25.05.2021
ca. 190 km from Ouadâne to Atar
I woke up to a windstill morning with blue skies. It was still early and I went about my morning desert routine … I was being very careful, though … we were not as far away from civilization as usual … and our first visitor was not long in showing up … it was a kid … he was just curious and shy looking from a distance first, but then chatted with Sahar and Ely. I think they gave him some food, too.
During breakfast we got more company … some women and a bunch of children came by …. I think they might have sent the kid to investigate first and now he had led them back … but they did not even unpack their souvenir bags … probably Ely told them that the weird foreigner would not buy anything anyway … they quickly went on their way again …
For us it was time to be on our way, too. Packing up camp was a familiar procedure by now … and I was always amazed about how much stuff we were carrying and that it all fit on the bed of the pick-up truck … every day the pile looked a little different, though …
By 08:40 we were ready to leave our bivouac place and it was only a short hop to Ouadâne – another tucked away gem Mauritania’s Sahara was hiding from the rest of the world. We drove through what was the new part of town. There was a check point … the first one we had passed since leaving the main route on our first day driving into the desert … When offroading through the sand we had not only been offline but basically off the official grid as well …
Unspoiled, mysterious and rich in culture, the towns of Chinguetti and Ouadâne were an ode to the past. More than 1000 years ago, they were some of the most important cultural hubs in Africa and an obligatory stop for those embarking into the hot and dangerous Sahara. Today, they were threatened in their existence … The old part of town from the 12th century was mostly in ruins and we walked through them. Tegherbeyat – the upper ruined section of the town – was almost certainly the oldest … older than the 12th century … It would have originally contained a mosque but nothing had survived. Sahar dropped us off at the old mosque from the 12th century. A tall stone minaret dominated it. Entrance was forbidden for non-Muslims let alone women …
Ely led me past it and we strolled down the Rue des 40 Savants which was the main street … The early history of Ouadâne was uncertain but possibly the town prospered from the trans-Saharan gold trade. In the middle of the 11th century, the Arabic geographer al-Bakri described a trans-Saharan route that ran between Tamdoult near Akka in Morocco to Aoudaghost on the southern edge of the Sahara. This route was used for the transport of gold during the time of the Ghana Empire. In his account al-Bakri mentioned a series of place names but these have not been identified and historians have therefore suggested several possible routes.
In 1961 the French historian Raymond Mauny proposed a route that passed through Ouadâne, but was later argued in favour of a more direct route that crossed the Adrar escarpment to the east of the town. The first written reference to the town of Ouadâne was in Portuguese by Ca’ de Mosto in the middle of the 15th century in a muddled account that confused the salt mines of Idjil with those of Taghaza. At about the same time Gomes Eanes de Zurara described Ouadâne as the most important town of the Adrar region and the only one with a surrounding wall. 50 years later Valentim Fernandes wrote a detailed account of the trade in slabs of salt from the Idjil mines and role of Ouadâne as an entrepôt. He described Ouadâne as a settlement with a population of 400 inhabitants. By contrast Duarte Pacheco Pereira in his Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis – written between 1505 and 1508 – described the town as having approximately 300 hearths – which would suggest between 1500 and 1800 people. According to Pereira, in 1487 the Portuguese built an entrepôt in Ouadâne in an attempt to gain access to the trans-Saharan gold, salt and slave trade. The warehouse was probably short lived and was not mentioned in the detailed description provided by Fernandes.
The crumbling ruins of the stone houses were considerably well preserved … most probably having been restored and being somewhat maintained due to the UNESCO inscription which described them as remarkably well preserved urban fabric. Restoration work began already in the 1980s. Houses with courtyards were densely-packed into narrow streets that extended all the way down to the foot of the hill. Sahar had driven the car around and we saw him down in the valley …
The view from up here was outstanding … in its heyday, the town counted most probably around 10000 inhabitants and 35000 Date Palms – of which only a fraction remain nowadays. The main reasons of the decline of Ouadâne were the shifting trade routes … In the 16th century the Moroccans made various attempts to take control of the trans-Saharan trade in salt and especially that in gold from the Sudan. They organized military expeditions to occupy Ouadâne in the middle of the 16th century to gain control of the trans-Saharan trade routes. In 1591 their victory in the Battle of Tondibi led to the collapse of the Songhay Empire which had been the state that dominated the western Sahel/Sudan in the 15th and 16th century. At its peak, it was one of the largest states in African history.
The ruins of the lower section of the town were impressive as well. The economic importance meant that the town was protected by a wall – not the thin wall that could be seen now – but a sturdy, thick wall with watchtowers that could withstand attacks … to survive times of siege, wells had been dug inside the walls …
Ely led me down through the alleys to one of those fortified wells. We walked down narrow stairs, through low gates and across courtyards … the architecture was interesting to say the least. The ksours – a term generally referring to a Berber fortified village – of Mauritania were elegantly adapted to the desert climate – streets were narrow with houses close together and in this way protecting each other from the sun, wind and dust of the Sahara … with wells within the town walls survival was even more certain … nowadays all of them were totally dried up …
The well was located down low on the slope that was occupied by the town. Obviously it had been dug where it had been most likely to find water … So we had to climb all the way back up to the main alley to continue our visit. I thoroughly enjoyed the walk ant the atmosphere of the ancient ruins … We also passed the houses of the 3 founders of the city … Ouadâne was officially founded “only” in 1147 … but it had been and still was the remotest oasis in Mauritania and the westernmost outpost before the total emptiness of the Saharan sands …
It is said some lives are linked across time
Connected by an ancient calling that echoes through the ages
The Prince of Persia
The houses … or rather ruins … continued to crumble, slowly but surely the desert was claiming them back … before the stone walls disappeared under sand, however, ants and other insects had consumed the wooden beams of the formerly noble buildings … I could only guess the town’s magnificence and splendor of former ages …
Of course at the end of the upper section of the ruined town there were also some ladies set up selling souvenirs. As they saw us coming, they quickly lifted the protective sheets from their displays. This time I did have a glance on what they had to offer … but still … I did not need anything … surely they tried hard to make a sell … We were probably the first potential customers this morning … In the end I did buy something … one of the enamel teapots looked mighty pretty in indigo blue with colourful decoration … I let the lady talk me into buying it for MRU 200 … US$ 6 or so …
We then kept walking down the ancient – and big – stairs of the Rue des 40 Savants to the lower section of the old town where the Mosque Fondateur was located. It was probably built in the 15th century when the town had expanded, but was now in ruins. It was still sacred, but visiting it was allowed. The mosque measured 24 m north-south at its eastern end and 17 m north-south at its western end. From east to west it would have measured 15 m.
The terrace was supported by 5 rows of horseshoe arches – many of which were still standing and some walls still had the remains of clay plaster, suggesting that the mosque was abandoned sometime in the 19th century. The premises had been restored between 2001 and 2002 with the support of the UNESCO.
Parts of the minaret still stood – it had been restored and it was even open – even non-believers could climb up to the top of the roofless stone building. So I went up the narrow stairs. The view from the top was great. I could overlook most of the ruined town and the extensions were incredible for a fortified town of the middle ages … what a place this must have been in the grand age of the trans-Saharan trade …
At the eastern end were the remains of an external mirhab – a niche in the wall of a mosque that indicated the qibla, the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca towards which Muslims should face when praying – and a courtyard measuring 13 x 12 m that would have been used in hot weather … it would have been shaded by palm trees …
The mosque stood at the edge of town right next to the ancient city wall. One of the main city gates was located right there. There was a hand painted map of the entire old town with all the highlights marked … we had visited all points of special interest. The abandoned houses, the narrow alleys, the views – it had made for a very interesting morning.
Walking out of the gate we met up with Sahar who had driven around the city walls to pick us up here. As we arrived at the car a group of French tourists on quads came screaming around the corner. They stopped and discussed … and I thought exploring the Sahara on a quad was probably a very cool thing to do as well … more adventurous than in a 4×4, but probably not as comfortable …
By now it was 09:30 and time to get on the road again … not off road … it was the main road … well … a rocky piste … but it was the main highway back to Atar … and Sahar flew over the very corrugated track … there were no sand dunes anywhere close … it was a rock desert … the landscapes had changed … the Sahara was not just a vast piece of sand here … Obviously the road had been constructed using the most accessible terrain. It was a 2WD gravel track …
I have to admit … it was not as interesting as going off road across the sand … it was just very flat … and very straight … and boring … and had a soporific effect on me … I napped often and only woke up every now and again … there were very few cars passing … very few … but there were signs every once in a while in the middle of seemingly nowhere … but they were certainly pointing to places near by … And today it was really really hot … I voluntarily closed the window so Sahar could put the AC on in the car …
Approx 150 km and 2.5 hrs later we turned off of the main piste … it was lunch time … and I was getting excited … There were not many geocaches in Mauritania … especially not in the desert … but there was one GPS marker near the main road and … I should have guessed … near a main point of interest … and Ely had chosen that spot for lunch break … Great!
The car slowly bumped along the track for some 5 km. Suddenly Sahar stopped and pointed to a slab of rock … Ely said – Oh look look! … I did not see anything … I was not sure what I was looking for … Quoi? Quoi? … What? What? … Là, sous le rocher! … There, under the rock!
… and then I saw it! … it was some sort of lizard … It was a Thorn-Tailed Agama – Uromastyx Acanthinura – also known as the North African Mastigure or North African Spiny-Tailed Lizard. These Agamas were downright desert dwellers – representatives of this genus could be found in the entire dry belts of Africa and Asia. They were relatively large – 25 to 50 cm long – and clumsy looking compared to other Agamas – with short, strong legs and a head reminding of the heads of tortoises. The short, thick tail was densely covered with strong spiked scales.
The track ended where the old pass road over Amogjar Pass must have once started … it was closed nowadays. But there was a small hut and an actual sign stating visitors had to pay a small entrance fee to see the Cave Paintings of Agrour … only, the premises seemed … if not completely abandoned … so for sure deserted and locked up … Ely looked a bit at a loss, but we just continued another 100 m to a suitable parking at the edge of the cliff overlooking the valley below.
Ely gestured me to follow him – On y va! … Let’s go! – he led me through huge orange-brown boulders worn away by repeated cycles of extreme dryness interrupted by torrential rains … They were remarkable. A narrow path led through them and up rocky stairs. The views were spectacular … Moving along I tried to check the GPS and near the final location of that geocache I scanned all rocks and cracks and niches … and detected no obvious hiding place … even though there were numerous possibilities … Hmmm …
The Agrour Amogjar was an almost 700 m high peak near the Amogjar Pass. The huge boulders had formed small natural shelters that housed a rich collection of rock paintings in a more or less damaged state. It was a site unearthed by Théodore Monod in 1928. He was a French naturalist, humanist, Sahara scholar and Africa explorer. Early in his career, Monod was made professor and founded the Institut fondamental d’Afrique noire in Senegal. He began his career in Africa with the study of monk seals on Mauritania’s Cap Blanc peninsula. However, he soon turned his attention to the Sahara desert, which he would survey for more than 60 years in search of meteorites. Though he failed to find the meteorite he sought, he discovered numerous plant species as well as several important Neolithic sites – including this one here.
The Neolithic period was the final division of the Stone Age – an epoch of human history that was defined as the first transition from the hunter-gatherer cultures to pastoral and farmer cultures. It was first seen about 12000 years ago and lasted until the transitional period of the Chalcolithic from about 6500 years ago to around 4500 BC – marked by the development of metallurgy, leading up to the Bronze Age and Iron Age. Archaeological evidence suggests that the Sahara was increasingly inhabited by diverse populations and plant and animal domestication led to occupational specialization. While the groups lived separately, the proximity of settlements suggests an increasing economic interdependence. External trade also developed. Copper from Mauritania had found its way to the Bronze Age civilizations of the Mediterranean by the 2nd millennium BC. Trade intensified with the emergence of the Iron Age civilizations of the Sahara during the 1st century BC …
The set of rock paintings here was heterogeneous. Apparently 8 stylistic groups had been recorded – ranging from the pastoral period to more recent graffiti. The panels were featuring geometric circles with sunburst design, handprints, naturalistic wildlife such as giraffe, lion and crocodile as well as herds of cattle and human collective scenes. We only visited one particular shelter with those paintings, though. Some of the most spectacular examples were apparently protected in a specially secured shelter … since the gate keeper was not here … we did not get to visit that … But the once we did see were extraordinary as well. Some were easy to identify … others were very hard to make out at all. But they were surprisingly big.
I could easily identify the painting of the elephant Ely pointed out to me. The hunter was very clear as well with his prey. The giraffe was a different story … I took a picture of the giraffe … it was there … but I had to look very carefully … Those hidden rock paintings were testimony of a time when nature in this region was more luxuriant … when giraffes, elephants and people roamed a green landscape in these parts.
Ely led me further on to the top of Agrour Amogjar – we were at the highest and extreme northwestern expansion of the Adrar Plateau almost 700 m above sea level. There was a lot of sand and very little vegetation between those amazing rock formations. Luckily the haze had lifted today and the sun was searing … it was a beautiful … hot … but beautiful …
It is true there is a scent in the desert,
though there may be no flower or tree or blade of grass within miles.
It is the essence of the untrodden,
untarnished earth herself!
Rosita Forbes
Reaching the flat top of the rock formations, Ely showed me a very peculiar looking, solitary rock … it looked like the remains of a lava bomb to me … but there was no lava around here … I think … The base of the curious looking rock was engraved with 27 or so streaks … apparently markings of ancient desert tribes … symbolizing the clans of the region.
At least one strange indentation was clearly visible … other sources mentioned 3 such markings … I could barely make them out … Ely said this was the foot print of the chief … It certainly looked like a foot print … very mysterious … Ely did not know how old this was supposed to be … but considering the rock paintings … I would put it into the same Neolithic period as well …
Walking back to the parking, we took the way across the flat top and down the other side. They had sure picked a spectacular spot … the view across the canyon was awesome. Sahar had in the meantime unpacked the truck. But our lunch spot was not right there … they led me into the maze of boulder once more and hidden in a narrow gap was a hollow … a perfect shelter for our picnic … While Ely prepared the food, I did go for another quick check on that geocache … the location was just around another boulder and I took a quick look only … I did not find it, since I got distracted by the view of Fort Saganne in the distance down below on the bottom of the valley.
Fort Saganne was a 1984 French war film directed by Alain Corneau and starring Gérard Depardieu, Philippe Noiret, Catherine Deneuve and Sophie Marceau. Based on the 1980 novel of the same name by Louis Gardel, the film was about a soldier of humble beginnings who volunteers for service in the Sahara in 1911. Fort Saganne was filmed on location in France and Mauritania – here the eponymous fort was built near the Amojjar Pass especially for the needs of the movie. The structure was still there, but in ruins … very young ruins comparably …
Lunch was good – rice salad with tomatoes, olives and chunks of Gouda cheese I had brought from home. The view was fantastic from this crook in the rock … Talk about lunch view goals … A slight breeze was blowing through the gab between the boulders, so it was not too hot either.
Whilst Ely cleaned up after lunch and took his siesta, I went for another walk in search of this geocache and a designated ladies’ rock … The secret box was my main mission … and I looked under every rock and in every cranny and around every corner … even far off of the coordinates … that box had vanished into the sands of the Sahara Desert … so I did a photolog instead! Of course … I was here!
I followed our footsteps from earlier and walked around some more. I could not get enough of those awesome rock formations and breathtaking views across the canyon. The sun was high up in the sky, there were almost no shadows. Still the sand was glowing in a rusty golden-orange, the rocks glimmered in a reddish-brown …
I’d forgotten how enlivening it could feel,
seeing clearly and far.
Aridity frees light.
It also unleashes grandeur.
The earth here wasn’t cloaked in forest,
nor draped in green.
Green was pastoral, peaceful, mild.
Desert beauty was “sublime” in the way
that the romantic poets had used the word –
not peaceful dales but rugged mountain faces,
not reassuring but daunting nature,
the earth’s skin and haunches,
its spines and angles arching prehistorically in sunlight.
Julene Bair – The Ogallala Road: A Memoir of Love and Reckoning
A little siesta later, the truck got loaded up again and by 14:30 we were on our way. Quickly we reached the main gravel road and headed west towards Atar. It was only another approx 35 km or so to go. The road was still very straight and flat … but only for a few more kilometers … then we reached the edge of the Adrar Plateau and with it the main Col d’Amogjar. From now the new pass road was nicely asphalted. Far down below in the canyon and beyond haze hung over the landscape.
There was almost no traffic, but suddenly we spotted a lone figure trekking up the steep road with a heavily laden donkey … in the middle of seemingly nowhere … Where did he come from? Where was he going? … I should not have been surprised when Sahar stopped the car next to the nomad and Ely waved in greeting … They knew the man! He was the keeper of the Cave Paintings of Agrour! He had been in Atar to buy provisions and now he was on his way back. He had started walking from Atar early in the morning … 35 km in this heat … in slippers … no fancy hiking boots or even proper walking shoes … by now it was scorchingly hot … and up those cliffs … but for him it was obviously nothing out of the ordinary … After a little chat Ely replenished the man’s canteen with water from our supply. We were going to the city and anyway, we had enough. Then he waved farewell and kept shuffling up the steep road in a steady slow pace with the donkey leading the way …
The pass road into the valley was very steep … signs stated 10% decline … long serpentines were leading down along the cliffs of the canyon. The vast, hostile Sahara remained to be the mother of all deserts. Named for the Arabic word for desert – sahra – the vast region sat on top of the warped, deformed and folded African Shield, composed of some of the oldest rocks on the planet, forged when life was limited to single-celled creatures living in the oceans … This stable mass of rock had been covered over with younger sediments, laid down in horizontal, largely unaltered layers. Much of the Sahara was covered with limestone – made mostly of the skeletons of microscopic sea creatures raining down onto the bottom of a long vanished sea.
Most of the limestone and sandstone covering the surface of the Sahara were deposited in the Mesozoic era some 245-65 million years ago. They were established in vast lakes and seas when the hard underlying rock of the African Shield got heated and deeply buried in the restless jostling of continents. The basins caused by the stretching of the crust over the down-warping rocks of the shield filled with huge bodies of water. Many of these rocks now have that distinctive feature of the desert, a rich, reddish-brown coating of iron and manganese compounds weathered into desert varnish. The plateaus of the Sahara were covered with such dark, varnished rock.
The road had been hewn into the cliff side and amazing layered rock patterns were displayed. The bases of the steep valley walls were covered in scree – loosened by erosion of rainfall. There was little plant life around here. Acacias were a notable exception as they were resistant to drought. The Amojjar Pass was an important link for ground transportation in Mauritania because it provide a somewhat protected roadway connecting Nouakchott with other important locations such as Ouadâne and Chinguetti.
Several hairpin bends and a distinct number of altitude meters later, we had reached the bottom of the canyon. The road leveled out and the pavement ended … the gravel track started once more. It seemed as if only the steep pass road had been improved in the last few years. Behind us the cliffs were lit up by the afternoon sun.
On the sunny, flat valley bottom we … well, Ely and Sahar … spotted more Thorn-Tailed Agamas. They were sunbathing on rocks. We actually saw quite a few, but most of the time when Sahar stopped the car they just disappeared. Agamas were colored dark, brown-grey or bright yellow, orange and green depending on the amount of sunlight. Adult males were significantly larger and had a larger head with a more pointed snout. There were also differences between the sexes in terms of coloring – the males were more contrasting and often differently colored than the females.
Thorn-Tailed Agamas – Uromastyx – inhabited exclusively arid areas – more precisely semi-deserts, but also the vegetation points in the full desert that were sparsely populated with plants. The total distribution area extended from West Africa to the West Indies – with 2 major distribution areas in Africa – the Sahara and the desert east of the Nile and East Africa to the Horn of Africa. When we got out of the car to have a closer look, the Agamas disappeared immediately under the rocks. We tried to find them … but they had hidden deep beneath. Uromastyx were exclusively diurnal and hide under stone slabs and in caves at night, in the greatest midday heat and when disturbed. They were pure herbivores and had hardly any natural enemies. The males occupied territories of several hectares.
Leaving the escarpment of the Adrar Plateau behind, the road passed through Oued Séguélil – a sandy wadi that began at the Adrar Plateau and ran south-west passing through the town of Atar to finally getting lost in the surrounding sands south of the town – it filled with water during the summer rainy season … when there was enough rain … The Adrar Plateau near Atar was rich in gorges like we had passed now and most of these gorges emptied into the Seguellil wadi bed resulting in a string of dried up pools and intermittent streams.
The last 10 km the road was dead straight … flat and straight … Atar was situated in a gently undulating plain bounded to the south-east by the Adrar Plateau and in the west by a smaller chain of hills rising like a layered desk. From the city bounds the road was asphalted again. Atar was the capital of the administrative region of Adrar and located in the cultural heartland of the Arab-Berber Bidhan ethnic groups in a Date Palm oasis and formed the economic center for the north of Mauritania.
Around 16:30 we reached Ely’s house where we would be staying tonight. It was a typical city house in a side street close to the city center. Ely led me in and introduced me to his wife. Most houses in the Sahara were designed with the climate in mind – they consisted of an open central courtyard to help with ventilation and had thick walls that kept out the heat. Rooms would be located around the central courtyard area and typically would not have any windows that opened to the outside … the only windows were facing the courtyard. That helped regulate temperature – the heat of the desert – given that about 30% of unwanted heat would enter through windows … I got allocated what seemed to be the common room … a large room laid out with carpets … mats and cushions along 3 walls … the 4th wall had a TV …
As I settled in – first plucking in all gadgets to charge and then trying to figure out which part of the room I would sleep at, Ely’s nephew ran in … actually Ely had introduced me to both his son and nephew … both of similar age between 3 and 4 years I think … but his son was a bit more shy … bless him … the nephew absolutely was not … he only looked once and then launched himself at me while I was sitting there … baammm … he was literally on me … I did not know what happened … Not only were small children not usually very impressed by me … but also was I not used to being this close to a stranger after a year of strict social distancing … or ever having a child attached to me … Jeeezz … Ely smiled, shot a rapid string of Arabic at the kid and plucked him of me … Phew … I am not a kids person … sorry … but he was cute!
The bathroom was located across the courtyard. I took a shower first and … believe me … tons of Sahara sand came off me … I even was worried to clog the drain … I was in a dilemma … waste water to clean up the mess behind me or safe water and leave it … damn … I cleaned it with minimal water as good as I could … But the shower and change felt great …
Around 17:30 Ely showed up again and took me around to visit his school project. The school was just around the corner in the next street. The project was called Emel Ejyal El khairiye – Generations of Hope. The day-to-day management, purchases and distribution of aid, organisation and educational monitoring was run by motivated indigenous people – Ely seemed to be the director. Emel wanted to help disadvantaged children in the city by offering them daily school, educational and food assistance. The NGO was made up of 2 parts – Emel Asbl based in Belgium and Emel Ejyal based in Mauritania.
In 2017, the adult – 15 years of age and above – literacy rate for Mauritania was 53.5 %. Though Mauritania adult literacy rate fluctuated substantially in recent years, it tended to increase through 2000 – 2017 … They said some 50% of the population was under 15 … to better understand the importance of good schooling … Unfortunately, due to the lack of resources both from the State and from the families … this was no wonder.
In 2009 the Emel Center was inaugurated … financed entirely from donations … and the first 30 children were welcomed. Since then the school has been enlarged and had 6 classrooms, an office, a library/computer room, a kitchen, a toilet/shower blocks, a storage room and a multi purpose room where the children had their lunch. Ely told me there were 108 students here now learning in shifts … all of them from poor families and a lot of them girls.
The aim of the project was to give children a chance of academic success – to create a welcoming place where the children could, in complete relaxation and in optimal conditions, follow lessons, study, read, play etc. We visited a couple of the classes were the kids were taught French, Arabic, mathematics, physics etc. The library room was large and had well stocked book shelves with books in French and Arabic.
Ely also showed me his garden next door … they were trying to grow mint, tomatoes, onions etc … it had been very dry in recent years, though … but still … they tended the garden well. Harvest would be meger, but there would be something.
Leaving the school I went for a walk to the city center – Ely pointed me in the direction of the market. I followed the very straight road. Atar had a population of approx 32000 and was an important transport hub. The main road from Nouakchott – 450 km away and the fastest road connection coming from the south – ended at the central roundabout and from there in an irregular, spider web-like fashion split into different directions. There was the road connecting to Chinguetti and Ouadâne to the east – scenically and culturally the gateway to Mauritania’s touristic heartland – and to the north, a paved road led to the small desert town of Choum on the Nouadhibou-Zouérat railway line and on to the iron ore mining area near Zouérat. Just north of the roundabout the Old Town Center and the market quarter were located. Ely’s house was approx 1.5 km north-east of this roundabout.
A residential district stretched along the road with one-storey, mostly shops and windowless houses with inner courtyards. Some front doors were still made of carved boards with wooden latches, but most were now modern-time metal doors. I was quite exotic around here … I did not even see any other westerners … the women I passed only stared at me … some smiled … men rather tried to talk to me … mostly I waved a friendly Bonjour! … and kept walking … But they were all friendly and the kids waved back … Puis-je prendre une photo? … Can I take a photo? … Non non non … S’il vous plaît? … Please? … Non non non …
Atar was also involved in the medieval trade between Morocco and the Sudan region – without being known as a cultural center at the same time. From 1830 Algeria came under French colonial rule and a few years later France conquered what was now Senegal. At that time there were already plans to connect those areas. In order to explore the travel routes in between, Léopold Panet – a Franco-Senegalese explorer – was commissioned to cross the Sahara in 1849. He detailed the Adrar region and described Atar as much more important than Chinguetti. According to him, the fields of Atar provided the entire region with agricultural products. In addition to dates also wheat, barley and millet were cultivated. Sheep, cattle, dromedaries, ostrich feathers, blue cloth from Europe and salt were traded at the market in those times.
The French troops began advancing across the Senegal River to the north around 1900. Although the military leaders had reached agreements with local tribes in Boutilimit in 1902 for the peaceful penetration of southern Mauritania the anti-colonial resistance groups withdrew further north into the Adrar region and began increasingly violent actions. In 1906 the people of Adrar asked for support against the French from the most important anti-colonial leader of the resistance actions in the western Sahara who sent one of his sons to Atar to lead the resistance here, because the Emir of Adrar had been expelled for fraternizing with the French. A few minor military successes could not hide the division of the tribes into opponents and allies of France and tribal feuds continued. The French then launched an attack on Atar during their Adrar offensive and finally ran the city over. The Emirate of Adrar was, however, allowed to continue to exist during the colonial rule with assured support of the French.
During the colonial period, Atar and Tidjikja became the administrative capitals of their respective provinces, while the formerly important Islamic cultural centers of Ouadâne, Chinguetti and – in the south – Tichitt and Oualata fell to provincial status as a result of the decline in caravan trade. There was a large French troop presence in Atar until Mauritania reached independence in 1960. At that time, Atar was the country’s largest city with around 10000 inhabitants. In 1963, the newly founded capital Nouakchott just overtook. Several years of drought in the 1970s and 1980s caused progressive desertification and drove many nomads to the coastal cities, where they often depended on foreign aid.
This late in the day the market was not as busy anymore. Many donkey carts were around … at the end of the day they were empty … some of the donkeys were already let loose and were rummaging around. I walked a bit around the market streets, but then turned back … the sun was setting and dusk fell quickly. It was already getting too dark to snap photos … I had not taken out the big camera anyway … it would have only scared the locals even more … already the small camera was a challenge … Oh well … I was again fascinated by the state of the cars that drove around here … some of them were more rust than anything … but obviously they were still running …
In a minimarket I bought some Mango Juice … it only cost MRU 25, but the shopping was quite an adventure in itself. My French was usually good enough to go shopping … but Mauritanian French was a somewhat different matter … and then I always understood they wanted 250 for that 0.5 liter bottle of juice … Quoi? … What? … Almost US$ 10? … Luckily I remembered Idoumou instructing me to watch it and not get confused, because the currency had been changed in January 2018 and basically a 0 had been cut off – a redenomination of the currency at a rate of 1:10 had been announced – 10 former Uglyans MRO were now 1 Uguiya MRU. But most people still thought in the old currency … and I could not really figure out the shopkeeper … 25? …Oui! 250! … ??? … in the end I just gave him MRU 25 and he was happy.
By 19:15 I was back at the house. I prepared my bed for tonight … I pumped up my air mattress … it had an integrated pump and was very quick in filling up. It was hot in the desert … I put my bed under the fan and did not unpack the sleeping bag, but rather used the sarong as sheet for tonight.
Around 20:00 or so, Ely picked me up and we went to his Mother’s house for dinner. She lived just around the block. He had brought his son with him who now toddled along with us. We had dinner in the common room. It was Chicken and French fries and fresh salad. It was very good.
Filled up with dinner, we just hung around … Ely’s son and nephew were all over him. I guess they were happy for him to be home for a night. Tomorrow he would be gone again for a few more days when we continued our tour. His wife and Mother and sister were outside socializing in the courtyard. I guess, I was his business obligation and he had to entertain me … I had been introduced when arriving, but now they were probably waiting for him to finish work …
There was also excellent cold Karkadé – Hibiscus tea – an herbal tea made as an infusion from crimson or deep magenta-colored calyces of the Roselle – Hibiscus Sabdariffa – flower. In Africa, Hibiscus Tea was commonly sold in markets and the dried flowers can be found throughout West and East Africa. Variations of the drink were popular in parts of Central Africa. Karkadé – I remembered it vividly from my 2-months stint in Egypt … decades ago … 1999 as a diving instructor in Hurghada … many vendors and open-air cafés sold the drink. After dinner Ely noticed me liking it and filled the left over pitcher up into an empty water bottle for me to take back to the house. Merci!
Subsequently Ely brought me back to the house and I fiddled about with my photos and was online checking messages and posting updates. I was really getting excited … my grand adventure – for which I came to Mauritania for – was getting closer …
26.03.2021
ca. 350 km Atar to Zouérat
Comme d’habitude … as usual … I was up early … did my morning routine and packed up … By 07:45 we had breakfast and then Sahar showed up with the car and loaded it up. Sahar had probably spent the night at home as well … the pile of fire wood he had collected during the last few days was gone … our water supplies had been refilled …
During breakfast I had asked Ely if we could make a little detour in town before leaving. There was a geocache hidden in a guesthouse at the western side of town … it was called Gateway to Sahara and was on the premises of Bab Sahara. I showed Ely the map … he was not sure … but when I read him comments from the online logs about the owner Just … he knew exactely who I was talking about and said … Mais oui! … We can do this! …
So … by 08:30 we were ready to head out this morning and Ely’s wife came with us to the market. We stopped by the central roundabout I walked to yesterday and Ely took his wife to the market … I think I was supposed to stay in the car … but I got out and started walking around taking photos … The market was clearly more lively than last night … the bread sellers were all over the roundabout …
Sahar was clearly not amused and followed me. I think, he had to discuss big with a police officer … they were at it in Arabic … I have no idea about what … but it might have had to do with parking in the wrong spot … Well … I was not going far just hanging around taking photos … Sahar could have easily parked the car somewhere else … but it was obvious … he was not supposed to let me wander off by myself … Luckily, Ely returned quickly … problem solved …
They indulged me by going to find that geocache with me. Bab Sahar was … or had been … THE meeting place for desert drivers, overlanders and backpackers in the region … it was one of the oldest addresses for them in Atar and was managed by a Dutch guy called Just. For more than 20 years it had been a reputated international stop for travellers in the middle of the desert – still on the outskirts of civilization. Following Mauritania’s independence from France in 1960, at which time the vast majority of the country was still nomadic, European tourism developed slowly. In part this was attributable to the Western Sahara War in which Mauritania was briefly engaged, but the driving distance from Europe was also a factor when compared to Algeria whose profile similarly benefitted from the rise of the original Paris-Dakar Rally in the early 1980s. It was the 1991 ceasefire with the Polisario Front along with the escalating Algerian Civil War of the 1990s which saw the so-called Atlantic Route open up to trade and tourism – when Algeria and its trans-Saharan routes closed. Initially Moroccan army convoys loosely escorted travellers – which included a healthy trade in used cars – from Dakhla/Western Sahara to the Moroccan border with Mauritania. Once in Mauritania they drove across the sands to Nouadhibou where local guides were needed to travel the desert and beach piste to the capital of Nouakchott. Some intrepid travellers hitched a ride – or even loaded their cars – eastwards on the Mauritania Railway which brought iron ore to Nouadhibou from the mines inland at Zouérat. From Choum this provided access to Atar and the Adrar plateau – tourism gained a small foothold in Mauritania … A shocking security set back came in 2007 and led to the cancellation of the Dakar Rally and its eventual relocation to South America. However … tourist traffic from Moroccan Western Sahara never stopped completely – despite over-cautious travel advice issued by the European governments and foreign ministries – but ebbed out considerably … In 2018, the improvement of the security situation saw the resumption of flights from Paris to Atar, which was hoped to kickstart a revival of desert tourism … it did for a bit … and then the shit hit the fan in 2020 and the world stood still completely …
When we reached Bab Sahara, the gate was locked … the premises deserted … Ely chatted with some locals nearby and said Just was still there, but he never showed up before like 10:00 or 11:00 in the morning … we were here just before 09:00 … and we did not have the time to wait … the neighbour let us into the wide open garden area which usually doubled as a campground, I guessed. It looked like a really cool place to hang out around here … I did inspect possible hiding places for that secret box, but did not want to poke too much without the owners of the place approving … so I did one more photolog instead …
Before we finally hit the long road to Zouérat, we stopped again in the center at the market. Ely swore me in to stay in the car while they quickly went to pick up supplies. I did as I was told … guard the car … and did some people watching … but I should not have been worried … they were back in a few minutes.
We were taking the main road north out of the city. This morning there was definitely more traffic and people around than yesterday afternoon when I walked here. I did spot one other westerner in town … as soon as we left the city limits traffic died down to a trickle, though.
The asphalted road led straight north through the sandy plain that was most probably still Oued Séguélil. Several small settlements lined the road in the vicinity of Atar. At one of those villages we stopped for a minute and Sahar handed a couple of bag with food to a woman with a toddler. I think, Ely said it was his wife or ex-wife who lived here. Sahar also originated from this region.
About 25 km on, along a very straight road we passed the village of Kseïr et Torchâne where typical ksar-like desert houses lined the new road. We stopped there for a minute for Ely to get something. Time for me to do some people watching … there were not many around, though …
Shortly after this village the newly asphalted road turned sharp westwards across a rocky plateau before it descended in several hairpin bends to the next sandy terrain level and further on more serpentines led down the last level of enscarpment into the low desert plain. With that we were geographically leaving the Adrar Plateau of the Taoudeni Basin and reached the Senegal-Mauritanian basin – the largest basin in the Atlantic margin of north-west Africa, covering an area of 350000 km² reaching down through Senegal, Gambia and Guinea-Bissau. We were back in the sandy part of the Sahara and soon the road turned north once more. Very often the desert tried to claim the new road … dunes were shifting, if there was a road or not …
The next 70 km or so were on a dead straight and flat asphalted road … rather monotonous … it had this soporific effect on me as usual … I took naps most of the time … But I woke up right on time when we reached the small town of Choum and with that the Mauritanian railway line around 11:45! Of course, I was wide awake immediately! Choum had approx 2500 inhabitants … and if I had blinked I would have missed it … there was not much …
The town grew from its position on trans-Saharan trading routes and declined with the trade … It was a stop on the Mauritania Railway from Nouadhibou on the Atlantic coast to Zouérat as well as a transport hub for access to the Adrar Plateau and to Nouakchott. The town stood on a spur of land which carried the major turning-point in the border between Mauritania and Western Sahara. In the early 1960s, the French colonial authorities in Mauritania wished to build a railway line from Nouadhibou to Zouérat to exploit the iron ore reserves at Zouérat. The Spanish authorities – then responsible for Western Sahara – negotiated to allow the railway to be built through Spanish territory over relatively level desert, but imposed conditions unacceptable to the French. The French engineers therefore built the line parallel with the border and tunneled through the Choum hillspur – 2 km through solid granite … when some 5 km on either side existed nothing but flat plain sand desert … just to stay within French territory … That tunnel had been subsequently called a monument to European stupidity in Africa … the absurdity was highlighted when the southern part of the territory of Western Sahara was briefly administered by Mauritania after the Spanish withdrew in 1975/1976 … Nowadays, the tunnel was abandoned – as in 1991 the Mauritania Railway was finallly relocated into Western Sahara east of Choum … in spite of the tunnel existing solely to prevent that exact occurrence.
With the railway track passing through Western Sahara – interestingly, the 5km of track was the only railway running within that country … making it one of the smallest railway networks in the world among countries that have any railway whatsoever – also the main road had been relocated and was passing through Western Sahara … through the Polisario Front controlled part of Western Sahara. That meant … I was in fact visiting an new country! The Polarsteps tracker was sure not lying!
Western Sahara is a disputed territory on the northwest coast and in the Maghreb region of North and West Africa. About 20% of the territory is controlled by the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic – while the remaining 80% of the territory is occupied and administered by neighboring Morocco. Its surface area amounts to 266000 km², but it is one of the most sparsely populated territories in the world – mainly consisting of desert flatlands. The population is estimated at just over 500000 of which nearly 40% live in Laayoune, the largest city in Western Sahara located in its far north. Occupied by Spain until 1975, Western Sahara has been on the United Nations list of non-self-governing territories since 1963 after a Moroccan demand. In 1975, Spain relinquished the administrative control of the territory to a joint administration by Morocco and Mauritania. A war erupted between those countries and the Sahrawi nationalist movement – the Polisario Front – which proclaimed the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) with a government in exile in Tindouf/Algeria. Mauritania withdrew its claims in 1979 and Morocco eventually secured de facto control of most of the territory, including all major cities and most natural resources. The United Nations considers the Polisario Front to be the legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people and maintains that the Sahrawis have a right to self-determination. Since a United Nations-sponsored ceasefire agreement in 1991, 2/3 of the territory – including most of the Atlantic coastline – has been administered by the Moroccan government, with tacit support from France and the United States. The remainder is held by the SADR – backed by Algeria.
If my Polarsteps tracker had not told me … I would not have noticed a difference in scenery … Those 5 km were as flat and sandy as the rest of the trip … There had not been a sign or a check point at the invisible border … check points we had passed many today already … but not here …
It was another approx 200 km from Choum to Zouérat. The road was a spot-on asphalt highway paralleling the railway track … it seemed to have been updated recently and there was quite a bit of traffic as well … and as many check points … No photo! No photo! … Ely kept reminding me … The road seemed to be part of the N1 connection from Nouakchott. Since Zouérat was an important economical point, I guess it got serviced regularly. Still it was very straight and very flat and very monotonous …
Ahead of us – we could see it despite the desert haze – a camel herd crossed the road. For centuries it had been common practice to herd camels hundreds of kilometers through the desert. Now – with only a small number of herders left – the ancient art of desert navigation would soon be lost. From the south of Morocco, the great Sahara Desert extended more than a thousand kilometers into Mauritania. Hot and dry – the desert was hostile to life … yet for centuries, camel herders had successfully traveled back and forth across this landscape, between their herd’s winter and summer camps.
I was pestering Ely the entire time … no I did not nap anymore … about when THE train would pass! I had come here to ride the longst train in the world and before we would get on it tomorrow … Yeah! … I wanted to see it. The train track was on our right always sort of within visibility … but no train … yet … I had been under the impression that there was only one train per day in either direction … but apparently there were at least 2 in either direction … depending on demand of course … so far, we had not seen one … only heavy road construction machinery being parked … and probably used on demand … when the desert tried to claim the road …
… and we passed what was obviousely a train crash site … well … the deformed waggons were half covered in Sahara sand already … I got all excited when we flew past the site … so Ely and Sahar indulged me and we stopped for a closer look. I was fascinated by it in any case … some sort of desert railway art … awesome …
This train crash had sure happend a long time ago … the waggons were totally mangled … a bend mess of iron … already rusty … My first guess was that the crash might have had occured during the late 1970s … Following Mauritania’s annexation of southern Western Sahara in 1976, the line had come under constant attack by Polisario militia … effectively putting it out of use and thereby crippling Mauritania’s economy … but I could not be sure … after all I was not an expert … however, those waggons did not look as if they were rotting there more than 40 years … it could have been just a recent train crash … then again … what would I know …
By about 13:00 we stopped for lunch. They had been looking for a suitable spot near the train tracks for a while and now had found it. The wind had picked up considerably in the last hour. It was blowing the sand horizontally across the road. It had been hazy all morning, but it was a gloomy yellow light now … Was a sandstorm brewing? … I could vividly imagine the sand consuming the road eventually …
Our lunch stop was near train track km 555. There were a couple of abandoned huts and one of them looked good to Ely … he chose it as our siesta shelter. Across the road ahead of us a camel herd was moving slowly along. It was a huge herd being ushered by a few men. There were adult camels and also young ones. Only a couple of them had a small load of luggage tied on their backs … Maybe they were on their way to summer camp …
It had been getting more and more gloomy the further we advanced north … as we stopped now, I could not believe it … What was that? … I felt a raindrop hit my arm … unbelieving I stared at it … another raindrop …Sahar was unpacking the car, but he was neither impressed nor did he care … I was excited! … Il pleut! … Rain in the Sahara desert … He just shrugged and mumbled something in the line of … that is no rain … just a few drops … The Sahara Desert was one of the driest and hottest regions of the world and precipitation was scarce – the whole desert generally receives less than 100 mm of rain per year and many consecutive years may even pass without any rainfall at all. Today it was just a few drops, indeed … the literal drop on a hot stone … then the phenomenon was gone …
I went an an exploration walk around the area, while Sahar was unpacking and Ely started to prepare lunch inside the hut. This place seemed to once have been a switch station or such … the few buildings were now abandoned … and windswept …
Being totally fascinated, I had a look down the railway tracks … dead straight in either direction … kilometers … no bend as far as I could see … it was a standard-gauge railway with a track gauge of 1435 mm – also called Stephenson gauge after George Stephenson, International gauge, normal gauge or European gauge in Europe – the most widely used railway track gauge around the world, with approximately 55% of the lines in the world using it.
How long this switch station had been abandoned … I could not tell … but the desert had been claiming it back rapidly … there were all kinds of things laying around … I was amazed to find old, discarded rusty shell casings of different sizes … there were many around … Could I take a couple of them as a souvenir? … hmm … or would I get arrested at the airport? … I took the chance and hid them between all the camera gadgets …
Sahar was also looking for treasures … I saw him inspecting pebbles and rocks. He used this ancient lens … maybe from an old camera or such … I could not tell … he said he was looking for precious stones … I had spotted many oddly shaped rocks in the desert in the last few days … also meteorites were not uncommon in the Sahara. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a sudden availability of large numbers of meteorites that could be found with relative ease in places that were readily accessible – in the desert in flat, featureless desert areas covered only by small pebbles and minor amounts of sand. Dark-colored meteorites could be easily spotted in these places. By the late 1990s, private meteorite-collecting expeditions had been launched throughout the Sahara. Meteorite markets came into existence, especially in Morocco. The meteorites were supplied by nomads and local people who combed the deserts looking for specimens to sell. Many thousands of meteorites have been distributed in this way … most of which lack any information about how, when or where they were discovered … Today Sahar did not find anything worth keeping, though …
All the time I was looking and listening for a train to pass … Patience! Patience! … they told me … but first it was lunch time. Ely had finished cooking and set up the mats in the abandoned hut. I parked myself so that I could look out the door … Since the full train would not leave Zouérat around 15:00, there would be an empty train coming from the south first … most probably … at least that was our hope … Lunch was goat meat with onions and fresh bread from Atar. It was very good again. I think it was the first time that we had goat meat on this tour.
We had just started eating, when Sahar gestured me and said something in Arabic wagely pointing outside … I was sure he said, there was a train coming … I could not see one yet in the haze … or hear it … so I asked Ely … Y a-t-il un train? … Is there a train coming? … He kept eating and just said Non! – Mais il l’a dit! … But he said so! – Qui? … Who? – Sahar, il a dit un train arrive! … Sahar said there was a train coming! – Mais, non! Je ne vois pas de train! … But no! I do not see a train! … Hmm … but Sahar kept pointing and explaining in Arabic … and then I saw it in the far distance coming out of the haze … In no time I was up, had grabbed the cameras and was carefully navigating around Sahar and our food – out I ran towards the railway tracks. In one hand the small camera recording a video … in the other hand the big camera taking a couple of photos … all the time staring in awe at that train … The famous Train du Désert … the desert train … the Iron Ore train of Mauritania … the longest train in the world … it was not very fast … but it was loooooong … at some point I could neither see the beginning nor the end of that train … only the endles number of waggons rolling past …
Ooohhhh … I was getting excited! Tomorrow afternoon I would get on that train and ride it all the way to Nouadhibou on the Atlantic coast … For now I finished lunch happily. After Sahar had made tea and Ely had cleaned up, they took their siesta. I found a shady spot behind the hut with a good view of the train tracks in either direction. The wind had stopped now and the sun was getting stonger. I was hoping the full train would pass while we were here, but I was not as lucky … By 16:30 the truck had been packed once more and we were on the road again … the last few kilometer to Zouérat … were tomorrow the grand train adventure awaited me!
I travel because I’d rather look back at my life,
saying “I can’t believe I did that”
instead of “if only I had”.
Florine Bos
