Mauritanians take a spring break from school at the end of their second trimester. This year the break fell on the week of March 29th. Interestingly, many Mauritanians call this break "les vacances de Pâques," which means "Easter vacation." This is probably a remenant of French colonialism since Mauritanians more or less adopted the French school system. However, our Mauritanian friends didn't really seem to understand why we found this name odd in an overwhelmingly Muslim country, even after we explained that Easter falls on April 12th this year.
Since Mike and I have never been away from the Mauritanian coast, we decided it was about time we explored some of the inland terrain. We also wanted to visit our good friends living in Atar and Chinguetti. There are a couple ways one can travel from NDB to the Adrar region. We decided to take the more interesting and direct route by way of the train to Choum.
The train is operated by the Mauritanian mining company, SNIM, that extracts iron ore from mines near a town called Zouarate in northeastern Mauritania. They transmit the iron ore via train to Nouadhibou, where it is loaded onto boats and exported to foreign buyers. It was once the longest train in the world.
The train is also a common route of travel to the inner northern regions of Mauritania. There are a few options for those wanting to ride the train. You can pay to ride in the passenger cars or ride for free in the iron ore wagons. For the trip to Atar, we chose to ride in the passenger car as opposed to the empty iron ore wagons, because we planned to ride in the wagons with the iron ore on our way back home to NDB.
The trip by passenger car was less than desirable as it was very crowded and uncomfortable. However, after a long 12-hour journey we reached Choum and got off the train to find a truck that would take us the remaining three hours to Atar. We arrived safely in Atar and were glad to be welcomed into the beautiful home of our PCV friends, Sam and Kerri.
Mike wants to share in the story-telling for our vacation, so I will let him continue the story from there. If you're interested in seeing pictures and videos from our vacation, go to the Our Photos link in the right hand column. Hope everyone is doing well!
