موريتانيا

Mauritania lies at the western end of the Sahara, on the trade routes that carried gold, salt, cloth and books between North Africa and the Sahel. Its towns grew as staging posts for caravans that could number thousands of camels.

The Almoravid movement began here in the eleventh century and went on to shape the history of Morocco and Al-Andalus. Later, Arab and Amazigh lineages merged into the Moorish society that gives the country its distinctive character.

Independence came in 1960, and the capital Nouakchott was built almost from nothing on the Atlantic coast.

Ouadane, Chinguetti, Tichitt and Oualata were founded between the eleventh and twelfth centuries to serve the trans-Saharan caravans. Their stone houses, narrow streets and mosques survive largely as they were built, now half-surrounded by advancing dunes.

Chinguetti is known for its family libraries, which still hold thousands of medieval Arabic manuscripts on law, astronomy, mathematics and grammar — a written record of Saharan scholarship kept in private hands for centuries.

The Banc d'Arguin National Park, a World Heritage Site, is where the Sahara runs straight into the Atlantic. Its shallow banks, mudflats and seagrass beds host millions of migratory shorebirds, and Imraguen fishermen still work the water with sail-driven boats.

Inland, the Adrar and Tagant plateaus hold canyons, palm oases and rock art, and the Richat Structure — a vast circular formation in the desert — is visible from orbit.

Moorish music is performed by hereditary griot families on the ardin harp and the tidinit lute, holding a repertoire of praise, history and poetry that is learned entirely by ear.

Tea is prepared in three rounds and takes as long as the conversation requires, and the tent, weaving, silverwork and camel husbandry remain part of life across the interior.