Mauritania - People with strange clothes

It should have been a nice pleasant visit to Nouakchott with almost three days, but Air Mauritania minimized my stay. Nevertheless, there was still enough time to visit most of Nouakchott and the fishing Beach.


Mauritania is another country of which I basically didn't know anything about, up until started preparations for the trip. Most surprised me the affection of Islam. Cause like the way people walk around in Mauritania would be illegal in many western European countries. Walking around like this in Europe is only allowed during the coldest winter or during carnival events. Even already all over the airport, men and women completely cover their head and face with "towels". But then I understood the meaning of the country name as it is not only Mauritania but officially the "Islamic Republic of Mauritania". This is the real-deal Islam here.

Map of Capital Nouakchott:

Saturday, January 5 – Arriving with the long delay in Mauritania

A long day, not in Mauritania where I hoped to be visiting Nouakchott already this afternoon, but in Mali at the airport. Was there already at 8 in the morning and quickly got informed that the plane is not as scheduled.

Annoying that no one at the airport could tell me what the problem is. Only after a few hours, I found out by "Sophia" the boss at Air Mauritania at the airport, what is going on:

Your plane went already yesterday evening. You missed your flight.

What a funny Sophia she probably thought she is. I'm definitely not going to miss my flight when I would have known that the schedule was changed. I enjoyed the visit to Mali but I'm not that big fan to miss my flight out of here. It turned out that the airline didn't inform all passengers about the change as there were a few other passengers which had the same problem.

Thankfully Sophia was able to get me on another plane. I'm glad having a seat out of Mali today, but still, the plane will have a detour over Dakar first and instead of arriving at lunchtime in Nouakchott, I arrived this late evening at 9pm. 

Finally on the way to the hotel

Out of the plane as quick as possible, but in the first class there was some kind of religious "Islam sing-the-song club". There was one person among them with a wheelchair and they slowly walked out the plane blocking the whole way, all singing and praying with the wheelchair guy. Strange scenery but I wasn't in the mood to slowly walk behind them and listen to their prayers as otherwise, I expected to see me waiting for hours to get through immigration. It thankfully worked to overtake and get my visa for only 55 Euro.

Nouakchott is not really an economic capital to get in for a quick visit, as with 35 minutes taxi drive and a cost of 20 Euro Ill have to put it on the list of inconvenient capitals to visit.

Sunday, January 6 - One day in Nouakchott

My plan was to wake up early as I thought it will be challenging to visit Nouakchott in one day. The first task was successfully completed and already at 7am, I was on the road.

Coffee is good...

Was about to somewhere get a coffee and a big surprise it was to see how cheap actually very good coffee and fresh croissant can be here. That's some French influence I totally appreciate all over Africa.

Although prices can be shocking and might serve as a big opportunity to scam tourists. It wasn't visible first as Mauritania changed the currency and depending if the restaurant is delivering the bill in the old or new currency, the coffee either can be 7 Euro or 0.70 Euro. The waiter quickly clarified and I'm glad it turned out to be the later of the two prices.

... but taking photo NOT

It isn't difficult to figure out that it can be a tricky thing to take photos freely from whatever I want. Mauritania is one of the most hardcore Islam countries on the planet and people dress restrictive. They clearly, directly but most of the time friendly, show they don't want to appear on pictures - and therefore I had to ask most of the time again when taking photos of stuff or people. (Don't want to end up having an ugly discussion with police like in Burkina Faso because of photos)

Mauritanian dress codes

As I already saw yesterday at the airport, the scenery in the capital was even more interesting when seeing most of the people wearing these unique strange clothes. Next level dressed people were the ones with the full head cover. Not only women but also men with "burkas". They walk around as the stereotype I imagine when thinking of a terrorist.

Even taxi drivers are covered in head cover and sunglasses. These are the scariest taxi driver I've ever seen, as there is no official taxi sign attached and the taxis are 30-year-old cars. The driver looks like a freaking terrorist out of a movie or the actual news, with head covers like a ski mask and as an addon the black sunglasses. When asking them for their service they take of the glasses for bargaining, but it doesn't look less scary, only the eyes nervously look around while the mouth produces some mumble sound from behind the cover.

Their dress code is also present in restaurants, there they wear full covered faces and for eating they take off the mouth cover for the moments of shoving something in the mouth and afterward cover up again.

Walking the sandy pre-Saharan roads

Down the road, the number of people walking around increased. People were still stacking up their goods to sell in the capital market. Lots of shoes and typical Mauritanian dresses were about to be sold.

I didn't find it very inviting to walk here as a tourist but that's probably not the idea of these markets here in Mauritania, especially not for non-muslim white tourists with short trousers, pack on the back and a camera in the hand.

Still, after the story in Burkina Faso, I learned my lesson and mostly asked people for permission on taking photos. There were many police officers present and didn't want to risk arguing with them or worse.

Around the Mosque Saudique

In the same area as the market is the Grand Mosque. Thankfully Nouakchott isn't that big and not so complicated to get around by walking. There aren't that many streets and traffic seemed to be very low, so the risk of getting hit by a motorbike was low at least - unlike the risk in Mali.

Nearby the Mosque there is a presidential palace but I didn't do the effort of walking there because I already knew that it surely won't be allowed taking photos there.

I'm glad that Nouakchott is small and doesn't have that many things to see, cause my time here is limited. After around 11am it out of sudden was remarkably getting hotter and hotter. This was the real heat I expected to deal with. It's impressive how such a quick temperature as after 5pm it suddenly got quickly cold again and almost freezing when the sun is gone.

No dunes in the desert for me

I thought about taking a taxi to the beginning of the Sahara and visit the dunes. It's about one hour from Nouakchott until the Sahara starts. Askes a few people on how to get there and who can bring me there, although, I didn't continue this idea any further as all of whom I asked told me its a bad idea going there.

I know some people who can bring you there but I do not recommend it at all. A few days ago the police announced there is some increased terrorist activity just outside Nouakchott.

Probably they were right and probably not. Who cares, the fact is, I didn't see the Sahara in real and maybe I will be lucky to see it from another country in the future.

The famous Plage de Peche, the fishing beach

In the afternoon I had to stop a few of these dodgy taxi drivers, but somehow they all demanded a very steep price for bringing me to the plage de Peche (the beach with the fishes and the boats).

One of the following taxis was full with passengers, but he offered a ride that was about fair in price and for a small tip he even offered me the front seat of the taxi while replacing the passenger to the back.

Taxis or cars in general in Mauritania nearly break apart. Especially in the beach area, there are a lot of scenic exemplars of those. These old cars, of which I have never any brand somewhere else before, are almost only steel and the interior is completely removed. Only the absolute necessity is in there with a few seats.

The Plage de Peche is covered with hundreds of fishing boats and all of them are operating on a daily base. Even it was already afternoon many of them were still working. All these hundreds of boats catching thousands of fishes systematically, no wonder Mauritania is a country with one of the highest fish export and so its biggest business.

Monday, January 7 - SENEGAL, I'm on the way

Departure at 6am from Nouakchott made me actively hoping that the taxi driver will show up on time at the hotel at 4am. And thankfully he did. A 35-minutes ride again back to the airport from where the plane thankfully took off on time - towards Senegal's capital Dakar. 

Will the plane schedules in Senegal then continue as lucky as today?

(no, it won't, annoying airlines change schedules whenever they like in Dakar and caused me to skip my plan to visit the country Gambia after my visit to Senegal)