Nouakchott's fish market, when the boats come in

I had heard stories about Nouakchott's fish market long before we got anywhere near Mauritania, and it sat on my list the whole way down. It is the capital's famous sight: the Port de Peche, where the wooden fishing fleet lands its catch straight onto the beach. When we finally reached the city, we asked our local guide to take us.

What we walked into was simply a working day. Boats heading out and coming in, men hauling the catch up the sand, fish moving from the boats to the sale stalls in a rhythm that clearly runs the same way every day of the year. Painted pirogues stood boat after boat along the beach, and everywhere you looked, people were working.

And then there was us: random tourists in the middle of someone else's workplace. It was obvious we were in the way. This is not an attraction with a viewing platform - it is their industry, and us messing around between their daily chores did not make us popular. We kept to the edges, and we did not stay long: our guide soon rushed us back to the cars.

It was still worth the detour for me - a whole industry running at full speed on open sand, no harbour walls, no cranes, just boats, muscle and salt. But go the way the market prefers: briefly, at the edge of things, watching people work rather than expecting a show. It is their day. You are just passing through it.