Remote goal and desert trip of a different kind – diepresse.com
A goal for adventure in the northwestern corner of Africa: Mauritania, the land of the Moors, is far from the tourist shot.
« Merci, » said the man in Lila sneakers, who was apparently customs officers. He had just glued a visa, but it had received many dollars in cash and did not issue any receipt. Mauranic messages in Europe no longer exhibit visas. But now I was there. And nobody except me.
Shadow -free desert
The Dschumhūriyya al-islāmiyya al-Mūrītāniyya (Islamic Republic of Mauritania), eleven times as large as Austria and the eleventh state of Africa, is located in the northwestern part of the continent. Independent since 1960, the country in the south borders on Senegal, in the north and east to Algeria, Mali and Western Sahara. There are more tourist -friendly neighbors. 90 percent of the country area are shadow -free deserts, without major surveys, with very little Dornbusch and an unintown Atlantic coast. The Canary Islands are behind the horizon. Many want to go there. I come from there.
Contrasting colony
The former French colony was always a little opposed and doesn’t like Paris. China, which paves the streets of the raw material and has put a new airport into nowhere: 35 kilometers north of the capital Nouakchott is now a mighty block in the desert, where there are neither cafés nor rental car companies, especially not tourist information or even loudspeaker announcements. The only ATM is out of service; There is a lot of air conditioning for even more people in uniform who have no more than a few flights every day. And have a lot of fun with foreigners, see above.
It’s a good thing that Sebastien is waiting with its pick-up in front of the hall, as was taken. Because there are no public transport to the city, not official taxi drivers, but empty parking spaces for hundreds of cars subject to charges. Anyone who should ever park there is one of the many puzzles in a dodgy Sahel state, where slavery still exists. The slaves of today no longer wear chains and are also not numbered. There are said to have 600,000, the debts have to work through.
Between goat and Zrig
Perhaps slave work soon also for tourists, for the China near the airport gigantic hotel concrete castles in nothing to the Atlantic? Nothing is done, and the security guards are currently pouring palm trees there full -time. A few bleached parasols, including rotten lying, a colorfully decorated camel with a saddle is waiting for guests. The beach café next to it is already in operation and easily accessible via a short sand slope. The offer includes Al Mechwi (meat, cooked in the heated sand), fairly sweet tea and Zrig, a chilled drink made of yogurt or milk, water and sugar. It’s just stupid that the cold canary stream off the coast often envelops the beaches into a sea of fog, which could cloud the holiday mood, someone unexpectedly feels it. And alcohol is prohibited in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, which makes party tourism unlikely.
« /> Single room in Mauretanically in the Auberge Le Triskell. Günter Spreitzhofer
Sebastien, a French expat, runs the Auberge Le Triskell in the Las Palmas district in the middle of the capital. Oversized wide dust streets with many potholes, a few private kindergartens and high white walls with palm trees behind it: This is the embassy district, where fewer herds of goats are on the road than elsewhere and the security guards are shining on the open street. Sisyphus greets.
Plastic, styrofoam and Sahel winch
Nouakchott has become an infinite sea of huts and increasingly mocks out on the edges. In 1958 designed on the drawing board as the new capital for 30,000 people, more than a quarter of the 4.6 million inhabitants of the country lived here today, in which nomadic life shaped society until a few decades. There is no public transport, even no official taxis – if you don’t want to march too much and at the same time really get to know people, climb in collective taxis when a lap square is still free in the back seat. Most of the time they are honking old Mercedes and Peugeot in the last twitches of their car life, and that’s exactly how it sounds. The quarters are called Arafat or Riad, street names rarely exist, asphalt hardly ever. But a lot of plastic and styrofoam, which the Sahel winds sweep through this city, which, apart from a crossing with a lot of traffic jams between Avenue Abdel Nasser and Avenue Général de Gaulle, has no center. There is also the National Museum, which needs two rooms for archaeological finds and Mauretanian folk art – if it is open, which sometimes occurs. Audiovisual gags are unknown here, the showcases yellowed. It remains unclear whether the lively cockroaches in the corners from the regional fauna vitrine have escaped.
Single room in the tent
In the Le Triskell stand on the top of the flat roof, above the restaurant, small tents, well lashed, with fan and mosquito network above the cast iron bed: single room in Mauritanian. This has a tradition in a country where life in the tent outside the cities is still everyday for many-not only the tent market behind the Koutoubia mosque, sponsored by Morocco. You can’t get much higher up in all of Nouakchott, because only a few government buildings are more than three -story and taboo for visitors. Pedestrian zones, parks or even lookout towers? A cup mint tea in the Shaneigarten? None. The Info-Kiosk at the Ministry of Tourism is locked. The Institute National of the Arts does not like to clarify, like the soldiers who play tickets on the veranda in front of it.
Mamo Pizza closed at noon, and the Café Phoenix blocks before dark, for security reasons. There wouldn’t even have been more than fast food. Vegetables? « Sometimes comes from Senegal, they have more water, » says Sebastien. The local travel agencies behind the central market, where donkey carts take care of the delivery service, offer trips to Mecca, not 4WD desert tours to Mauritanian hinterland, where the asphalt roads end-the N3, for example, the « Route d’Spoir » (Hope Street) towards Mali. There is a lot of milky yellow and brown and beige in the country, depending on the position of the sun. And silence, apart from the nocturnal roaring of the camels.
If you want it to be more colorful, you have to go to the Fischerhafen Port de Pêche in Nouakchott, where archaic boats are pulled ashore every afternoon and the catch is processed immediately. If you like it louder and dirtier, climb the Iron Ore Train in the north, one of the longest ore freight trains in the world that several times a week across the Sahara to the coastal town of Nouadhibou, on the northern border to Western Sahara And to Morocco, wrong – 250 wagons and 17 to 25 hours. Whether a medium-range ride, two in the passenger seat in the Mercedes collection taxi, is more comfortable in the long run must remain open.
In Mauritania
climate: Dry and hot desert climate; in the south of rainy season from July to October
visa: Mandatory for EU citizens (available when entering Nouakchott, cash payment in euros or US dollars)
Danger: 4WD tours to old caravan cities (UNESCO World Heritage Site) in the northwest Travel warning provided.
