Tidjikja, in a nomad tent or cabin and other Mauritania Hotel/Accommodation Reviews

After we had a bushcamp between the Malinese border and Kiffa during our first night in Mauritania, it was nice to find this auberge in Tidjikja. There are some cabins with matresses on the ground, but you can also sleep in the traditional nomad tent.

Unique Qualities: There is running water and even hot showers and flush toilets.
You can also order your dinner and breakfast in the open air roofed restaurant.
The staff of the auberge can also find you a guide for the desertcrossing from Tidjikja to Atar or Chinquetti.

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Theme: Other
Comparison: about average
Prices: less than US$20  » Currency Converter
Phone: 5599988
Address: Tidjikja
Directions: Coming by tarred road from the west (Nouakchot) it's at you left hand side, just before entering the town.
Website: pharim@yahoo
Other Contact: mobile 6442421

On our way through the desert between Tidjikja and Chinquetti Baba our guide preferred to spend the night in a tent with a local nomad family. We used our own tents.
And after we heard that for the promised mezroui the goat was not slaughtered yet, we decided to prepare our own food.

Unique Qualities: Normally the silence of the desert is a very unique experience during the night, but not here. The whole night we heard the bleating goats, because the nomad family has divided the babies from their mums.

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Theme: Campground

Address: Halfway Tidjikja-Chinquetti

The auberge has rooms and cabins looking like iglos from the outside.
There is also a restaurant where you can order dinner and breakfast.

Unique Qualities: The buildings look very nice. You can climb to the rooftop, from where you have good views at the surrounding desert and the town.
There are showers and toilets, but during our stay hardly any water.

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Theme: Other
Comparison: about average
Prices: less than US$20  » Currency Converter
Address: Chinquetti
Directions: Before entering the town, coming from Atar you will find the auberge at the right side of the road.

After I heard from a campsite in Atar as living place of Just from the Netherlands and Cora from Germany, I know once I will go there.
By VT I found its name Bab Sahara and by google a travel report of the organisation Transsahara, visiting this campsite.
And now I visited Bab Sahara with Transsahara myself.
And it was a lovely place, where you can choose to spend the night in a cabin, a nomad tent or on the rooftop.

Unique Qualities: The best place is the roofed area, where you can have a drink or delicious meal, can chat with fellow-travellers or Just or Cora and get all kind of tips and advice.
In the compound there is a lot to see like a collection of old doors, saddles and other stuff. The showers and toilets with running water are ok and very clean.

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Theme: Other
Comparison: about average
Prices: less than US$20  » Currency Converter
Phone: 00222-764603
Address: BP 59, Atar, RIM

Travelling from Atar to the west to the coast we took a track along the railway from Choum to Nouadhibou.
To spend the night we found a nice place in the small sanddunes just south of the railway. The sunset was fabulous and at the same time we heard the train coming. It is one of the longest trains on earth. We had all the time to climb to the top of the sanddune and have a look at the train passing by at a few 100 metres.

Unique Qualities: To be in the absolute silence of the desert. Only the three trains, which passed, made an enormous noise, you can hardly imagine.

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Theme: Campground

Directions: In a dip of the sanddunes beside the railway west of Choum.

The camping of Ali Mahjoub, ''Baie the Levrier'', is in the south area of the town. You can hire a room or sleep in the nomad tent.
There is a small kitchen facility for making coffee, tea or soup. In the neighbourhood you can find small restaurants, shops, a luxury bakery and internetcafes.
When we arrived in the evening after a long deserttrip of about 14 hours, while one of the cars had to drag the other for almost 400 KM, Ali, the owner, offered us the Mauritanian tea in the nomad tent and after hearing our problems he started immediately to phone some mecaniciens.
We stayed 2 nights at this camping, because we had to wait for new parts for the car, which has to come by plane from Nouakchott.

Unique Qualities: Though there was a guard, a boy succeeded to steal a bag, including a passport, from one of our fellow-travellers. He just climbed over the wall at the backside of the tent. Hopefully this part of the wall will be restored. Anyway Ali phoned and accompanied the people involved to the officials.

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Theme: Campground
Comparison: about average
Prices: less than US$20  » Currency Converter
Phone: 5746536
Address: BP 431, Nouadhibou