow again across the endless flat plains. A few hours later we saw the sun again, so we could stop and enjoy the ever changing sand dunes.

Passed Akjoujit, the beautiful road – both in quality as in scenery-  got pockmarked by potholes. The desert turned greener, and the  building style became more natural with round, straw huts beside the white tents. Suddenly there was water, and plenty of it, surrounded by lush greenery. We climbed up the Adrar mountain range, with majestic flattop mountains and rocky rubble plains and greenish pastures in the wide valley that we drove through to reach Atar.

Once in Atar, we searched without the aid of a navigating system for a campground (the SIM cards we purchased have totally stopped working) Everywhere along the road, people were pointing us in the right direction, sometimes running alongside our car to make sure we don’t take a wrong turn. People here are crazy friendly and helpful. Their french, however, has such a heavy accent, it is hard to understand them. At the campground we were approached by a couple, also from the Netherlands, who told us they have us on film. It turns out they drove behind us when we were driving through the midday sandstorm.

Around Atar, we relived a bit of our Sahara memories with smooth gravel pistes, soft sand (time to lower the air pressure in the tires) and finally also bone rattling corrugation. Our  destination was the historic town of Chinguity, a Unesco world heritage site, founded and inhabited in the 13th century when it was a cultural and religious center and a crossroad for camel caravans. Chinguity is considered the 7th holiest city of Islam, so still a pilgrim destination. At that time there were 20.000 people, now about 3000. The oldest mosque dates from the 13th century. The neighboring library keeps population and harvest records and has some 17th century manuscripts, bound in goat skin or “pudchifr” (- peau de chevre in local incomprehensible french.) We found the place disappointing: true, it is a genuine authentic desert town, but the volume of tourists in comparison to the size of Chinguity, and the begging children, spoiled the experience. Plus, we were (mistakenly) hoping for a lush oasis; instead we got dusty streets and a boatload of very pushy kids. Maybe a good tour guide could show the little secret places and keep away the swarms of begging children. So after an attempt to visit the historic library, where we had to join a crowd of tourists, we tuned around and found ourselves a serene spot in the wide open desert. Before returning to Atar, we made a stop along the way to see some ancient rock paintings. There are actually two sites, we visited the first one on the way back from Chinguity, but I think we should have gone to the other one, since that one also included nice walk…

Old Chinguity regularly gets inundated with sand.

To reach historic Chinguity, one has to cross this sandy riverbed.

An old Islamic manuscript, bound in “Pudchifr”

Inside the exit building of the library, these women positioned themselves with trinkets to sell. As soon as we bought one basket, another woman tried to convince us we needed one more…

Ancient rock paintings

Before leaving Atar, had to stock up our supplies. A helpful man showed us the way around the market, un-requested, so we figured we were expected to pay him a tip for his help, but no(!)… when we were done and ready to go on our way, he shook hands and turned around without hesitation. Wow.

Busy market in Atar

Just south of Atar, Terjit is the prettiest oasis. One can spend the night there in a nomad tent, and the fee includes dinner. But the tale of the many mosquitoes did not appeal to me, so a quiet and peaceful afternoon there is perfect.

Rustle of the palmtrees, birdsong, and dripping water….so calming

Water drops came down from the fern covered rock wall.

We agree that the secret road connecting Atar with Tidjikdja must be Mauretania’s most beautiful road. The road cannot be found on Google or most other commercial maps (???) We thought we would drive on a piste- at least our West Africa Michelin map showed that to exist. The owners of the campgrounds in both Nouadhibou and Atar assured us it exists and it is even smoothly paved! The only warning was about the traveling sand dunes that could block the road. But we found several bulldozers constantly clearing those dunes…

The town of Aoujeft however is drowning in moving sand dunes. In town we should have taken a left turn,  where we only saw a heavy sand track. Without the help of a map or a direction sign, we figured we should keep straight. At the end of town, the track split into two small sandy tracks. When we asked for directions, we were sent back to the intersection in town where, after driving up the sandy hill and around the bend, we found the pavement again. This town has an uphill battle to fight!

Traveling dunes cover the perfect road with sand. A distance away, a lone bulldozer works fulltime to keep the road passable.

Wild donkeys? Feral donkeys? Or are they just loose domesticated ones?

Lunchtime break in the shade of a lonely tree

The desert was beautiful and varied here. The sky competed in the show. We got rain – though maybe only a thousand drops, divided over four showers not enough to close the hatches or go indoors…

Gorgeous skies before those thousand drops of rain.

We arrived in Tidjika. So far we had our tires pumped up to the normal pressure again, got our diesel tank filled, and checked in at a hotel, because Thijs is down with a sore throat and wants to sleep in an air conditioned room. Oh well.. there is a shower.

After a healing sleep, Thijs was up for a true adventure: we wanted to go to the Matmatas- Sahara crocodiles. To do that we had to drive, without any available roadmap (there are no roads), the sandy trails (deflate the tires again!) to find the place where one can find the Sahara crocodiles. We got hopelessly lost through too many side trails, until a local guy showed us the way – first by walking ahead, and finally with us in the car. (I therefore had to sit in the back – no fun!) We could not have found the place without him and spent a beautiful night at the pools.

One of the many forks in the road left us guessing which one to take. We had to backtrack several times.

Sometimes we had to drive through a tunnel of thorny acacia trees.

This guy guided us to the Matmatas- the Sahara Crocodile location.

We had this magical spot all to ourselves!

Surreal, right?

We spent a beautiful night at the pools. The following morning we went on a hike to see the crocs even when we already spotted their tracks, from climbing out of the pools near us. The trail along the pools was getting more difficult, with a jumble of large boulders challenging us. When we arrived at a pool where we spotted three crocs, Thijs found it far enough. So we stayed there for a while, watching the beasts pop up and disappear, and pop up somewhere else. With birds and smaller reptiles around, we enjoyed the place.

Before we saw the crocodiles, we saw many tracks.

One of the crocodiles popped up to look at us.

This croc first swam to the shore on our side, but then decided against it. They are so shy! He even hid his face behind the rock in an effort to sunbathe unseen by us. But we saw him come ashore, so a few steps to the side, and we could see him entirely.

We left early in the morning, but a tricky sand dune – deep dip – sand dune prevented a running start. We were stuck! It took three tries after digging and the use of our sand-tracks, to get the car out! We picked another track to find our way back to the main road: the beginning and end was clear cut, but halfway through, the labyrinth of tracks confused us again – a lot of backtracking and trying another track finally brought us back to ‘civilization”

Stuck!

These acacia thorns did a number on our roof, solar panels and paint finish.

No avoiding deep soft sand on this route

Before we knew it -considering the heavily potholed road – we reached Mauretania’s capital Nouakchott. We drove along the camel market, then Google sent us through turns and returns through the busiest parts of the city; apparently the straight way to our beach side camping was even more clogged by traffic at this 5 o’clock time. It was good to see the beach again!

Just a few hundred meters away from the fisher village, we enjoyed the sight of the boats on the water.

In Nouakchott, Kader – a contact through Thijs’ brother, welcomed us. He showed us around the city and pointed out the potential growth the city is looking forward to, with multinational oil companies offering to exploit Mauretania’s resources… We had issues we needed to address, and Kader helped us in the right direction. The solar issue took second place after Thijs noticed the clutch started slipping… again we had the good luck that this happened in a town with a Nissan dealership who could replace and repair the ailment, with new parts and super friendly service. With that done, our solar concerns turned out to be minor, so they were quickly fixed. To close off our stay, Kader invited us for Friday lunch, which consisted of a mixed salad, suckling lamb, dried and shredded camel meat, and stewed beef on a mountain of rice. For dessert: melon, mango and sweet, juice dates…a true saharan meal!

We had to find a bank to withdraw some more money…someone told us where to find one, but we ended up in the middle of the downtown market and got hopelessly stuck there. Fortunately a helpful police officer unclogged the traffic mess in front of us.

A fine lunch at Kader’s impressive home.

On Saturday we left Nouakchott towards the Senegal border. Like most travelers, we chose the smaller, laid-back Diama border. One has to cross a national park/bird sanctuary to get there, which we considered a bonus and good ending to our Mauretania visit, a country that we learned to love.

On the way out of town, we had to stop to photograph this uniquely African, or maybe just Mauretanian phenomena : Believe it or not, but this car still drives!

Pelicans, cormorants, and many other birds in Diawling National park. Migratory birds, many from Europe, stop here for the winter.

One of the many wharthogs we saw along the way.

This road was bumpy now, but during the rainy season it must be a slushy and slippery mess. The better tracks were on the dry lake bed on the right side of the elevated road.