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07.04.04

Overland Trip To Senagal 2004, Day 8: Atar

Thomas Morgan
2006-04-26 11:55:32

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expresses his relief, pride and wishes for my continued safety and a safe trip home. We walk to the taxi place and get info for tomorrow. “Bonjour monsieur” from the little boys and girls. The little girls hold our hands as we walk back. Cooking and ready for dinner, new hair and all.

The taxis for Nouakchott leave between 8 and 10 tomorrow so doubtless it’ll be another early night for us after the lack of sleep from last night. It’ll also be a good excuse to get away from Samba who, although he seems to be a nice and friendly guy, I am finding more and more overbearing. It’s not him that’s annoying me but rather his presence, akin to a fly buzzing around in your room without actually landing on you, and he has been permanently with us without saying too much since we met him at Nouâdhibou station yesterday. He is sitting across the table looking at me now as I write in what is otherwise a very comfortable atmosphere, and an evening wind is bringing relief now from what is still quite an intense heat. I don’t have the heart to tell or ask him to leave us alone and he seems totally oblivious to any hints I drop. Hopefully we’ll be able to lose him in Nouakchott at some point but I’m not holding out much hope. As for the town of Atâr (which, for Ross’s benefit, is in the Adrar region) is neither here nor there despite being Mauritania’s third largest city and seems to confirm my thoughts that this country’s attractions are almost exclusively in the landscape rather than in towns, aside from Nouâdhibou which I took quite a shine to, although this could have been due to the people we were with, the fact that it was our first town in the country or something similar. I’m not expecting Nouakchott to be very interesting either but hopefully as capital city and home to 1 million people it’ll be more so than here. In any case, the road there is tarmac all the way so I will be able to concentrate on appreciating my surroundings rather than on keeping dust out of my eyes, staying in the vehicle, or (hopefully) keeping blood circulating to my feet, all of which were high on the agenda on our way here. Ross has returned from whatever he was doing and is staring blankly into space, Samba doing likewise. It would be quite uncomfortable, I imagine, were it not for the surroundings, the chickens running around and the fact that I am pretending to be engrossed in what I am writing. At least now with his return the conversation can end up in alternative topics to us staying at his house or vice versa.