Crossing the Sahara in Mauritania by bike

With whom did I carry out this adventure in Mauritania?

With Cyril, co-author of the “Mauritania by GPS” guidebook and an expert on the desert he has criss-crossed many times in his 2CV, who offered to accompany me on the crossing.

He’ll put his expertise to good use, while providing me with food and water. He only has an electrically-assisted fatbike at his disposal, but the opportunity is too good and I accept, despite my appetite for solo muscular challenges.

And so we set off on a 1600km journey across the Mauritanian desert.

First turns of the wheel in the Sahara

I set off from the Aïn Ben Tili military fort on November 20, accompanied by Cyril in a 2cv. I first follow the truck track from Algeria for around ten kilometers. There’s a gas station in the desert where I refuel one last time before heading off-road, due south.

The desert is more populated than I expected. There are dromedaries, of course, but also birds, lizards, large dragonflies, grasshoppers, butterflies and, unfortunately, lots of flies! It has to be said that this area is quite green: trees, various plants and even a few gourds grow here.

At one stop, a nomad comes to meet us. He stays silently by our side until we leave. Curious no doubt, as he’s not likely to meet many people here. But shy too, he won’t let himself be photographed, hiding behind the vehicle at the sight of a camera.

After 130km at an average of 15 km/h despite the assistance, I set off. It has to be said that the bike is heavy, weighing in at 47kg, and I’m fully loaded. Because even if Cyril is helping me, I need to be able to stand on my own if anything goes wrong.

So I always carry at least 4 liters of water, a few snacks, an external battery, a first-aid kit, a few repair tools and my sleeping bag consisting of a bivy, a mattress and a sleeping bag.

Timichat and Tenoumer craters

As I continue southwards, the landscape changes. It becomes more arid, giving way sometimes to vast stretches of sand as far as the eye can see, sometimes to seas of rock.

The colors change too, with the sand taking on alternating shades of beige, reddish or blackish, depending on the composition of the soil, with occasional touches of greenery. This creates beautiful contrasts.

I reach the Temimichat crater, caused by the impact of a meteorite. The crater’s rim, visible from afar, resembles a relief of some kind. The 700-metre diameter hole left by the meteorite can only be seen by climbing over its rim. I take advantage of the view to have lunch.

Behind the crater, my route crosses a truck track. Gold miners come to meet me and offer me cookies before setting off again. Mauritanians are curious and friendly, regularly accosting me and offering me their help.

My route then takes me to the Ghallamane sebkha, an ancient dried-up lake. These ancient bodies of water can be identified by the white sedimentary layer they leave on the ground. Getting around here is more difficult. Pebbles and undulating terrain shake the bike.

Ten kilometers further on, there’s a well, but the water is too salty to drink. The first known source of drinking water is 500km from the start.

Shortly afterwards, I get a puncture and spot an acacia needle stuck in the tire. It’s one of the few plants able to grow here. It has large thorns, so it’s best to avoid them.

In the evening, I reach a second crater, the Ténoumer crater, formed around 21,000 years ago. I stop in the heart of the cavity to bivouac. After some pasta and soup cooked on a wood-burning stove, I climb up to sleep on the roof of the 2cv, my bed for this journey.

Erg Marqteïr

Leaving the crater by one of its ledges, the bike silted up. I put the throttle on the bike’s trigger, which sped off, and my foot collided violently with a rock in my path.

I take off my shoe and sock to look at the damage; I’ve got two bloody toes whose nails are falling to the ground. It’s painful but it seems fairly superficial. I heal my foot and continue on my way.

Later, I find a well with a bucket made from a plastic can attached to the end of a rope. I throw it down to collect water and splash myself with it to wash. I also take the opportunity to clean some clothes.

In the afternoon, I cross a dune strewn with black stones, difficult to navigate and bumpy, and arrive in front of a cairn topped by a Neolithic millstone. Cyril explains that it serves as a geodetic marker used for map-making in the 50s.

I finally reachErg Marqteïr, a vast expanse of white sand interspersed with dunes. The wind blows hard and you can see the grains of sand dancing on the surface. I no longer come across any life here. All I find are animal corpses, testimony to the extreme conditions of this part of the Sahara.

At the top of the last sand hill, I admire the superb view of the Sani plateau, my next destination. I take a pass up to it, cross part of the plateau with its lunar landscapes, then descend through a canyon before skirting the rest of this immense relief.

El Ghallaouiya

I cross a sebkha before taking a sandy road to reach the Ghallaouiya military fort. Donkeys drink from a nearby well. A solar panel powering an electric pump brings the water up to a trough. We all fill our empty containers for the rest of the journey, adding a few drops of Micropur as a precaution.

I continue into the Chouail valley , where hundreds of rock engravings can be seen on the rocks and a cliff face. They depict people and many animals: mainly oxen, but also ostriches, dromedaries and giraffes.

I’m then heading east, when another puncture, caused by a cram-cram, a thorny plant whose seeds cling to fabrics, forces me to stop. It’s getting dark soon, so I set up camp.

The light from the headlamp attracts numerous small beetles that cluster around me and twirl in my hair. A switch to red light makes them disappear.

The next day, I spotted groups of stones arranged in a circle – Neolithic burials. There are many testimonies to the prehistoric era in the Sahara, when the climate was less arid and the desert was populated by men and animals.

Continuing towards a fossil lake, I make another strange discovery, this time a natural one: a mound of diatomite, a silica-based mineral formed from the fossilized remains of microscopic algae, topped by a dead tamarisk tree. It’s a strange sight in these great empty expanses.

The desert of great solitude

I head back south towards Tichit, but before reaching the village, I have to cross the Majâbat al-Koubrâ, the desert of deserts, as it was named by Théodore Monod, the scientist and explorer who dedicated his life to the Sahara. It’s a stretch of white sand several hundred kilometers long , devoid of water and interspersed with dunes.

We had to make our way through the sand hills, avoiding the ridges. Looking for a way through in the distance, Cyril pays no attention to the break in the sand in front of him and falls a few metres with the 2cv.

Fortunately, there’s more fear than harm. Cyril is fine and manages to repair the car. I think back to the memorial made for an accident victim who died in this way in the erg Maqteïr. We were really lucky!

My survival also depends on Cyril , and alone here, nobody would have come looking for me. I would have had to overcome my trauma, take as much water with me as possible and try to reach civilization as quickly as possible. Fortunately, all this didn’t happen and we can continue our adventure.

Along the way, I come across numerous Neolithic tools, almost whole ostrich eggs and fulgurites, pieces of amorphous natural silica produced by lightning strikes on the sand. The desert is full of treasures!

In these immensities, we learn to observe anew. We appreciate the shade of a tree, marvel at the particular shape of a rock, marvel at the sight of a beetle.

I was afraid of finding the time long, but in the end I immerse myself in the show as much as possible, aware of how lucky I am to cross these unique landscapes…

The return to civilization

The lines of dunes get farther apart, until they disappear. The vegetation grows denser, making passage difficult, and I have to slalom between the tall clumps of grass.

A few kilometers before Tichit, I pass some nomad camps. They greet me and we exchange a few words. I ask them if they’ve seen a 2CV.

All the siblings gather around me and point me in the direction of Tichit. The women seem to be inviting me to tea. They all follow me for a long time, until my speed prevents them from keeping up.

The pass between the cliffs leading down to the village is magnificent. Rocks rise to form a labyrinth of canyons at the summit. I can see the stone city below. It’s bordered by a lake that a camel caravan runs alongside . I pass two nomads walking up the path with a camel carrying a goat on its back.

At first glance, the village seems uninhabited. But soon a crowd gathers around me. Dozens of children follow me to the inn, asking for gifts. The adults sometimes try to ward them off, but they keep coming back for more.

I take shelter in my lodgings, a 3m2 room with a mattress on the floor and an adjoining bathroom consisting of a shower head with a hole in the tiles. Children appear in the doorway and continue to observe my every move.

In the evening, I hear singing and percussion. I follow the sound and find a small group of children and a few adults gathered together. I ask them to join me, and they invite me to sit down. I listen with emotion to this improvised band singing into the night.

The next day, a young local takes me on a tour of the UNESCO World Heritage town. While the museum is in ruins, the school under construction is modern and resplendent.

I stock up at the store before resuming the crossing , while Cyril fills up with petrol. We’re in luck, there’s no gas station here and a truck only supplies the village once a week, so we’ve come on the right day.

Neolithic villages

I climb some large rocks where a bat cave is hidden. Two alcoves are filled with these little flying creatures. After disturbing their sleep for a few minutes to try and photograph them in the half-light, I continue on my way to Zig canyon.

I stop at the well and am met by a young nomad . I buy him some zrig, fermented goat’s milk, and head for the mountain.

Here I find numerous millstones and stone walls built by our Neolithic ancestors. After this exploration of the area, I descend to bivouac at the foot of the hill.

A solifuge, also known as a sun spider, is attracted by the heat of the fire I’ve lit for dinner. I have just enough time to photograph this hideous creature before it disappears again.

I’m awakened by the howling of a jackal at around 5am. After a frugal breakfast, I continue my journey through a magnificent valley bordered by rocky cliffs on one side and dunes on the other.

Tufts of grass give way to palm trees and I discover geological splendors such as a diatomite cone several meters high. This is a more popular trail, and I cross paths with an impressive caravan of a hundred donkeys and dromedaries.

Once I’ve reached the Dreiss gorge, I leave my bike at the entrance and set off on foot. At the far end, a thin trickle of water flows from the cliff, where dozens of water birds take flight at my approach.

After this short detour, I mount up again and pedal to a valley surrounded by impassable dunes. Here I come across numerous shepherds wandering around with their flocks of goats and sheep. Their dogs chase me and bark at me, but fortunately don’t seem any more aggressive than that.

The next morning, I left the bike behind again and ventured into the foothills of a cliff where a Neolithic village once stood. All that remains are the foundations of the stone buildings , which form geometric shapes on the ground, and a multitude of pottery shards.

I spot an oasis below and get on my bike to head for it. Dromedaries are drinking there. I try to get closer, but my wheels sink into the soft earth, bringing my bike to a halt.

By contrast, in the afternoon, I find myself in a large dry lake, where the soil is cracking and forming shavings of arid earth. I still find traces of our ancestors in the bazinas, prehistoric funerary monuments of North Africa.

Before my trip, I thought the desert was somewhat monotonous and had not imagined finding such a diversity of landscapes and points of interest.

In the evening, I join a well-marked track and meet other tourists for the first and only time, in a line of 4x4s followed by a military vehicle with a machine gun in the back for protection. Mauritania is exposed to the risk of infiltration by terrorist groups from neighboring Mali.

The Sahel

The southern Sahara is much greener and more densely populated, with numerous nomadic encampments and a more varied landscape. Numerous wells line the camel trail and I come across a high density of livestock: cattle, donkeys, goats, sheep and dromedaries.

When I wake up near the Bel Ma’izat well, a donkey and her foal are waiting. I fetch some water and pour it into the trough. Once they’ve had their fill, the donkeys set off again. Further on, a Tuareg attaches a leather basket to the end of a rope on a dromedary to draw water for his herd.

I arrive on the shores of a marshy lake, whose waters are bright green in places, and where nomadic villages have settled. I skirt around the lake, turning east and driving through rocky terrain.

The sand turns alternately pink and golden in this mineral setting. The bright blossoms of desert roses stand out against the sober colors of the desert. For the first time, I come across horses, usually replaced by donkeys and dromedaries.

Only 7 km to go before I’m back on the tarmac, heralding the end of my journey. However, I make one last stop at a guelta. This one is full of life.

Lizards leap from rock to rock, some diving into water holes. A monitor lizard scurries into its burrow at my approach. Monkeys stroll along the cliff, watching me from their rocky promontory with high-pitched cries. Atlas goundis scurry along the edge of the basin, while crocodiles bask at the water’s edge.

I spend a long time on the beach watching them. What a grand ending!

Conclusion

I was delighted and surprised by my first experience of the desert. The landscapes were much more varied than I had imagined, and I discovered a very friendly people, despite the warnings about the dangers of tourism in this region.

On the strength of this experience, I’m tempted to set off again on a solo muscular challenge in the Mauritanian Sahara, but this adventure will require much more preparation.