An account of the ‘Addicted to Travel’ recce trip to the Western Sahara, Mauritania and Senegal, by Mike Fox. PART 1. The Western Sahara and Mauritania. It was not the most auspicious start - getting £500 stolen at Marrakech airport.Having travelled to well over 120 countries between us, Nick Anstead (one of ATT’s co-founders) and I (travel consultant with ATT) like to think we know a thing or two about how to avoid all the many scams out there. But then you just don’t expect the Customs police to whip money out of your wallets, zipped in your jackets, on the far side of the x-ray machine, while you stand and wait to go through the metal detector. We shall be writing to Royal Air Maroc and the Moroccan Tourism Authority about this, but watch out for this in the meantime. (And why not let us know about any new scams you’ve come across on your own travels). So following the rather circuitous route of Easyjet to Marrakech, RAM to Casablanca, then RAM on to Dakhla, we arrived at our destination. And no, Dakhla is not a typo. I don’t mean Dakar (though that was to be our ultimate destination on this recce trip).Dakhla is a town in the Western Sahara in the far south of Morocco. It is also a stop-off point on one of the new tours ATT will shortly be offering – Marrakech to Dakar. Now I’d be lying if I suggested that Dakhla is going to become a tourist hotspot in the near future. As dry-and-dusty-desert-towns-in-the-middle-of-no-where go, it is pleasant enough. And it is located on the Atlantic coast, with some beach resorts in the pipeline. But neither Essaouira nor Hurghada need fear the competition just yet. That said, it is just a few hours drive from the Mauritanian border, a ship’s graveyard, the world’s longest train, the world’s last surviving colony of Monk seals, and a major UNESCO bird reserve, hence the point of us being there. It is also in an area with a very interesting history, in that the Western Sahara was at one time a Spanish colony. So to my amazement, whenever the right French word failed to come to mind, most locals were perfectly happy to switch to Spanish. After a night’s sleep, we checked out the town and all its accommodation options, then set off driving south. A rather featureless 3 hour desert drive later, we got to the Mauritanian border; just after it closed. With rather heavy hearts we turned to the only place to stay for miles - the border auberge - frankly fearing the worst. To our surprise the facilities were pretty good - we dined on fish and chips and slept in clean sheets.The border crossing was, as border crossings can so often be in the Middle East and West Africa, a long, hot and tedious process in which border guards and Customs police contrive, for reasons best known to themselves, to make the simple process of writing out your name and stamping your passport last many hours. The most fascinating part of the crossing was the ‘no man’s land’ between the two countries. A dirt road, sometimes barely distinguishable, crossed a 5 km wasteland of scrub and vehicle wrecks (these apparently the result of very strict laws about car imports: if you import a car, even if it is written off, it must be returned or you face a heavy fine). And so into Mauritania. The vehicles we were to use for the rest of the journey - two Toyota Landcruisers - met us at the barriers on the far side. As did our guide, Brahim (resplendent in his powder blue traditional robes), our cook, and our two drivers. Fully equipped for the desert, we drove the short distance down to Nouadhibou. A hotel owner in Dahkla had told us Nouadhibou made Dahkla look like New York. I wouldn’t have gone that far, but we got his drift as we drove through the place. What we’d really come to see, though, was on the far outskirts of town, on the coast. The ‘ships graveyard’ near Cap Blanc reminded us very much of South Africa’s Skeleton Coast. Most of the wrecks were deliberate ‘insurance jobs’ we were told, but one particularly large and impressive recent addition was apparently a pure accident. As we walked around the slowly-rusting hulk on the beach, I could just imagine the colourful language that must have flowed as the ship’s owners realised their nice new vessel, grounded on a sandbank after a spot of engine trouble, was going nowhere. Sadly, scour the beach as we might, we didn’t spot one of the world’s only remaining (100 or so) Monk seals; just a lone dolphin splashing in the surf. We did however see the world’s longest train, the 270 wagon long leviathan that transports iron ore 24/7 from the Mauritanian interior to the coast for export. Indeed from our first wild camp in the desert, a few kilometres south of Nouadhibou, we saw and heard the rumbling monster pass three times during the night and morning. [A journey on the train - as taken by Michael Palin in his ‘Sahara’ series - will shortly be bookable through ATT].We drove on south, leaving the coast, at first on good new tarmac. Then, seemingly for no apparent reason, the driver swung us off the road into the desert. Without resort to sat nav or compass, for many kilometres we simply ‘flew’ (and at 80 kph or so, that is what it felt like!) across flat, almost featureless desert. Just as we were starting to wonder if our driver was living up to his name (his name was ‘Mad’, yes seriously, that was his actual name) the scenery changed. Large cliffs gradually appeared on either side of us until we were heading down a clear ‘funnel’ towards the coast. The Atlantic coast when we finally hit it again was wild, windswept and beautiful. Thousands of migratory birds clearly agree, as they choose to stop off here annually to breed. The Banc d’Arguin National Park contains birds such as pelicans, terns, cormorants, European spoonbills and flamingos. There are a series of fixed camp sites in the park including some, like Ras Tafarit, right on the beach. Keen twitchers can take boat trips out to the sandbanks to get even closer to the vast nesting and breeding sites. Though it would have been great to sleep on the beach with the sound of the crashing waves, we pressed on as we had an appointment to make: Gabriella le Breton a journalist commissioned by the Telegraph to write up our trip, was meeting us in Nouakchott, Mauritania’s capital. She would be joining us for the next week to explore the dramatic Adrar region, expected to be the highlight of the trip. So, regretfully leaving the dramatic coast behind, we headed back inland. As evening approached, we camped beneath some small dunes in the silence of the desert. That night we had lamb stew for dinner, or so we thought. We only found out later it was our first taste of camel. Nouakchott is a big sprawling capital city: dusty, chaotic, full of traffic, colourful, bustling, vibrant, and very hot. Street stalls selling every conceivable thing were everywhere, as were goats, who seemed to walk about the city as they pleased. Some people love big cities in ‘developing countries’ for their sheer vitality and fascination. I am more of the “necessary evil” school. Cities for me are somewhere to get supplies, a hot shower if you’re lucky, and to find an airport if you need one. Give me the wide open spaces over the urban sprawl any day. In fact the Mauritanian capital really has little of any particular interest, so our stay was brief; just long enough to meet our new travel companion Gabby, have a fantastic fish dinner, a rare beer - more of that later - a night’s sleep, and a shower (the last of which I shared with some sort of flying beetle the size of a small bungalow). Next day we wanted to make an early start, so leaving the capital’s reportedly great fish market and the colourful local beach from where the fishing boats come and go till our return, we departed and headed east, into the desert. Now when most people think of desert, they think of sand dunes. If I’m honest, my pre-conception of Mauritania, in common with most people who’ve even heard of the country I guess, is that it would be mile after mile of dunes. And lots of camels. Well, as we were to discover over the next 10 days, there are indeed miles of dunes. And more camels than you can shake a stick at. What I wasn’t expecting, however, was the sheer variety of the desert scenery we were to see.For the first 200km out of Nouakchott the landscape was reminiscent of images I have seen of the surface of Mars - a largely flat, red-coloured plain stretching to either side as far as the eye could see. Every now and again an almost black jagged mountain rose out of the plain, an ancient ‘igneous intrusion’ of molten rock that had forced its way to the earth’s surface millions of years ago, and defied all subsequent attempts to weather it. Save, that is, for effects of millennia of frost-shattering, that had split the exposed rock into a million jagged pieces. We stopped adjacent to one such feature, called Tamaggout, puffing our way to the peak for spectacular views over the surrounding plains while lunch was prepared by the crew under a hardy acacia tree. The almost white sky that day only added to the other-worldly nature of the scene.As we drove on further east, the scenery changed. To our great excitement a wall of magnificent picture-postcard-perfect dunes appeared to our right. Our excitement grew when our driver suddenly swung the wheel and took us straight towards them. The sun was starting to sink as we headed along the dunes towards our intended camping spot and we all prayed we’d arrive in time to get ‘that perfect photo’ (obligingly the white sky had transformed as dusk fell to a more photogenic blue). We didn’t quite get there in time, but any sense of disappointment was soon dissipated by the lung-busting climb up the dune we were to camp beneath that night, and the spectacular views we had from the top as the sun set. The Amatlich dunes are the biggest in Mauritania. Even by the standards of Namibia’s Sossusvlei, these were unfeasibly large dunes, and they made an unfeasibly beautiful backdrop to our camp. As we chatted over dinner under a star-filled sky, a huge, almost full moon rose illuminating the desert until you could practically read a book by it. It was a truly memorable scene, and we all agreed we felt like we were camped in front of a gigantic movie set.Next morning after breakfast, as the crew packed up camp, we took a walk into the dunes. It was fascinating to observe the myriad forms and patterns in the sand. The dunes came in all manner of shapes and sizes, forever sculpted and re-sculpted by the squalls and eddies of the desert wind. It was even more interesting to examine all the various tracks made overnight by a succession of unseen birds, rodents and animals – so much life apparently happily existing in this, on the face of it lifeless, environment. The drive that day was without doubt one of the most spectacular drives I have done anywhere (and I’ve been lucky enough to have done a few of the best). If we’d had a time lapse camera set up on the car taking a photo every half hour, flicking through the images you could be forgiven for thinking you had mixed up shots of Wadi Rum in Jordan with the national parks of Arizona and Utah in the Western USA, with perhaps a few of South Africa, Syria and Namibia thrown in for good measure. At first we drove up and down sand dunes at what seemed like reckless speeds. It was as if we were on some huge trackless rollercoaster. I wondered if Mad the driver imagined he was alone in some lightweight beach dune buggy, rather than ‘5-up’ in a fully loaded Landcruiser. But with his superb driving skills it didn’t seem to matter. I asked him what training he had had to drive like that and he just laughed. To my mind, to experience an hour of that ride alone was worth the cost of the flights and we were to have many hours more of the same before the trip was over.Leaving the dunes behind, we entered a landscape of dramatic wadis, huge buttes, towering cliffs and deep canyons. One minute we were high up looking down into a ravine. The next we were driving up a mile-wide valley. At one point we drove down a long wadi so narrow it was barely wide enough for the vehicle. Mad tooted his horn at each bend as it was a two way route. What would have happened if we’d actually met a car coming up the other way we fortunately never found out. Amazing stuff!We stopped briefly in a roadside village of huts, variously made of thatch, brick, grass and mud. With a backdrop of towering sculpted mountains reminiscent of Monument Valley, it stood out as yet another great photo opportunity. A friendly young girl in a pretty bright yellow dress, her face painted white against the harsh sun, came over to chat to us. Pleased as punch when we asked to take her photo, as she posed for us her headdress slipped, revealing a pair of stylish sunglasses perched up on her head! The stunning and varied scenery continued. For lunch we stopped at the village of Terjit with its lush palm-filled oasis nestled at the very top of a narrowing valley.A very nicely-done tented rest camp has been set up under the shady palms, but before we ate we had the great pleasure of a dip in the crystal clear waters of the two natural swimming pools. If you sat still too long, tiny stickleback-like fish nibbled at your skin. But the cool water was lovely after two days in the desert without a shower. We were sorely tempted to stop the night in this idyllic spot. But recce trips being what they are, there was much more to see and little time to see it, so we pushed on. As the sun started to set late that afternoon we were climbing the Nwati Pass, torn at every bend between yet another photo stop and getting to Chinguetti before nightfall. As the photo stops generally prevailed, the last couple of kilometres, over sand dunes, were done in the dark. And have you ever tried riding a rollercoaster in the dark?Our home that night was an auberge, a sweet collection of a dozen thatched ‘beehive huts’ just on the outskirts of town. It felt like a peaceful spot till the first muezzin ‘call to prayer’. Though there was no mosque anywhere to be seen, it sounded for all the world like some over-zealous soul had mounted a speaker broadcasting the good news just by my left ear! Oh well. Lie-ins are over-rated. And we had a lot to see next day. The huge moon, as it rose that night, was gloriously full. Chinguetti is one of the highlights of the Adrar Plateau. Originally founded in the year 777, the city became important in medieval times as a trading centre, lying as it did at the crossroads of several important trans-Saharan trade routes. Though mostly in ruins today, it is still a wonderful place to visit. We took a walk about the crumbling old town and visited one of the ancient libraries. The old caretaker told us about how many of the ancient texts were sadly lost over the last few decades, destroyed both by the elements and children at play before their great worth to posterity was realised. Amazingly, in what I had expected would be a tourist honeypot, we saw not a single tourist. So if the many ladies selling local hand made jewellery, wooden boxes and other souvenir trinkets were a little pushy, they could hardly be blamed. They had families to feed after all. After visiting all the various auberges on offer (there are two particularly nice ones in Chinguetti) we left.Another wild ride on the ‘Mad rollercoaster’ followed, before a desert lunch stop. Temperatures were pretty high, and I was dreading the idea of an hour grilling in the heat as we ate. In fact the crew carefully found us a spot beneath a large acacia where a wonderful cooling breeze wafted across us while we ate. As a change from camel stew we had pasta with tuna, sardines and watermelon, a veritable desert feast. Yum.Magically, just at the right time, as the day was losing its heat but the light was becoming warm and deep, we arrived at the ancient ruined city of Ouadane. With a similar history to Chinguetti, Oudane is in an even more ruined state than its neighbour, but is arguably even more magical (it is a UNESCO World Heritage site). The young guide did his best to tell us about the history, and explain what each room was (in a strongly-accented French that the multi-lingual Gabby then simultaneously translated for us). But I’m afraid the David Baileys among us were captivated by the wonderful light playing across the impossibly photogenic ruins. So I’m afraid most of the history lesson fell on deaf ears. We left the ruins at dusk (though not before being ‘press-ganged’ into buying yet more bracelets. Oh well. Good Xmas presents I guess). Our boys in the other vehicle had gone on ahead and set up our wild camp in a wide, deserted wadi outside the town. It was another great location. Another star filled sky.And once again a full moon lit the scene. God had forgotten to turn the lights out.At dawn we woke to find our tents in various stages of collapse, as a particularly strong wind whipped up the length of the wadi. As camp was hastily broken, we decided to do our best ‘Foreign Legion’ impressions, and set off for a walk up the wadi despite the near sandstorm conditions. Fortunately the cars soon caught us up.Regretfully we had decided that time just did not permit us to continue on to the reputedly spectacular meteor crater of Guelb er Richat north east of Ouadane. Gabby, our intrepid journalist, had a plane to catch in two days time. So from this point on our journey would be back in the direction we had come, to Nouakchott.If we had initially feared that heading back would mean re-tracing our steps and seeing the same thing again in reverse, those fears soon proved unfounded. We began the return journey on a good tarmac road that we had avoided using on the way, (opting instead for the Alton Towers wild dune ride). For the first few hours it seemed like this route would come a pretty poor second in terms of scenery. But sure enough we were soon back ‘off piste’ and crossing the stunning Amogjar Pass. On several occasions we all had to jump out of the car and walk to give it less weight allowing Mad to make the car do a pretty favourable impression of Chris Bonnington. Our cars did things the like of which I’ve only ever seen on 4x4 TV ads. Remarkable. We stopped briefly en route to admire the spectacularly-located ruin of Fort Sagane. Apparently it is the subject of a Gerard Depardieu Foreign Legion film in French, and we all resolved to get the DVD out on our return. (We also resolved that the scenery was so breathtaking that it was worth taking one’s time to walk through it. So watch out for the Adrar trekking option that ATT will be shortly offering).Towards evening we reached Atar town, generally the jump-off point for trips into the region, but one we had bi-passed on the way in. The town itself has a lively local market and is great for stocking up on supplies. After a bit of a walkabout and our usual recce of all the accommodation (again there are a couple of auberges for those wanting ‘creature comforts’) we opted instead for another wild camp under the stars. Beds and showers are all very well, but just how often do you get to sleep under a palm tree in the desert with a full moon overhead? Not for the first time during the trip, but particularly as it was our last night in the desert, as we waited for dinner we dreamt of having a cold beer or a chilled glass of wine. But sadly, a) Mauritania is a pretty dry country, and b) deserts don’t like ice. Though alcohol can be purchased in some hotels and bars, bringing it in with you, or even buying it anywhere to take away, is very problematic and should only be done discreetly. Apparently just how strongly the alcohol rules are enforced actually varies over time with the politics of the day. We were visiting not long after a presidential election, which apparently had been followed by a bit of a crackdown. So dinner was accompanied by luke warm water (then just the smallest dash of smuggled whisky!)It was hard to tell if the moon was full, or just a fraction short. But it was beautiful.It goes without saying that the last morning’s drive to Nouakchott did not disappoint, with one last stunning gorge to see en route. This one had a rare but impressively full stream tumbling over its edge and snaking along its floor, supporting as it went a lush green ribbon of palms. A stiff breeze rippled the surface of the many deep pools of standing water in the gorge, causing Gabby to muse about the possibility of returning at some point with her sailing dinghy or a kite surfer. (I can just see the tour title now: "Sailing & Surfing the Sahara"!) And so back to the big city. Our arrival coincided fortuitously with the best time to visit the beach – as the colourful local fishing boats were returning with their catches. So we wasted no time driving the short distance to the coast; (for reasons best known to themselves, the founders of Nouakchott opted to forgo the attraction of the cooling sea breeze, choosing instead to built the capital 5 km inland, in the hot, arid desert!)It was definitely a worthwhile visit. The boats themselves, long and canoe-like, are brightly-painted and number into the hundreds. The women on the shore, standing haggling with the fishermen over the price they will pay for their catches, are also fantastically colourful. No-one has ever told these women ‘brown is the new black’; they don’t do either colour. But they do do just about every other colour imaginable, seemingly the ‘louder’ and more eye-catching the better. I have to say I found it a real joy to see these ladies in their technicolour dresses, with their broad white smiles and their infectious laughs, so much a part of the scene. How markedly different to much of the Arab world, where women are hardly to be seen outside the home, and if they are they must be dressed from head to foot in black, even when swimming in the sea! So that was the Mauritanian sector of the trip at an end. We celebrated the completion of that part of the journey, as you might expect, with a couple of rapturously cold beers in one of the city’s few obliging locations. Then, after a welcome shower, a change of clothes, and a ‘last supper’ of delicious fresh fish, we said goodbye to our journalist companion, Gabby le Breton, who caught the red-eye flight to London. Her own account of her impressions of Mauritania you can read in the Telegraph in the New Year (we shall let you know the date when we know it; watch this space). But for the remaining ‘hardcore’ of the ATT recce party, Senegal beckoned…PART 2 of this trip “Sunset over Senegal” will be appearing as a blog very soon, coinciding with the appearance of Senegal as a destination on the ATT site.
