Chinguetti

We arrived in Chinguetti with another argument, this time it was Karim trying to tell Gianni that we should stay at a certain auberge; Gianni wanted to find Abdul's where he had stayed before and told Karim that we really didn't need his help.

Karim & Gianni directed the taxi driver to Abdul's - it turned out that they both were aiming for the same place, Auberge Zarga, at 1,000UM a night it was the cleanest & cheapest place I've seen in Mauritania!!! Unfortunately Karim still managed to extract money from Abdul for 'bringing us' and treated Abdul as some sort of servant in his own home, he was also pressuring us to take the taxi back to Atar when we left. We ignored it all and hoped that was the last we would see of Karim.

Wandering across the fleuve to the 'old' town I realised that this place wasn't as wonderful as I'd hoped. I had my own pre-conceived ideas about this magical thirteenth century desert town, it was already becoming destroyed by the amount of touts pushing for us to buy things or visit places. The tourist industry has had a massive boost here due to the flights arriving at 'Atar' airport which is actually nearer Chinguetti. The main airline coming in is Point Afrique, a French cooperative airline & travel business that also does organised tours. This 'package' tourism was creating the young of Chinguetti into very pushy salespeople.

The three of us aimed for a cafe as dusk was setting in to have a drink and get our bearings after a very long day. As I walked towards it a voice came out of the dark

'Chloe, how did you get here so quickly?'

- it was Amelie & John, who we had met in NBD at Imal Camping, they had met Keiran an Irish guy. When I got home I received an e-mail from him as he caught up with Gianni in Mali and they were travelling together!

Auberge Zarga - Abdul's place!

Gianni, Abdul & Julian at Auberge Zarga

Chinguetti at dusk

John & Amelie having a post dinner mint tea at Abdul's after the electricy curfew of 9pm!

Less than 24hrs here ...

Sadly I have to say that we didn't spend long in Chinguetti.

It didn't have the 'vibe' that I was expecting and with endless hassle I wanted to leave, Gianni had already been here. The only thing to do was to go off on a camel trek for a few days towards Oudane but as I didn't have time there was no hope of doing that. John & Amelie had arranged such a trek, unfortunately Abdul told them the 'correct; price of 3,000UM per person per day with a guide, food & camp .. and was concerned that the guide they had found didn't know the area that well ..

Over our drink with Amelie, John & Kieran we discovered that they had also had the delight of meeting Karim, who also uses a few aliases, they knew him as Hakim. They had been harrassed and tried to keep clear of him. Going back to Abdul's after dinner we chatted about it and Abdul was unhappy with Karim/Hakim's bullish ways with tourists and worried about losing business. Abdul is only 21 but has a 13 year old wife who was expecting their first child, he wanted a divorce as his wife is a nomad and refused to live with him in Chinguetti prefering life out in the desert. A divorce is apparently quite expensive in Mauritania and Abdul needed money to divorce her and find some more money to pay for a new bride!

Suddenly Karim/Hakim appeared in the doorway having heard our conversation and started yelling at Gianni & I. We pointed out that if he continued this trend towards tourists then they would all lose money and NO we weren't going to get in 'his' taxi in the morning.

Waking up the next morning we had breakfast with Abdul who asked us for 1,400UM each to pay for our taxi back to Atar, he was organising a pick-up to drive us back and would come with us and hoped to arrange our transportation to Nouachkott at a decent rate. We then had a visit from Karim's driver, it turned out that Karim hadn't paid for his ride to Chinguetti yesterday as he promised the driver (not 'his' driver as we were told) that we would be in his taxi to return to Atar, the driver had got wind of the fact we were going in a pick-up. I explained the situation with Karim and that we didn't want anything to do with him, which unfortunately meant that this guy was going to lose out financially.

We eventually left Chinguetti at 12pm in the back of a pick-up, less than 24hrs after we had arrived but I was pleased to be heading south once again!

Chinguetti's 13th century mosque

Mosque tower

Looking across to the 'old' town of Chinguetti

The dunes from Chinguetti

They do a good job trying to keep it clean

Chinguetti's library. There is a Koran here with it's pages made from gazelle skin

Driving down to Nouachkott

Leaving Chinguetti I was glad we were back on the road again.

The road after 'Atar' airport (which they used for the Paris-Dakar rally in 2006) is spectacular, driving down through the Adrar Highlands was magnificent and being in the back of a pick-up we had a wonderful view. Abdul was in the cab with the driver and very concerned about his guests in the open, every time we stopped he came to see if we were OK. Luckily I had bought a shiffa to tie around my head, I bought one for Julian too as a reciprocal Christmas present after the djellaba he had bought as an early present in Tan Tan after the cold of the bus.

It was a beautiful day and we had some wonderful scenery to look at. Arriving back in Atar with a radar going in case Karim had got there before we had, Abdul found a taxi wanting to go to Nouachkott and arranged a price of 5,500UM a head in a mercedes which was a great deal for the 3 of us, although we were warned that the driver might pick up one more.

However the Mercedes refused to start .. so Gianni & Abdul pushed it down the road and it roared into life, before we were ready to go I ran off to the shop to get our normal staple supplies of bread & 'la vache qui rit', bananas & water for the long journey south.

We picked up a teacher, he was the French teacher at Atar school and was heading in Nouachkott, I think he was originally from NBD but could only find work out in Atar! The journey was long, we stopped once in the only town that existed between Atar & Nouachkott for tea, which our driver paid for - probably because he needed to give us some strength to push start him again!

Heading down from the Adrar Plateau

Dramatic scenery towards Atar

Gianni on the way down to Atar

Author in the pick-up covered in dust!!

The Adrar Highlands behind us

Nouachkott

Arriving a little wearily into Mauritania's capital, we got the driver to take us to one of two pre-arranged meeting points with Alex. Boosted by the knowledge that we were going to celebrate tonight, Christmas Eve, in style, I went down an alley to find Alex who I was hoping was in a hotel at the end of it. I left Gianni & Julian to sort out the taxi.

Alex wasn't there, they had never heard of her, coming back out I was approached by a guy who must have heard our conversation and said he knew where this French girl was .. I was a little worried about my predicament, I could make out that the taxi, Gianni & Julian were still there but I really didn't want to hang around and see what this guy really wanted. I kept walking saying don't worry about it, I know where she is and my friends are both waiting for me .. he followed.

Gianni was arguing with the driver over an extra 500UM that the driver had decided to add onto the originally Atar negoiated price, Julian was waiting beside him with his pack out of the back of the car. As usual he hadn't thought to help us with our belongings and this was becoming a bit much ... we had just had a problem at the last police post on the edge of Nouachkott where we had all got out for some fresh air. On getting back into the car, Julian had noticed some sort of clothing on the boot, after moving off he then decided to tell us that there was something there. I translated for Gianni & the teacher and asked if they had left anything .. we couldn't turn back as it would mean having to pass the police post again and all the drama that goes with it. I asked him why he hadn't picked it up, the answer was simple - it wasn't his, so he'd left it. Pointing out that when you are travelling you look after others around you didn't go down too well ... I bit my tongue and said nothing!

Between Atar & Nouachkott