Old Town Chinguetti, Mauritania, Day 233

One thing you can be sure about when you travel, and especially if like Christi and I you go for long vacations, you always meet someone who is doing a longer or more spectacular trip. It’s not that I’m jealous so much as envious. Are these people even less career-driven than me or do they have unlimited wealth or can they survive on a tin of beans and a stick of celery each day while finding the prospect of sleeping under a convenient bush or rock simply the most wonderful thing in the world (I could never master that level of self-deprivation). I mention this because in my half-crazed state Christi, Sheldon, and I met two such people last night at dinner. This couple is dedicating 5 years to travel in a converted Mercedes-Benz truck. This thing looks like a tank and makes the Dragoman truck look luxurious by comparison. Still they carry enough supplies for themselves and their two dogs for 2 months and can wander pretty much wherever they want – road or no road. And for a really dedicated traveler check out this blog. This guy has been traveling since 1988; I feel so pathetic by comparison. I do, however, feel much better than yesterday and the chances of me living are pretty good. They would be a lot better if Christi did not insist I continue to drink the vile concoctions she procures from her portable pharmacy. Sheldon is of course itching to be on his way to Chinguetti, although a decision is made to report my ‘condition’ to the local police station who agree to let me continue.

The road to Chinguetti is initially paved and easy to negotiate, but this quickly deteriorates into a rutted track as we climb up through another desert escarpment. The one thing we see little of is people; literally only a handful during our whole drive to Chinguetti. Camels on the other hand are all over the place. It’s the desert version of New Zealand (There are 3 million people in New Zealand and 60 million sheep. The population of Mauritania is 3.5 million – with about ten times as many camels). We reach Chinguetti surprisingly quickly and Sheldon has already decided on a hotel – the Auberge La Rose des Sables – mostly so he can arrange his camel safari with the affable Cheikh Ould Amar. Sadly for Sheldon the camels are grazing some 20 miles away and so the earliest he will be able to depart is tomorrow. Reluctantly, therefore, he accompanies Christi and I on a tour of this desert town.

Chinguetti is a lot like Timbuktu: remote dilapidated, and surviving on former glories. But again its history is what makes the town a fascinating place to visit. Historically, it was important town on the edge of the Sahara where camel caravans passed through laden with salt and other goods. It was at one point the capital city of the Moors and remains the 7^th holiest city in Islam after Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, Cairo – and a few others that are hotly disputed by the followers of Islam. In its heyday Chinguetti was a major site of Islamic study with numerous mosques and koranic schools, but the town has fallen on hard times. Chinguetti suffers from rampant desertification – the dunes are gradually reclaiming this ancient town. On our tour we pass by the former Fort Saganne hotel, which was a location in the 1984 film Fort Saganne starring Gerard Depardieu. The movie describes in part the privations experienced by the French Foreign Legion in these parts – and we paid to come here! Next we cross the wadi (dry river bed) that separates the New town (where we are staying) from the ksar (fortified Old Town). At this time of year the wadi makes a rather excellent football pitch. Old Town Chinguetti is a maze of narrow streets with houses decaying into rubble. We stop at one of the many libraries that still dot the town. The library houses exquisite manuscripts dating back to the late Middle Ages.

Force myself to eat macaroni and chicken for dinner – and then force myself to walk, not run, to the hotel squat. It is at least clean, if an aesthetically unappealing place to linger.