Howdy all, and well, the second last country here in my 2023 ‘Dhaka to Dakar’ adventure is upon the blog now, which means there isn’t much left to go! And that country is Mauritania, and I stayed just the two nights in its capital, Nouakchott.

Mauritania is a large country in Africa, being the 11^th largest on the continent out of 54. Mostly desert and sand, there are a lot of large empty spaces. The capital Nouakchott is easily the most populous part of the country with around 1.5 million of just under 5 million Mauritanians living there.

When Graham and I planned this as we travelled, we deliberately planned to scoot through Mauritania as fast as possible. I think at one point we were just doing the one night preferring to have an extra day or two in Senegal. Eventually we settled on two nights here as we figured we would need a day off from the relentless all day travel that took us from Marrakesh to Nouakchott in just under three days. Read about that adventure HERE.

Graham though went back to the UK, so I was back on my own and arrived at Nouakchott around 6pm. My hotel was the Best Semiramis and it was SUPER nice. I would say the comfiest hotel I have stayed at in Africa. Check out the review below.

The main reason for the short stay was frankly because Mauritania has a reputation of, well, not having much for the visitor to see and do. It’s not a tourist destination by any stretch and its most popular attraction is the iron ore train in the north where people jump in empty trucks and spend the night crossing the desert for a 12-14 hour journey. Or it might be more. Does it sound like something I would like? Maybe, but we had decided against it. Also out in the wilderness in that north-west region of the country are some beautiful waterfalls. But tourist infrastructure is not really a thing in Mauritania right now and there has been fighting going on in parts of the country over the last ten years.

So it was, I had a day to explore Nouakchott. What is there to see? And what’s it like? Well, it’s a pretty big city in terms of size. It’s not full of tall buildings, and the main attractions are the Camel and Fish markets. It is hot and dusty and at one point I think I overheated which was a bit of a worry. I hadn’t been eating through the day because of Ramadan too – just hard to get food basically. So that may have contributed. I sat down in a closed restaurant by the sea and had water and coke and was mostly back to normal within 10 minutes.

I paid a guy at the hotel who spoke English and offered to take me around Nouakchott, to do just that, and that proved a good call. We started by heading through the centre of town, past the parliament building and the square that sits outside it.

The first proper stop of the day was at the Grand/Saudi Mosque. It’s quite a beautiful mosque, unfortunately non-Muslims are not allowed inside. But I could take photos from across the road. It’s called the ‘Saudi’ Mosque because I believe the Saudi Royal Family paid for it. I can’t find any information on when it was built but I think it’s somewhat modern and wouldn’t be more than 30-40 years old.

Nouakchott’s traffic is abysmal. You really do move around at a snail’s pace. You do see a mixture of old and new cars, I naturally was in an older car without air conditioning. Still, it wasn’t too bad except when we were at a standstill.

On the way to the Camel Market, which was a little way from the centre of town, my host picked up his wife and child and dropped them off which was nice. And I should say that everyone I met in my short time in Mauritania was actually super friendly, and I had next to no issues about using my camera/s. Of course I asked before pointing them at someone. Mauritania does have a reputation for hating cameras with a passion, and people being generally unfriendly to foreigners. That was not my experience everyone I met and chatted with was SUPER friendly.

The Camel Market was pretty awesome and I would say the highlight of the day. I think they said 5000 camels at the market. I was able to walk around and take photos and shoot my vlog as the sun beat down without issue. I mean the place wasn’t in the process of selling when I was there, perhaps they do auctions I don’t know, but there were only a few men there who were happy to say ‘Bonjour’ to me (Mauritania is a French-speaking country besides local languages) and I got some great shots.

Then it was a super long drive through stand-still traffic to the beach. I wanted to see the ocean and so we ended up, eventually, at this sort of restaurant by the ocean. This is where I had my little over-heating episode. I was able to get pretty close to the ocean, there was a fence up though but it was a beautiful scene there on the African side of the Atlantic Ocean.

Not too far away was the final stop – the Fish Market. We had to pay for parking and it was again slow going through the traffic. The fish market again was an amazing scene, it was also on the beach and fishing boats were coming in and heading off whilst we were there. I was allowed to shoot (with camera!) fish on display for sale, and it was a real hive of activity. In fact I would have to say it felt like half of Nouakchott was there!

And then the day was done and I returned to the hotel to prepare for my final border crossing and to hit my final country – Senegal. I actually had a really good day in Nouakchott, even if I spent at least half of it in the car! It’s really interesting and worthwhile to visit a place like Nouakchott that doesn’t boast landmarks and must see tourist sights. I was super glad I decided to take that day there.

Thanks for popping by! The next blog in this series will see me finally hit the final country – Senegal! And there are still a few adventures there to be had as I visit St Louis, Saly and finally, Dakar! Take care wherever you are in the world – May the Journey Never End!