As happens in a Muslim village, I woke up with the first muezzins, at 05:40. In the evening conversation, the guide debunked all the myths about Mauritania that we learned from documentaries. Slavery has long been illegal in the country. But some people voluntarily stay with their owners, because, being hereditary slaves, they have neither documents nor diplomas and do not see another life. There is no forced fattening of girls. But some ladies eat their own sides to find a richer husband. There is no theft of women in a neighboring tribe. But in remote villages there are marriages of convenience, without the consent of the young. And even the market for divorced wives in Nouakchott was not what we expected. It does not sell divorced women. It sells furniture that husbands gave to divorced women, and which they sell before returning to their parents' house. In a word, no exotics. True, children can be beaten.
Today we have to drive the same 400-500 km, but without the road that ends in Atar. We left at 08:45. We stopped in Azugi at the ruins of an ancient fortress. Then to Atar to the market. We looked at how long-term storage dates are made in fat tails and how a dress is tied from a piece of fabric. Indeed, immediately after Atar, the asphalt ended; we drove 175 km to Ouadan along a country road. On the way we met a group of athletes. They walk the route for 25 days through the desert, with light backpacks and escort cars. The landscape with canyons and red mountains is more and more reminiscent of Monument Valley. We saw from afar the castle built for the movie "Fort Sagan" with Catherine Deneuve. There is such a wind at the edge of the canyon that you want to fly away. The road we are driving on was part of the Paris-Dakar rally.
We reached Ouadang at 14:15. We stopped at the Chez Zayda shelter (Zaida is the hostess). Compared to the previous overnight stay, these are mansions. Each has a private bathroom (2 of 3 have toilets), a view of a World Heritage Site and, if Allah wills, Wi-Fi.
The object was left in the morning to spend more time in it. Until we went to the Eye of the Sahara. It's an hour and a half drive from Ouadan - finally, in a real yellow desert, where there are no roads, only directions. The eye turned out to be more interesting than I expected. At the top of the "pupil" on the stove they made tea. Met the sunset. Like yesterday at the end of the day, I again envied myself.
After dinner the disco began. 15 ladies, playing along on tom-toms and knocking with slates on a tin basin, sang songs. It seems funny, but all the names in the text were saints from the Koran. And the men in blue robes danced like peacocks. I, of course, also had to participate.