Mauritania: Mysteries of the Saharan Sun, Sand and Iron Ore

Who would be crazy enough to ride in an open train wagon for over 12 hours across the Sahara Desert, perched on a heap of iron ore? “Not me for sure”, I thought to myself.

But that was 3 years ago.

A lot has changed since then. I’ve become more accepting of my burning desire for rare and random adventures. It is more effortless for me to meet strangers because after all, we’re simply long-standing friends waiting to connect with each other when the time is right. Most often, in new lands and situations outside of our comfort zones.

For the 10 of us, that moment had arrived. Over a single post on Facebook by a friend of a friend – Dan, we had come together for a week-long trip in Mauritania. We trickled into Nouakchott from different parts of the world – US, Europe, Middle East – at different times of the day before the tour began.

It was going to take some adjusting. First, to the summers of the Sahara Desert and the roughness of the sandy roads, and second, to each other. But we felt geared and prepared, mostly for the (in)famous ride on one of the longest cargo trains in the world – the 2.5km-long Mauritanian Iron Ore Express. Mauritania has a low rate of COVID-19 cases. Travellers can enter the country with a 72-hour PCR validity and tourists are not required to quarantine. So far, everything seemed to be piecing together well.

But first, Senegal.

My wanderlust friend, Gautam, and I flew into Dakar from Dubai with our PCR negative test results. A six-hour layover meant that we needed to head out of the airport, get some fresh air into our lungs and some food in our bellies after a 12.5-hour flight. Thankfully, our Indian passports allowed us to enter Dakar without a visa. We tracked down a beachfront shack, which is about 30-minutes from the airport.  Watching the sunset over a meal of local vegetable curry and rice was the perfect fit. “The start of the trip looks promising”, he said. Soon, we were on our flight to Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania.

Terjit Oasis: How much moon is too much moon?

We spent our first night in a hotel in Nouakchott. The following morning, the last member of our group, Kach from Two Monkeys Travel blog, flew in from Montenegro before we hit the road for a 5-hour drive towards Terjit Oasis.

“Ditch the tent and head to the nearby hill for the night”, my friend Matt had advised after coming back from Mauritania recently. I met Matt two years ago over a week-long adventure in Senegal where he and Phil from Scoot West Africa, led our group as we traversed tiny villages and riverside towns of the beautiful country.

Now in Terjit Oasis, the ten of us ate our first lunch together, couped up under a tent, hiding from the wrath of the hot summer sun. We relished a freshly cooked meal, some entertaining stories, and a cold hibiscus drink before heading off to the oasis for a stroll through the palms and a swim in a hose nearby. The day felt like an ice breaker – the coming together of world travellers with their travel tales and ambitions, culminating in light-hearted conversations, laughter, and photos. Lots of photos.

After a night with strong winds under the bulb-like full moon, the beautiful sunrise over the hills felt energising. Well, sunrises always feel so alive and beautiful, if only one aligns with nature and wakes up to enjoy them.

Not too far from the camp lay an abandoned nomadic village. Mauritania is a land of cultural contrasts, with an Arab-Berber population to the north and black Africans to the south. Many of its people are nomads. Walking through the rummage and empty brick quarters took me back in time for a few haunting moments. What must have been? Where did they go? Why did they leave? Some of my questions that will always remain unanswered.

I headed back to the camp, where a sumptuous breakfast of hot omelettes and crepes with jellies and chocolate spreads awaited us. All along, I had been mustering the courage to face my biggest fear looming around in dark corners. Lizards! I usually dread entering bathrooms in a place like this where I am sure to spot them on the walls. I saw none that day. I was spared one more time. Thank you, Sweet Lord!

Chinguetti Blues

“You cannot enter the masjid unless you are fully covered – from head to toe”, Fatima conveyed to me in Arabic. But as a Muslim who has spent her entire life in the Middle East, I already knew of that custom. It was only a matter of finding a headscarf, which I didn’t have that day. “Come over to my house and I’ll lend you the veil”, she offered. Hesitantly, but with a nod of approval from our tour guide, I followed this local stranger to her home.

She draped me in a beautiful blue Malahfa, the Mauritanian veil, which is a four-meter-long and one-meter-wide fabric, customarily worn by women and young girls alike. The loose fabric felt airy, comfortable, and oddly feminine. Although my visit to the ancient Chinguetti mosque was short, the Malahfa on me befitted this ancient city and hub of literature and culture. I bought it from Fatima and decided to leave it on for the rest of the day.

Chinguetti is a UNESCO-protected site. It is a medieval trading centre and home to the world’s most important medieval Quranic texts. Once an intellectual hub of the Sahara and a caravan stop for pilgrims en route to Mecca, the 8th-century city may soon vanish under the expanding Sahara desert. We visited an old library, walked around town, and then drove deep into the desert for a beautiful sunset and night’s stay at a charming, solar-powered guesthouse in the middle of nowhere.

Digital detox becomes a reality when there are no plug points to charge your mobile phones and devices. You get to listen to the swoosh of the winds and the humming of small insects in desert sands. At least my sleep tonight wouldn’t be interrupted with messages buzzing in, and that was a relief.

The “Eye of Africa” or the “Eye of the Sahara” – commonly known as The Richat Structure was a fascinating stop on the way out from Chinguetti. We climbed one of the many small hills which lay within this prominent circular feature in the Sahara’s Adrar Plateau. It measures 45 kilometers (28 miles) wide and resembles a conspicuous bull’s eye from outer space. There is no conclusive evidence if this geological structure made up of igneous and sedimentary rocks is the result of a meteorite impact or merely a symmetrical uplift laid bare by erosion. Or in my mind, the work of alien beings. It’s both incredible and mysterious.

Dancing with Friends and Guns

Sometimes, you just just don’t know how to pronounce a city’s name correctly until you hear it from the locals.

Ouadane, pronounced as Wah-dayn, which also means “the city of two wadis” is a prominent historic city that was founded in 1141 on the ruins of four cities, themselves created in 742. It was ideally located on the route of the caravans that ensured the trans-Saharan trade. It was in Ouadane that the first university in the desert came into being. 

We spent a sultry afternoon walking through winding alleys of the old city with a local guide who charged us 200MRU as an entrance fee. The tour ended with a hill-top view of the setting sun and a near-orange sky. I bought a postcard from the vendor and passed it around for everyone to pen down a message for me. In anywhere between two weeks to a month, I would receive this postcard and read the messages for the first time, refreshing memories from the trip. There’s a reason this website is called ‘Chasing Postcardz’ (in every country). *wink*

At night, our guide surprised us by arranging a musical performance and get-together in a local family home. Donned in the Malahfa (for women), we were sat down on floor cushions and served hot green tea, traditionally made by the male head in the family and served to guests as a sign of hospitality. Culturally, men and women do not mingle, which applied to us too.

“May I dance with the gun?”, I asked the older man in my rusty Arabic as he came by with a tray of teacups. They had just finished swinging the guns around as they danced in circles. I wanted to do the same. But two minutes ago, the guide had vehemently refused to ask him on my behalf. To my surprise, the old man smiled and obliged. I danced away with the gun while most cheered on and some watched in disbelief. Women slammed inverted bowls with slippers and sang local tunes as friends and strangers danced to the beats all night.

It was time to retire to our mattresses on the cool and airy rooftop of our auberge, under the bright moon and starlit sky.

Choum: The Adventure Begins

The big day had arrived. We were heading to Choum, the village where the train makes its pit stop for passengers to get on board and cargo to be loaded. We were excited and nervous in equal measures. It felt like an exam that I wasn’t well-prepared for. I’ve disliked long overnight train journeys since childhood. But this was a rare adventure. Being able to ride on the world’s longest cargo train had been on my bucket list for a while and it was about to come true. A few hours passed, first inside a guesthouse nearby where we had lunch, and later under the open night sky, spotting shooting stars as we patiently waited to hear the whistle of the train.

“Do not panic”, the guide said as the train arrived at a screeching halt. He was confident with his arrangements. Two members had boarded the train at the start point in Zouerat where the iron is mined and transported to the port in Nouadhibou. For three hours on the way to Choum, the men flattened out iron ore mounds on one of the wagons to make room for 11 people and bags, which we safely secured in trash bags to avoid the iron ore dust. The walk to our designated wagon was unexpectedly long. Lugging a water cooler for the group along with two bag packs was getting harder by the minute, but I pulled through in good time.

The first hour on the train was exhilarating. We were cozily snuggled together, but also sprawled out for a good night’s rest, as comfortably as “comfortable” could be with so many of us trying to fit in like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. At sunrise, curious heads peeked out of sleeping bags and blankets to take in the views of small hamlets and nomadic settlements passing by. Geared with tightly-wrapped haoulis on our heads and protective eyeglasses, we were enjoying the rhythm of the train, snoozing every now and then, dancing away to pop tunes, and clicking endless photos to take away memories of a lifetime from this train ride.

Few miles before Nouadhibou, the train stopped and we jumped off the train, just as rushed and excitedly as we had boarded it. We were ready for a hot shower and a hot meal at a guesthouse in Nouadhibou, before heading to Ban D’Arguin for the night.

Camping by the Atlantic Ocean

“There’s nothing quite like the ocean”, Gautam remarked as we walked alongside the Banc D’Arguin cliff shortly after sunrise. It had been a cold, windy night at the Arkeiss beach camp but our sleep had been sound. Most of our tents remained intact and sheltered us well. The clouds loomed over us as we watched migratory birds on the edge of the cliff. On our way down, a fox raced in front of us. Some braved the freezing waters, while others enjoyed a long walk on the beach. For lunch, we headed to the crab beach, where hundreds of crabs scrambled in and out of holes. Sadly, it was time to leave the desert and head back to Nouakchott.

Surprises in the Capital Await

A simple airconditioned room with a bed and fully functional bathroom at our hotel in Nouakchott felt like pure luxury at this point. We slept like babies. In the morning, we headed out to take our free PCR Covid tests before going for a tour of Nouakchott. What seemed like an average city tour took a surprising turn by midday. We were taken to a camel market about 30 minutes from the city. The chaotic market scene had us mesmerized. I decided to hop on a donkey cart and make new friends at the other end of the market.

For lunch, the beachside restaurant was a perfect choice. The group kept me distracted. Little did I know that they had a surprise belated birthday celebration planned all along! A cake, some cookies, and happy birthday tunes are always a mood elevator, not that any of us needed to be more upbeat than we were already.

Our last stop, the Port de Peche fish market was a colourful sojourn of sights and sounds. Fishing remains one of Mauritania’s largest economic activities, outside of iron ore and gold mining. We were met with enthusiastic fishermen striking a pose for us with their colourful boats while going about their daily business.

Last day, well spent. A wonderful adventure wrapped up beautifully. Our test results came in the same evening. We packed our bags and memories from the trip, kissed our goodbyes, and hugged away the fatigue from a rare adventure with strangers, who we now get to call “friends for life”.

Visa, Flight and COVID-19

Most nationals, including Indian passport holders, can get a tourist visa on arrival for Mauritania at Nouakchott airport for 60 USD. I flew in from Dubai on Emirates Airlines via Dakar, Senegal. From Dakar, I flew Mauritania Airlines, flying time for which is less than an hour.

COVID-19 Testing Centre in Mauritania conducts free PCR testing with a 12-hour (approx.) turnaround for results.

Travel Date: May 2021

_{*These are first-hand experiences, findings , views or opinions , which are purely my own. They are not paid for or promoted content.}