Rurrenabaque, Bolivia Nov. 18,
2012.
At the time we were traveling through Mauritania there was of course no
internet and therefore no Wikipedia, with instant information such as the
historical map we copied below. We were
limited to the few paragraphs of history provided by our Lonely Planet book Africa
on the Cheap. In a nutshell Mauritania
became a French Colony in 1904, and then gained its independence in 1960. During that time it was part of French West Africa,
which had its capital in Dakar. Before becoming a colony its history was more
linked to the Mahgreb (which is to say Berber and Arabic influences from the
north) than to black African influences to the south.
Since independence it has been a relatively unstable country with
control of the country alternating between the Arabic speaking north (broadly knows as Moors or Maures giving the country its name), and the black
African south concentrated near the Senegal river(Country profile). This same tension appears right across the
sourthern portion of the Sahara with similar conflicts between North and South
Sudan, Chad and most recently in Mali, which appears as French Sudan below.
At the time we passed through, the economy was considered to be completely
dependent on the iron mines that are located near Ft. Gouraud on the map
below. A rail line had been built from there
to Nouadhibou (Pt. Etienne), which in turn was the only form of transportation
available to join the old Trans Saharan route.
Before the Spanish left Western Sahara (Rio de Oro on the map) and the
ensuing wars, Mauritania had been a major alternative for people crossing the
Sahara overland, known as the Mauritania route.
Our guide book author indicated that he had not heard of anybody
traveling to Mauritania for several years.
However, again according to Wikipedia, the Paris-Dakar Ralley was in its
first years in 1982 and would have coincided with our route at Atar, after
crossing Algeria.
We were only in the country for a few days, in part because tourism was
discouraged by very strict control of currency but also due to a total lack of
facilities. Our guide book only
mentioned four places to stay in the entire country: The Catholic Missions in Nouadhibou and
Nouakchott, and two Peace Corps hostels.
Today the country remains one of the poorest countries in the world and
it is considered to be one of the countries where slavery is most prevalent
with as much as 20% of the population essentially slaves[1],
mainly along racial lines.
 |
| 1936 Map of French West Africa copied from Wikipedia. |
Nouadhibou - Choum, Mauritania, Nov. 10 1982
(DAN)
At the priest’s invitation, we went to mass at 0645 and then to eat breakfast
with the two Fathers. They were extremely cordial, and tried to give us apples
when we left. Father Bernard and Father Pierre belong to L’Ordre de l’Esprit
(Order of the Holy Spirit). There were four Sisters from St. Joseph of the
Apparition at mass, but we only spoke at length with one from Malta. Another
person we met was a Nigerian, Moses, who is stranded in Nouadhibou on his way
to England to see his daughter. He was instructed by the priests to commission
a taxi for us to go the train, but ended up just giving us directions. It is a beautiful little chapel, built a lot
like the round domed structures we saw at the cemeteries in Morocco, only this
one has stained-glass windows and a cross at the top.
 |
| Catholic Chapel in Nouadhibou |
The
economy of Mauritania exists almost entirely from the iron mine up east of
Spanish Sahara. There is a railroad (the only one in Mauritania) from the mine
to the port of Nouadhibou, and one can travel for free by climbing on the ore
cars. They allegedly sometimes have a passenger (paying) car coupled on. We ran into some General Motors technical
representatives that worked for the company, and they really tried to
discourage us from riding the ore cars. The dust from the empty iron ore cars
apparently gets everywhere. Maureen, in fact, decided it was worth $US 9 to
ride in the passenger car. But Helena and I decided to bundle up and save $18.
Helena
and I put our packs into our garbage bags, and the stuff we would need (food,
water and jackets) on the 12-hour trip in a third. We chose “our” car, climbed
in, and put on our rain suits (the jackets inside out for the cooler white
color), bandanas for our faces. The train was about to leave when we heard
Maureen calling out fairly frantically trying to find which car we were in. It
turned out that this was one of the trains without a passenger car, so she
clambered up and over and made the trip with us. The dust was as bad as they
had said but not unbearable with the bandanas. There was some sand blowing in
from the desert, but mostly it was a fine reddish dust constantly billowing up
from the “2 km-long” train of ore cars.
 |
| Helena (left) and Maureen hitching a ride on the returning ore train |
The
train supposedly did not stop for 12 hours until our destination, Choum, but in
fact stopped 4 or 5 times. Fortunately there were fellow red-lungs in the next
car that finally told us, at 0330 hrs, that we had arrived (we had left at 1600
hrs). There were prospective Peugout -station wagons and pick-ups waiting so we
would not have missed the stop anyway.
Aside
from the dust, the trip was fairly enjoyable. We had the entire car to
ourselves and enjoyed the desert as long as it was light, and the stars after
it was dark. This area was the most barren I’ve seen, with large
dunes, blowing sand, and low, stubby soft sandstone knolls. On the Nouadhibou peninsula
we saw some tanks and soldiers in trenches, but otherwise no signs of the “war”.
It got pretty cold later in the night,
but we got out our rain ponchos to wrap ourselves in. Maureen actually spread out in her sleeping
bag.
 |
| Desert seen from the ore train |
Since
we were in the last cars, when we did stop, we were way out of “town”, but
various vehicles came out looking for prospective riders. No vehicles were leaving right away for Atar,
but we got a ride into Choum (a line of shacks in the desert) and found that we
could stretch out on mats along with other travelers until “bonne heure” when we would leave. No
sooner did we settle down when two men started a conversation at the absolute
top of their voices. After about an hour Maureen asked if they would quiet
down, and they (rather offended) informed us that it was a “bonne heure” and the custom. It was not a bonne heure for our chauffeur until 0700 hrs so we got something of
a rest.
 |
| Mauritanian street scene |
Choum - Atar - Nouakchott, Mauritania, Nov 11, 1982
This was our first
trip in one of the famous Peugeot “bush taxis” that abound in West
Africa. We started out into
the desert but first had to stop at the police hut. At first there was no set road, but a lot of
tracks heading in the same direction.
One just has to know where the hut is. About an hour out we joined up
with a raised roadbed that is part of the old Trans-Sahara Route du Mauritanie
that is closed due to the war. The road was in such bad condition --ruts,
pot-holes, etc.-- that we continued to choose random tracks until we got into
the mountains and were forced to use the roadbed. We were only 20 minutes out
of Choum when we had a flat tire and we all thought, “Here we go!" They were not, gulp, carrying a spare, so
they fixed it and pumped it up on the spot.
 |
| Our first Peugeot 504 "bush taxi": Repairing a tire and praying north of Atar |
For the first hour we
went straight south with sandstone cliffs on the east and flat desert with
numerous mounds of igneous rocks at irregular intervals. Low shrubs were the
only vegetation. Then we turned east into a sandstone region and went up perhaps
300 m onto a mesa. Once we got up there, there was a new set of sandstone
cliffs to the east and, once over that, a third set of cliffs. We drove through
this region until it got dark, and it was one of the most beautiful trips I
have made. It was faintly reminiscent of the Grand Canyon
with the varying layers of soft and hard sandstone. The sunset was especially
memorable as we had gotten to the edge of the region, had it to our backs
looking out over the plain, and all the men off the truck were praying in the
sand, facing toward Mecca. This area is called the Adrar region. Shirley had
said that it is a famous part of the Sahara and appears a lot in “travel
literature”[2].
 |
| Apparently random tire tracks north of Atar which may be attributable to the first Paris-Dakar ralleys that were being held in the early 80s. |
The day was not
without problems. Since we had traveled all night, we thought we would go as far
as Atar and spend the night, but when we arrived, we realized we were in a real
pickle. Transportation was much more expensive than we had planned, and we did
not have enough money to get to Nouakchott.
There is no bank in Atar, it was hot and dusty and we were desperate.
Helena and Maureen went to the Catholic priest’s to see if he could change some
money, but he was particularly unenthusiastic about associating with us at all.
We found a truck leaving for Nouakchott at “15:00 hrs”, however we lacked
roughly $us 4 for the three of us. If we spent the night in a hotel, we would
be farther behind; the mission was out of the question. We had had the taxi
leave us at the police station, and that was where our bags were parked.
Finally we decided to see if the police would buy the old chemistry goggles I brought
along in case we traveled the Sahara overland.
We had just made the dustiest (I hoped) trip of our lives and had not needed
them, so they were expendable. As it was, the soldiers snapped them up at the
$4 price with no bargaining, so they must have considered them a good buy. They
later came back and said they would just give us the money, but we left things
as they were.
As public trucks[3]
will, this one left two hours after the proposed time --two hours of blazing
sun. As public trucks also will, this one waited until everybody was settled
before they made the rounds and picked up a couple of passengers with the most
stuff. We had comparatively comfortable seats, but there was a family with four
children and two very aggressive parents that kept spreading their territory.
The mother actually spent part of the night sleeping half on top of me. We
stopped in a town about 01:00 hrs. and slept for a couple of hours before
continuing at bonne heure.
I don’t know if we
mentioned that in Morocco we
never saw anybody pray toward Mecca.
We certainly have in Mauritania.
In fact every time prayer time rolled around, the truck driver stopped the
truck, everybody piled out and knelt facing toward Mecca. One time they stopped
by a pool of water so that everybody could wash properly before praying. On the
ride to Atar, one man chanted, sang, and prayed for the entire four-hour ride.
The people have been
getting progressively darker as we move south.
We first noticed this in Ouerzazate, Morocco, but here it is the
majority. There was only one man with Arab features on the truck.
Oh yes, we had two
fires during the night. Many of the Bedouins smoke straight pipes, and twice
there were major panic/commotions. People yelled, banged on the roof of the
cab, etc, etc. The first time a lot of
water was used before the mattress stopped smoldering. It was caused by the
pushy father, and when he continued to smoke after the second fire, Maureen
really lost her cool. We arrived in Nouakchott
about 8 a.m.
Nouakchott,
Mauritania, Friday,
November 12 1982
(HELENA) We arrived
with an all-time low of 55 Ouguiyas among the three of us, enough to buy a
medium Coke (which we all craved; we’re constantly thirsty these days) and take
a cheap taxi ride into town ($us 1--52 Ouguiyas). We asked several taxis, but they’d see our
desperate foreign faces and automatically up the price. We were doing all of
this in the doorway of a store, and finally a couple of young men offered to
take us to town. We told them our first obvious necessity was a trip to a bank,
but they offered to show us to the priests’ house where we were going to try
for a place to stay. The priest was very friendly, but no, they had
no room.
Now Daddy, before you
get all disturbed about our asking for help that way, let me explain that there
simply are no reasonable, much less cheap, hotels in Nouakchott. I gathered that it is due to the
fact that everyone that comes in from the country depends on the Muslim
obligation to put a visitor up. We probably would have left a contribution,
anyway.
The priest sent us
right down the street to the Peace Corps. We first came to a house that belongs
to a Peace Corps staff member. From
there we were sent to the office and there we were given permission to sleep at
the maison de passage. After
installing ourselves at the maison, a
place for volunteers to stay when in town, we set off for the bank. After two
nearly sleepless nights, we were TIRED, so we didn’t do our usual shopping
around for exchange rates and commissions. It was a mistake because, after
telling us he would charge 190 Ouguiyas, the man ended up getting more than 590.
Dan and I wanted to
send someone a Mauritania
stamp, but we got to the Poste at
11:45 and it was already closed. We spent the rest of the afternoon getting
cleaned up from our ore train, taxi, and truck experiences and TRYING to get
caught up on the journal. Not only did we have to bathe, but we had to wash all
the rain gear we’d worn as protection from the dust and our big garbage bags
that we’d put over the two smaller packs. Dan’s pack fared well, but his poor
rain cover will never be the same again.
The maison was almost empty when we got
there in the morning, but people started to pour in later in the afternoon.
They were very friendly and we talked a good bit with several of them. Most of
them work in irrigated rice along the Mauritanian side of the Senegal
River. Apparently they all make plenty of money, but since they
can only take a maximum of 10,000 Ouguiyas out of the country every year, they
can only save so much. The currency control here is hard to understand and
accept.
In the evening we got
to discussing how we would travel to Rosso and then across the river to Senegal. In the
end we discovered that we’d changed too little money. We discussed all of the
possible solutions several times over before we finally decided that we
couldn’t afford to eat out after all.
One of the male
volunteers treated us to the traditional glasses of tea. It differs from the
Moroccan way because he served us each one small glass of strong, bitter tea.
Then came a second and third glass that were progressively weaker and sweeter.
That was a nice way to top off the evening although I had to go to bed with my
still filthy, broomish hair. Dan and Maureen got their showers in, but I
procrastinated so long that the water went off and I had to just pour a little
water over myself.
It is very dry here,
as can be seen by the way clothes dry very quickly and our throats are
constantly asking for more water (or, ahem, Coke).
(DAN) It was
interesting to spend the day in the Peace Corps Hostel and hear the gripes,
problems, hopes, etc. of the volunteers. As Helena
said, most of them (10-13 that we met) are “extension agents” in the immense
irrigation development in the Senegal
River Valley.
They are all “generalists,” i.e. had some sort of liberal arts degree, and none
had a farm background. I had understood that the P. C. was only hiring ag. graduates, preferably
farm boys, for the job, but it is in fact doing the opposite. They previously
had specialists, with agricultural or nursing degrees, but at least in
Mauritania such recruits were suffering up to 100% abandonment at mid-term due
to disillusion. In Mauritania they are concentrating on enthusiastic, liberal younsters
from the Northeastern part of the US.
Their big gripe was
with the national (military dictator) government. There were about 6 trainees
who had finished 4 months of training and had been waiting for two weeks on the
government to transport them to their villages. They all work with “Black” Mauritanians as
opposed to ethnic Arabs, and we noted a lot of resentment against the latter. The Blacks are the majority and do all of the
crop production (almost exclusively along the Senegal) yet the Arabs control the
government and commerce. The religion even among Blacks is still strongly
Muslim, though the gender integration appears to be greater than with the
Arabs.
Nouakchott is a sprawling, dusty city that has all been built
since independence because the old capital of colonial Mauritania was Saint Luis, now in Senegal. It is
growing now largely because since the drought of '73-'74 there has been greatly
increased movement to the city.
Nouakchott-St. Luis, Senegal Sat. Nov 13, 1982
We were jolted out of
bed at 5 a.m. by the muezzin cranking out over the loudspeaker just across the
street from my window. After his fervor
cooled off, they had “congregational” chanting for another hour, so our rest
was cut short. Though the PC volunteers
insisted it was too far, we loaded up and walked to the taxi stop. It turned
out to be only an hour’s march through the sandy streets. Our mode of transport
was again a Peugeot pick-up with 12 passengers and baggage in the back. The
otherwise pleasant trip was almost ruined by a sandstorm that blew up as we
were getting ready to 1eave. For maybe an hour visibility was about 30 m, and
we were driving into it at a good clip. It cleared later on and we were able to
see more of the scenery. We only had 4 military checkpoints on the two-hour
trip!
The vegetation
gradually increases until the Senegal River,
but there are signs that at one time there was a lot more vegetation.
After the first hour we began to see low trees and even a little grass. The
population was surprisingly high.Every time we would approach a village, the
vegetation would disappear, and the villages themselves were filled with sand
dunes. The people reminded me very much of all those covers of New World
Outlook, very poorly fed, dark people dressed in black cloth. I had
forgotten that this area, the Sahel near the Senegal
and Niger
rivers, was the one so hard-hit by the drought in the early 70’s.
We had been warned by
the PCVs that the border crossing at Rosso was very rough. Mauritania does not
allow exportation of their currency, so the Douane
officials have been known to conduct very thorough body and baggage checks. Amidst
a lot of confusion, they counted up all of our cash and travelers checks, gave
me a body check and let us through.
Maureen had problems because her cash is pounds sterling, and the woman
apparently could not count it. There were a lot of insinuations and threats
(minor) but in general it was tamer than the search in Layoune, Western Sahara.
(Final travel costs for Mauritania: $US 6.94 per person/day)
I like the current comments as much as the journal... it adds perspective. the foot notes of course are great too. Thanks again for doing this.
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