I was in Mauritania last week, part of my Marrakech-to-Dakar backpacking route (current location: Saint-Louis, Senegal). Public transport in Mauritania was never all that great (I’m being generous), but two journeys were particularly special. Here, I do an anatomy of one of those trips, which took me from the town of Atar, in the Adrar region, to the capital city of Nouakchott.
The distance between the two points is 438 kilometers, which is 1,314 in Africa-travel kilometers. Following is a breakdown of how I passed eight hours in transit.
Wow! All I can say is WOW! And you survived to trek another day. Enjoy the journey. ~Kathy
Thanks, Kathy! I’m in the home stretch now. Off to Dakar tomorrow, then home on Wednesday.
Awesome! I’m sure you expected nothing less!
That’s pretty much true!
Wow. That you got through that with a sense of humor intact is impressive. That engine block, omg.
I was so grateful for a hot shower that night.
What Kathy said, and with a few more Wow’s thrown in. I’ve been following your journey for a while on Facebook and Instagram. Here’s a dumb question: Why are you there? Work or leisure? While there seems nothing leisurely about this trip, I can imagine you, of all the people I know, going there simply because you want to 🙂
You summed it up! I want to go everywhere, so I’m just kind of working my way around. I call this trip leisure, though I’m thinking that some essays will come out of it. Thanks for being here, Marie!
Awesome. I hope you get your essays published, not just for your blog!
Thank you for the education and humor! You are a heartier woman than me. I enjoyed the virtual trip with you.
Thank you for reading my offering! I think I’m getting less hardy as the years go by.
It was so fun and so inspiring to follow your journey through Africa. Everytime I think about going places by myself, there are thoughts of you in there as well. Right now it’s mostly me going hiking, but I will probably start taking solo overseas trips in the future once I get back into the classroom and have a regular salary again.
Yay! I’m so happy to hear that that’s your plan. Here’s to many happy future adventures.
Hello , I’m off to Mauritania in April . Flying Mauritania Airlines from Las Palmas Canary Islands to Nouakchott. Afterwards heading to Chinguetti , then visiting Terjit Oasis. Did you cross into Senegal from Rosso or Diama??? I’m heading down to Bissau Guinea-Bissau via The Gambia & Casamance Senegal taking a ferry from Ziguinchor back to Dakar.
Hey there, Craig. That’s fantastic, I hope you have a blast. Are you going through Atar, and do you need the help of a guide (e.g., Terjit is tricky with public transit, most people go there with a hired car/driver, and I ended up skipping it for this reason)? If you need guide contacts, send me a message through the contact form on my website and I can pass on names/emails/phone numbers. I didn’t hire guides, but I hung out with them in Atar.
I went across at Rosso. It was as bad as it’s written up to be, but not impossible. I would have rather gone via Diama but there’s just no guarantee for getting a lift there (I was completely using public transport). I got through Rosso without paying any bribes, though, which surprised me, because a fixer glued himself to my leg and wouldn’t leave me alone. He went as far as going in the side doors of the immigration police offices on both sides of the border and pointing me out to them, but they didn’t hit me for extra cash, thankfully.
If you’re on Facebook, I highly recommend joining this group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/WATravellers/. It’s got heaps of up-to-the-minute (literally) info on just about everything. Lots of info on the Rosso crossing if you search the previous posts.
Laura, Thank you for the tips/referral offer. I wish to go to Diama as you’re just 10km from St.Louis ,I was in Dakar back in 2009 when my adventures became an awaited grueling reality in visiting Mali & Morocco on the same trip. The part that really got to me was going from Gao Mali to Timbuktu. It took about 36 hours with brief potty stops which was the sand off the dirt road. Temperature between 35*C-45 *C in a non a/c jeep with 13 people in a jeep to fit six. I had three liters of water to last the duration of the 36 hours. This is where you hope to whoever that you don’t break down or the vultures will start laying eyes preying on you. :>) Afterward visited the Dogon Country, Mopti, Djenne, Bamako. Yes Terjit does look like its out of the way a little from Atar then there’s Azougi on the outskirts yet its just a trading post from several hundred years ago. My trips are now evolved around my medication as I get just a 30 day supply so my adventures have to be date set. As in West Africa allow a day or two just in case of delays.
Hi Craig, your recounting of your trip to Timbuktu is why I didn’t go that far, as the time of year I was visiting, the River Niger was too dry, so pirogues weren’t an option, and I didn’t want to subject myself to what you endured! But you’ve lived to tell the tale, as with many of these adventures on West Africa. I did love hiking around in Dogon Country. That was pretty fab. Sadly, I just read the BBC and saw a new story about another village attack near Mopti, and more than a hundred villagers were killed. It’s quite unstable in that area at the moment.
Diama is clearly a better option if you can get there. It was a waste to pay 2700 CFAs (with bag) to get a back-row seat in a sept place and have my head jammed into the decaying roof liner for nearly two hours!
Because of the need to keep within a 30-day schedule, I’m going to email you the contact names and phone numbers (they’re on WhatsApp) of two of the guides I met in Atar. Not sure how your French is, but one of guides is fluent in English, and the other can speak it a bit.