After a very full day in Nouakchott, I was ready to leave the city and head west to Atâr, a small city that is the gateway to the Adrar region of Mauritania and the Sahara. Atâr is about 6 hours from Nouakchott by mini bus, which is the usual way to get there if you are not driving. Sebastian from the Auberge Triskell drove me and two other guests to the bus stops for various regions. These are mini buses that will be full of people and piled high with baggage. They have approximate times that they leave, but nothing is guaranteed. My bus left about an hour and a half late, which was at least a few hours earlier than I expected.
Through a lot of persistent loitering, I secured the passenger seat in the front, so i had a view of the scenery. (The back windows are all blacked out.)
The landscape became increasingly rocky and then sandy as we moved west.
I snapped a few pictures from the moving van’s windows. And a few when we made brief stops for people to pray or pee.
Along the way we had various police stops. Nine, to be precise. Each time the driver handed the police a list of the names and identification card numbers of the locals on board and fiches for any foreigners. I don’t know what ‘fiche’ translates to, but it is a photocopy of your passport with various pertinent details written down (contact info, parents’ names, travel info, etc). If you don’t have this ready, you will have to wait while they copy your passport or photograph it and write down all the info. This will delay the trip a lot, and everyone will hate you, so you want to be prepared. I brought 40 of them with me. (You might actually be fine with just a passport photocopy, but I had all the extra information written down as well.) I did notice that each time the driver handed this over, he included a 50UM note with the paperwork. (That’s about $1.60 CDN.)
Six hours after we left, we arrived in Atâr at a busy intersection, complete with people milling about, mobile fruit carts, food being cooked street side, wheelbarrows full of baguettes, and a camel sitting in the street. I liked it instantly.
To be clear, there is nothing to see in Atâr, though a spin on foot around the city centre in pleasant, but it has a pleasant vibe for a short stay.
I took a taxi to the place I was staying at: Inimi. Inimi is a campsite / collection of cabins around a central open area of dirt and one big tree. It is pretty basic, but has (or is meant to have) the key amenities.
I was greeted by the host, who speaks very good French and a few words of English. He was seated on a mat under the tree and invited me to sit and have a plate of rice and then joined me for some Mauritanian tea. (He soon gave me a nickname: Saddam Hussein. This was on account of my cigar smoking and, apparently, when he thinks cigars, he thinks Saddam Hussein.)
Mauritanian tea is Chinese black tea and sugar in what I would say tastes like equal parts, and a few mint leaves, boiled over a fire in a metal tea pot and then poured from pot to thimble sized cups, and then from cup to cup at a great height, over and over again, until the cups are half foam and half tea. Then it is ready to drink. And for those of you who are imagining cups like you might have had in Jordan or Turkey, think again. These cups are even smaller. Not much bigger than a shot. And often it seems that you take the tiniest sip and pass it to the next person. (Yes, even during covid.)
Over that tea I arranged for a driver to take me to Chinguetti the next day.
My room was a cabin. Just a box with a door and two beds, really, though it did have AC when the electricity worked, which it seldom did. Toilet and shower stalls were in a separate building, with water that ran when there was electricity (ha) to operate the pump.
I walked into town and looked around the streets and stalls before it got dark.
I had dinner at an outdoor eatery that had none of the food pictured on their awning (I admit it was naive/hopeful to believe they would). They didn’t even have water, but they prepared a salad of lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, and onion and served it with French fries, mayonnaise, and a baguette. At least it was vegetarian. The other thing on the menu was the same meal but with grilled chicken. I picked up some fruits for breakfast.
I walked back to Inimi (maybe 2 km from the town centre) to find that the power was out. That meant it was pitch black and nothing worked. Not super convenient, but I am adaptable. (And it hardly matters that there is no water to flush the toilets when the toilets are just holes in the ground – How’s that for a positive spin?) I had my headlamp (which I never travel without) and instead of sleeping in my boiling hot (and now airless) cabin, I slept on a hard metal bed outside with a mat and my big scarf to cover me, reading until I fell asleep under the stars, which were incredible.
I had pleasant day of travel and a visit to Chinguetti ahead of me.
I love it when persistent loitering pays off. Great posts and remarkable stories. I love reading about your adventures.
Thank you!