the Mauritanian tourist circuit
By morning we should have been to the coast, but at 6:30 I woke up in my corner of the train car to find we were not moving. Nor were we still attached to anything that could have moved. I vaguely remembered feeling the train stop sometime around three, and thinking that we were going in reverse… but it was pitch black except for the stars, and eight hours into the trip I was trying hard not to wake up. It took too much effort to get to sleep in the first place-it was freezing, and sleeping on rocks (even small rocks) is not comfortable. The situation probably could have been better: Andi and I had been told that it would get cold at night. But in the rush to get a car to Choum-from where the train left-we didn’t get a chance to go by a dead toubab (secondhand clothing) store and pick up sweaters. So when I woke up at three a.m. I was wearing a T-shirt, and curled into the smallest space possible along the front edge of the car, trying to stay warm. At that point I was happy that we’d stopped moving. Less wind.
at sunset, it wasn't cold yet
6:40ish: Andi is awake now, so we assess the situation. We’re not going anywhere, clearly. And we’re dirty. Andi, formerly off-white, is now a shiny bronzy red. My feet, hands and arms are the same shade so I figure I look about the same. There is nothing to do so I admire my new, deep skin tone. It doesn’t rub off. On the ground next to the train some men have started making tea (there is nothing for them to do, either). A guy looks up and howls-we should take a picture, he says: Une pose! Une pose! It’s still cold… a few minutes later they hand up a scruffy thick blanket along with a tasse of tea. So we huddle and watch the sunrise. Alright, so if we stopped around three-we still have about four hours before we get to Nouadhibou. And if it’s seven o’clock now, maybe we can get there by noon. And if nothing comes back for us? We’ve got about a liter of water and most of a kilo of dates. And in the other twenty or so cars, all these lovely people to keep us company.
it was a rough night
8ish: no longer making tea, the people on the ground are all standing over by the tracks, looking west. Those are the tracks we used to be on, the ones that actually go somewhere. They are lying flat on the sand with their ears to the track, then a train’s approaching and their arms are waving. From our piece of train, some bags are thrown down. Hmm. We hesitate… the mulafa-ed woman in our car isn’t moving. But then everyone is yelling us over, and more bags drop down… So we do it too. Andi catches what I lower over the edge, except our gigantic combined bag (we thought it would be a good idea). It probably landed with a thud. I feel responsible for the pack, since it’s actually mine, and shoulder it for the 100 yards to the other track. People are already climbing up onto the cars… and then about ten yards out it starts to move. A guy in a howlie runs over and takes my bag and pushes it up to someone on top of the train. Andi is already being pulled on (she said later a large Moor woman grabbed her by the arm and single-handedly tossed her up). I’ve got a hold on one of the rungs up the side and someone is pushing me up, too. We settle in with a bunch of women and kids toward the rear of the car and watch the people still on the other train watch us going east.
the rescue
This is the last part of our big trip up north. This is the part where Andi and I leave Atar and catch the iron ore train in Choum-it stops for five minutes, everyone scrambles up, sun sets, gets cold… etc-and take it to Nouadhibou. We did not get to buy sweaters in Atar because we were late getting in from Tirjit, an oasis village an hour outside of the city where we spent the previous night. To be exact we spent the night between several skinny palm trees and a high wall that drips cold water all day and all night. Some of it is caught in a plastic baignoire. You can drink it and it won’t make you sick. Even the French tourists drank from it-we saw earlier in the day; we were watching them from our matelas. That is what there is to do in an oasis: lay on a matelas and drink water. In this particular oasis there is also a small square concrete pool that fills up with water from a source in the rocks, so we swam, too, or sort of shifted from one side to the other (it’s about four feet wide). This place was totally unlike Mauritania-lush, and absolutely beautiful. I miss the sound of water. I could have listened to the water all day.
terjit
Since we’d left Nouakchott, until that point, we saw a lot of sand. I’d always figured the desert started just outside of Nouakchott. It does, but not the dramatic movie-backdrop lost-in-the-desert dunes. Instead it’s flat: flat and colorless, with a road that bends roughly five times over the course of six hours. I thought Sy was going to fall asleep-I watched his eyes from the back of the car and thought of random things to say to keep his attention. The scenery didn’t change much until just before Atar-then it’s all rocky mountains. We admired them in the dark, from the side of the road, as Sy changed the first flat tire. We caught a ride the next day from Atar out to my friend Alexis’ site: her tiny Moor village and tiny concrete house and tiny host-grandmother, all in view of the same mountains. Then we picked up Todd and Saman and went to Chinguetti.
camels are moving faster than us...
Chinguetti is where people go if they go to Mauritania. So much so that there are two flights a week from Paris to Atar during the tourist season. We missed the beginning of the season by about two weeks, so the only Frenchies were the ones we first saw in Chinguetti, then again in Tirjit. Chinguetti has two things going for it, basically: first, it has a store of crumbling libraries containing ancient Arabic texts. Secondly, it has the dramatic movie-backdrop lost-in-the-desert dunes. Andi and I checked out both during the four days we camped out at Jeff’s house. The ancient ruin part of town looks remarkably like the rest of it: stone houses, stone walls (and occasional small white satellite dishes). The library we visited is actually about a block behind Jeff’s. A little old guy gave a very professional tour. After running through the history of the town he showed us into the first “library” room, a collection that included relatively recent Arabic, French and English books and magazines. He opened up a French book on Mauritania and asked the French tourists to please read the following: (something about men here liking their women large. Gasp.). Then he had me read this, yes, right there: (something about how in the old days girls used to be forced to drink milk, and their toes would be pinched if they refused). Haha, he said. Of course that doesn’t happen now. (Hmm). The second room was a little more impressive-he showed us examples of the writing and passed around an Ancient Text. Apparently there have been efforts to preserve the books but nothing is happening right now. They are lined up in the mud room, top shelf to bottom shelf, in labeled cardboard magazine holders...
library in chinguetti
Oudane is off the tourist circuit. It’s about four hours (with a good, fast car) from anywhere, through more of what Andi accurately described as “vast nothingness.” Todd and Saman hosted us for lunch at their house then took us for a tour of Oudane’s old city. No offense to Chinguetti. Oudane’s ruins are incredible: they spread out over the hillside all the way down to the palmeries. Climbing through what were once streets is like going through a maze. It helped that our guides have given the tour any number of times, so they knew all the turns-we started at the top and came out at the very bottom, at a well, and then walked up the stairs to the minaret of the ancient (as opposed to the other, “old”) mosque. They pointed out the clear spot in the broken mud walls where kids hold soccer matches… The whole place is a world heritage site.
the old city in oudane
Back in Chinguetti we took Jeff away from important tree planting business to find us some camels. He had some neighbors who dealt with that sort of thing-if we went by and let them know, they could probably come up with some for the next day. How many did we need? (two). If it could be done, they’d meet us at the house at four. They are there the next afternoon: we planned for an overnight, so we strap a few bags onto the saddle. We walk out of town and over a few dunes before our guide tries to convince the camels to let us ride them. He pulls on the rope that is hooked through the camel’s nostril. The camel lets out God-awful noises before relenting-folding first the front set of legs, then the back set. Going up the legs unfold in the reverse order, so you pitch forward before balancing out, six feet off the ground. It’s a nice view. It was nice watching the sun set over the dunes, and watching Jeff and Sam (the Chinguetti volunteers) walk the whole 18 K to the oasis. They said they wanted to walk! So they walked. While Andi and I rode, princess style.
this was the view for most of the trip
We spent the night in an oasis under a full moon. Highlights: Our guide baked bread in the sand under the fire. He also tried to assemble a sauce with the random canned goods we bought at the boutique. That didn’t work as well (we neglected to bring any of the staples of Mauritanian cooking: oil, onion, Maggi cube)… The next morning, on the way back to Chinguetti, we started up a particularly steep dune. Preoccupied with documenting the entire trip I pulled out my trusty Canon to get a good picture of this. At which point my camel’s feet start to slip. And the saddle slides back. The camel is moaning, the guide is urging it the rest of the way up the dune; meanwhile I’m holding on with my one free hand, the right one waving around in the air clutching the camera. Obviously we made it. I did not get crushed, the camera did not get pitched into the Sahara (the pictures will one day be on Smugmug) and the camel probably doesn’t hate me any more than it already did.
That's it. I'm back in Selibaby now.
at sunset, it wasn't cold yet
6:40ish: Andi is awake now, so we assess the situation. We’re not going anywhere, clearly. And we’re dirty. Andi, formerly off-white, is now a shiny bronzy red. My feet, hands and arms are the same shade so I figure I look about the same. There is nothing to do so I admire my new, deep skin tone. It doesn’t rub off. On the ground next to the train some men have started making tea (there is nothing for them to do, either). A guy looks up and howls-we should take a picture, he says: Une pose! Une pose! It’s still cold… a few minutes later they hand up a scruffy thick blanket along with a tasse of tea. So we huddle and watch the sunrise. Alright, so if we stopped around three-we still have about four hours before we get to Nouadhibou. And if it’s seven o’clock now, maybe we can get there by noon. And if nothing comes back for us? We’ve got about a liter of water and most of a kilo of dates. And in the other twenty or so cars, all these lovely people to keep us company.
it was a rough night
8ish: no longer making tea, the people on the ground are all standing over by the tracks, looking west. Those are the tracks we used to be on, the ones that actually go somewhere. They are lying flat on the sand with their ears to the track, then a train’s approaching and their arms are waving. From our piece of train, some bags are thrown down. Hmm. We hesitate… the mulafa-ed woman in our car isn’t moving. But then everyone is yelling us over, and more bags drop down… So we do it too. Andi catches what I lower over the edge, except our gigantic combined bag (we thought it would be a good idea). It probably landed with a thud. I feel responsible for the pack, since it’s actually mine, and shoulder it for the 100 yards to the other track. People are already climbing up onto the cars… and then about ten yards out it starts to move. A guy in a howlie runs over and takes my bag and pushes it up to someone on top of the train. Andi is already being pulled on (she said later a large Moor woman grabbed her by the arm and single-handedly tossed her up). I’ve got a hold on one of the rungs up the side and someone is pushing me up, too. We settle in with a bunch of women and kids toward the rear of the car and watch the people still on the other train watch us going east.
the rescue
This is the last part of our big trip up north. This is the part where Andi and I leave Atar and catch the iron ore train in Choum-it stops for five minutes, everyone scrambles up, sun sets, gets cold… etc-and take it to Nouadhibou. We did not get to buy sweaters in Atar because we were late getting in from Tirjit, an oasis village an hour outside of the city where we spent the previous night. To be exact we spent the night between several skinny palm trees and a high wall that drips cold water all day and all night. Some of it is caught in a plastic baignoire. You can drink it and it won’t make you sick. Even the French tourists drank from it-we saw earlier in the day; we were watching them from our matelas. That is what there is to do in an oasis: lay on a matelas and drink water. In this particular oasis there is also a small square concrete pool that fills up with water from a source in the rocks, so we swam, too, or sort of shifted from one side to the other (it’s about four feet wide). This place was totally unlike Mauritania-lush, and absolutely beautiful. I miss the sound of water. I could have listened to the water all day.
terjit
Since we’d left Nouakchott, until that point, we saw a lot of sand. I’d always figured the desert started just outside of Nouakchott. It does, but not the dramatic movie-backdrop lost-in-the-desert dunes. Instead it’s flat: flat and colorless, with a road that bends roughly five times over the course of six hours. I thought Sy was going to fall asleep-I watched his eyes from the back of the car and thought of random things to say to keep his attention. The scenery didn’t change much until just before Atar-then it’s all rocky mountains. We admired them in the dark, from the side of the road, as Sy changed the first flat tire. We caught a ride the next day from Atar out to my friend Alexis’ site: her tiny Moor village and tiny concrete house and tiny host-grandmother, all in view of the same mountains. Then we picked up Todd and Saman and went to Chinguetti.
camels are moving faster than us...
Chinguetti is where people go if they go to Mauritania. So much so that there are two flights a week from Paris to Atar during the tourist season. We missed the beginning of the season by about two weeks, so the only Frenchies were the ones we first saw in Chinguetti, then again in Tirjit. Chinguetti has two things going for it, basically: first, it has a store of crumbling libraries containing ancient Arabic texts. Secondly, it has the dramatic movie-backdrop lost-in-the-desert dunes. Andi and I checked out both during the four days we camped out at Jeff’s house. The ancient ruin part of town looks remarkably like the rest of it: stone houses, stone walls (and occasional small white satellite dishes). The library we visited is actually about a block behind Jeff’s. A little old guy gave a very professional tour. After running through the history of the town he showed us into the first “library” room, a collection that included relatively recent Arabic, French and English books and magazines. He opened up a French book on Mauritania and asked the French tourists to please read the following: (something about men here liking their women large. Gasp.). Then he had me read this, yes, right there: (something about how in the old days girls used to be forced to drink milk, and their toes would be pinched if they refused). Haha, he said. Of course that doesn’t happen now. (Hmm). The second room was a little more impressive-he showed us examples of the writing and passed around an Ancient Text. Apparently there have been efforts to preserve the books but nothing is happening right now. They are lined up in the mud room, top shelf to bottom shelf, in labeled cardboard magazine holders...
library in chinguetti
Oudane is off the tourist circuit. It’s about four hours (with a good, fast car) from anywhere, through more of what Andi accurately described as “vast nothingness.” Todd and Saman hosted us for lunch at their house then took us for a tour of Oudane’s old city. No offense to Chinguetti. Oudane’s ruins are incredible: they spread out over the hillside all the way down to the palmeries. Climbing through what were once streets is like going through a maze. It helped that our guides have given the tour any number of times, so they knew all the turns-we started at the top and came out at the very bottom, at a well, and then walked up the stairs to the minaret of the ancient (as opposed to the other, “old”) mosque. They pointed out the clear spot in the broken mud walls where kids hold soccer matches… The whole place is a world heritage site.
the old city in oudane
Back in Chinguetti we took Jeff away from important tree planting business to find us some camels. He had some neighbors who dealt with that sort of thing-if we went by and let them know, they could probably come up with some for the next day. How many did we need? (two). If it could be done, they’d meet us at the house at four. They are there the next afternoon: we planned for an overnight, so we strap a few bags onto the saddle. We walk out of town and over a few dunes before our guide tries to convince the camels to let us ride them. He pulls on the rope that is hooked through the camel’s nostril. The camel lets out God-awful noises before relenting-folding first the front set of legs, then the back set. Going up the legs unfold in the reverse order, so you pitch forward before balancing out, six feet off the ground. It’s a nice view. It was nice watching the sun set over the dunes, and watching Jeff and Sam (the Chinguetti volunteers) walk the whole 18 K to the oasis. They said they wanted to walk! So they walked. While Andi and I rode, princess style.
this was the view for most of the trip
We spent the night in an oasis under a full moon. Highlights: Our guide baked bread in the sand under the fire. He also tried to assemble a sauce with the random canned goods we bought at the boutique. That didn’t work as well (we neglected to bring any of the staples of Mauritanian cooking: oil, onion, Maggi cube)… The next morning, on the way back to Chinguetti, we started up a particularly steep dune. Preoccupied with documenting the entire trip I pulled out my trusty Canon to get a good picture of this. At which point my camel’s feet start to slip. And the saddle slides back. The camel is moaning, the guide is urging it the rest of the way up the dune; meanwhile I’m holding on with my one free hand, the right one waving around in the air clutching the camera. Obviously we made it. I did not get crushed, the camera did not get pitched into the Sahara (the pictures will one day be on Smugmug) and the camel probably doesn’t hate me any more than it already did.
That's it. I'm back in Selibaby now.