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it invaded the truck. First in a trickle, then...
.... in an unstoppable tide that covered everyone and everything in a fine yet immovable layer. Dragoman promises that Encounter-style trips give you the authentic off-road, overland experience, complete with the wind in your hair and the flies in your teeth. But it does not mention sand — and there's an awful lot of it in Mauritania.
Our first couple of nights were spent in Nouakchott, Place of Winds, the capital. This is a tiny city of sunshine and dust that feels as though a strong gust would carry it away. It is on the edge of the Western Sahara, on the edge of the Atlantic, and possibly on the edge of vast wealth, once it starts pumping oil from its offshore fields later this year. It is also on the edge of the Western world; satellite dishes adorn the low roofs and hawkers unfurl strips of phone cards like streamers, yet gangs of delinquent goats still roam the streets and its inhabitants prefer to live under canvas. It a city without character because, at heart, Mauritanians are nomads, to whom bleached-out walls and dusty streets have little attraction. These colourful people flock from the sands to haggle and trade in Nouakchott's streets and markets. Tall and long-limbed, swathed in voluminous robes and headdresses, they are warm and vibrant and passionately interested in anyone who visits, as we soon found when we ventured out on to the streets to barter for food and souvenirs.
It was not until we got away from the capital and its straggling suburbs that the Sahara became a reality. The night of our first bush camp, miles from roads, buildings, screaming goats and dawn calls to prayer, was when we first felt truly alone. The sequined sky seemed as infinite as the sands that surrounded us. There can be few places so far away from the modern world.
In the best Encounter style we travelled with the canvas sides of the truck rolled up, so that we could see where we were heading — into sand, sand and more sand, as it turned out. In the back, we sucked down litre after litre of water and idled away hours playing Gin Rummy, Name that Tune pub-singer styley (a tough contest between Lou and Toby), even I-Spy. As the days passed our headgear grew more elaborate, until we looked like an advert for Jihad and check-point guards eyed us suspiciously. The table area, which was rather grandly reserved for the film crew — namely Jason, who was recording the trip for Drago, and his endless bags of kit — became awash with cans of spray and cleaner, as he and Brenden, a phographer, fought a losing battle to keep their cameras and lenses free of sand.
The rest of the Dirty Dozen (actually the Filthy 15) were a disparate bunch of journalists and travel specialists from Britain, Holland and Denmark, plus two slightly bemused members of the public. Luckily, both Affi and Albert had more than enough style to meet any of the challenges flung at us — from biting scorpions, bucking camels and engulfing sand dunes ("best way to get rid of a hangover," said our driver Duncan — digging enthusiastically under a fiery midday sun — shortly before he succumbed to dehydration) and cooking over a campfire by moonlight (Albert's camel flambé will never be bettered), to searching for something to squat behind in a featureless desert and dishing up brunch in a gusting sandstorm. There was more dirt than water on this trip, but there was also plenty of fun and laughter — and a few surprising revelations. Few of us will forget Dom's jokes or the phrase "man twig" jokes in a hurry.
And we travelled through some extraordinary landscape — perhaps the Adrar mountains, with their sheer, jagged drops and impassive, angular faces best captured Mauritania's austere beauty. The desert has an elemental power and majesty that is, quite simply, breathtaking. We camped beneath the remains of undersea volcanoes, dramatic black outcrops that rose up from the earth without warning, stark markers from ages past. From the top they gave dizzying views, their shadows lengthening like fingers creeping towards the horizon, as the last rays of the setting sun played across the plains below.
We drove across rich, blood-red dust that shimmered with silvery pools of fool's water, and over gritty scrub of low, thorny bushes and hopeful succulents. Miles from anywhere we changed a tyre (at least Clare and Duncan changed a tyre, the rest of us watched), parked next to a camel-herder's tiny shack, the only blip that had appeared all morning on the hazy horizon. We waded through — and dug ourselves out of — soft, pale powder ("like driving through water," said Clare), and crossed mile upon mile of nothing. But most spectacular of all were the sensual undulations of the sea of dunes that surrounds — and threatens to engulf — Chinguetti. This was perfect, peachy Hollywood desert. Faced with wave upon wave of virgin sand, we did what any sane people would do: we ran down, rolled down, slid down, somersaulted down, dove down, even fell down, until our clothes and hair and eyes and ears could take no more, while the waiting camels curled their lips and spat disdainfully.
But for me, the highlight of the trip was catching the early tide and driving along the edge of Africa, where the Sahara and the Atlantic meet. Led by Ahmed the Finger, our ebullient guide who whirled like a Dervish, sang loud and tunelessly, and raised fire out of thin air, we surfed past darting waders, pale flamingoes, lone pelicans and great flocks of sea birds that wheeled and flapped like old rags in the wind as we crashed through the spray in the bright morning sunshine.
It is a shame we didn't reach the great crater of Guelb er Richat that is more than 50km across and known as the Eye of Africa, and that we missed hitching a lift on "the longest train in the world", which carries iron ore from the mines of Zourate to Nouadhibou on the coast. But no one who was on the truck will ever forget Mauritania. Spending time in a landscape that is so untouched and untamed, where you are so totally at the mercy of sun, wind and sand, is a humbling experience. And it fills you with awe for the people who live with so little in such extreme conditions. I feel lucky to have visited.
