It was my first full day in Nouakchott, a day filled with much tea drinking and lounging around staring at passing traffic. You would think that a violent attempt at overthrowing the current regime would arouse a little more panic, but this is Africa after all and most people don't really care who is in power or, for that matter, have anything to say about it.
Even wandering around the presidential palace, I'm struck by the lack of any real protection a few roads blocked off to vehicles; a few soldiers standing around looking bored. And for a brief minutiae the usual traffic chaos of Nouakchott is gone.
It was sort of like I missed Ash Wednesday or something or a Mardi Gras. Though even the papers here(which I've been accumulating there are 5 or 6 local papers who all seem to print irregularily similar 10 page photocopied rags that are sold for a Euro's worth of Ouguiya, the local currency) mentioned that everyone was inside glued to their television sets, as opposed to out on the street getting in the way of automatic weapons fire. My general interest in the coup seems to be something of an anomaly to everyone else in the city, from the Senegalese souvenir sellers to the French overlanding tourists(who have not been phased in the slightest in participating in a hugely popular overland route from Tangiers to Dakar, via Mali), the Moorish taxi drivers, and of course everyone else in the rest of the country trodding across the desert in camel convoys and living in tents. The only people who do seem to care are the press, but again, since the papers are so expensive it's just more stuff that doesn't reach the usual masses.
It's like the country is telling me "the coup was last week, sorry you missed it. Maybe you'll catch the next one."
My questions as to `why' were answered with the usual line about democracy since Mauritania doesn't have a democratically elected government, the military wanted to install one. And of course we are all very well aware of how much military institutions like to hand over power after securing it in a coup er, not.
Mauritania is where Arab Africa and Black Africa collide. The climate here is better than Senegal quite dry, very hot in the day but cool at night. It is hard to tell if the country has a racist undercurrent or not the neighbourhoods are separate, but Arab and black shop owners work side by side. Naturally, you can bet that in the villages these two peoples are separate; the villages here are small and semi- permanent with large tents and a few permanent structures. One gets the idea that these small desert villages scattered along the highway can up and leave at a moment's notice. Animal carcasses also litter the side of the road, and are simply left to rot and be buried under the sand.
The country is unlike Egypt, where we spent hours driving in circles in a taxi trying to find even an African restaurant. Here is the melting pot, here is the border. This is what makes Mauritania interesting, even though apparently it isn't a cause for the attempted coup.
Yet to the English speaking world this country is hard to find on a map, for French tourists it's like saying "Hawaii" to Americans. As Americans motorhome to Alaska for their vacation, the French ply a well worn route south from Rabat, through the Sahara, overnight here, head into Mali, and then west to Dakar. They then sell their battered Sahara vehicles and fly home.
Most of my work here is done. Another day of nothing much in Nouakchott, chasing a coup like a sand dune that has long since blown across the highway and deep into the desert. Then it's back south to St. Louis for some relaxation and then back to Dakar and out; a short trip to be sure, but of course that's what I intended.
Mauritania has other attractions; far to the north there is Nouadhibou, but that's a 36 hour train ride away. In the interior there are the mountains of Atar, yet the cost to get there by vehicle seems disproportionately high. Nouakchott was my goal, and in this sprawling stretch of sandy suburbs I'll while away my time.
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