Tag Archives: dhar tichit

Algeria Timbuktu Mauritania 1990

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Chapter 23: Battle of the Saharans

In Chapter 10 of Desert Travels the cantankerous 101 leading my first desert bike tour was stranded at the Tin Taradjeli pass (above). As so often happens in the Sahara, the next person to turn up happened to be a diesel mechanic.
Steve soon got the 101 running and, long story short, the following year we decided to team up and do a big Sahara trip together: him in his Land Cruiser, me in an old Land Rover 109.

For both of us this was the desert trip we’d each been planning in our heads for years. When travelling together briefly with my bike tour the previous year, we’d quickly established a shared passion for exploring the Sahara and set about doing a big trip together, each with his own 4×4. Though I’d been keen to head for the Ténéré Desert in Niger, we’d settled on keeping off the tarmac where possible and decided to head down to the Guinea’s highland jungles and the Mauritanian Sahara. 

Nineteen ninety was not such a good year for me: post bike-tour debt, a bad crash leading to hospitalisation, followed by homelessness, a smaller bike crash which at least put an end to my dozen years of despatching. And finally my Land Rover, all set for a desert adventure with Steve, blew up in darkest Sussex at 2am, while I was doing some late deliveries.

As a way of keeping the tip on the rails Steve invited me to ride his XT600Z instead. I wasn’t that keen on bikes by that time, plus it would leave me dependent on him. But I accepted his offer and we met up in France, the bike towed on its back wheel with a similar arrangement I’d used on the 101.

Unfortunately, as so often happened in those days, all my films were lost on a flight in Mauritania. Since then I’ve learned: do not put things you cannot afford to lose in the hold baggage. What few photos I have were shot by Steve.

On the ‘closed’ piste between Fort Mirabel and Hassi bel Guebbour.
Steve’s XT was nicely set up and of course all the essential gear was carried by the car.
I’m wearing my airey, paper-thin Swedish Tenson jacket. Beyond wearing a lid, gloves and boots, the idea of wearing any sort of armour never occurred to me.
On the gnarly piste up from Hirhafok to Assekrem deep in the Hoggar.
I found this picture recently on the internet and am pretty sure it’s the same ancient Beetle we saw at Hassi Tabelbalet, just after the Gara Khanfoussa dune crossing on the Graveyard Piste.

“… A couple of hours later we reached Tabelbalet well on the far side of the erg and were dumbfounded to come across an eccentric German father and son in a ratty VW Beetle. Amazed that a forty-year-old 2WD had made it through the dunes, Steve confessed later that the Germans’ presence had soured his crossing…” 
One of the easier sections on the sandy trail along the Niger river from Bourem to Timbuktu.
Tooling around in the dunes somewhere near Timbuktu where our trip was about to unravel.

‘I think I’ll head off when we get to Ségou [the next major town]. I’m not really enjoying all this riding around after you. I want to go off and do my own thing.’
I was determined to salvage the trip for my own ends. The shared driving had not materialised, the pace was ridiculous (we’d done around 4000 kilometres in less than two weeks) and everything I did was wrong or not enough. I didn’t see such a separation as a failure, it was merely the right thing to do if I was not to end up feeling resentful. 
Somewhere near Timbuktu. Too much vegetation for my liking
Getting water in a village in the Malian Sahel.
Fuelling up in Nara, just before the Mauritanian border.
Digging out on the way to Adel Bagrou, the Mauritanian border post where we managed to talk our way in without a Carnet de Passages.
Trackside break on the way to Nema.
In Nema we picked up the Ghandi-like guide called Nani for the 800-km crossing to Tichit. Just as well; there is no way we could have found the way without him as most of the time there was no track (or he rarely followed it).
Steve and Nani have a brew near Oualata.
I remember this bit well – a steep sandy pass called ‘Enji’ about 300km from Nema by which time I was riding the unladen XT like a Dakar vet. When you’re good it feels like ski-ing.

Enji is the plateau at the bottom right. This 1960s map shows a track, but in 1990 most of the time there was nothing but sand and annoying tussocks.
Sunk down to the axle in the soft sands west of Tichit.

As agreed near Timbuktu, in Tidjika Steve went his way towing the XT, and I went mine. I met some American Peace Corps Volunteers and my travels in Mauritania took on a whole new direction.

Once in Tidjikja, I flogged my crash helmet to a delighted policeman. This time Steve didn’t even try to persuade me and drove off towards Nouakchott. 

N is for Nemadi, dog hunters of eastern Mauritania

Part of the Sahara A to Z series

While reworking Desert Travels ahead of a small reprint, I came across this video from 2005 about an Italian expedition that set out from Bamako for Oualata north of Nema. Oualata was once as celebrated as nearby Timbuktu for being a place of Islamic learning, and the video spends a lot of time depicting the intricate bas-relief patterns for which the houses of Oualata are famous. As DT recalls, when I was there in 1989, no time was allowed to have a good look around, far less stay over.

nem1
songhai

Then, amazingly to me at least, the Italians manage to track down a surviving Nemadi family, a survivor of the pariah-like tribe of dog hunters mentioned in Bruce Chatwin’s semi-fictional Songlines study of nomads. They live in what the vid calls the ‘Sarakolle’ desert. Not heard that designation before, but it seems Sarakolle also means Soninke, a tribe who live along the Malian border but who are indigenous to Africa and not Moors. Some sources attribute or connect them to the Imraguen fish catchers north of Nouamghar, also outsiders in Mauritania’s Moorish culture. Wiki makes a link for the etymology of ‘Nemadi’, something to do with Azer or dog master, but I just assumed it means ‘people from around Nema‘, like Saharawi.
As you can see, the guy doesn’t wear the usual blue robe and his tent is not a Moorish raima, but more of a bent wood humpy. His camel too has no saddle to speak of and it looks like he sits behind the hump. But other items like the three-legged tea table are also used by Moors. At no point in the vid is Nemadi man separated from his ancient rifle.

nemadi

I thought the Nemadi used to live along the Dhar Tichit beyond Oualata. There is a place call Aguelt Nemadi (Ogueilet en Nmadi) about a hundred miles NNE of Tidjikja or 300 miles NW of Oualata. That might mean ‘Nemadi waterhole’ but lost in the dunes, it looks a pretty lonesome spot on the map, perhaps a watering hole on the old caravan route between Tichit and Ouadane.

The video has no commentary, a few Italian subtitles and some great music. It looks like they set out to cross the 400km to Araouane in their Sixty-series Tojos, but something broke so they came back. The Nemadi guy appears at about 25m.