Sweetness

Mauritania is, by all accounts, a pretty sweet place. Sweet in the colloquial sense, with tons of amazing desert vistas and crazy ancient towns to take in. Sweet in the personal sense, with people going to the ends of the earth to make you feel welcome. Sweet also in the literal sense - the amount of sugar consumption in this country is madness! I've heard all sorts of reasons behind it - that the desert heat makes it important to stay hydrated being the most sensible - but in any case, it is impossible to pass a day here without umpteen little shot glasses of sugar-laden tea. A friend of mine, heading out into the desert with some nomads, was shocked when they packed 10 kgs of sugar per person for the 20 days, but they finished it to the last grain. A good travel narrative title for this country might be "how to get diabetes in 10 days", and I'm assured that that ailment is indeed a huge problem, once hardy desert dwellers become city folk.

Perhaps because all this sugar has my brain running at hummingbird pace half the time, it seems like I've been here far longer than the - goodness me! - only 12 days it has been. I certainly haven't been rushed; I've been going about my travels at the natural pace that infrequent shared taxis dictate to me. For all the beauty here, it's fairly concentrated in a few spots, so the country is easily seen quickly.

Before I launch into a narrative, though, I think this might be a time for a bit of background. Mauritania is a bit of an unknown quantity in the West, or at least within the Anglophone world. It's amazing, actually, how much influence the linguistic heritage of colonialism has on the cultural awareness of a place. It's quite rare to see anglophones here, with the vast majority of travellers being French. There are even direct flights from Paris and Marseilles right to the tiny desert towns that are the centre of the nascent local tourist industry. This isn't just a Mauritanian thing, of course. Say "Africa" to an English speaker and they'll likely first think of Kenyan Safaris or some such. Say it to a French speaker, and it's West African colour that comes to mind first. Indeed, there are plenty of Canadians that make it to this end of the world, but most of them are Quebecois. To be fair, it would be difficult here to get along without a bit of French, and without the ability to converse you do lose quite a bit of the ability to connect with local people that is so essential for solo travel. My French, while still not great, is happily improving fast. I'm at the stage where I can generally discuss reasonably complex concepts with atrocious grammar, but quickly and properly pronounced - which serves just fine. I'm starting to catch myself thinking in French from time to time, and once I've got a good head of steam, I'm finding it an excellent language for a good rant.

But I digress. Mauritania. A name that, in and of itself, means very little. Before the French came, there was no such place. There was a vast swathe of desert that was a major intersection of trade heading from the Mediterranean south to Subsaharan Africa, East to Timbuktu, and West to the sea. The Empire of Chinguetti (the town of which I was in not 5 days ago) was a major power, as were several other of the big West African Empires. The population has long been divided on caste lines, with the "Moors" (Arabs who settled here as Islam spread) on top of the Haratin (black Africans who have adopted Moorish culture) and black Africans who retained their own traditions and ended up enslaved or otherwise at the bottom of the social pyramid. Indeed, it's not a proud mark on Mauritania's history that it was the last country to outlaw slavery (in 1982!) and it's an open secret here that it still persists. Certainly, I see every day examples of the casual racism with which blacks are treated by the Moors. A Senegalese/Mauritanian fellow with whom I spent a long day talking told me many stories. His way of resistance? He would work for the Moors, but he refused to learn Hassaniya, their dialect of Arabic. I understand the sentiment. Between that and the (much, much exaggerated) presence of a fundamentalist movement here, Mauritania doesn't get great press.

This is a shame. While I won't write off the racial tensions that exist, it would be unwise to exaggerate them. Mauritanian society is defined by an extremely dignified friendliness and hospitality, especially towards foreign visitors such as myself. The combination of desert culture (and 75% of the place is desert) and Islam's duty to guests combines to capture you up in a great swirl of hospitality and care. It's also incredibly safe. Not everywhere would I happily toss my pack into the back of a pickup truck to head out of town, then wander the market for an hour knowing that it would be there when I come back. Most rooms here don't have locks, and indeed, I've been sleeping outside most nights, and never need I worry about theft. It is a million times less likely here than in, say, Rome. The people are certainly in the top 5 of "nicest in the world" for me, and while I don't think it's humanly possible to displace the incredible Sudanese, the Mauritanians (who are culturally quite similar), are definite contenders for second or third.

The country itself is a bit oddly divided. Along the coast are Nouadhibou (where I first stopped) and Nouakchott (the capital). Both of these cities were thrown together essentially from nothing at independance in the 60s, when Mauritania was bustled out the French door to prevent its absorption by Morocco. As such, they don't benefit from their era. Both are vast, disorganized sprawls of concrete block buildings, empty lots, dusty streets, and no sidewalks. Both are shockingly unfriendly for pedestrians, I think maybe a casualty of the 1960s mentality that thought that even in the Developing World, everyone would soon be driving. Brasilia and Chandigarh are casualties of the same thing - but Mauritania doesn't have their architecture. In any case, the cities themselves are still fairly pleasant, being filled with Mauritanians.

The real emotional heart of the place, though, is the high desert plateau of the Adrar, where ancient stone trading towns and date oases still pop up from the sands, and where the cultural identity of the dominant Moorish nationalism is deeply rooted. It is there that the tourism industry, such as it is, is centred. In good years, Mauritania used to get 700,000 people. This last year, they got 13,000, casualty of a bunch of scares in the West that makes people think the place infested with Al Qaeda. It isn't. In any case, tourists come in the winter, when temperatures are more sensible. Now, in the summertime, I often had places to myself.

I arrived first in Nouadhibou, where it was my intention to catch my breath a day, and then hitch a ride on the empty train heading back to the iron ore mines in the desert. Unfortunately, as sometimes happens, circumstances didn't co-operate. I went to the train "station", a dusty box buried in a sand dune, and waited with a pile of locals until someone somehow got word that there would be no train today. Try tomorrow (if God wills it). So, tomorrow I tried - same thing. Although I was having a pleasant enough time in Nouadhibou, there wasn't much to do there. I spent most of my days wandering the town or hanging out with a gang of Gambian friends I accumulated at a local cheapo restaurant. Rumours had it that the train wouldn't be back online anytime soon, so I made an executive decision to cut my losses and head to the Adrar the long way, via Nouadhibou.

The taxi driver taking me back from the station saved me time (and money, and discomfort), by showing me where to catch a bus instead of share taxi down to Nouakchott. I killed the afternoon at the bus offices chatting with the workers, who fed me a massive lunch of camel and couscous - it is essentially impossible to go anywhere here without being fed. Finally, it was on the bus and across the desert, stopping every so often so everyone could pile off and pray. By 11:30 at night we arrived in Nouakchott, where I spent an unwise night inside, getting eaten by umpteen mosquitos, instead of out under the comfy tents and mosquito nets out in the yard (where I am staying now).

The next day, it was up early and out to the outskirts of town to track down a shared taxi to Atar, the major town of the Adrar. These taxis are always a gamble - they leave when full, which may take forever, and your level of comfort is highly variable. This time, I got luck on departure - we left within 30 minutes of my arrival at the yard - but I lost out a bit on comfort. It was an old 80s station wagon, on top of which we piled about 1000 pounds of luggage and trading, and into which (counting children), we piled 14 people. This car not being made for tall folk, I could only sit hunched over, with my chest approaching my legs rather too closely for my liking. Although the little ones didn't take up adult space, they made up for it with a good shift system that made sure at least one was crying at all times. In such a way, we put-putted out onto the road. Having said all this, and even though the trip took 8 hours in the heat of the day, it was actually kind of fun. Once again, we stopped and some fellows fed me a pile of camel for lunch, and by the end of the day, I reached Atar.

Dusty and exhausted, I went to the hotel listed as cheapest - and had to spend 15 minutes wandering the streets looking for someone to open the place! It wasn't a bad deal, though, as for the normal price of a hut they gave me a proper room... with air conditioning! Such things are to good to be true, and indeed the power promptly cut. Nonetheless, a good cool shower and a cool drink make a world of difference after a dusty trip, and I spent the evening wandering town, strolling along the river (this being the wet season, even desert towns have them) and chowing down on some cheap grub. When I got back to the hotel, the power even came back on! Unfortunately, I'd forgotten that I've by now kicked my caffeine habit, and the big coke I drank for thirst at 9 pm kept me up for hours... That'll learn me!

The next morning, the hotel fellow showed me where to find the banged-up pickups to Chinguetti. After killing the morning sitting about, then filling the back with everything the market had to offer, by noonish we roared out of town towards Chinguetti along a beautiful road climbing up a pass to the top of the plateau. The road, like much in the area, is being rebuilt by Total, as oil has recently been found. A couple hours later, we rolled into town.

Now, 2 pm in a Saharan town is about as close to post-apocalyptic as you get. Everyone sensible is sleeping through the hottest part of the day, and after being dropped at my auberge, it took me 25 minutes to track down the fellow who ran it (I felt a bit bad). The fellow, Yahya by name, turned out to be a genial sort who happily cut the rate in half for me (I was the only guest), then brought me home to his family for tea. They invited me back for dinner, after which, it turned out, there was a wedding! And not just any wedding. An Italian man who ran a guesthouse there was wedding a local girl, and causing quite a stir. Of course I was invited!

After a quick nap, Yahya picked me up in his donkey cart and we went cruising the town, visiting the dancing and drumming that the women of the wedding party were getting up to, then grabbing eats for dinner. It's experiences like this that a solo traveller lives for - sitting out in a yard in the middle of the desert, sharing a meal of camel as you watch the stars pop into view. The wedding itself was a gas - my foreign status got me into the family section, where I met another foreigner, a Quebecois fellow who had been there for 3 months learning to ride a camel, which he had bought, to keep for trips! It takes all sorts. After a great night of music and fending off local ladies, it was still too hot to crash inside, so I slept out on the roof, with the milky way to keep me company.

The next day I spent exploring Chinguetti, which is one of the ancient universities of the Islamic world, home to thousands of priceless manuscripts in private libraries, all ringed by amazing sand dunes. Out of this world. I toured one of the libraries with the local imam, had some poetry read, and drank tons of tea with all and sundry. Not a bad life.

The next day, it was off to Ouadane, the other ancient town of the Adrar. To get there involved going down the same road back to Atar, and then up the same road most of the way to Chinguetti, but not much I could do about that. Freakishly, my shared taxi left a) exactly on time b) not full and c) travelled exceedingly fast. Freaked out as I was, I didn't mind, as this let me find a jeep to Oudane the same day. We rolled out of town about noon, then stopped for an hour under a culvert where my fellow passengers made a fire and cooked up a huge lunch of spaghetti and camel which they plied me with until I could eat no longer. Joyous.

Arriving in Ouadane is an amazing thing. The half-ghost town sort of ... falls down the side of an escarpment in a pile of half-inhabited ruins and fortifications. There I stayed at the auberge of the amazing Zaida, one of the fiestiest businesswomen I have ever met. Over my couple days there we talked a ton of politics and development and women's issues, all of which were utterly fascinating. It was supposed to have been election time here June 4th, but the elections were postponed due to an opposition boycott. Zaida, like many, recognizes the whole thing as a sham, but sees some tiny shred of hope in the intentions of Gen. Aziz, who led last year's coup and is looking to legitimate it. By and large, people here see the election clearly as an attempt to preserve access to aid money now dependant on Western measures of democratization - an issue which itself demands another post. Zaida herself was content working locally, setting up a co-operative for single women (most of whom had divorced their husbands) and building her tourism business. She had been to France, which she thought a silly place, and we came to a general agreement that while it's silly to romanticize the poverty of a place like this, there must be some median between that and the insane consumption that so bothered her (and me!) about the West. Needless to say, this was all good French practice.

My time in Ouadane was passed in the usual way - exploring and drinking tea. The first night I was there, though, I was lucky enough to be woken in the middle of the night and chased inside (I was again sleeping in the yard), by one of the most incredible thunderstorms I have ever seen. I stayed up most of the night watching the lightning from inside my little hut doorway. After a couple days, though, it was time to head off again to my last stop in the Adrar, the oasis of Terjit.

Once again, shared taxis treated me well, and I arrived there by mid-afternoon. What a place it is. In the middle of flat-topped desert mountains, the road heads up a canyon that narrows until the village pops up in a sea of green date palms. At the very head of the canyon is the spring itself, which burbles out from the rock and makes a stream with a series of pools for swimming. Although only about 100 feet wide, you're surrounded by 300 foot cliffs and crazy dripping limestone stalactites, while the ground is shaded by date palms and lush greenery. There are birds chirping, frogs hopping, and the air is rich and moist. It looks rather like you'd imagine paradise - and coming in dusty and hot, it seems even more so. I dropped by bag under my bedouin tent, tossed on my swimwear, and dove in. That's about as active as I got for a couple days, although it being date harvest season, I did wander around the oasis picking and eating the groundfalls until I could stomach no more. At night, the people who ran the place left and I had it to my self, swimming in the pools surrounded by glow-worms and stars. Amazing.

Even more amazing, when it finally came time to tear away and leave for Nouakchott, on getting out to the road, the very first car going by (within 5 minutes) offered to take me directly there for a very good fare! This saved me hours of rides and waiting, so we cruised off in comfort into the big city. Arriving here on a Friday afternoon sees this already sleepy place an utter ghost town for afternoon prayers, but it was a good excuse to get some laundry and other puttering done. As you can see, there's not much else to do here - I've had a chance to catch up on internetting quite a bit. There are, though, nice people, coffee (for the first time since I got here!) and hookah pipes to be found, which is a lovely thing. About the only "tourist attraction" is the fishing port, from whence I just returned - and it is indeed something to behold. Although the city is theoretically on the ocean, you wouldn't know it - the coast is 5 kilometres from the centre. Hop a quick taxi, though, and you are brought to amazingness. The port is not a harbour, but merely several kilometres of beach lined with thousands (literally, at least 10,000) traditional fishing boats. Fishers go out in them, sometimes for just a day, sometimes for up to 5 ( a scary thing in the open sea in a glorified canoe). Come out to the port at the end of the day for sensory overload as the boats come in, beach themselves, and are heaved up onto blocks by hand by their crews, chanting all the way. The smell is intense - a mix of fish guts and fuel and ocean and sweat, and the sight is amazing... an endless line of colourfully painted boats as far as you can sea. You grab a cup of hot spicy coffee and wander down the beach, dodging donkey carts full of fish, trying not to get a boat dropped on your head, and checking out the produce (I saw at least one Hammerhead shark, sadly). Everywhere, the scene is the same. Teams of gruff, burly men man the boats, while between the boats on upturned buckets sit big, fat, beautiful African ladies in regal-looking robes and jewels, directing the sales with an iron fist. It's pretty epic.

With all that fishiness behind me, Mauritania is now a done deal. It's up early tomorrow to scoot for the Senegalese border - tomorrow night should find me propping up the bar at a fine jazz club. Should be quite the change.
Peace
Josh