Las Palmas, western coast

aeroporte Nkc

aeroporte Nkc

After 4 months perspiring in the heat and humidity of Nouakchott while working for my painting exhibition (photos soon) I was ready to get away even if it was only for a week. Relax, a bit of cool weather but not cold and this urge to see my father before one of us departs made for a perfect occasion to visit Canary Islands. easy to get for both of us.

Casa Rural El Junquillo

Even if for my dad, an ideal holiday would have been the seaside so that he could swim all day and enjoy a 'latte' in a Café by the sea front reading a newspaper and watching the people go by, he knew I wanted green and as far as possible from over developed mass tourism.
So he rented this beautiful small cottage in the mountains in the middle of nowhere and we almost got lost trying to find it in the first night.

market day, Teror

tree in Teror

The weather was like, drizzle and small rain with the occasional rain burst up in the mountains and sunny with a few clouds down in the coast just a few kilometers away, perfect for me not that much rain or drizzle in Mauritania, temperatures between 19ºC and 23 ºC.
It was still raining in the drawing with the tree but fathers move a lot more faster and won't be waiting for daughters to finish drawings unless smoking a cigar.

houses in the rocks, Puerto Sardina

Puerto sardina

visiting Cueva Pintada

Gáldar

Galdar an Sardina

Everyday we left our confortable 'home' in the mountains and leisurely discovered the western Coast of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Small towns, valleys and cliffs. good food and cheeses and this amazing mild temperature.

Puerto Agaete

fish traps in Agaete

We did go one day to the Southern part of the Island so that my father could have a swim but we did go to the mountain again for lunch and that was good.

man in trunks with mobile and Mogan 

quick sketches and Portillo

Portillo

And for our last day the town of Arucas, were the remains of the wealth (and destruction- for a period of a hundred years trees where being cut down to allow for the functioning of all the sugar process with caldrons boiling for 24h00 ) brought to the Islands by the sugar cane and banana Industry are still visible in the beautiful mansions that surround the town and in the landscape where banana' fields take the most part of arable land.

Arucas, La Catedral

Arucas, against violence towards women

quick visit to Saint-Louis du Sénégal

view from Saint-louis Island towards mainland

mix page with horse carts and people communicating

the sacrifice beast 

collecting rubbish for re sale

A very quick visit Saint- Louis du Sénégal or Ndar its name in Wolof, a city not far from the Southern border of Mauritania.
During Spring, the city hosts 3 different Festivals, arts, jazz and Contemporary dance, all held between Mai and early June, attract visitors from Senegal and from Mauritania.
With plenty of choice to eat and sleep for all pockets and a beautiful atmosphere its the perfect place to visit.

Siki Hotel at Saint-Louis Island North

Restaurant La Kora, saint-Louis North

Oysters and landscapes of France

 On a short visite to France my partner and I were invited to visit a friend for lunch in the charming fishing village of Port de Barques in the Charente Maritime.

 I was very impressed with the Carrelets,  a square net locals use to fish shrimps from small huts on stilts...beautiful.
And nicer but in a different way was the enormous plate of oysters our friend served us for lunch, délicieux, merci ma copine.

 But the oysters you see above are not the ones from my friend but the ones my sister in law got us the  day after. We all drove to Port de la Guittiére  to buy them. Another small village with superb views.

Unspoiled nature in this region along the Atlantique coast.

New Year in the desert

On the early morning of the 31st we left Nouakchott and went to the north-east of Mauritania to the region of Adrar.
We were meeting other friends at Tergit a small oasis that has a water source and date palms.
In this sketch you can see how a bucket is used to collect the water that drips from the stalactites and which from time to time someone comes to drink.
As our friends had a pinched wheel and got stuck in the sand we spent more time here than meant and I used it to draw a bit more.
Tergit is specially popular during the summer months because is the only place (I know) in Mauritania that stays cool and people come to have a tea or a meal and children will bath in the small water tank. Summer its also the time of the "guetna" when the dates start getting ripe and people return from the big city to do cures of dates, when eating the slight green ones will do wonders to your digestive system.
Unfortunately at this time of the year the weather is great - like an english summer - but there are only dry dates available.

 

Young boy with the Plateau behind him. This villages don't have electricity or a water system.

Isselmou is a seller. We woke up in the first day of 2011 as he was preparing tea and had set up his wares neatly over a piece of black cloth. Necklaces and bracelets in silver, ebony necklaces and bracelets made of sheep horns with metal incrustations, colourful teapots hand painted by women and beautifully decorated wooden boxes. He knew Point-Afrique was having a couple of flights coming in with tourists (even if most of the area is considered a no go area by foreigner diplomacy) that would be either trekking or discovering the area by car and that would be happy to take home a souvenir of their holidays.

 

 New year stuck in the sand. After taking away a lot of sand from under the car we made a small road with flat rocks in front of each wheel and got it easily out.

Having lunch by the side of a pool who has water all year around and is surrounded by lots of greenery.
One of the lady sellers who came from the nearby village of M'heiret decided to wash her feet using the hard rock to scrub them. And bellow our last tea on the side of the road before reaching Nouakchott.

Bellow you can see all this area that is known as the land of stones because of its plateaus. Yellow, reddish sand mixes itself with the dark rocks and as this year it rained very heavy water pools were still left in some areas. The trees are green, tiny flowers are surrounded by white spotted butterflies and the camels hump is full of fat. A good year as there will be lots of milk.

The last sketch I made it during our last tea and meal by the side of the road on our way back to Nouakchott. A wonderful end and beginning of year in peace.

Min the wonderful guide invited by our friends and who made our journey special.

an old sketchbook

landscape sketches

Azougui, Adrar

Terjit, Adrar

One of my blogger friends posted today some landscapes he did on his visit to Mauritania in 2004. You can see them here.

Those I'm posting where done a couple years ago when I worked as an interpreter for 4 days taking two Spanish men to the region of Adrar.

Pepe and Chiqui work for the Parque Nacional de DoñAna in Spain and had come on a visit to the Parc Nacional du Banc d'Arguin. They're also full time photographers.

They decided to visit inland Mauritania against the clock.

We kept stopping for photos and I tried as best as I could to sketch as fast as they took photos.