Day 19 to Atar

Teeth brushing at sunrise again to get on the road early to Atar for a proper campsite for the next two nights. As everyone rolled up their tents we swapped info on what kind of creatures we had slept on all night. Two people had scorpions under their tent, one person had a white/stripey spider and everyone had tens of beetles. With the camel spider under someone’s chair last night it makes you realise what an amazing ecosystem there is, in an environment that is more normally defined by the absence of life. 

It’s still amazing to see some of the vastly remote places that people have looked at and clearly decided it’s a good place to live though.

Recent rains have turned some desert spots into something that is approaching the description of a lawn.

These briefly green spaces tend to be where we see camels, but hazard lights seem to be all you need to get past them.

With hills in the distance we couldn’t resist exploring…..

….and were rewarded with gorgeous views (and a lot of sand between our toes).

Most of the rocks we walked over contained “desert varnish” as it is called by the Australians and one geologist on the truck. This is a layer only a few micrometres thick, built up over decades, in very arid areas on sand blown rocks, through deposition of minerals such as manganese to cause the black colour.

It’s incredible how varied the scenery is as we near the Adrar plateau and our camp site for the night.

When we made camp, one couple unravelled a camel spider in their tent as they set up. Nice to see the wildlife likes travelling with us.

Dinner was eaten at the campsite after an amazing shower and all we did was plan for tomorrow’s trip to Chinguetti. This is a historically significant place that has ancient rock paintings and has held sacred manuscripts since the 11th century. Mauritania used to be called the land of Chinguetti.

I doubt they have WiFi.