Mauritania - Desert Oasis
Hello all,
I was not in a good mood when we arrived in Choum feeling like a baked breadcrumbed chicken. Before the car had even come to a stop we were swamped by kids and men trying to sell extortiantely priced bread. The kids crowded round me as I tried to find a shop and when one of them stepped on my sandal for the third time, I yelled some choice english words at them which gave me an instant and welcome tension release and caused them to fall away from me for all of 3 seconds. A nice man provided me with a coolish coca cola and I felt good enough to start smiling again. Whilst Marc had the tyres on the car pumped up, I played with the kids.
We headed to Atar, now 12 hours late to meet our friends but daylight was against us and we found a lovely place to camp just off the road near an escarpment surrounded by rocky outcrops, trees and what appeared to be a grave. The tempreture was balmy with a slight breeze but the grave ghost was not happy with us and at about midnight a gale rose up causing yet another sandstorm in the tent. Our plans to go jogging (him) and hiking (me) in the morning were quickly abandoned. However further down the road and over the plateau we did find a sheltered picturesque spot with large natural paving slabs of rock for me to enjoy my morning coffee and complete my soduku fix.
Atar was even dustier than Noaudibou but small enough than out of the several occasions we had to run around to try and find each other (the first time to locate Brian who was expecting us at 11am yesterday) that random locals would come up to us saying "you are the australian who look for the american, he's....." We eventually found Brian at the local peace corp house. Brian had been working as peace corps in Georgia for the last 2 years and because of him I've met more peace corps (PCV's) than I could possibly imagine and some of them are actually quite nice, educated and friendly people. Before Brian I had the idea that most of them were indoctrinated idiots whose primary goal was to spread the love of all things USA. This is not actually so far-fetched as peace corps who are at the start of their placement do seem to be a tad arrogant and have no idea yet as to how things really work. Ellen was very cool and I spent a good hour or so listening to them talk about their experiences with much interest.
Brian was not ready to leave his new friends so Marc and I set off for the oasis at Terjit, stopping on the way to explore and swim at a pool in a small canyon we saw on the way. The Saffers (South Africans) were in Nouakchott with car problems.
Terjit is amazingly beautiful. It took us a while to arrive as we missed the turnoff and ended up giving a lift to an old man walking from goodness knows where, who was terrified by the toy frogs, snake and crocodile Marc keeps on his dash. Terjit is a freshwater stream with a couple of pools set in a rusty canyon scattered with pamtrees and shelterd by moss covered overhangs. From one of these drips a pool of natural drinking water. When you climb out of the other end you are greeted by a big orange sandune and can climb out onto a plateau as the canyon mouth widens out. It felt magical. The friendly owners broke their fast with us, dates and sweet hot tea and I convinced Marc we should stay the night here. Usually this place would be swarming with tourists but we were the only ones.
In the darkness lit by fireflies, glow worms and the odd star that broke through the tree lined canopy, I went skinny dipping and bathed in a pool feeling totally relaxed and at peace. Then Marc and I started to cook dinner together. This was such a romantic setting, not that anything like that was going on. Then the Saffers turned up which I was almost disappointed by because they needed to moan about the last 2 days. Nothing could spoil my good mood though.
We slept outside under the mosquito net. In the morning Marc went running and I hiked out throught the village, climbed up an escarpment onto one of the plateaus and eventually found my way back to the sand dune we walked on yesterday evening at sunset. A truely amawing place.
That day we tried and failed to find a canyon with a another, this time secret, pool to swim in that Ellen had told us about. Instead it was a hot and rocky walk with no pool at the end. The not so accurate map had led us to the wrong place. That night after camel sandwiches and camel stroganoff, we all reunited and camped in a field near town for an early start in the morning.
Hot, hot, hot, we picked up a PCV and set up over a very steep and windy hill to Cinguetti, a desert town which has sand dunes through the middle of it. Cristina kindly let us use her house to make and eat lunch away from prying Ramadam eyes. It was in the traditional style with open sandy courtyard that has a woven raised platform for sleeping:sitting on when there is no sand storm, surrounded by 3 seperate small one room buildings as kitchen, toilet and living room
and a sand pit rubbish area.
We hotfooted off over the dunes to the nearest oasis where I was disappointed to discover my fantasied round pool with palm trees didn't exist giving way instead to pleasant gardens with (desert) pavillion style relaxing areas and concrete pools that they fill up for sitting in. After walking around in the burning sand for a while we selected one, helped to fix the water pump and relaxed for the rest of the day with chai, beers and a camel steak barbecue for dinner.
Then we head to Ouadane another desert town which is primarily deserted now but was a key trading site on the caravan route. We explored briefly and then head off to another oasis place with a guide we picked up. On the way there he took us climbing up and through a wooden door set high up in the cliff face, then squeezed our way through tiny caves full of bat droppings to find some ancient rock carvings. In Arabic scribe, it is supposed to be an old message post between caravanners.
The oasis was very similar to the last. In the late afternoon I went exploring through the village and up the escarpment to watch the sand colours change in the setting sun. The next day our guide took us walking to a river for swimming and a bird watching place with no birds. It only rains once or twice a year here! and that happened a couple of weeks ago when the 45km stretch of river fills up. Luckily the water table is quite high so pumping water or using wells is not hard. In the evening he cooked us bread in fire and made us a gravy to eat with it. Tasted all right but was rather sandy as the sand sticks to the bread when it is cooked. Even had a little goat meat in it.
Sitting with Marc by his car watching the moon rise, a group of teenagers came along whom Marc started to teach the Monkee walk to before the boys tried to teach him their version of dancing with involves convulted banging of legs together whilst twisting around. I abstained as I didn't want to risk any of them pinching my arse in the dark. After my experiences in Morocco I was still very jumpy about any physical contact from men. However the next day when we stopped briefly in Oudane again, I loved playing football with some of the boys and dancing with the girls.
Returning to Cinguetti, we picked up Christina and her sandboard and took off the dunes. I only sat, the boys rode but it was wicked fun sandboarding even though the winds and started up again and to top it all off, there was even some rain.
Marc had been having some problems with the car and so were the Saffers so it was decided to forgo the adventurous desert crossing route out of Mauritania and head to the captial instead on good roads. Before we left, Marc and I had to give finding the secret pool one more go. After some unfrotunate advice from a gay goatherder who fancied Marc like mad, we failed to find the canyon again but did find discover a lovely pool which we read around and swam in, to the accompaniment of the odd herd of goats and camels coming for well needed drinks.
We returned to Atar to find the others had already left for a secret miners bar with ALCOHOL. Unsurprisingly we were not far behind but that story will have to wait a little longer.
Hope all is good in your worlds : )
Lots of love
Kath xxx
I was not in a good mood when we arrived in Choum feeling like a baked breadcrumbed chicken. Before the car had even come to a stop we were swamped by kids and men trying to sell extortiantely priced bread. The kids crowded round me as I tried to find a shop and when one of them stepped on my sandal for the third time, I yelled some choice english words at them which gave me an instant and welcome tension release and caused them to fall away from me for all of 3 seconds. A nice man provided me with a coolish coca cola and I felt good enough to start smiling again. Whilst Marc had the tyres on the car pumped up, I played with the kids.
We headed to Atar, now 12 hours late to meet our friends but daylight was against us and we found a lovely place to camp just off the road near an escarpment surrounded by rocky outcrops, trees and what appeared to be a grave. The tempreture was balmy with a slight breeze but the grave ghost was not happy with us and at about midnight a gale rose up causing yet another sandstorm in the tent. Our plans to go jogging (him) and hiking (me) in the morning were quickly abandoned. However further down the road and over the plateau we did find a sheltered picturesque spot with large natural paving slabs of rock for me to enjoy my morning coffee and complete my soduku fix.
Atar was even dustier than Noaudibou but small enough than out of the several occasions we had to run around to try and find each other (the first time to locate Brian who was expecting us at 11am yesterday) that random locals would come up to us saying "you are the australian who look for the american, he's....." We eventually found Brian at the local peace corp house. Brian had been working as peace corps in Georgia for the last 2 years and because of him I've met more peace corps (PCV's) than I could possibly imagine and some of them are actually quite nice, educated and friendly people. Before Brian I had the idea that most of them were indoctrinated idiots whose primary goal was to spread the love of all things USA. This is not actually so far-fetched as peace corps who are at the start of their placement do seem to be a tad arrogant and have no idea yet as to how things really work. Ellen was very cool and I spent a good hour or so listening to them talk about their experiences with much interest.
Brian was not ready to leave his new friends so Marc and I set off for the oasis at Terjit, stopping on the way to explore and swim at a pool in a small canyon we saw on the way. The Saffers (South Africans) were in Nouakchott with car problems.
Terjit is amazingly beautiful. It took us a while to arrive as we missed the turnoff and ended up giving a lift to an old man walking from goodness knows where, who was terrified by the toy frogs, snake and crocodile Marc keeps on his dash. Terjit is a freshwater stream with a couple of pools set in a rusty canyon scattered with pamtrees and shelterd by moss covered overhangs. From one of these drips a pool of natural drinking water. When you climb out of the other end you are greeted by a big orange sandune and can climb out onto a plateau as the canyon mouth widens out. It felt magical. The friendly owners broke their fast with us, dates and sweet hot tea and I convinced Marc we should stay the night here. Usually this place would be swarming with tourists but we were the only ones.
In the darkness lit by fireflies, glow worms and the odd star that broke through the tree lined canopy, I went skinny dipping and bathed in a pool feeling totally relaxed and at peace. Then Marc and I started to cook dinner together. This was such a romantic setting, not that anything like that was going on. Then the Saffers turned up which I was almost disappointed by because they needed to moan about the last 2 days. Nothing could spoil my good mood though.
We slept outside under the mosquito net. In the morning Marc went running and I hiked out throught the village, climbed up an escarpment onto one of the plateaus and eventually found my way back to the sand dune we walked on yesterday evening at sunset. A truely amawing place.
That day we tried and failed to find a canyon with a another, this time secret, pool to swim in that Ellen had told us about. Instead it was a hot and rocky walk with no pool at the end. The not so accurate map had led us to the wrong place. That night after camel sandwiches and camel stroganoff, we all reunited and camped in a field near town for an early start in the morning.
Hot, hot, hot, we picked up a PCV and set up over a very steep and windy hill to Cinguetti, a desert town which has sand dunes through the middle of it. Cristina kindly let us use her house to make and eat lunch away from prying Ramadam eyes. It was in the traditional style with open sandy courtyard that has a woven raised platform for sleeping:sitting on when there is no sand storm, surrounded by 3 seperate small one room buildings as kitchen, toilet and living room
and a sand pit rubbish area.
We hotfooted off over the dunes to the nearest oasis where I was disappointed to discover my fantasied round pool with palm trees didn't exist giving way instead to pleasant gardens with (desert) pavillion style relaxing areas and concrete pools that they fill up for sitting in. After walking around in the burning sand for a while we selected one, helped to fix the water pump and relaxed for the rest of the day with chai, beers and a camel steak barbecue for dinner.
Then we head to Ouadane another desert town which is primarily deserted now but was a key trading site on the caravan route. We explored briefly and then head off to another oasis place with a guide we picked up. On the way there he took us climbing up and through a wooden door set high up in the cliff face, then squeezed our way through tiny caves full of bat droppings to find some ancient rock carvings. In Arabic scribe, it is supposed to be an old message post between caravanners.
The oasis was very similar to the last. In the late afternoon I went exploring through the village and up the escarpment to watch the sand colours change in the setting sun. The next day our guide took us walking to a river for swimming and a bird watching place with no birds. It only rains once or twice a year here! and that happened a couple of weeks ago when the 45km stretch of river fills up. Luckily the water table is quite high so pumping water or using wells is not hard. In the evening he cooked us bread in fire and made us a gravy to eat with it. Tasted all right but was rather sandy as the sand sticks to the bread when it is cooked. Even had a little goat meat in it.
Sitting with Marc by his car watching the moon rise, a group of teenagers came along whom Marc started to teach the Monkee walk to before the boys tried to teach him their version of dancing with involves convulted banging of legs together whilst twisting around. I abstained as I didn't want to risk any of them pinching my arse in the dark. After my experiences in Morocco I was still very jumpy about any physical contact from men. However the next day when we stopped briefly in Oudane again, I loved playing football with some of the boys and dancing with the girls.
Returning to Cinguetti, we picked up Christina and her sandboard and took off the dunes. I only sat, the boys rode but it was wicked fun sandboarding even though the winds and started up again and to top it all off, there was even some rain.
Marc had been having some problems with the car and so were the Saffers so it was decided to forgo the adventurous desert crossing route out of Mauritania and head to the captial instead on good roads. Before we left, Marc and I had to give finding the secret pool one more go. After some unfrotunate advice from a gay goatherder who fancied Marc like mad, we failed to find the canyon again but did find discover a lovely pool which we read around and swam in, to the accompaniment of the odd herd of goats and camels coming for well needed drinks.
We returned to Atar to find the others had already left for a secret miners bar with ALCOHOL. Unsurprisingly we were not far behind but that story will have to wait a little longer.
Hope all is good in your worlds : )
Lots of love
Kath xxx
posted by Kath @ 7:17 AM
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