Nouakchott rewards travellers with empty pockets: the market alleys, mosque squares, dunes and open Atlantic coast cost nothing to enter. Three days here run on 100-ouguiya rice plates, shared taxis at 50 MRU a hop and endless glasses of mint tea.
The Saudi-funded mosque on Avenue Gamal Abdel Nasser raises twin white minarets over a famously flat city. Non-Muslims photograph the courtyard from the street; the square outside fills with tea sellers from about 07:00.
The state craft centre behind Marché Capitale is free to walk through: silversmiths hammer Tuareg crosses, leatherworkers cut camel-hide cushions and weavers finish sand-coloured rugs. Watching costs nothing.
The French institute in Tevragh Zeina keeps a shaded garden, free wifi and a library open to walk-ins, plus free concerts, screenings and photo exhibitions most weeks. An air-conditioned refuge from the 40°C afternoon.
North of the old wharf the coastline empties into a wide grey-sand beach where families walk at dusk and the Atlantic swell hits the Sahara head-on. No entry gate, no vendors, no charge — only wind and horizon.
Sebkha's Sixième market is where Nouakchott actually shops: mounds of dates, dried fish, plastic buckets and secondhand clothes sold by the kilo. Prices run roughly half of Marché Capitale and haggling is expected.
Around Carrefour Madrid women run open-air kitchens serving thieboudienne from communal platters at midday. A plate of fish, carrot and cassava over broken rice costs 100-150 MRU; eat with your right hand, shoes off.
The Cinquième market specialises in melhfa, the printed cloth Mauritanian women wrap themselves in, stacked in hundreds of colours. Lengths start near 300 MRU and tailors in the same alleys hem them while you wait.
As the heat drops, charcoal grills line the streets around Ksar market: skewered mutton, grilled fish and camel meat sold by weight, wrapped in paper with raw onion and mustard for roughly 150-250 MRU a portion.
On the Boutilimit road east of town, herders trade camels, goats and sheep from dawn onward in a permanent cloud of dust. Entry is free and a shared taxi from Carrefour Madrid gets you there for well under a euro.
Ksar is the village that predates the 1958 capital: low mudbrick and breeze-block compounds, sand streets and tiny boutiques selling tea, sugar loaves and bread. A baguette with sardines runs about 60 MRU here.
Twenty minutes east of the centre the tarmac gives out and genuine Saharan dunes begin behind Toujounine. Climb a ridge for the only elevation anywhere near Nouakchott and a view over the entire flat city grid.
The Moroccan-built Ibn Abbas mosque anchors the busiest stretch of Avenue Gamal Abdel Nasser. At maghrib the call to prayer rolls over the traffic and pavement tea stalls fill; three rounds of mint tea cost 20 MRU.