A selection of photographs of places we’ve stayed during our first ten months on the road.

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Crossing the infamous Rosso border; entering sub-Saharan Africa; meeting some like-minded souls and taking a two-week holiday from our holiday.

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Leaving Mauritania – with more questions than answers. An update on our last few days in Mauritania as we cycled from its capital to the Senegalese border.

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A few of our favourite photographs from our ten weeks in the Sahara – cycling the Atlantic route from Guelmim in Morocco to Nouakchott in Mauritania. Photographs by Huw Williams and Bex Sumner.

Back to all galleries ؛

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The fourth in our “in numbers” series: how many hours we spent chasing silent donkeys, the number of cars that hit us and other vital statistics from our time in Mauritania.

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One way or another – with the odd casualty – we’ve reached Nouakchott, meaning we’ve now crossed the Sahara in high summer. What next? Ah yes, West Africa in rainy season…

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Sketches of Bex and Huw by Isabel, a painter and sketcher living in Nouakchott.

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We’ve tentatively identified this toad as Bufo xeros , the Subdesert Toad. Our identification was visual and based on written descriptions of the toad’s call but, as always, we are happy to be corrected. These toads were numerous and very vocal through the night and in the early morning at Terjit Oasis in the Mauritanian Sahara.

Species: Bufo xeros
Common name: Subdesert Toad
Date and time recorded: 06:20 local time, 9th August 2009
Location: Terjit Oasis, Mauritania ( view on map )
Copyright: Listen to Africa
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While we had Terjit Oasis to ourselves at night, during the daytime it thronged with visitors from around Mauritania, in Terjit to visit the oasis or for the date harvest. The day we were there, a Mauritanian woman and her daughters had hired a group of musicians “from the desert” to come and play. They set up under the date palms, powering the rickety soundsystem with a car battery borrowed from somebody in the village.

While one woman sang most songs, in this song (chosen from the three hours of recording we have) she took a rest and four young women sang. A man played a tidinit (a Moorish lute). Two other women played drums made out of oil drums and goatskins (t’bol) and a third played an upturned …

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One of the biggest joys of recording sounds is that you start to learn to listen. Our whole journey is turning into a (very long) soundwalk . Recording these drips percolating through rocks and dripping down ferns into a little stream at Terjit Oasis , I found myself deeply impressed by the musicality of the water (an impression that was probably amplified by the fact this was the first naturally occurring water we’d heard in our two months in the Sahara, apart from the ocean). One Mauritanian who’d never been to Terjit before said to us: “I never knew this kind of place existed: infinite water, coming down from God.”

Date and time recorded: 09:00 local time, 9th August 2009
Location: Terjit Oasis, Mauritania ( view on map )
Copyright: Listen to Africa
Subscribe to the podcast »

more »

A selection of photographs of places we’ve stayed during our first ten months on the road.

more »

Crossing the infamous Rosso border; entering sub-Saharan Africa; meeting some like-minded souls and taking a two-week holiday from our holiday.

more »

Leaving Mauritania – with more questions than answers. An update on our last few days in Mauritania as we cycled from its capital to the Senegalese border.

more »

A few of our favourite photographs from our ten weeks in the Sahara – cycling the Atlantic route from Guelmim in Morocco to Nouakchott in Mauritania. Photographs by Huw Williams and Bex Sumner.

Back to all galleries ؛

more »

The fourth in our “in numbers” series: how many hours we spent chasing silent donkeys, the number of cars that hit us and other vital statistics from our time in Mauritania.

more »

One way or another – with the odd casualty – we’ve reached Nouakchott, meaning we’ve now crossed the Sahara in high summer. What next? Ah yes, West Africa in rainy season…

more »

Sketches of Bex and Huw by Isabel, a painter and sketcher living in Nouakchott.

more »

We’ve tentatively identified this toad as Bufo xeros , the Subdesert Toad. Our identification was visual and based on written descriptions of the toad’s call but, as always, we are happy to be corrected. These toads were numerous and very vocal through the night and in the early morning at Terjit Oasis in the Mauritanian Sahara.

Species: Bufo xeros
Common name: Subdesert Toad
Date and time recorded: 06:20 local time, 9th August 2009
Location: Terjit Oasis, Mauritania ( view on map )
Copyright: Listen to Africa
Subscribe to the podcast »

more »

While we had Terjit Oasis to ourselves at night, during the daytime it thronged with visitors from around Mauritania, in Terjit to visit the oasis or for the date harvest. The day we were there, a Mauritanian woman and her daughters had hired a group of musicians “from the desert” to come and play. They set up under the date palms, powering the rickety soundsystem with a car battery borrowed from somebody in the village.

While one woman sang most songs, in this song (chosen from the three hours of recording we have) she took a rest and four young women sang. A man played a tidinit (a Moorish lute). Two other women played drums made out of oil drums and goatskins (t’bol) and a third played an upturned …

more »

One of the biggest joys of recording sounds is that you start to learn to listen. Our whole journey is turning into a (very long) soundwalk . Recording these drips percolating through rocks and dripping down ferns into a little stream at Terjit Oasis , I found myself deeply impressed by the musicality of the water (an impression that was probably amplified by the fact this was the first naturally occurring water we’d heard in our two months in the Sahara, apart from the ocean). One Mauritanian who’d never been to Terjit before said to us: “I never knew this kind of place existed: infinite water, coming down from God.”

Date and time recorded: 09:00 local time, 9th August 2009
Location: Terjit Oasis, Mauritania ( view on map )
Copyright: Listen to Africa
Subscribe to the podcast »

more »