Senegal to Mauritania

Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania, and perhaps one of the most bizarre and random places I have ever visited - certainly the most dusty and sandy. A city that was born not much more than 50 years ago and set just 5km inland. It doesn’t have the most attractive climate given that 200 days a year, it is subject to a sand storm and the temperature is topping 40 degrees today. A day when one would prefer to be wearing minimal clothing, but given this is the Islamic State of Mauritania, quite a lot of clothing is required so as not to offend. I can’t honestly say that Nouakchott is in any way a beautiful city, but it is still quite exciting to be here. How many people can say they’ve been to Nouakchott. Indeed, who even knew that Nouakchott was the capital of Mauritania? I didn’t, but it might come in useful as a quiz question one day….

Since leaving Dakar a few days ago, we headed into northern Senegal which could not be more different from the southern part. Getting ever closer to the Sahara desert, the land is very dry and barren. Vehicles are replaced by horses and carts which seem to be the transport of choice. Most of the horses are in good condition despite the lack of grass. The Senegalese, for the most part, seem to value their horses and treat them well as it is common to see them resting with their harnesses off and their heads in a nose bag of food. 

Our first night after leaving Dakar took us to the town of Touba where we visited a large mosque. We then headed out of town to find a bush camp for the night. As there were lots of villages and people around, we didn’t find a particularly quiet spot, but despite quite a few people trotting past on horse drawn carts they didn’t seem to be the least bit surprised or bothered by a bunch of white people setting up camp for the night. I’m fairly certain that 20 Africans setting up camp somewhere in the UK without permission would not go down so well!

The next day we had a fairly short drive to the peninsular where we camped by the beach at a great campsite which even had hot showers. You may not think that noteworthy but Dakar was the first hot shower after over two months on the road so a hot shower is still very much a high point for me! Our next stop was the city of Saint Louis which was formerly the capital when Senegal was a French colony. The city is spread over the mainland, an island and the peninsular which are connected by bridges. We arrived at midday and pitched our tents in a sandstorm. Sand is very much the theme of this section of the trip and we are growing accustomed to the fact that our bodies and possessions are permanently covered in a layer of sand. Travelling on the truck in the heat of the day with the windows open is akin to having a hot hairdryer blowing in your face continually. Despite the sand storm, Saint Louis was a very pleasant place to explore with some attractive crumbling buildings, nice restaurants, and lots of fishing boats.

An early start the next morning in preparation for a long day ahead. We needed to cross the border into Mauritania and then get to the capital in daylight hours, so we had a lot of ground to cover. Large parts of Mauritania are very much off limits due to the security situation in this country so camping other than within the grounds of a hotel isn’t really an option. In any case, Mauritania is basically a desert so we would more than likely get stuck in the sand if we tried to drive off the road. To make life a little bit more challenging, we had been unable to obtain Mauritanian visas in Dakar as the Embassy were changing systems and weren’t able to issue them. Getting them at the border would be fine but would inevitably take many hours. Many, many hours….

First challenge was to get stamped out of Senegal and then join the long line of trucks waiting to board the ferry to cross the Senegal river to get to Mauritania. Some palm greasing was required if we were ever going to get on that ferry, especially as it stops for three hours over lunch time. Once we got to the other side, more palm greasing if we were going to get 17 visas issued that day without the officials taking breaks for lunch and prays. Several hours later, we were finally on our way driving through the desert landscape - lots of sand dunes, lots of camels, and lots of police checkpoints. We made it to Nouakchott only to discover the hotel we had planned to stay at was now a building site. Plan B worked just fine though and we found another place to stay (the appropriately named Auberge Sahara). Another long drive day ahead of us tomorrow as we leave Mauritania and cross the border into the Western Sahara, a disputed territory but currently under de facto control by Morocco.