Djanet to In-Salah - Part II

The next day, we rounded the northern end of the Tefedest Mountains and approached the base of Jebel Djanoun (above). At 2300m it would be a good two hour climb from our level at 1000m, so instead Leon and I tackled a smaller peak which Djafar named "Jebel Tourist" in our honour. 

We crossed a wide section of piste running North-South, that Djafar said is used by cigarette smugglers. Then we reached the main road that links Tamanrasset to the North, and Djafar paid a short visit to a lonely mosque at Sidi Moulay Lahsene. Following tracks 20km to the West, he brought us to the best camp of the whole journey. The area has mountains of smooth grey volcanic rock, steep sided with rounded tops. I don’t know the geology, perhaps volcanic extrusion, but the shapes are not unlike Ayers Rock.

 

The volcanic hills at Tesnou - for scale, note the Land Rover above and people below

My Favourite Sahara Camp

On the fifth day of the journey from Djanet to In-Salah we had another first, as Con lifted the food box to disturb a pale scorpion who darted away under the car. It was an easy run up 120km of tar to Arak where we could refuel and water. The only shop had very little fresh food, but we got potatoes and stocked up with luxuries like yoghurt and sugary chocolate. Then we had our last section of Sahara piste, turning off just North of Arak onto part of the old Hoggar route. There was plenty of security around in Algeria, and at Tadjemout we were intercepted by an army pick-up. The whole oasis was swarming with soldiers, even up the trees and behind rocks in the hills behind. Djafar waved the magic piece of paper – and on we went. 

Maybe after a lot of desert we were getting jaded, but I found it a rather boring route, wind-blasted and tiring. We have been gradually descending for the last couple of days, and it is hotter again, almost 40C. As the piste has been superceded by a tarred road that runs to the West, it is no longer maintained, so every time we got to third gear we’d find the track washed out and would need to slow and crawl over boulders. We spotted a couple of gazelles, dancing away across the rocks.

Our best camp was followed by one of the worst, windswept and insecty, a bad combination. Giant camel spiders (solpugids) scuttled around. But even that camp was better in the calm of morning, and I’d rather be in the desert than any of the towns. For reasons unknown, it seems that Djafar set fire to the nearby oasis grass.

 

As we got closer to the tar again we met Haakon returning at speed. He’d heard gunfire ahead, and soon we could hear it too, heavy machine guns and explosions. The most likely explanation was army exercises, and Djafar agreed – he knew there was a base a little ahead, and waved us on. However, he got a severe ticking off from the army once we reached their checkpoint. He wasn't intimidated, and brandished our fiche, which includes the route as registered with the Gendarmerie. I suppose the army, and most Algerians, cannot understand why tourists would want to travel a washed-out old piste when there is a nice tar road instead. But with thousands of square miles of desert you’d think they’d find somewhere else to practise, not near a tourist route, no matter how few we are.

In-Salah: A helpful list of some of the worst towns in North Africa (Tamanrasset excepted) 

At In-Salah, Mohammed Haffaoui of Tanezrouft Voyages entertained us in the courtyard of his home, reclining on cushions and carpets. The delicious meal of salads, couscus, mutton and sauce was prepared by one of his wives, a native of Timbuktu. We treated ourselves to the best hotel in town, probably the only place for a thousand miles that serves beer.

It can even happen to a Series III

But there are worse places to be stuck...

    

Djanet to In-Salah - Part I

Although we had a rough programme - hand written on a piece of paper in a Tamanrasset restaurant - we were never quite sure what to expect each day. I am sure Djafar had a fairly clear idea as to our route and where we would camp each night, but it was difficult to communicate anything beyond the day at hand. So, we set off again from Djanet not certain if we’d be camping for three, four or five nights. Djafar warned us to bring maximum fuel and water. There was a short queue at the filling station – being close to Niger means that a lot of the local fuel disappears over the border. Then, down to the oeud where a tap delivered water from below the sand. The market veggies looked well travelled, but we bought what we could and put them in a cloth bag and sprayed it with water. Also got a tray of eggs and a whole Edam cheese.

Main street, Djanet with Claire and Leon

On the first day we travelled north via Route National 3, turning off to explore a couple of canyons in the Tassili to the East. This is a beautiful area of eroded pinnacles.

At the deepest extent of the Essendilene Canyon was a murky green pool, but not enticing for a swim at this time of year. Haakon’s bike is very heavy, even though we carried his spare fuel and water, and hard to keep upright in heavy sand. If the bike goes over, he must get help to lift it, or else unload his bags. When he did not appear for a while we went back to look for him, and managed to get badly stuck in the sand.

Stuck, again

For the next few days we meandered West and North West on the Route de Djafar. A diversion took us along a rocky track to deep guelta, where I enjoyed my one and only Sahara swim.

10% camel pee apparently

We passed South of Mt Tazat, and for a while travelled back on our eastward route. Somewhere along the way we passed the 10,000 mile mark. 

As always, Djafar knows good places to camp, and led us to a sheltered spot with a view of spectacular high dunes. As we had some daylight, Leon decided to show us some dune driving, but was stuck before he left the camp. To be fair, the Dutch car handled the sand pretty well, and they rarely resorted to dropping tyre pressure. 

As we sat on the crest of the dune in evening light, a lone Tuareg and his camels appeared on cue, crossing the plain below, the only other human we’d seen all day.

A Rare Excursion Onto a Dune

On April 16, we continued West towards the Tefedest mountains. Our lunch break was in an oeud with a concrete lined well. Since we only have enough water for drinking and cooking, we used the chance to drag up buckets of water from 30m below for a wash and shave. 

We set camp in an area of tree islands, where erosion had left the root systems exposed so that each little tree was sitting on its own five metre high platform, one of which provided us with a windbreak. We have been eating well, and this night was especially good: aubergines fried with garlic in olive oil, then layered with tomatoes, tinned mushrooms and slices of Edam; all wrapped in tin foil and buried under the fire for half an hour.

Djafar Mohammed, Guide du Desert

We had been told that there are two types of guide in Algeria – the young ones, who are good at languages, good at dealing with officials at checkpoints, and like to sleep in a bed; and the older ones, who know the desert. Thankfully, we got the second type. Mohammed Djafar is a Toureg from the south east, 48 years old, and totally at home in the desert. He had been a guide in the army, and travelled by camel on long journeys in Southern Algeria. We were very lucky to have him with us from border to border, not just for route finding, but for his good company and mischievous sense of humour. The dye from his turban, and ash from the fire, gave him a blue/grey glaze, so we called him Azar Sh’arab, or blue beard.

At lunchtime and camp he would have the fire lit almost before the engines had stopped. In the mornings we could hear him stir at 5.30 am, but he had little to say until about 10am, when he’d come to life. The day was punctuated by his prayer stops and tea making. He carried large bags of tea and sugar, and a couple of little pots and a set of glasses. In the Sahara style, we would always be offered three glasses, the first undrinkable, the third perfect. He catered for himself on a separate fire, eating beans he’d soaked during the day, unwrapping a cloth with dried mutton, baking bread under the sand of his fire; but he didn’t say no to some of our Edam or biscuits either. By nights he was wrapped up in his bed roll by 9pm, and I don’t think he ever slept indoors, even during our lazy hotel days in Djanet and Ghardaia.

He doesn’t read or write or use maps. He would navigate by picking features on the horizon, then steer us on the best routes to avoid soft sand or the sudden dips caused by water erosion. Although he speaks some French, he would give instructions in Arabic, or by hand gesture - Imin for right, Yasar for left, and G’jam is straight on. If you did not take his advice he would stay quiet for a while and suffer the bumps, as if to say "you’ll take my route the next time", and we got a little better at recognising the changes in sand colour or vegetation cover that determined the best routes. 

At Bordj el Haous, Djafar invited us to his home for tea and biscuits. It has a number of stone compounds. As far as we could tell, his mother is in one section, and each of his two wives has her own compound, and he has eight children. There was no fuel at the station there, but he soon sourced 60 litres in jerries for us, at twice the official price but still cheap. 

Sometimes Djafar stops at In-Salah and does not go to the Tunisian border on the tar road with his tourists, but this time he stayed with us. He seemed smaller and out of place in the towns, and often picked the wrong route. I think he was happy when the last couple of hours of paper work was completed at the Algerian border post and he could turn around for the long trip back to the deserts of the South.

A guide is compulsory in Algeria, but even if it were not so, a person like Djafar makes it much more enjoyable. We were very happy with his agency, Tanezrouft Voyages, who were very flexible considering the group they had - arriving two days late, and not even knowing where in Algeria we wanted to visit.