Nondescript Nouakchott

Thus, they approached Nouakchott. The road they took led us along side the airport where they noticed the sure signs of desert advance, with sand piling up on both sides of the roads and sometimes up to the level of boundary walls. The presence of plastic bags and bottles was hyper-obvious as well as this constant sign of neglect. Is it neglect, poverty or desert advance?

They had this one address in Nouakchott for camping, Auberge Menara. They called them to ask for directions and were told that someone was coming to guide them from where they were. We were then, at the level of the airport wall. Soon enough, a vehicle was there and the person drove us through these busy roads and lost us. We were not far from the place, and the guy found us again and drove us there.

It is a very ‘folklorique’ place in the middle of town: a big yard with two big buildings and a few outer smaller buildings, badly made and finished, and an upper terrace where some traditional tents were pitched, where people could sleep if they chose to. The ablutions were rather oversized bathrooms, rather bare but cleanish…There is an array of people going in and out of the place: campers, lodgers, craft sellers and regulars. It was late afternoon when we arrived and it was very appreciable to settle the tent under trees.

Maaloom, the owner of the place is quite a character – he comes, does his rounds of the place and then settles in one of the lounging chairs and ‘holds court’: an assortment of people (mainly men) come and visit with him, chat, drink tea and eat in a common dish while his tiny phone rings from time to time. This phone, he places on his ear and cheek, without holding it, and chats on.

Since they boasted of a mechanic in their website, Coen asked after him and was told that he would appear later that evening. They had a hot shower, to remove the grime of the desert and went in quest of a place to eat. As usual the directions they were given were not exact and they had to ask a few time before hitting the right place: Bajah Restaurant.

It was a very Moroccan styled place with these wonderful lamps and menu too. They ordered ‘bissap juice’, this hibiscus tea, and a seafood platter. The drink was excellent if not a bit sweet and the seafood platter, a bit salty but generous and very fresh.

[You will have noticed that the ‘foodie’ feature has slowed down a bit. Oh, she and Coen are full into investigating the food places, the new tastes but they were onto making camp food and had a sort-of time table of food preparation which curbed the food ‘hunt’.]

The evening was warm and a bit noisy too. The mechanic was there to discuss the work that had to be done and where to do it. A price was agreed and he was told to come as early as he can the next morning. By then the others had decided to take the road to come join them in Nouakchott.

Next morning she went to the corner shop to get eggs and milk, fed those to Coen and started working on her document while he got started on the car. It looked like a big job – I was parked at the entrance of the tent and was watching procedures. The whole place was quite alive with activity: the handyman was hammering away, the caretaker propping up the place to its former order, she was also doing some washing in their machine and other inhabitants were going about their affairs.

Coen spent his day supervising the mechanical works. He seemed quite satisfied with the way these people work and at least, it was under the shade of the trees of the Auberge and not in some ‘public’ hangar or out in the sun. She was ploughing away at her document, she also went in search of food for lunch.

At that stage in the day, they heard that Stephanus had problems starting the car and they had to hunt for a new battery out in Atar. They only started on the road in the late morning and then the car stopped and had to be towed to Nouakchott over more than 250km. They were in sms communication wherever possible. I could only feel for them, in this desert, in the temperatures we went through the day before….

As she worked on, she also put a harira in the making on the stove of the Auberge in one of their cast iron pots. It was bubbling away slowly. She had the Mohamed of the place do some grocery shopping for her: bissap juice, carrots, mangoes etc which she thought would be welcome when the others arrive.

Finally, they arrived, all broken, hot and tired. Coen was also grubby with his ‘garage clothes’. He chose to wait and see in case the other car had to be pushed into the compound. Luckily both cars got into the compound without needing much physical efforts.

They sat down to have the harira after a cold shower and then retired to the tent for the night. The place had to be sprayed because we are now entering mosquito territory.



And the next day they had an appointment with the SA ambassador, Mr H. Spies. Maloom, the owner of the Auberge dropped them there because he said explaining where it is is quite a difficult exercise. So they, 5 of them, piled up in his BMW and off they went. They were expected at the embassy and were given good advice, lots of help and even some water and other refreshments.

The ambassador has been en poste only for about 6 months and was very keen to hear of whatever they could tell him of the country of his posting since he has not had time to see the place himself.

After the embassy, she went back to her work and Coen was back into mechanics helping Stephanus locate the problem with his car. They found an auto electrician recommended by the driver of the embassy. Coen also wanted to do some other work on the car,  that kept them busy for hours.

Hours later, the work was electric work was done and the auto-electrician slapped down a bill of Ouguiya 250,000, just like that. An active period of discussion went on. She, being the translator/negotiator was trying to make sense of such an exorbitant price. With the intervention of some local at the embassy, they managed to come to an understanding.

Meanwhile, Coen was working on the air-con system with Omar. They filled the gas and then realized that there was also something else that was not right with it. After some coming and going they found that the compressor was faulty and had to be changed. So they dismantled that as well. By then it was evening and Coen decided that he’ll have a shower, a little rest and then go hunt for somewhere to eat and the rest will wait to the next day.

They strolled out in the general direction of the Baja restaurant but finally opted to try the Salamandre, a ‘french food’ place rather favoured by foreigners. The menu was restricted because they were closing for the month of August. The food was very tasty, she took a 3 cheeses torte which was simply some pasta with a fancy cheese sauce on it. Coen had sole meunière. The general opinion was that the food was good and not expensive.

That was a pretty peaceful and cool night. The next day, she fed Coen on some eggs and bread and he started working on the car before Omar arrived. When he had had enough of waiting for Omar, he helped her with the revision of her translation. The others had drifted out to see the town a bit. For lunch she got them some Mauritanian style schwarmas and the work on the car proceeded. It was done early afternoon, after which Coen went to have a thorough shower and a long nap while Omar worked on Hans’ indicator lights.

That evening, Aisha from the embassy had organized for them to go listen to music played by a group called Walfadjiri at the Atlantic hotel and dine there too. The owner of the hotel sent cars for them. The music was nice, not too loud and without senseless drumming. The food was good and sufficient.

That night, more people booked into the auberge with some very noisy and messy children. It was a warmer evening too. They were supposed to go sight seeing but the transport did not pitch, so they carried out sorting out the cars, cleaning up and catching up on news.

Eventually, the ‘transport’ did pitch. It was a contact of one of the embassy staff, who very kindly offered to show them around Nouakchott. He piled them in his 4 x 4 and off they went, and they saw the place. The place is expanding rather wildly, it has caught up with its international airport and around there, traffic is hectic.

He drove them up to the coast line where they saw the dunes, the road and the development that is taking place on the other side of that road – it seems to be slightly below sea level and the place is wet, walls are crumbling because of the salt content in the water seeping from below. Meanwhile all manner of plastics are piling on top.

Mauritania has a lot of potential if only they had proper planning behind it and some consideration for their environment too. They have copper, and seemingly that glass can be made from their sand, they have gold and they have found some oil offshore, not to mention the still very good fish in their seas. The tragedy is that their politicians/military are falling for the lure of the Chinese…..

That evening they dined at the residence of the Ambassdor for South Africa – colleague of Coen from the department times. All of them had to shower but earlier as for the two previous days, there was not power at Auberge Menata and hence no water since they use this ‘bancal’ system of demand pumps. Power cuts and power fluctuations seem to mess us the already precarious electrics at the Auberge.

 Luckily the power was restored and they could all shower. The Admin Officer, Derek came to fetch the others and they were following in our car. On the way Hans saw that all the lights on the Cruiser were not working well. So when they got to the residence, Coen did some checks and finally called Omar to the rescue. Meanwhile they all settled around the bar and were having snacks. They spent a pleasant evening. And Omar managed to do something with the lights.

They got back to the Auberge close to midnight and had to wake up before 5 to be on the road in order to meet the ‘bac’ for the crossing of the Senegal River. Packing was done in the dark, or nearly. It was warm with mosquitoes and flies around but they managed with the help of Hans and Stephanus; they were on the road a bit after 6 that morning.



Sleepily, they made for the border. It was sunrise by the time they left Nouakchott and was very hot as they passed small town after small town down to the south. These small town seem to be made of tents and houses made in the shape of tents. It was greener down there and it got more and more humid as they got close to the river.

There, thanks to the good advice of the people of the embassy, they were met by a facilitator, Mr Bamba. He did not speak a stitch of English but he was the one to helped us with this notoriously nasty crossing. She had to come out of the car, squeeze between two customs buildings to help him sort out the papers for the 3 cars and speak to the officials about the people travelling together.

Meanwhile, quite a few people were walking around the cars to try to get the ‘business’ of making them cross or selling something. Eventually they drove onto the ‘bac’ – a barge like vessel that has space in the middle for vehicles and people pile up on the sides. They drove out of the bac and into a waiting area where Bamba took their papers and started to make the rounds again.