Capital: Nouakchott
Area. 1,030,000 sq. km (397,685 sq. mi) 11th largest nation in Africa (by land mass) 90% of its territory is in the Sahara Desert
Population: 4.4 million (2018)
Official Languages: Hassaniya dialect of Arabic is the language of the Moor majority, French spoken by many, especially in towns, Southern Black Africans speak Pulaar, Soninke, Wolof.
It is considered polite to say Salaam Aleikum when entering a taxi, office or when greeting someone. It is the first greeting for most of the dialects spoken in the region.
Religion: Islam
Ethnic groups: Haratin 40%, Arab-Berber 30%, Halpulaar, Fulani, Mande, and Wolof 30%
Currency: Mauritanian Ouguiya (MRU), which is subdivided into 5 khoums. xe.com July 2022: 1€=37.53 MRU; 1US$ = 37.5 MRU. It is one of two circulating currencies, along with the Malagasy ariary, whose division units are not based on a power of ten.
Credit cards are accepted almost nowhere. It is easy to change euros, dollars, and francs into CFA in Nouakchott
GDP (PPP) $4,563 (140th)
GDP (Nominal) $1,309 (149th)
Calling code: +222
Visa. VOA of €55 or US$ or MRU equivalent, bring exact change and some small notes
Price: US$1100 pp (8). Single room extra $15/night. Price includes: accommodation, transfers, guide, drivers, entrance fees, all meals, bottled water.
David Jdeidou (Lefrigue Agency). Deposit 30% of $1100=$330 IBAN-MR1300018000102100176580144 // Swift BPMAMRMRXXX
You must bring fresh clean US$ notes – in large denominations of $100 or $50, without wrinkles/folds/marks/stamps/2017 or newer, otherwise it is not accepted!
Itinerary
Day 0 Sat Oct 15. Arrive Noukachott. Mali flight: Oct 15 @ 22:50 – arrives Oct 16 @ 00:30 – BKO-NKC @ Mauritania Airlines L651 (Direct 1.5h)
Day 1 Sun Oct 16. Drive Noukachott to Azougua, 350 km, arrive at 5 pm,
Dunes of Amatlich, dunes of Azweigua. Overnight desert camp.
Day 2 Mon Oct 17. Drive 240km/ 3hrs to Oasis of Elmedah and Legleitat, Tivoujar Passe, Wait Valley, Terjit Oasis. Drive to Chinguetti
Day 3 Tue Oct 18. Visit Chinguetti town, library, and camel trek. Overnight desert camp
Day 4 Wed Oct 19. Drive to Tenouchert Oasis to visit the Eye of Sahara (Richat Structure). Drive to Ouadane. 180km.
Day 5 Thur Oct 20. From Ouadane, visit rock paintings, then drive over Amogjar Passe to Atar. 400 km.
Day 6 Fri Oct 21. Drive from Atar to Choum, Choum Tunnel. Iron ore train.
Day 7 Sat Oct 22. Long drive from Atar to Nouakchott (460 km).
Algeria flight: Oct 22 @ 23:15-03:50+1 – NKC-ALG @ Air Algerie AH4015 (non-stop 3.5hr)
ITINERARY Detailed
Day 0 Sat Oct 15. Flight: Oct 15 @ 16:30-19:35 – BKO-NKC @ Mauritania Airlines
After a stopover in Dakar, Senegal, I was picked up at the airport and driven to my hotel. The next morning at 07:30, I was joined by my travel companion, Arzu Helsman, a 52-year-old from Philadelphia. She moved to the US from Turkey at age 29, is a chef and is married to a chef. She pays no attention to counting countries or Nomad Mania but is a great traveller with virtually identical travel ideas – drives as much as she can and owned a big truck and camper for many years.
Originally, I was booked on a trip with Dahid for $1250, joining Ernestine C from Vancouver, Eric from Portland and Pei from London. None of us were able to pay the deposit of $300 (it is impossible to make bank transfers to most African countries form North America). Because of this and the price, I investigated other options just a few days before the slated trip. Mauritania Desert Voyages returned my emails promptly and offered the identical trip for $700 for two and 1300 for one.
Dahid was obviously trying to rip us off. I was traveling with EC who unfortunately used their prices to work out a deal with Dahid. He immediately came down to $700, phoned back 10 minutes later returning to the original price and threatened to meet us at the airport with the police. EC eventually negotiated a price of $1000 but without 4 nights accommodation.
I had had enough of crooked Dahid, left that trip and agreed to the deal from Mauritania Desert Voyages. As the original group was now three but still required two vehicles, their price increased to $1500.
Arzu had previously contacted MDV so I was very happy to go at such a great price. The final price included airport pickup and my first night’s hotel for $850. We had a choice of staying in Auberges and no cook or desert camping with a cook and no single supplement. We opted for the latter, a much better choice.
Alioune was the owner of MDV and because of the lack of other guides, became our guide and driver. He was the consummate professional, spoke great English, was a very nice guy and was exceptionally experienced in desert travel with his fleet of Toyota Hiluxes. He was joined by Ahmed, a cook. Ahmed was the hardest working guy, was a very sweet person and prepared great food – three solid, tasty meals per day.
It was a joy to watch Alli drive through the desert, navigating all the sand with barely a track to follow. Once to climb a dune, he had to make three attempts.
NOUAKCHOTT Berber: “place of the winds” (pop 1.2 million) is the capital and largest city of Mauritania. It is one of the largest cities in the Sahel. It was a village of little importance until 1958 when it was chosen as the capital of the nascent nation of Mauritania. From the 1970s, many Mauritanians began moving to Nouakchott due to drought and increasing desertification. Many settled in poorly maintained, overcrowded slums but these have improved.
It is home to a deep water port and the Airport, Between Saint-Louis, Senegal, the city from which the colony of Mauritania was governed, and Nouadhibou. Its location also meant that it avoided the sensitive issue of whether the capital was built in an area dominated by the Arab-descended Moors or Black Africans.
Located on the Atlantic coast of the Sahara Desert, the coastal strip of shifting sandbanks and sandy beaches is mostly left empty and allowed to flood. Nouakchott is largely flat and only a few meters above sea level. It is threatened by the sand dunes advancing from its eastern side which pose a daily problem. Most buildings are one-story.
Economy. 90% of the city’s economic activity consists of informal transactions. Some inhabitants have multiple addresses and maintain strong ties with their regions of origin, at times returning for labour.
Nouakchott has a Chinese-built deepwater port that opened in 1986. Nouakchott–Oumtounsy International Airport (NKC), opened in 2016.
The Cairo–Dakar Highway leg from Nouakchott to Nouadhibou was paved in 2004, although the Nouakchott-Rosso leg was paved before independence. A 1,100-kilometre (680 mi) road (Road of Hope)) connects to Néma via Boutilimit and Kiffa.
One beach is devoted to fishing boats where fish can be bought fresh at the Fish market. Nouakchott is a principal selling place of native Saharan meteorites.
Day 1 Sun Oct 16. Drive Noukachott to the Dunes of Amatlich. 350 km.
With four of us in the Hilux and the back crammed with camping equipment, it was not long before we left the paved highway that goes directly to Chinguetti, and followed a narrow dirt track marked by painted stones. The initial dunes were replaced by the Sahel with grass and acacia trees. We encountered a large lake full of trees formed by an unusually wet summer. Many villages were passed through – round stone bases with thatch roofs, adobe buildings and often a new house that looked incongruously out of place. At this time of the year, there are few residents, but in the summer the old residents return from the cities and reconnect with their past.
The entire day was spent off-road following minimal dirt roads and through dune fields. The track went through White Canyon and low grey, rocky mountains. We stopped under a large overhang for lunch.
Dunes of Amatlich, Located southwest of the city of Atar, Erg Amatlich is a vast dune barrier 130 km x 5 km to 8 km trapped between the mountains of the Adrar plateau. The erg, stretching from NW to SE, originates at the cliffs of the Tifoujar Pass and extends to the Akjoujt area and the Atlantic Ocean. In addition, there are canyons, cliffs, cultivable basins and palm groves like Azoueïga, located on the west side of the erg. There are many Neolithic sites, such as the Khatt Lemaiteg.
We arrived at the dunes at about 4 and were joined by Dahid’s group and another truck with two that we never met. Before dinner, most of us made the laborious climb up the steep dune – 2 steps up and one down. The sunset from the top of the big dunes was lovely as the pink dunes turn red ochre at dusk depending on the light.
Overnight desert camp. I elected to not use the mosquito tent and was only harassed by a few flies. It was extremely hot all night, finally cooling down minimally at 6.
Day 2 Mon Oct 17. Drive 240km/ 3hrs to the Oasis of Elmedah and Legleitat, Tivoujar Passe, Wait Valley, and arrive in Chinguetti.
Paysage culturel d’Azougui Tentative WHS(14/06/2001). The cultural landscape of Azougui consists of: the oasis and the palm grove, the oldest in the region, now with more than twenty thousand palm trees and the traditional system of canalization. Virtually empty at this time of the year, we drove through the “downtown” of low adobe homes to an overlook.
The archaeological site of Azougui: The first capital of the Almoravids, it is a fortress built in dry stone with a surrounding wall enlarged over time to a perimeter of several kilometres. It had a role in the trans-Saharan trade of ceramics and glass, imported from the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, and the Near East. Imam El Mejdhoub, a major mythical and religious personality, and his follower Imam El Hadramy El Morady have tombs located in the heart of the site.
At the village, we met an unusual Scottish woman who had lived in Africa for 30 years and now had been in Azougui for 2+ years due to lack of funds. The village was relatively deserted but comes to life in the summer when many old residents returne to harvest the dates. They make enough money then to support themselves for the rest of the year.
Terjit Oasis. An oasis (in the proper sense: a desert spring or other water source), 45km by road south of Atar and popular with Mauritania’s few tourists. It nestles in a gorge of red cliffs on the western edge of the Adrar plateau with the palm grove stretching a few hundred metres alongside a stream that emerges from two springs that tumble out of the rocks. One is hot, the other cold, and they mix in a large, square, concrete basin. Two Austrians had arrived on public transport – I was disappointed when they were bathing in the basin.
We opted for a better swimming hole several kilometres away. Tourists can pay to stay in tents in the palm grove. In the summer, it is very busy but we saw only a few tourists. We drove offroad to a wonderful swimming hole formed by a depression in the riverbed and surrounded by lovely rocks. This is the last time we saw Dahid and my three friends. Ali had crossed the river so that we had a shorter carry for our lunch gear near the pool. On the way back, Ali paused for a shift over the center of the river and we were immediately mired in the quicksand. After three hours of digging, placing rocks for jacks and then placing rocks under the rear wheels and using branches, we amazingly extricated ourselves from the mess. I thought we would be camping here.
It was a 2-hour drive on a rough track to Chinguetti, mostly over a high flat rocky plateau.
THE ADRAR. The Unesco-listed Adrar is the undoubted jewel in Mauritania’s crown. It’s an epic Saharan country and shows the great desert in all its variety: the ancient Saharan towns of Chinguetti and Ouadâne, mighty sand dunes that look sculpted by an artist, vast rocky plateaus, and mellow oases fringed with date palms. For desert lovers, the Adrar is a must.
Chinguetti (pop 4000). One of the more attractive of ancient caravan towns in the Sahara, Chinguetti is Unesco World Heritage listed. It was once famous for its Islamic scholars, and was the ancient capital of the Moors; some of the buildings date from the 13th century. Chinguetti butts up against Erg Warane, Mauritania’s biggest stretch of dunes, and is more than enough to meet traveller’s expectations of the great Saharan sand ocean.
Ksar or qsar is the North African term for “fortified village”. Chinguettti was founded in the 13th century as the center of several trans-Saharan trade routes the city is seriously threatened by the encroaching desert. The western boundary is marked by tall sand dunes and several houses have been swallowed by the desert.
The town is divided in two parts by a wadi. On one side lies the old town, and on the other the new town. This is the third reincarnation of the old town – the previous two were abandoned as they were buried under the sand.
Before dinner, we walked into the old town, the highlight of any visit is a wander through the labyrinthine lanes of Le Ksar (Old Town). The main building that dominates the old town is The Friday Mosque of Chinguetti, an ancient structure of dry-stone construction, featuring a square minaret capped with five ostrich egg finials. The mosque was built in the thirteenth or fourteenth century, and it is believed to be the second oldest continuously used minaret in the Muslim world. We could not enter the mosque but looked through the door – many large white columns and a dirt floor.
Other notable buildings in the town include the former French Foreign Legion fortress; and a tall water tower. But among these, the most important is the famous libraries, giving the town the name “The City of Libraries”. The Old Quarter has five important manuscript libraries of scientific and Quranic texts, with many dating from the later Middle Ages.
We entered possibly the largest of the libraries and were shown several ancient books carefully stored in small boxes on the shelves.
The dunes are best seen by camels, but I have ridden camels before and wanted to avoid that experience.