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Tagant is a highland region of central Mauritania, its sandstone plateau rising abruptly from the surrounding desert to create a landscape of cliffs, palm-filled canyons and cooler air than the lowlands below. The regional capital, Tidjikja, sits amid date-palm groves in a valley cut into the plateau, and the wider region contains some of the country's most dramatic guelb formations and hidden gueltas, natural rock pools that hold water year-round. It was historically an important centre for the trans-Saharan salt and slave trade routes. Travellers drawn to Tagant come for its scenery and relative quiet: hiking the plateau edges, visiting palm oases, and seeking out gueltas where fish and even freshwater crocodiles have survived in isolated pools since wetter climatic eras. Access is difficult, with rough tracks rather than paved roads across much of the plateau, which keeps the region lightly visited.
- Tidjikja's palm-grove valley
- Guelta pools with surviving freshwater crocodiles
- Dramatic cliffs and canyons of the Tagant plateau
- Rough plateau tracks for off-road exploration