Road from Nouakshott to Atar Bushcamp
We’re travelling now to Atar, a town of 25,000 people (2013) in Saharan Mauritania. It is a great base for exploring the Adrar region. The Atar Mosque, one of the oldest mosques in the country, dates from 1674. We will visit some old Islamic sites being rapidly covered by the Sahara
We stopped before we left the city to shop at a supermarket. Prices were quite high. I bought a baguette for lunch, so fresh it was still warm from the oven, and cheese and biscuits.
One interesting aspect of overlanding is that old habits can be bent a bit to accommodate the demands of constant travel. For as long as I can remember, in the morning as soon as I wake up, I have a pot of strong tea with toast and marmalade while reading The Irish Times. This usually takes a few hour or so. Try that on an expedition truck! Because of the hot weather, milk would go off very quickly so we use longlife UHT milk. Even if the tea we get here is any good, which it isn’t, putting longlife milk into tea borders on blasphemy or even abomination. So, I do without. Instead, I gulp down a plastic mug of Nescafe with the aforementioned plastic milk. It tastes horrible but provides that essential caffeine kick to fire up my neural synapses. This allows me to mimic humanity until the real me turns up…
Talking about real me, Tom is back again! I mentioned in a previous blog, last year, that several years ago I met an Irish guy while travelling from Hanoi to Saigon on the Freedom Train. Incidentally, this journey should be on every traveler’s bucket list; it’s spectacular. I heard an Irish accent a few compartments away and went to have a chat. It turned out he was from Dublin but lived in Cork. I’m from Cork but live in Dublin. Even more synchronous was that his first name was Thomas and Brian was his middle name. Brian is my first name and the name I use in Ireland and in general while Thomas or Tomás, as Gaeilge (in Irish) is my middle name. He told me that he uses his middle name while travelling and that this gives him a sense of disconnect from his life in Ireland. I was captivated by this idea and used it on my next trip to Central Asia a year or so later. I called myself Tom. It took a while for this to register in memory. Now, when someone calls me Tom, there’s a split second of recognition that Tom is different to Brian and there’s a momentary decision point who to be. Tom is very laid back with lots of luggage but little baggage. Brian has both.
I’ve rambled again, must be an old guy thing.
The journey was very long. Much longer than our usual ones because of the last minute change of plans. I usually enjoy these long hours of bouncing sling in the back of the truck in silence. I usually drift into a meditative state, almost a fugue state, while enjoying the simplicity of being on a journey and almost forgetting the destination. Unfortunately, this time it was not possible as there was loud pop music playing on the overhead speakers. There is a conflict arising on the truck between older and younger group members. The old ones want peace and quiet while the younger ones want a party atmosphere. And why not! Not at the expense of others though. I’ve no doubt this will be resolved before it deteriorates into conflict and people feeling the need to take sides and win or lose. This is inevitable in such a concentrated experience. However, it ruined my day and I don’t want that to happen again.
Anyway, we arrived at the campsite after dark, about 7pm. More about this later.
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