My first night in Nouakchott: bats

After a long days travel from Brussels to Madrid to Casablanca and then to Nouakchott I was finally in Mauritania.

Because of the heat, and the fact that our house did not have working AC (nor had our furniture arrived), we slept outside on the terrace under a mosquito tent. As I layed their trying to fall asleep with a tired energy from travelling and being in a totally new place, my mind began to focus on the incredible noise of the city - a cacophony (the only word for it) of crickets, cats, dogs, donkeys, taxis and bats. Bats?!

It was at this point that I was able to make out, in the dark, the motion of bats swarming overhead moving in and out of the trees adjacent to our house. I'm not sure if I had ever seen a bat before but was always under the impression that one should simply stay away from them. I didn't fall asleep until the sun came up that night.

I've since learned that bats are not all that bad and in a place like Mauritania they are darn good for reducing the mosquito population. They only come to town for four months of the year and then I have no idea where they migrate.

Credit for the video goes to NYPete31.