Travel Guide Boutilimit

While waiting for the paying highway that the Mauritanian authorities are planning to build, you will reach Boutilimit, a town of some 30,000 souls located on the Trarza aquifer, via the Road of Hope. The town, whose population has increased tenfold since the country's independence and which takes its name from a grass, the tîlîmît, has nibbled away hectares of desert from its initial core, consisting of a few tikit, a well and the house of Sheikh Sidiya El Kebir, founder of the town around 1826. Eminent member of the Qadiriyya brotherhood, the latter, who bequeathed to posterity the numerous and precious manuscripts of his library, was a scholar who contributed to the cultural and political influence of Boutilimit. Dominated by the remains of the fort, reminiscent of the colonial era, the city owes its reputation to the notabilities who were trained in its madrasa and its elite institute. These schools, opened respectively in 1914 and 1956, were not built here by chance: they consecrated the alliance sealed at the dawn of the 20th century between the descendants of Sheikh Sidiya and the French administration, anxious to "pacify" the country. Among the former students, we note the presence of a native of Boutilimit, Moktar Ould Daddah, president of the republic from 1961 to 1978. Today, the commune, where one can buy handicrafts such as wool carpets, allows one to fill up on fuel and victuals before (re)taking the national road to Aleg (110 km) or Nouakchott (155 km).