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Welcome to my Adrar slideshow. The Adrar is a region in north central Mauritania. The geography is a stunning variety of dune, rock formations and wide open spaces. Atar is the regional capital, but my first stop was Oudane, an ancient town about three hours north of there. I was told this was the one non-sunny morning of the year, so the pictures aren't what they could be. Still, you get the general idea.

No one lives on this side of town anymore. What was once a stop on the caravan routes is now an amazing warren of slowly deteriorating rock buildings. Oudane has been designated a World Heritage site, and I am told the wall visible in the picture was recently rebuilt with the help of U.N. funds.

Another view. Though you don't see them here, many of the houses are well-preserved.

I stayed with Jessica while in Oudane. She lives in the new part of town, but as you can see, the newer homes are not radically different from the ancient ones. The stonework in this part of the country is still impressive.

A k-what? In the north, instead of digging a latrine down into the rocky soil, they build up. The planks beneath my feet are about 8 feet off the ground and are essentially the roof of a room with no windows or doors. One mounts the building and does their business, trying not to hit the wood. You'd think this would create a pretty nasty situation down below, but the exteme heat and lack of moisture in the air tend to dry the waste and keep the stink manageable. I not sure what happens when one of these things fills up.

This guy is sitting in the river between the old city and the new city. It may look like sand now, but evey couple years when there is enough rain you need a canoe to get from one side to the other (for a day or two at least).

Here is a section of the old town. Most of these houses are no longer inhabited. Chinguetti has been around for centuries, apparently prospering as a major stop on the trade routes for a time maybe six or seven centuries ago. The orignal town is supposedly buried by sand a few kilometers from the current site. So this is the new old town, not the old old town.

A closer view of the mosque, which is still in service.

A couple goats look for something to eat. The mother is wearing a bra over her teats, which keeps junior away from the milk. I guess that means he is old enough to survive on a diet of cardboard and plastic bags.

After a whirlwind trip to Oudane and Chinguietti I stopped in Atar for a couple days. Not sure what the special occasion was, but our hosts have whipped up a mexican feast. Pictured, clockwise from the bottom-left: Adriane, Audrey, Nick and Beth.

Audrey and Adriane show off the pinata they created to go with the mexican cuisine. They claim it is a camel in repose. I thought it looked more like a amoeba.

Nick heads off to thrash some other pinata. He did get turned around, however, and succeeded in liberating the candy before anyone else took a whack.

The lizards around here are normally surefooted, but this one made a hell of a misstep. It can't be easy to impale oneself on a palm frond.

Now begins a journey to several oases to the southeast of Atar. Nick, Beth, Adriane and I have rented a 4x4 for a couple days. The idea is to visit Beth's Mauritanian family at their palmerie and to see some off-the-beaten path parts of the Adrar region. The trip could be accomplished using public transport, but it would probably take at least week. Here, our driver Oumar lowers the pressure in our tires to better handle the sandy, bumpy road ahead.

Much of this part of Mauritanian resembles the desert Southwest.

This is an oasis in the White Valley, a huge stretch of white sand bordered by rocky hills. We arrived here around noon and decided to spend 'la journée' under the palms. In this part of the world, a siesta is all but mandatory, so the goal is to find a shady spot to rest during the hottest part of the day.

Oumar washes the dates given to us my our hosts. We chose this spot randomly, but it turns out Adriane knew the family who owned this particular plot of palms.

Unripe dates on the tree. You can eat these as is, but they will suck all the moisture out of your mouth.

Eventually the whole bunch will turn brown, then it's time to harvest 'em.

After a few hours rolling slowly over something akin to the surface of the moon, we find ourselves on ridge overlooking Timrit.

Here's a closer look at the homemade guardrail and the valley below. Hopefully, it was erosion and not a vechicle that put a hole in the wall.

This is Beth's family's summer house. Many wealthier Mauritanian families own palmeries and spend the date harvest there. Known as the guetna, this takes place from July to September. Some people sell the dates they produce but many keep them for themselves.

Another look at a typical stone structure.

These are the palms below the house. Mauritanians prefer not to live amidst the trees, for fear of mosquitoes among other reasons, so the houses are built on the hillside. The family were are staying with owns about an acre of trees.

We hiked up the hill a bit to get a better view.

There are similar homesteads all along the ridge, each one generally corresponding to the date palms beneath. Hard to tell exactly how many families there are out here, but they number in the hundreds.

Another look at the trees and the dunes.

Beth, Nick (sporting a boubou), Adriane and me.

These guys are headed somewhere with a water pump. You don't have to dig more than two or three meters to find water around here. You could pull the water yourself, but if you are irrigating hundreds of trees, your better off with a pump. The two on the outside are wearing boubous, and the guy on the right has a howli on his head.

This little guy was happy for the cadeau, but he is probably a little confused by the shape of his football.

The next day we set off in seach of Bera Bera, a reputedly amazing oasis. We parked next to a village in a seemingly barren stretch of desert and enlisted the help of some locals to lead the way and lug a few things while they were at it.

It turns out we didn't have to go far. The edge of a box canyon was a short walk away, and a quick look over the rim revealed the stunning oasis below.

Date palms normally need to be planted and cultivated in this part of the world, but there appear to be plenty of volunteers climbing the walls of the canyon.

At the blind end of the canyon, a steady stream of water showers from a spring halfway up the wall and collects in a pond.

Thanks to the help we received from our new friends we are ready to relax in the shade for a few hours.

This is another oasis valley like Timrit, but much bigger. There are at least 5,000 people living here and thousands of palm trees.

Looking north.

Looking south.

On the road back to Atar.

This is all desert, but it's not all dunes, yet.

The nicest stretch of road we've seen in three days.

Oumar joins us for a last photo. He was an excellent driver, and he seems to have taken a liking to Nick. This was taken in the parking lot of Tirjit, which is another beautiful oasis. Too bad I didn't get any good pictures of it...