MAURITANIE AU GPS
Cyril Ribas & Sylvie Beallet, Editions Takla Makane – 2001

Now hard to find this, fully illustrated paperback edition of Sylvie’s GPS route guide to Mauritanian pistes covers 10,000km of pistes, right across the country up to and beyond the Mali border to places you have never heard of as well as the Beach piste, the rail route to Choum and some interesting excursions in the Adrar south of Atar. The layout of each route is similar to Sahara Overland which in my opinion is an optimal way of presenting GPS routes in a book – comprehensible even if you’re not fully conversant with French. Route maps are laid over old Soviet 1 millions which is a smart idea and there are plenty of boxed asides in the text on Mauritanian culture and history plus some tasty colour photos. It’s pricey but nothing like it exists in any language, even now. A route guide for the truly adventurous – and all researched in fat-tyred 2CV… stick that in your 4×4 pipe and smoke it!