Terjit - Atar - Chinguetti (MAU) : into the Adrar Mountains
N 20°15.557' W 013°08.826' - N 20°31.143' W 013°03.721' - N 20°27.721' W 012°21.938'
12 noon is a little late to start out when planing to do 460 km but the excellent and trafficless tar road allowing us to cruise at 100-140 km/h shortened the trip. The road towards the Adrar Mountains is quite spectacular as surprisingly the desert displayed us the entire colour spectrum. Once past the last houses about 25 km from the capital, first small isolated brilliant white bachan dunes appear slowly changing into a continuous sandscape mutating in colour from intense yellow to orange and pale pink. Progressivelythe horizon stated to fill up with shimmering purple/blue rocky outcrops and small mesetas, their in fact black slopes becomminng apparent only whn much closer. And more surprisingly even were the large tracks of although sparse, but nevertheless green low shrub cover. With an hour till sunset we took out first real piste for 15 km to the oasis of Terjit, home to about 20 families. Dry rocky queds (small river), corrugations of all wave lengths and of course 'le sable' especially on the last 100 odd meters reminded us that distances are relative here. Half the village's kids looked on as we negotiated the last meters to Ali's heima where we were welcomed with 'cappuchino-tea' (sweet tea with 5 cm of foam!) ceremoniously prepared by Ali's 10 year old son. After some chicken cous-cous we were quite ready to go horizontal. The next morning we walked to the palm-covered source of the oasis tucked into a narrow canyon and then made the short haul to dust-blown Atar where to our surprise we were served a savoury plate of spaghetti Mauretanian style. We camped at the very well set-up Camp Sahara - an overlanders oasis. After a day's rest we took the dramatic piste up onto the red-earthed Adrar plateau and on to Chinguetti - Mauretania's tourist hotspot. Chinguetti, the 7th most imortant islamic town, is slowly being retaken by the Sahara's shifting sands and has beautiful and well preserved islamic texts more than 1000 years old. Unfortunately it is also being inundated with insensitive package tourism: motorcycles troops and long lines of quads and their would-like-to-be desert nomads who fly in directly from Paris! We felt clearly the adverse effect of such uncontrolled tourism in the subdued atmosphere and rather stern faces of locals. We thus decided not to explore the area further, and to return to Atar instead.
12 noon is a little late to start out when planing to do 460 km but the excellent and trafficless tar road allowing us to cruise at 100-140 km/h shortened the trip. The road towards the Adrar Mountains is quite spectacular as surprisingly the desert displayed us the entire colour spectrum. Once past the last houses about 25 km from the capital, first small isolated brilliant white bachan dunes appear slowly changing into a continuous sandscape mutating in colour from intense yellow to orange and pale pink. Progressivelythe horizon stated to fill up with shimmering purple/blue rocky outcrops and small mesetas, their in fact black slopes becomminng apparent only whn much closer. And more surprisingly even were the large tracks of although sparse, but nevertheless green low shrub cover. With an hour till sunset we took out first real piste for 15 km to the oasis of Terjit, home to about 20 families. Dry rocky queds (small river), corrugations of all wave lengths and of course 'le sable' especially on the last 100 odd meters reminded us that distances are relative here. Half the village's kids looked on as we negotiated the last meters to Ali's heima where we were welcomed with 'cappuchino-tea' (sweet tea with 5 cm of foam!) ceremoniously prepared by Ali's 10 year old son. After some chicken cous-cous we were quite ready to go horizontal. The next morning we walked to the palm-covered source of the oasis tucked into a narrow canyon and then made the short haul to dust-blown Atar where to our surprise we were served a savoury plate of spaghetti Mauretanian style. We camped at the very well set-up Camp Sahara - an overlanders oasis. After a day's rest we took the dramatic piste up onto the red-earthed Adrar plateau and on to Chinguetti - Mauretania's tourist hotspot. Chinguetti, the 7th most imortant islamic town, is slowly being retaken by the Sahara's shifting sands and has beautiful and well preserved islamic texts more than 1000 years old. Unfortunately it is also being inundated with insensitive package tourism: motorcycles troops and long lines of quads and their would-like-to-be desert nomads who fly in directly from Paris! We felt clearly the adverse effect of such uncontrolled tourism in the subdued atmosphere and rather stern faces of locals. We thus decided not to explore the area further, and to return to Atar instead.
posted by Retobados at 3:47 PM
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