Day 2 in Nouakchott

This morning being a Sunday, and hence the weekend here, we thought it would be futile to head into town early. Instead we had a lazy morning doing personal admin tasks, including me washing all my dirty clothes from the trip so far – Abby’s managed to eke hers out so she will be able to get home without bothering. My hands are the cleanest they’ve been for weeks, but the jury’s still out on the clothes. We also filled the truck’s tanks with water. We’d only used about 20l or so of our on-board water since arriving in Africa (we drink bottled water), but my washing used another 20l, not a problem as we were able to fill up our water jerries here.

Around mid-day we decided to try to find the web café we missed yesterday, in order to post yesterday’s blog. To start with we walked, but half way we found a petrol station which actually had petrol, so we went back to pick up the truck to fill it up (breaking our washing line in the process, due to a slight oversight vis a vis the washing). On the walk back we popped into the French supermarket round the corner from the Auberge to get difficult-to-find things such as Mars bars (useful as “cadeaux” for border guards) and Pringles (because they’re good to munch on). I think their main clientele is ex-pats, of which there are a few around, because the prices were high as befits imported goods. Now I know where the Roquefort cheese in last night’s dinner came from.

We didn’t have enough cash left over to refill our jerry cans, but we have enough to get to Senegal, although it’d be nice to leave the country fully loaded with fuel as it’s apparently more expensive there. The garage owner had a long chat in French with Abby. He was a bit of a Land Rover aficionado and knew 101s, so was really interested in ours. We then drove to the web café, which was a large, modern building, quite unlike the dusty offices with a few PCs between wooden partitions as we’ve seen elsewhere (think of the Russian computer shop in the James Bond film Goldeneye). It was also air-conditioned, which was quite refreshing, as it does get hot here in the mid-day sun.

After returning we bought the rest of our shopping (bread, water) in the little “épicerie” next to the Auberge. The roof of the Auberge has benches, mats, little tents which I think they let out, and sunshades, so we sat there for quite a while relaxing. Nothing opens until at least 4pm so there was little point in venturing into town before then.

As an aside, we were intensely irritated to learn that although Mauritania has some of the richest fishing waters in the world, the EU bought the rights from them in exchange for offsetting some debts, so the Mauritanians have to buy their own fish back from the EU at a grossly inflated price. Way to go, EU.

Finally we headed into town. Getting a taxi here is not challenging, as still the majority of moving vehicles on the road are taxis. We checked out the price in advance with the people at the Auberge (200-300 Ouguiya, about 50-70p, so we were expecting to pay 300 of course).¬ The taxi dropped us off at the Grande Marché in the centre of Nouakchott, from where Abby wanted to find a specific shop selling crafts made by a co-operative of Mauritanian women. As usual, the Lonely Planet map was a fat lot of use, so we asked a few people, but drew a blank, so decided to wander around for a while. (In fact, pretty much every last thing we’ve looked for in our 2003 Lonely Planet is not possible to find, and it even states that the weekend is on the wrong days, so it’s not really that useful here in some ways.)

The market is a bustling area where you can buy pretty much anything smallish: dusty items of hardware, clothing, material, food, spices, jewellery. Of course, we stood out like sore thumbs as the only Caucasian people there, rather like an African couple in traditional dress would stand out walking through the middle of Kingsbridge. This, of course, makes it quite hard to take photos, which is a shame, but it’s busy, colourful, dusty, and goat-intensive. Some people greeted us, largely as an introduction to their money-changing services; a huge proportion of the male population here seem to be part-time money changers. Actually, we did need to change some money, but the catch is that you need official receipts to match the amount of money you’re missing when you leave the country, compared to the amount you declared when you arrived. One chap said he could exchange our money with a receipt, so after checking his rate was OK we followed him into a tiny office in the middle of the market.

After counting out $200 – which is only a couple of tanks of fuel for us, but the GDP per capita here is only $500 – it turned out the office didn’t have enough cash, so our initial contact went to head to a different office, with our money in his hand! I’d anticipated this, so blocked his way, and he happily gave me back the money, laughing; I don’t think he actually meant to do a runner as it happened. We followed him to another office, right in the heart of the market, where the money changer checked each of our notes (which I counted out painstakingly to make sure nothing went astray) in an ultra-violet forgery detection machine he had for that purpose. We then exchanged our money, I counted the Ougiya we received, and all was OK. All we needed now was the receipt.

By this time, behind us in the doorway of the shop were about 5 or 6 men, all of whom had become involved in the process, and one of them produced a pucker receipt book he’d fetched from somewhere unknown, which was pre-stamped by a relevant authority. Only one of them could write in Roman script (as opposed to Arabic), so he wrote out the receipt. All was well, and we’d not been ripped off, but as we went to leave, our initial contact asked for his “commission” of 5,000 Ouguiya – about $20! Well, I laughed, then explained to Abby and she laughed, as up to this point it had all been good humoured. But with several of them and two of us, it seemed easier to pay the guy a couple of dollars, which he seemed happy with, rather than argue the point. Next time we’ll know to check the commission up-front!

It’s actually good practice for us to get the hang of this here, in non-threatening Nouakchott, so hopefully by the time we hit rough tough Dakar, we’ll know the ropes a bit better. It’s really just a question of getting into the swing of things. The other issue is that due to the value of the currencies, you leave the exchange with a great wodge of banknotes, which feels a little conspicuous, even in a zipped pocket.

One of the bystanders then offered to take Abby to the women’s co-operative shop, which we still hadn’t found. Instead, he took us to a generic handicraft market, which wasn’t quite what we had in mind. Abby explained, again and again, that we were looking for a specific shop, but in patriarchal Mauritania, the men around us couldn’t get their heads around this at all. They kept saying, “but our jewellery is for women!” The idea that somebody would specifically be looking for something actually made by women was totally alien to them, as if you argued in Debenhams that you only wanted a pair of shoes made by a Sagittarian. Finally, our friendly bystander got the idea, went off and checked, and led us out again, and back to another part of the market. The men in the handicraft shops were not very happy with him taking us elsewhere! After traipsing right to the other end of the market, we found the shop, and it was… closed!

Our bystander was quite keen for us to come back tomorrow (I presume he’d get a commission on anything we bought), but in the end we parted on friendly terms, and took a taxi back to the Auberge. The driver wanted 500, so we settled on 300, but he did point out all the local landmarks on the way back and had an animated and friendly conversation in French with Abby. I wish I still had more of my schoolboy French, but I’m so rusty now. I’m now sitting on the roof terrace writing the blog while Abby cross-stitches. We can hear the Muezzin calling for evening prayer, but although Mauritania is an Islamic republic, the citizens don’t stream into the mosques at prayer time as they do in Oman or Syria. Some people pray at the side of the road, but the majority seem to listen to the Muezzin but not actively participate, and the Muezzin’s call is a pleasant background rhythm, rather than an ear-splitting cacophony as in other countries we’ve visited.

Through the wonders of modern technology, I managed a quick satellite phone call to my dad earlier, but the line wasn’t brilliant – I had to keep the phone quite still otherwise he couldn’t hear me. The phone we have is a Thuraya phone, which uses a geostationary satellite orbiting above Somalia, and you need line-of-site for it to work, so you have to make sure nothing gets between you and the eastern sky. Thanks to those who messaged us – it’s always nice to hear from our friends back home – and apologies that we can’t easily reply individually.