Last few days in Mauritania

Update on 1/24

Out of the desert Ouadane via Noukochott to Diawling National Park

After staying for one night in Ouadane it was time to move on. The only noteworthy thing that happened in Ouadane was meeting a 14 year old boy who wanted to practice his English with us. He was really the first kid that did not start to talk to us to ask for money or a cadeau. He was quite a remarkable child as his English was the best of anyone we met in Mauretania and he had his career path planned out. he was going to work for NASA and live in Seattle. To get there he was going to finish his school in Ouadane and then he would move to Qatar on a scholarship from the Qatar foundation to study Astronomy. It was real fun to talk to him and see someone who had confidence and self respect.

 The 180 km road from Ouadane to Atar was voted  one of the worst road off the whole Saharan Desert. It was supposed to have the worst corrugation of any road in the Sahara. Fortunately for us Total will be starting some oil exploration in the area and they probably funded a project to have the road graded. It was smooth driving all the way to Atar. We encountered a convoy of many huge trucks carrying anything from mobile homes to drilling equipment.

Since we arrived in Atar early we decided to drive about 50km further to Terjit, a town that has a natural spring. We were thinking to stay there a couple of days, but like any town in Mauretania that has something of interest, the town had quite a few auberges that had seen better times, garbage on the roadside and the local tout telling us that we could not drive further so we should stay at his place. Marc checked the road further up the canyon while Rosana was asked for cadeaux by the local youths. Clearly not a village to just hang out. So the next day we headed straight for Noukachott after paying the chief of the village for allowing us to stay on his camping with a toilet that had not been cleaned for 5 years and no water and no electricity (I guess that is why we have our house on wheels with our own toilet and plenty of water) Noukachott is the capital of Mauretania, 800,000 people living between the sea and the desert in just sand and off course garbage. We found a little paradise (compared to the area outside the auberge) in the middle of the city. Here we could catch up on e-mail, plan our next few weeks and visit the port de peche.

After Noukachott we started driving towards Senegal. We were planning to stay a couple of days in Diawling national park at the border with Senegal. We did not make it to the park the first day and we wildcamped about 20 km outside the park close to the wetlands. It was really nice, lots of flamingos, pelicans, storks, herons, egrets and other waterbirds.

Yes the pink stuff in the distance are Flamingoes, lots of them

The next day we drove into the park but the bird watching was a lot better outside the park. In the park there was a big flock of flamingoes far out on the water but other than that we saw a lot more outside the park. In the park there were villages with the accompanying garbage, camels, cows and donkeys. Fortunately we found another nice bush camping spot for the night. We decided the next day to go into Senegal.

Entering the National Park: Camels, cows and people