There is a railway in Mauritania that hauls iron ore across the Sahara in a train so long - sometimes over three kilometers from end to end - it can take twenty minutes to pass, and for the price of nothing at all you can ride it. You climb into an open ore wagon at Nouadhibou, settle onto the cold black dust, and rattle through the desert night until the train pauses at Choum. There, a scrum of bush taxis and pickups waits to carry you the rest of the way to Atar. It is one of the great rough journeys left on the planet, and Atar is where it delivers you.
Atar is a working Saharan town of around 35,000, and most visitors treat it as exactly what it is - a base camp. It is cheaper, generally, than nearby Chinguetti, well stocked with places to sleep, and blessed with both an airport and a regional hospital, which is why it keeps growing in importance. People do not come to Atar to see Atar so much as to use it: to stock up, arrange transport, sleep somewhere comfortable, and then push out into the oases, dunes, and ancient towns that surround it. It is the practical heart of any trip into the Adrar.
There are three ways to arrive, in roughly descending order of comfort. You can fly into the airport. You can take the fast paved highway up from the capital, Nouakchott, on a minibus or bush taxi - one of them famously run by a kindly French expatriate - leaving from the Garage Atar at the edge of the capital for around 4,000 ouguiyas. Or you can do it the legendary way: the iron-ore train. Tickets for the single daily passenger car run about 1,500 ouguiyas, but the ore wagons themselves are free. Just climb aboard, and accept that you will arrive cold, filthy, and grinning.
Atar is small enough to walk, and wandering its streets on foot is the easiest way to get a feel for the place - though some of the auberges and resorts sit well out of the center, so you may need wheels for the last stretch. Taxis gather around the traffic circle in the middle of town, and a ride costs somewhere between 100 and 300 ouguiyas depending on how far you are going. The markets are worth a slow browse; prices tend to run lower here than in Chinguetti, and bargaining is not just allowed but expected.
For a town its size, Atar offers a generous spread of auberges, hotels, and desert resorts, so finding a bed is rarely a problem. Mauritania is a dry country in the alcoholic sense as much as the climatic one, which makes one address worth remembering: the Auberge Bab Sahara, where the occasional cold beer can be found. After a night in the ore wagons or a day in the dunes, it has the status of a small miracle. Most auberges will also help arrange your onward transport, which is half of why you stayed there in the first place.
The real reward of Atar lies in the day trips that radiate from it. At the Garage, the market, or your hotel, you can arrange bush taxis, 4x4s, or even rent a bike to reach the surrounding wonders - and if you simply wander into the market looking adventurous, drivers will find you, eager to show off what they consider the finest sights. The shortlist is dazzling: the palm-shaded oases of Terjit and Mhaireth, the great dune fields of the Vallee Blanche and Amatlich, and the old towns of Azougui and Chinguetti. Choum, Terjit, Chinguetti, and the road back to Nouakchott are all reachable from here. Atar is the door; everything good is just beyond it.
Atar sits at roughly 20.52°N, 13.05°W in Mauritania's Adrar Region, served by Atar International Airport (GQPA). It anchors a web of desert routes: the iron-ore railway via Choum to the north, the paved highway south to Nouakchott, and rough tracks east toward Chinguetti through the Amojjar Pass. From the air the town reads as a compact urban patch against the dark Adrar Plateau, ringed by oasis valleys (Terjit, Mhaireth) and dune fields (Amatlich). Hot, intensely sunny desert climate; expect excellent visibility outside of dust storms.