Morocco and Mauritania

Leisurely via Genoa to Morocco

Got up on October 11th at 3:50 a.m., took the first subway to the main station at 4:21 a.m. and off on the first train to Kufstein. The conductor doesn’t accost anyone without a mask, good. Continue with a transfer in Innsbruck to the Brenner Pass, after an hour of waiting because the three minutes allotted transfer time isn’t enough to buy a ticket. It’s not yet clear which ferry I’ll get from Genoa: the one to Tunis or the one to Tangier, both departing on the 13th. The former arrives in the middle of the night, the latter takes longer, 54 hours with stop Barcelona. Booking by credit card on the GNV website doesn’t work. But that’s probably due to the obscure issuing bank.
Through Northern Italy, finally legally maskless, chugging along with a three-day ticket valid on all regional trains nationwide for € 30.

I skip Franzensfeste, not wanting to possibly have to climb up with a backpack. The surrounding landscape is pretty devastated by the vast amounts of excavated material from the Brenner Base Tunnel. In Bolzano, while chatting with two retired couples from Schweinfurt, I missed the first train transfer and drove straight through to Merano. A glass of wine at the kiosk in front of the station, then back to Bolzano.

Trenitalia’s generously planned transfer times, usually half an hour long, allow for snacks at the transfer stations. Train number six of the day takes me to Genoa in the evening. It’s the "false friend" of the name Principe (“Principe” is “the prince” and not “principal.”) deceived, got off one stop too early – an absolutely chaotic, poorly signposted tangle of escalators and tunnels, as there are tracks on three levels. Platforms 11-20 and those numbered S are on the first and second underground levels, respectively. Eventually, I got through to the metro. GPS can easily fail in Genoa’s narrow streets nestled against steep hills.

After a bit of wandering around, we arrived late at Hostel Marathon. It’s obviously well-managed, but with one drawback: 6-digit door codes to access the room – this also applies to the shared showers and toilets. Who comes up with such nonsense? If I have to go at three in the morning and stumble out half asleep, I really have better things to do than punch numbers into a keypad and then again to get back to my room getting it right on the third or fourth attempt.
At the hotel bar, I quickly got a mini pizza, an expensive Belgian beer and a grappa from the, in my opinion, completely gay, but attentive waiter. I had to change my opinion about his sexual orientation when, whilst smoking my evening cigar outside, I watched him snogging the prettiest Italian woman next to the kitchen entrance, while kneading her butt with both hands.

Early in the morning, I took the metro to the port. The Genoa single line metro is essentially just an underground tram. It is free during off-peak hours. I bought my ferry ticket in the port building and stocked up on provisions at the supermarket. After a bit of a wait, I walked to the dock – wheelchair accessible is a foreign concept. After a check by security guards, I walked from a footbridge down three levels of narrow stairs. Difficult with lots of luggage, as Moroccans inevitably have, but impossible for anybody with walking difficulties. Then it’s several hundred meters through the port area, unmarked and between trucks. At Pier 1 up a flight of stairs into the terminal building, queued at the check-in counter, then filled out an exit form at the border police counter, which was stamped. What was that about free travel for EU citizens?

On to the ferry, I hurried to get a spot behind the last row of seats in the Pullman lounge, which I managed. Over the next half hour, the room transformed into a piece of Morocco. Entire beds, travel refrigerators and kettles are spread out over a large area. Not pointless, considering we're facing a 54-hour journey. A ferry isn’t a cruise ship; this one, the GNV Excellent, is “basic.” At least there are shower cubicles in the one restroom area that is unlocked. The Moroccan border police and customs have permanently installed counters in the event hall, so that processing takes place during the journey. After half an hour of “waiting,” the border guard sends me away again; I hadn’t filled out an entry form (“fiche”). He’s working with a laptop in a waterproof suitcase. Fortunately, nobody is interested in the COVID-19 checklist that was forced on me at the ticket counter. The queue at customs is much longer, but I don’t mind because only passengers with cars have to complete their extensive paperwork here (after all, we are on a car ferry).

The sea was calm, the weather good and my fellow passengers weren’t bothersome. The next morning, we spent a few hours in the port of Barcelona. It was striking that after departure, a Guardia Civil patrol boat stayed alongside as long as it seemed likely that someone could jump off the boat and swim back to the coast. At sunset, we were off Benidorm. Around noon on the second day, a Saturday, we arrived at the large ferry port of Tangier Med, about 50 kilometers from the city.

After disembarking and double-checking passports, an endless wait in the shuttle bus, which then chugs through the port. The terminal is supposed to contain a train station, but there are no trains running these days. Withdraw money from the ATM, after some confusion, leave the huge hall and at the exit, past the crowd of pushy taxi drivers: “No bus” – the same lying bunch as everywhere else in the Muslim world. Up the hill, 250 meters to the right to the bus shelter and soon one will arrive. For 7 Dh, along the coast into town.

Into Marokko

Exchange rate: 1 Euro = 10,65 Dirham officially, 10 in everyday life.

Tangier

The bus stops after over an hour behind the new main train station. Two women rush up to me in the forecourt to sell me tissues. I take a pack from the faster one: “because everyone needs paper.” The second one looks disappointed. After a relatively long struggle, I get a taxi that takes me to the old town. With Google Maps on my knee and massive difficulty understanding, the driver manages. Luckily, the meter was on, so the price was reasonable. Then it’s off through long alleys to the Tangiers hostel I’d booked, without too much trouble thanks to GPS.

Rating Tangiers Hostel: The bad news first: if you have heavy luggage to carry or any kind of disability, specially walking – stay away! Not only is the location in a hard to find narrow alley, the building itself (lovely restored and designed) is also ancient and has staircases that can be politely described as steep, winding and incredibly narrow. Not much the owner can do about that.
One point that could be improved is the bathroom situation. I had a 6-bed dorm (nice bunks with curtains) that was en suite. Alas the doors to the shower (repair needed) / toilet are of the Western saloon swinging type, not really closing. Additionally the wall does not go on reach to the ceiling, anyone in the room could hear any bowel movements at 3 am after a curry in the evening – very unpleasant.
The considerate guest therefore uses the shared toilet in the hall. Except that those (one on each floor) are 1.3 meters square with shower and toilet bowl. Anyone showering soaks what little toilet paper is provided.
Also there is no security: doors to rooms are kept open during the day by staff for ventilation. No locks, just some measly bolts on the doors.
Having said that you’ll be in the middle of town. The roof terrace is nice and staff are helpful.

Couchette with the finest 1960s floral wallpaper.

I had lousy memories of Tangier from a visit over twenty years ago. The husslers were everywhere and extremely pushy. I can say that a lot has improved. Presumably in the run-up to the Expo held here in 2012, they cleaned up, renovated large parts of the Kasbah and created a beautiful promenade. The hellish old port station is closed and you can only enter the fenced-off ferry port with a ticket.

Sunday morning, I booked a couchette for the following night trip to Marrakesh. There are ticket machines in this country, but they are so difficult to use that hardly any locals even use them. After completing the process, I get a message saying that “unfortunately” they have not accepted foreign cards for a year. This caused confusion at the counter because apparently hardly anyone uses the regular trains with couchettes anymore. In large Moroccan train stations, there are always two lines: 1) immediate departure and 2) advance bookings, which involve drawing a number. Then I lazed around the beach promenade for the rest of the day. While shopping at the supermarket, I passed a liquor store. Completely open and visible. This becomes rare the further south you go. South of Marrakesh and in the villages, Morocco is “dry” not only because of the desert. There are supposedly shops in most places, however, with the correspondingly cheap goods, but the prices are exorbitant by local standards. Especially in French Carrefour supermarkets, there are often alcohol sections called “caves.” Bread, in the form of flatbreads, still seems to have uniformly set, subsidized prices. I came across an newspaper report that claimed Saudis come to Morocco in droves because of its “loose” morals. They come in groups, book apartments and “let the games begin.” Morocco is not only home to nightclubs and alcohol, but also to prostitution. This, however, is very hidden because for example the strict hotel laws make renting rooms to unmarried people almost impossible.1

I sit down in the forecourt well before departure from the station. The Tempo seller, who arrived late two days earlier, recognizes me and joins me. From what we can communicate with, she really does seem to be a poor widow. The 50 Dh I finally donate to her hopefully helped. At least one young Moroccan man who saw it nodded in agreement. It’s local custom: tickets are checked before entering the platform, at least half an hour before departure. The overnight journey costs 370 Dh in the couchette car of my “Marrakesh Express For younger readers: this is an allusion to a song by Crosby, Stills & Nash, from a time when your grandmas danced wih their tits bared on the meadow. Example photo (modified as to show my dedication to “gender equality” so as not to stimulate femen to throw mashed potatoes on their screens):
” with its beautiful floral wallpaper. Unfortunately, a snorer also joined me in the compartment.

Marrakesh

New, clean train stations have been built for the high-speed lines that opened a few years ago. For the southern regions where no trains run, there is the railway-owned bus company Supratours, which serves such long-distance routes in well-maintained buses, more expensive than its private competitors. Another state-owned bus company is CTM which also has decent buses and above-average prices. These two are essentially the only ones operating in Western Sahara. Every major city has its own bus station; otherwise, drivers stop in front of the respective companies' booking offices. Parcel transport is also included. A small additional fee must be paid to the driver for each suitcase or backpack. In more remote locations, a “parcel” could easily be an entire new bedroom or a counter for a shop. It is precisely these cumbersome loads that inevitably cause delays lasting several hours.

We arrived in Marrakesh at 9 a.m., I had an espresso at the station café for outrageous 20 Dh and then headed to the bus stop. We got off too early again and continued on foot. The city walls have been lovingly restored, but they lose their charm when you trudge along the main road for three kilometers with your luggage.
In the hostel I booked, they grumpily say “check in at 2 p.m.,” and mercifully I can leave my backpack there. My review two days later:

Stay 2 nights (the second one only because I had paid in advance) in an 8bed dorm that had room for 6. Maybe I was unlucky, an had the bottom bunk facing the inner yard (also the only window was that way) where reception and other constant yakking was going on. Beds so narrowly together that I was actually kicked twice in the face at night because the tall guy in the other bunk (set at 90° angle) stuck of his.
The cleaner insisted on having the door open during daytime – thus zero security for the luggage or privacy. I’d qualify the receptionist as surely. One is certainly made to feel unwelcome during the day.
Only one toilet per floor, the one on the roof terrace locked. Very little water pressure in the two showers available for almost 40 people.
One must admit that management invested into the ambience (for which the points are given here), lots of tiles which makes the place feel a bit like a museum. Towels are charged for, which I might just condone in a hostel, but 30 Dh for “use of kitchen” is totally ridiculous in a town where I can buy a full meal around the corner for 16-25 Dh. Usually it is quite simple to spot fake reviews on booking sites. I just wonder how much this house spent to score a perfect 10 on one of the big ones (according to sign on the wall), now down to a still overrated 8.8. Value for money this hostel is not.

On the first evening, I was sitting in a sculpture park shortly before sunset when a young Moroccan woman approached me. She was dressed in what looked like pyjamas. With no common language, I assumed she was begging. The following evening, the young woman recognized me in an alley on my way to the night market and approached me. It was now clearer that she was a “working girl.” Not my cup of tea, but she was nice and friendly and scammed a banana milk out of me in exchange for a coffee, nothing more.

The night market in front of the main mosque is, of course, the ultimate travel destination in Morocco. Dervishes, snake charmers, musicians and all kinds of food stalls offer picture-perfect exoticism. The market caters to Europeans and charges accordingly. The old city walls and several medieval buildings have been restored. I only visited the Saadian Tombs, hidden in an inner courtyard. Beautifully tiled, in the Moorish style, of course, but ten minutes are enough and 70 Dh. is too much for that. Luckily, disabled people are admitted free of charge and my German ID card was accepted without question at the counter. There are also many horse-drawn carriages in the town. A historic park has been restored, a pleasant place to sit in the heat of the day. The sponsor was Maroc Telecom, which is why it has been renamed the “Cyber ​​Park” several years ago. In the small shop near the entrance, I was able to solve my SIM card top-up problem. Credit only lasts for an extremely short time: 10 Dh. You get 1 GB of data, but it’s used up in three days. A pavilion next door, grandly billed as the “Museum of Telecommunications,” contains nothing more than a collection of old telephones and teleprinters.

The bus ride south the next morning was uneventful. We stopped for an hour at the bus station in Inezgane, a suburb of Agadir. At the food stall there, I had three skewers of “camel on a spit.”

Sidi Ifni

The town was a Spanish colonial enclave on the Moroccan coast, built up only in the 1930s.

Sidi Ifni’s architectural style of the “old town,” which lies a good fifty meters above sea level, is fairly uniform. 

“Truth in advertising” in the bazaar of Sidi Ifni.

Booked the cheapest offer for Sidi Ifni, the pictures looked nice. Two nights, prepayment by credit card, actually unusual - at € 23 not cheap for Morocco. The bus arrived shortly after sunset and we walked through the town using Google Maps until we got close to the shack. It wasn’t really clear which house, no sign, no house numbers. A local who had just gotten out of the car spoke to me in English. He’s the landlord and asks someone from behind the bar of a pub for a set of keys. The entrance is next door. Before you get to the room, you have to unlock four doors with four different keys. Two of them, as I discovered the next day, are extremely stiff. He had barely shown me the very tidy shack when it started: There has been a mistake on booking, the price is for one night. See it has been corrected now … Blah, blah, blah … exactly the kind of crap that the Semites, who are already lying by our standards, keep telling you. If I hadn’t paid in advance, I would have immediately walked out the door and left the place standing there. But that didn’t work, so I explained to him that it was his problem if he posted incorrect prices. My review was then not published on booking “due to a rule violation” (on my part!):

Fraudulent pricing on website – wanted double on arrival
On arrival I was told that the price for the room would not be € 23 for 2 nights as advertised and confirmed, but PER night. I was told there was a mistake on booking.com. This is exactly the kind of b*s*t tourists are being fed at every street corner in Morocco.
Normally I would have turned away immediately, but my credit card has been charged so I might as well use what is an otherwise empty house (the reason for wanting to make more money?) Not surprisingly no staff was to be seen for the rest of my stay. Also there is no sign on he door. “Reception” consists of picking up keys from the bar downstairs, if it is open.
Scammers like this deserve no rating, sorry. It should also be noted that neither the promised WiFi nor the supposedly included breakfast was made available.

It has to be said, though: This guy was the only scam artist in the small town. The next two days were my first in Morocco without any husslers or deception. One notices the difference from the touristy cities of the north, where every local approaches visitors according to the principle known from India: You travel, you rich, you pay!.

The sea here and further south is frequented by windsurfers. The waves come constantly and unhindered “all the way from America,” crashing onto a flat beach. Pretty to look at, but unfortunately dangerous for swimming. A shame. The climate in Sidi Ifni is extremely pleasant due to the constant breeze and humidity from the Atlantic. Overall, a nice place. For the day after tomorrow at 2:00 p.m., I booked the nonstop Bus to Dakhla booked. Scheduled for 26 hours for just over a thousand kilometers at a price of 435 Dh.

Western Sahara: Dakhla

View from the generic GPS marker for Dakhla, with the runway wall behind. According to Google Maps, the supposedly opened Sierra Leone consulate is also located here.
Room 3, Hotel Soukina, Dakhla.

Dakhla, known as Villa Cisneros during the Spanish colonial period, is the second city in Western Sahara. It lies almost exactly in the middle of the region. It’s 530 km by road from El Aaiún in the north and a good 430 km from the Mauritanian border. I arrived around 6:00 a.m., dropped off in front of the CTM. office. It was pleasantly cool and there was a breeze, which scattered the coastal fog into tiny droplets and quickly fogged up my glasses. According to the GPS, the hotel I’d booked was about 4½ kilometers towards the edge of the runway toward the town exit. I remembered it differently from the description, but no matter; I set off because, on a Sunday, shortly before dawn, there are no taxis here either. After a good 35 minutes, by which time it had become light, I’m standing at the spot shown in the photo. It turns out that booking.com simply used the generic marker for Dakhla as the hotel location. “Shitty technology!” So back to town, along the runway wall and into the “old town,” where the Hotel Soukina was located in a side street. At the reception, communication was only possible with hand gestures. But the two nights here (and another on the way back) were fine for just under € 15.
Soaked through by the fog, I had hiked eight kilometers with fifteen kilos of luggage – okay, I want to lose weight. The weather remained pleasant, with temperatures no higher than 25 °C during the day.

There’s nothing to see. The Spanish fort was demolished in 2004/5 and today a satellite radio station stands in its place. My hotel was in the area of ​​the “old souk,” not far from the promenade, which comes alive in the evening. A Suprabus agency there was open that Sunday morning and I quickly booked my ticket to Mauritania two days later.
The small local supermarkets had a few unusual items, but I didn’t want to lug them around for weeks: wakame in 500-gram packages or camel fat in small 50-gram jars with snap-on lids, which would have made a perfect souvenir. I bought a standard-wrapped wedge of Roquefort for dinner. At the checkout, I had to pay 73 Dh., or € 7. You can get it in Germany at Aldi for € 1,50.

Dakhla

View of the newer, western part of Dakhla, which is separated from the “old town” by a wide open area.

Morocco began occupying northern Western Sahara as early as November 1975 with the “Green March,“ heroized by this image, during which 350,000 people, including 30,000 soldiers, participated. Since the withdrawal of the Spanish and later the Mauritanians, settlers have been lured to Western Sahara with tax breaks, subsidies and cheap land. The de facto stateless Sahrawis were worn down in a long war in the desert and live impoverished lives, forgotten by the world, in camps in southern Algeria.

There are two or three flights daily from the airport inside Morocco and one per week to Las Palmas with Binter Canarias, an airline that’s not found in standard search engines. They fly turboprops to the airfields on the West African coast between Banjul and Casablanca, transporting passengers to the Canary Islands and on to Spain. Prices are steep. Even the shortest route from El Aaiún, just over 30 minutes, costs € 270, while longer routes cost € 350-47 monopolist prices, in other words.

To justify its claim to Western Sahara, which is occupied in violation of international law, Morocco is investing heavily, as evidenced by the sprawling new city that has been built from scratch. Along National Highway 1, which is four-lane from the north as far as El Aaiún, there is also a cell phone tower and a gas station every few kilometers. It would be pointless to deny that Morocco, thanks in part to its mined wall (berm), achieved military victory by 1993 the latest. In September 2021, the European Court of Justice invalidated two EU trade agreements with Morocco because they had been concluded without the consent of the local population, i. e., the Sahrawi people, represented by the Polisario.2

The real estate shark turned American president, to whom Greenland was not sold, orchestrated a diplomatic coup in the fall of 2020, shortly before the end of his first term, probably at the urging of the Israel lobby, which had already persuaded him in 2017 to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which had been annexed in violation of international law. This coup represented a 180° turn: America recognized Morocco’s claim to the occupied Western Sahara, in return for which Morocco renounced its participation in the boycott of the Zionist entity in Palestine. (here in the sense of the definition given by Peter Scholl-Latour)
Morocco then used this opportunity to put diplomatic pressure on the EU. Its members, Spain (from which Western Sahara was stolen before the then new democratic government could implement its planned independence in 1976) and the Federal Republic of Germany, had the nerve to demand a UN resolution on the status of Western Sahara. Similar to William II in Tangier in 1905, the German Foreign Ministress, who is known to have studied “something to do with international law,” then embarrassed herself. After she and her cabinet colleagues had shoved their heads far up the Americans’ arse in February 2022 because they, for no real reason, remained non-neutral towards the military action of the Russian Federation to protect its people in eastern Ukraine, where – since the fascist coup in 2014 – rigorous Discrimination by state authorities [probably no longer in line with the propaganda line of the German press, the direct link was removed during the border war in eastern Ukraine] (including iconoclasm, bans on the Russian language and music and even Burning alive) and allowing a third of Germany’s energy supply to be (presumably) blown up by American combat divers, one is dependent on the mercy of all autocrats and is bowing down to Qatar and Morocco. The fact that the artificially induced energy shortage, with its accompanying excessive inflation, will now lead to the cold expropriation of the savings of millions of hard-working German citizens in favor of multinational, mostly Arab or American-controlled petrochemical giants is something one accepts. I don’t see how this can be reconciled with: I swear that I will dedicate my efforts to the well-being of the German people, promote their welfare, protect them from harm, uphold and defend the Basic Law and the laws of the Federation, perform my duties conscientiously and do justice to all. [So help me God.] Pope Julius III. (1550-1555) is no consolation: If you knew with how little effort of reason the world is governed, you would be amazed. [Looking at capitalism at large one may infer that this is an application of Mandeville’s dictum that the “poor” must be prevented from having a possibility of accumulating savings (cf. “The fable of the bees” 1723.) Vol. I.]

The US didn’t want to miss the opportunity to show its flag in Western Sahara. They built a consulate, which can be found on google maps, but didn’t move in after the orange-haired speech bubble was voted out of office. The fenced-in, empty new building, secured with NATO wire, is still so well guarded in the power company complex on Ave. Al Walae that I didn’t dare take a photo, because autocratic regimes around the world don’t like to see their (battalion-wielding) police exposed, just like this is the case in Bavaria. (Note from the German Police Union: According to Sections 22, 23 Paragraph 1 and 33 of the German Copyright Act (KunstUrhG), it is generally a criminal offense to distribute or publicly display images without the consent of the person depicted, […]) Being somewhat bored that afternoon, I continued searching the internet and found some reports that there are already thirty foreign consulates in Western Sahara. There are also numerous reports of openings. Some videos (linked below) show very similar ceremonies, where at least the cushion holder for the scissors with which a ceremonious ribbon is then cut is the same. Upon closer inspection, the unveiled door sign even appears to be on the same wall. Even the press releases about numerous openings, prominently featured under “News” at the Moroccan Foreign Ministry, rarely mention the name of a consul. Funny thing is, nowhere in relevant directories (such as: https://www.embassypages.com, https://www.embassyworld.org), or on some foreign ministry websites, are addresses or contact details listed. Are there fact checkers for Morocco?3

”Sahara” is Arabic for desert! 

Mauritania

Exchange rate: 1 Euro or Dollar = 36 new Ouguiya (= Ouguija), whose im/export is prohibited.

Crossing he border

Warning: “land mines” in the no-man’s-land between Morocco and Mauritania 

From Dakhla, it’s about 380 km to the border. There’s a police station at every town exit, but passengers aren’t checked. The “through” bus only goes as far as the Moroccan border crossing, after which you're supposed to transfer to a Mauritanian Moussavir minibus on the other side. After much loading and unloading at obscure outposts in the desert, we arrive at the Moroccan border shortly after 3:30 p.m. The driver, who was supposed to help us through border crossing, simply said, “You have an hour” – we understood that to mean take a break and eat, he meant to cross the border. The point is (there’s an hour time difference) that the Mauritanian connecting bus doesn’t wait long, because in order to cover the distance to the capital, Nouakchott and arrive there before midnight, it has to leave reasonably early.

Two other groups of foreigners were on the bus. First, there are seven Poles who were traveling very naively. They gave the impression of a Catholic youth group from the countryside who, having “grown up,” still travel together. At first, they attracted attention with their loud conversations. Later, it turned out that they are railway enthusiasts and have only come for the “longest train in the world.” Bravely, one of the group is also blind.
Here’s what that train has to offer: In northern Mauritania, there is a large iron mine whose products are shipped to the port on the Nouadhibou–M'Haoudat railway line: In addition to ore, other goods are also transported. The trains supply the cities of F’dérik and Zouérat with water. Flat cars for vehicle transport are attached upon request. For passenger traffic, one passenger car is added to one train per day, which is usually overcrowded and in poor condition. However, it is possible to ride on the ore cars free of charge. The possibility of traveling for free, a necessity for the poor locals, has been popularized in recent years by “influencers” in relevant media. You sit for a whole day in the heat on the dust of the ore-laden wagons, or in a dirty, empty wagon, better protected but with no “view.” Personally, I don’t see any pleasure in sitting on a freight car for a day in fine dust, heat and dirt, wearing ski goggles. Apparently, there really is a 4th-class passenger car attached to one of the three daily trains, which one can book at the station outside of town.

Secondly, there was another couple on the bus. Him, in a straw hat and shorts, her, with a lot of protruding “character,” and as it turns out later from Rwanda. He had apparently appreciated her mammalian protuberances very much on a trip to East Africa a year ago. Neither of them was dressed in a particularly considerate “islamic” manner. At the beginning of the bus ride, two rows behind me, he appeared initially extremely unpleasant since he was having an endless phone conversation with his office, the kind that sounded like a “young, dynamic business-student busybody calling from vacation.” Later, it turned out that he’s quite capable of switching off from his “home office” – he, 35, works for a German IT giant and she, not stupid in any other way, was very helpful at the border crossing with her French skills. We had good meals and chatted together at the stops. Ultimately, we traveled together to Nouakchott the next day. Their accommodation was just a few hundred meters from mine.

Stamping out on the Moroccan side went fairly quickly. After some rather poor negotiation by one of the Poles, one of the "vultures" hanging around the border exit drove ten of us through the few kilometers of no-man’s-land in his Toyota pickup. As the oldest, I was offered the passenger seat. Until 2020, the strip of land was still controlled by the Polisario, then the Moroccan army drove the Sahrawi fighters out of this region as well.

On the Mauritanian side, processing takes longer. Every now and then, people try to sell you all sorts of things. I exchange some money at a bad rate. Finally, the three of us [me, Miss Character from Rwanda and Mr. IT] are allowed to sit on an old sofa in the “office.” I’m surprised the printers work under the layer of sand covering them. Official 1 takes your photo and all ten fingerprints. Official 2 collects € 55 in cash for the visa. In return, you get a big green visa sticker with a picture in your passport.

It’s obvious that the Mauritanian border guards have a “touch of Bantu” in their veins. They're rather tall and fit-looking guys, I wouldn’t want to mess with them. In the next office, I’m questioned about where I’m from and where I’m going – then the entry stamp is placed right on my visa photo. I have to say, that made it look a lot better! Then, in the courtyard, all luggage is placed on the ground and a customs officer brings a dog to sniff around. It promptly starts peeing, but misses all three of our backpacks.

We’ve since lost the Poles who were holding up the procedure. At the gate, no one knows what happened to the bus. At some point, it dawns on us: it’s gone. We drive 45 km to Nouadhibou at our own expense (we find a local who drives his junk car, bought in Spain, in that direction and gives us a lift for a fee) and we settle the matter in the Moussavir ticket agency. We can take the minibus to the capital tomorrow at 7:00 a.m.

Apart from the occasional donkey cart, there are only car wrecks in Mauritania

Nouadhibou

“Endless expanses” of plastic waste along the railway tracks and everywhere else in Nouadhibou.

Camel’s milk.

Nouadhibou, known in colonial times as Port Étienne, also lies on a headland. What are we going to do in this dusty hole until the bus leaves tomorrow morning? Accommodation nearby? None. Google Maps and a driver to the nearest hotels, 3.8 km away. With 1,000 OUM per room at the Hotel Tiris I’m at a disadvantage as a single traveller, but I get a large room with three beds. Turns out the high price is still reasonable. Next door at the Hotel Free, they want 3,800 OUM. For dinner, there’s a packet of imported biscuits, a small tin of calamari and half a liter of camel milk from the shop next door.

I have nothing to add to this description from other travellers: Nouadhibou and its immediate surroundings were, sadly, the ugliest place we have ever visited. The whole seashore was covered with garbage and corpses of animals left there to rot together. It was an extremely sad view (and a repulsive smell) but what’s really pitiable is the children playing on the trash hills. Loud and cheerful, they were running around barefoot as if the dump was their playground.

The next morning, I set off on my own to the bus stop at 6:10 a.m. No problem with my luggage in the cool morning air. The three of us then headed toward the capital. The ticket clerk had already made five passport copies for each of us, which we handed over as “fiches” to the police station along the way. We had booked hotels close to each other, drove together to our accommodation and then went our separate ways. The two of them wanted to go really far down into West Africa.

Nouakchott, capital of Mauritania

I’m lost for words!
Has Donald Trump been here before he made that remark about “shithole countries”?

The globetrotter Artemy Lebedev (Артемий Лебедев) was pretty clear on his blog with the captions in 2014: Mauritania has one of the prettiest names of all the countries in the world. Mauritania is one of the most useless countries in the world. The country has no prospects. But it does have slavery. Slaves comprise one fifth of the population. The blacks belong to the Arabs. Slave status is inherited. Of course, all sorts of human rights organizations have bent over backwards to put an end to this, but to no avail—slavery continues to flourish in Mauritania. It’s the only thing flourishing here. Perhaps Franz Beckenbauer should come here?: I have a different picture of the Arab world. I think my picture is more realistic.

Highlight of Mauritanian cuisine: a “sandwich.”

All the city’s side streets are unpaved sand. My attempt to find replacements for my sandals that were falling-apart failed in the main bazar because they only offer Chinese plastic ones up to a maximum size of 43. The Chinese have a hold on large parts of the import market, probably because Mauritania is too poor to pay for anything more than their cheap junk. Street vendors sell grapes in batches of ten pieces. The People’s Republic of China has also secured extensive fishing rights.4

I initially booked my accommodation in a “dormitory.” It was a room with six mattresses on the floor, all occupied and no other furniture. It was hot, stuffy and unsafe. I then moved into a single room with a fan for 800 OUM. The accommodation had two drawbacks: small mosquitoes and a private mosque right outside the door. Little more than a light-blue cube. The imam apparently lived in it. Instead of the usual call to prayer five times a day, the full program was broadcast over the loudspeaker. Mohammed may have been the prophet, but he certainly wasn’t one for the loudspeaker.

On the evening of this hot day, I did another search for return flights. It just kept getting worse. The best price would be in two weeks from the Senegalese capital, Dakar, to Spain for well over € 400; I’d seen that before I left home. But now prices had been rising steeply, so I was looking at € 580 for the same route. It would probably have been even more expensive if I’d finally booked at a travel agency in Dakar, since the oh-so-great Visa card from the obscure bank is regularly rejected by travel portals for some inexplicable reason, but otherwise works perfectly for room bookings and at ATMs. I then checked a few more obscure routes, including one from Nouakchott to Tunis, which Mauritania Airlines offers online for € 560.
For that sort of money I can live on the road for a month. After two weeks of travelling without really being able to communicate with anyone and with daytime temperatures reaching 40 °C, I felt less and less a need for more of that, especially in Nouakchott, a city consisting of only a few paved main streets and houses. Parks and open spaces are nonexistent – although there is an “Olympic Stadium” with artificial turf, which was renovated with Chinese aid in 2017/8. The city grew rather haphazardly to immeasurable proportions when the Sahel zone dried out in the 1970s, leaving very few nomads able to survive.5 To continue on to Senegal (or for the return trip), I would need proof of yellow fever vaccination, which I still have from 1985. However, because the vaccination record has become an extremely important document due to the coronavirus vaccinations, I left mine at home to be on the safe side.
In the middle of the night, when the itchy mosquito bites from the very small ones you can’t hear woke me up for the second time, I decided not to continue south, but to head back overland. Again using Moussavir back to Nouadhibou. This time, only three passport copies were collected at police checkpoints. Another night in the same hotel and the next morning, we headed to the Moroccan border. There, the connection worked this time, although we had to wait in no-man’s-land until 3 p.m. because the border guards take a three-hour lunch break.

Return journey through Morocco

I stayed in the same room again in Dakhla. The next day, I booked the bus to Marrakesh and thence a train to Casablanca.

Casablanca

Wikivoyage says: Occasionally hears from German tourists: Casablanca has nothing worth seeing. I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. My two nights at the Hotel Boustane (Hôtel Al Boustane, 73, rue Mohamed Radi Slaoui -ex Soissons (5 Min. from the train station near the former market hall). Older, plain house, well maintained with WiFi. Single 250 Dh., double 300 Dh. “en suite” but no breakfast) near the train station were fine; the elderly doorman was good at his job. I didn’t do much more than stroll through the bazaar area (marché central), which has been converted into a touristy fish and flower market. At the local Decathlon branch, I bought sandals in my European size, alas at a European price for € 29. Unfortunately, in non-European countries, suppliers seem to pay less attention to quality. The buckles kept becoming undone, so I “forgot” them at the hotel before leaving. The next morning, the direct train to Nador left shortly before 6:00 a.m. I treated myself to first class. The journey, without dining car, is a long one.

Nador and ferry

Nador is the Moroccan border town with the Spanish exclave of Melilla. The passenger train station is just under two kilometers from the port. Walking is no problem on the cooler evenings. Both towns share the harbor basin, with the same ferry operators sometimes serving the same routes alternately. The easternmost destination on the Andalusian mainland is Almeria.

The shipping company listed online wasn’t serving the route today, so I crossed the street to the other’s office, where after some fiddling, managed to get the credit-card reader working at the counter. Departure at 11:59 p.m., but there was an early check-in at 8:00 p.m. By now, I was running low on dirhams; I wanted to change another € 10 for dinner. Because of the small amount, I approached one of the “guides” hanging around and promptly fell for one of the usual scammers. The guy offered to give me change, but he didn’t have any cash himself and ran like a madman from one shop to the next – the classic scam and rip-off trick for which Morocco is notorious. He then came out of the third shop, saying € 2 was missing from the agreed amount, which was suddenly his “fee.” Not with me you little rat. What’s agreed is agreed, not a centime less. Once closer to the harbor, I went to one of the cafes, which were well-kept even by European standards. After almost three weeks “dry,” my craving for a cold beer had grown immeasurably. However, all that’s available with a proper sandwich is one last thé marrocain. Maybe I should have gone to Melilla and taken the ferry there tomorrow night? There was just no affordable accommodations there. No matter, I’m already booked on the ferry.
Around nine o’clock, I went to the port, to the cubicle with passport control. The lady at the counter was a bit confused. After a good five minutes, it turned out that the name of my hotel, which my colleague in Guergarat had looked up and written down on a piece of paper, hadn’t been entered into the computer.
I watched the local stray cats frolicking for two more hours, then boarded. I had booked the cheapest class and they wouldn’t even let me into the Pullman seats. Off to the bar, I ordered a “carajillo de Terry.” The problem is, although the ship sails under the flag of Spain, the staff and atmosphere are still “Moroccan.” I explained to the waiter with gestures what I wanted: a hefty € 4.50 for something that costs a maximum of € 1.60 in Spanish bars. I immediately followed it up with a Terry in a paper cup. My evening meal was tolerable for a ferry buffet.

Later, the bouncer outside the Pullman Lounge had disappeared, but after a cigar on the upper deck, I decided to stay upstairs. My sleeping bag and mat were rolled out in a corner and I had a good night’s sleep until shortly before arrival.

Return journey: Spain

Almeria is one of the eight Spanish cities where the nonsense of “clapping for COVID-19 nurses” (March 2020) was taken to extremes by erecting the marble monument shown here, called ’aplauso infinito.’ There’s no mention of how much these things cost — or how many nurses could have been decently paid for a year with the money wasted 

Upon arrival in Almería, it turned out that the only morning bus to Benidorm left at 8:30 a.m. The next one isn’t until 2:30 p.m. Unfortunately, the gate at the pedestrian terminal is locked. So you have to walk 1½ kilometers with your luggage to the truck exit and, outside the fence, back the same way toward the city center and the bus station at the train station. Extremely obsessive security! In situations like this, I always like to laugh at the desperate people struggling with their wheely suitcases on tarmac – thank goodness for backpacks.
At the combined station, Estación Intermodal de Buses y Trenes, the company ALSA has used Corona as an excuse to replace their ticket counter staff with machines. Tickets are now only available with a card and only after entering personal contact information, including an ID number. However, there is no logical verification; any combination of numbers or email will work. Luggage storage, always difficult and expensive in Spain, is no longer available here. So we went to the supermarket across the street for supplies, sat in the park for two hours, then strolled a few hundred meters into the city center and discovered that awful handclapping monument. The bus arrived a good 45 minutes late. We reached Benidorm around 9:00 p.m.

Benidorm

Poniente Beach in Benidorm.

On the second evening, I realized that I was significantly lowering the average age at the Hotel Camposol.

Why on earth would I voluntarily spend a week in a package toursim hub (The German generic expression is Neckermann Tourismus which was a mail-order reatiler who in the 1960s diversified ino (cheap) package tours. Even though the company merged several times with others before going out of business – the expression stuck. [The brand name is still registerered for the Otto and shared with the Turkish company Anex ])? Ultimately, it’s for the same reason that hundreds of thousands of people come here every year: long beaches, nightlife and comparatively cheap prices. Besides, I didn’t feel like coming to Munich during the most awful time of year. Nothing nastier than three degrees Celsius, drizzle with wind and then darkness at 3:30 a.m.
The only hostel, at € 26 for a dorm room, wasn’t exactly a bargain. Booking.com then showed a good deal: a hotel in the “old town” charged € 40 for a single room, including half board. My rating: Better then to be expected in this category 9.0. Liked: Cafeteria food served with plenty of choice. Superb cleaning lady and attentive receptionists. Disliked: Hotel bar overpriced. Food only cooked in one way: tray in the oven, which makes fried items soggy.

Benidorm: its “Belles” 

After three weeks in the sand and no communication, it was quite nice to be able to talk again. In the off-season, the place is tolerably quiet and you hardly see any drunken English people.

Day trips: Alicante and Denia

In St. Nicholas Cathedral (In Spain this refers to Nicolás de Bari, whereas in Germany Nikolaus of Myra ist saint referred to. The German „Nikolaus von Bari“ was an Italian abbott of the 12. cent.) in Alicante. A striking number of statues in this church depict Rochus of Montpellier (Spanish: San Roque), the patron saint of dog owners. The Polish Pope was also here.

The Alicante Tram provides a slow but regular way to get around the area. I’d only known Alicante as a passing tourist. A leisurely stroll through the market hall and the city center, then a few churches. I was kicked out of a lunch break at 1:30 p.m. and found myself in the same square at the art museum, which, like many places in Spain, offers free admission to EU citizens on Wednesdays.

On the way back, I got off in Finestrat, two stops before Benidorm, to browse the shopping centres in the industrial park. The next day, I went back to do some shopping at LLidl and Aldi Nord. Earlier, in the Spanish shopping center, I felt like I was in a porno film: A passionately kissing couple, she in a blue summer dress, paused for a moment and walked about ten steps ahead of me when he lifted up her skirt. Nothing underneath – but a spectacular bottom, which he then squeezed. The whole thing lasted maybe 20 seconds. Admittedly, the shopping center was almost empty. The two then turned into a clothing store. I assume she tried on his “size” in the changing room.

There was also an exhibition in the Museo des Artes Contemporarios in Alicante that asked whether the “modern” art collected over the last forty years could be considered “Is this art, or shall we throw it away?“ 

Dénia

The next day we took the tram to the opposite end, in the direction of Dénia. Unfortunately, the expansion isn’t quite finished yet. The last stretch from Gata is SEV (separate transport system). As rail passengers here, we're familiar with this. The fact that a train was canceled on the return journey shows, if anything, that the German railways are on a par with Spanish standards. Gata is a typical rural town, where it’s dead at four in the afternoon. 200 meters down the road, a café was open. Judging by their accents, it was run by a Peruvian or Colombian couple. A Copa de Terry with a decent amount of filling — I’d say almost “sto gram” — relaxed me sufficiently.

I had an apartment in Dénia for a good six weeks almost thirty years ago and I wanted to find it again. A lot has changed in town. There’s a pedestrian tunnel under the castle now. The harbour, where ferries to Ibiza depart daily, was massively expanded in the 1990s. It took me some time to find the side street where I had lived in 1994. In the end, I narrowed it down to two possible houses. After comparing them with old photos, I now know which one. After that it was time for a proper Menu del día for € 13 around the corner. In the square there is a bronze Playmobil figure, in commemoration of a film made in town in the 1950s.

In Dénia und Alicante 

Two days later it was time to leave. The Benidorm bus station, which was built on the edge of town 15 years ago, hasn’t been maintained since it opened, which is particularly evident in the toilets. Here, too, ALSA only sells tickets from vending machines. Right next to it, as in Alicante, is the counter of a bus company that goes directly to Romania. It would be over 3,300 kilometers by road to Bucharest. In the café, there’s a nice sign: We don’t have Wi-Fi here, people should talk. While we wait, I chat with an Englishman, to whom I suggest his personal Brexit: why doesn’t he spend his vacation in Windermere or Blackpool? Especially when medical care at home must have improved so much? After all, the 300 million pounds saved every day through Brexit is supposed to flow into the NHS? He took it with humor. The bus he boarded left five minutes early, but then broke down on the highway, so he and his fellow passengers got in with us and we had a pleasant chat until we reached Valencia, his destination for the day.

Barcelona, ferry to Genoa

View of Barcelona from its ferry port.

This graffiti near the harbor reflects the essence of Barcelona: the numerous eyes reflect the surveillance and greed for money that drives this heartless metropolis. 
Elevator, built in 1905 in Genoa.

The Hostel One Ramblas, which I had intentionally booked in advance as it was as close to the harbor as possible, initially turned out to be a “party location” where no one else was over 25. That doesn’t usually bother me. Unfortunately, the guy at the reception was too inexperienced to change my booking to the correct bed number. Nice rooftop terrace.

That evening, I still had enough time at the port to buy a ticket for the next day’s departure. The lady at the counter said “check-in at 9 a.m.,” but actually meant from 9 a.m. You're not allowed on board until 12:30 p.m. So I sat there stupidly. I got up for a maximum of half a minute to look at a model ship ten meters from the bench. When I turned around, my daypack had been stolen. There had been maybe three other people with me in the hall. I just hope the thief was homeless; then he’ll have a comfortable winter this winter: Gone are a nearly new down sleeping bag, charger, Opinel pocket knife and a large towel. And a snack.

The ferry arrived from Morocco, so conditions were just like on the outward journey. In the port of Genoa, I took a circuitous route to an ID check, which, after telling them I was from Barcelona, didn’t take place. A second check was required before I was allowed onto the footbridge. It was already too late to catch the early train that would take me home over the Brenner Pass in a day. So, I quickly booked the Victoria House hostel right next to Brignole train station. It’s in a palazzo built in 1905 and the elevator is still the original, like the ones you only see in movies: a cage and two manually operated doors. Great facilities, friendly staff.

Maybe Franz Beckenbauer shouldn’t look for slaves in St. Adelheim [Munich prison]. (When interviewed on human rights of labourers after a visit to Qatar: They all move freely and are not chained whatsoever.)

Strolled around Genoa, bought replacement Opinel knife and a charger. In the evening, had a nice chat with a couple from Oregon. The news reported that their home state had just abolished “slavery” by referendum. Excuse me? “Slavery abolished?” – hadn’t that happened in 1863? Abraham Lincoln and all that? Turns out they’ve abolished the labour requirement for prisoners, which is involuntary. Compare to Article 12 of the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany: (3) Forced labor is only permissible in cases of court-ordered deprivation of liberty. In German prisons, an hourly wage is paid € 1.60, of which the inmate only receives half. Pension contributions, etc., are also not deducted, even though such a regulation has been in the Prison Act since 1976 (!), subject to enactment, which never happened. America, you have it better.
Next morning, I take the train at 5:10 a.m., home shortly after 10:30 p.m.

Food and drink

Thé marocaine: bitter, strong green tea in a teapot. The mint in the glass is brewed over it. The whole lump of sugar is added to make it drinkable. Then, to mix, the teapot is tipped back and forth between the glass and the teapot several times.

It can be surprisingly difficult to find decent food in Morocco. Sure, you’ll get couscous and tahini in restaurants, but in the tourist centres one can easily spend ten euros on it. In restaurants for locals, 30-40 Dh is enough. Then, especially in simpler restaurants, it’s pretty overcooked. After the third time, you’ll voluntarily forgo such delicacies. Often, there’s a grill and seating next to a butcher. You buy your meat, give it to the man to BBQ, who then serves it cooked. These aren’t top chefs, though. It’s common practice to put the product directly on the coals, which makes corn on the cob less than enjoyable. Supermarkets are mainly French chains. People go there for expensive ready-made food, cosmetics, cleaning products, etc. In Marrakesh, there was even pork salami from Spain marked down 70 %. Fresh vegetables and meat can be found in the bazaar, although many of the items are rather rotten. If anyone knows the Arabic expression for “cold chain,” please let me know. Admittedly, fresh flatbread is available everywhere at a standard price. The small “general food” stores (alimentaire générale ) all offer the same items. Along with dairy products, there are plenty of canned goods and cookies from European brands. I ate more tinned fish in the ten days I spent in the south than I have in the last ten years. The only options are tuna, mackerel and sardines in oil, very rarely squid, almost all of it packaged in Spain. Yet Morocco and Mauritania offer a surprising amount of fresh fish caught off the Atlantic coast.

What was said about Morocco applies to food in Mauritania, albeit in a more severe form. The only success the French mission civilisatrice had there was teaching the natives how to bake a decent baguette.

A wee bit of “foodporn” although it was canned fish everywhere – because there was hardly anything else 

Notes

[1] Vgl. Saudi king spent $100 million on his holiday in Morocco. This article in the English Independent is also interesting as an exercise in media literacy, as it shows who and what is being portrayed in a negative light, at least from a “Western moral” perspective. The position of the newspaper Haaretz which is published in the Zionist entity, is being blindly adopted. “Sex Tourism in Morocco” in the mouth piece of the German Greens, which likes to help shape a better world through incessant moralizing, but when it comes down to it, throws all moral concerns overboard and wants to turn “plowshares into swords” [the opposite “Swords to ploughshares” used to be one of their catchphrases in the early times of the party in the 1980s when agitating against American Pershing II rockets].
The film Much Loved by Nabil Ayouch is about four prostitutes in Morocco; this is not a documentary but pure fiction, certainly with good acting, which is why a prize at the 2015 festival in Venice was justified. [ ▲ ]

[2] cf. EU court invalidates Morocco trade agreement over Western Sahara inhabitant consent. See also the issue of the nationality of the persons driven out, an estimated 173,000 of whom are living in camps in the southern Algerian desert. Further background information: Facts about the Western Sahara Conflict that You Should Know. [ ▲ ]

[3] Background of the boycott: 1) written before the Yom Kippur War 1973: Losman, Donald L.; The Arab Boycott of Israel; International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 3 (1972), № 2 S. 99‒122; 2) more recent: Slawotsky, Joel; The League of Arab States Trade Boycott of Israel a Passé: Time for Renewed Debate; Journal of World Trade, Vol. 52 (2018), № 4 S. 643‒662; DOI: 10.54648/trad2018028
“Israel lobby” is to be understood here according to the definition given by the neo-realist (“Neorealism” or structural realism is a theory of international relations that emphasizes the role of power politics in international relations, sees competition and conflict as enduring features and sees limited potential for cooperation. The anarchic state of the international system means that states cannot be certain of other states’ intentions and their security, thus prompting them to engage in power politics. ) political scientists in Maersheimer, John; Walt, Stephen; The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy; NY 2007 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux); ISBN 0-374-17772-4; Full text
Sources regarding the consulates: 1) Consulates-General in the Southern Provinces of the Kingdom of Morocco (Oct. 2021), a total of 30 in Aiun and Dakhla, some of which are marked as “announced”; 2) Opening Cape Verde Cape Verde opens a consulate in Dakhla “This gesture is evidence of its support for ’Morocco’s territorial integrity’” (Aug. 2022) You can find various clips on YouTube searching for Dakhla plus « Ouverture du consulat » or « inauguration du consulat »: Ouverture du consulat bzw. inauguration du consulat: USA Ouverture du consulat américain à Dakhla (2021-01-10), Kapverde, Togo, Senegal, Guinea and Equatorial Guinea were all dealt with on the same day. Regarding the non-opening of the American consulate: US Congress blocks inauguration of consulate in occupied Dakhla and armed drones sale for Morocco. Nevertheless, they continue US to strengthen penalties for joining Arab League’s Israel boycott, Regarding the blackmail of Germany, the Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote on May 7, 2021: "The kingdom has recalled its ambassador for consultations. Rabat is angered by Germany’s stance on the Western Sahara conflict and the German government is surprised. […] Germany had [following the US concession] pressed the UN Security Council to address the issue and advocated the position shared by the majority in the UN and the EU that the international legal status of the territory, largely annexed by Morocco, must be clarified through negotiations under UN auspices. Rabat described Germany’s actions as a “hostile act” that violated Morocco’s higher interests. As early as March, it had banned state agencies from cooperating with German missions in Morocco. […] The [state TV’s main evening news programme] Tagesschau glossed over Baerbock’s prostration in Morocco at the end of August 2022: Germany and Morocco have drawn a line under their months-long crisis and agreed on a fresh start. Foreign Minister Baerbock’s visit also addressed cooperation on energy issues. Read the “results” couched in official diplomatic language: Deutsch-Marokkanische Gemeinsame Erklärung, summarized in normal German: Völkerrechtsprinzipien gegen Energie [Principles of international law traded away for energy]. And, by the way, Morocco is keeping all those economic refugees away from Europe, unless they want to annoy Spain, in which case a few thousand can quickly swim to Ceuta a Spanish exclave on African soil. The Spanish therefore quickly caved in regarding the gas pipeline: Spain changes its policy on the Western Sahara issue. Or, as one of Nixon’s henchmen, Charles Colson, once said: If you’ve got ’em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow. The corruption scandal in the top ranks of the EU Parliament, which came to light in December 2022, according to which both Qatar and Morocco exerted influence through agents and massive bribes, deserves only a passing mention here.  ▲ ]

[4] Detailed from an Israeli perspective: Chaziza, Mordechai; China Economic Relations with Mauritania in the Age of the Belt and Road Initiative; Journal for Interdisciplinary Middle Eastern Studies [ISSN 2522-347X], Vol. 7 (2021), № 2 S. 65‒86; DOI: 10.26351/JIMES/7-1/3 . What is going on on Chinese ships off Africa Ghana fishing: Abuse, corruption and death on Chinese vessels. [ ▲ ]

“Learning from the USA means learning to win” [slogan adapted from the 19th congress of the Soviet Communist Party], at least when it comes to manicured fingernails.

[5] Vermeer, Donald E.; Collision of Climate, Cattle and Culture in Mauritania during the 1970s; Geographical Review, Vol. 71 (1981), № 3 S. 281‒297; DOI: 10.2307/214701 [ ▲ ]