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.

Tamanrasset to Djanet

For three days, 9-11 April, we travelled from Tamanrasset to Djanet through the Algerian Sahara. After registering our route with the Gendarmerie, we set off on Route National 1 to the North, then turned East towards Ideles. The track became variations of sand, gravel and stone, and the scenery became more interesting, with plains of tuff rubble, eroded volcanic peaks and sandstone mesas. Temperatures were very pleasant, in the low thirties, and everyone spent some time taking in the view from the roof of the Dutch Land Rover, except Haakon who was enjoying his bike. 

After checking in again with the police at Hirafok we drove on a few miles to camp in a well-wooded Oued, or dry river bed. With plenty of firewood, we were able to grill the chicken bought in Tam.

We passed to the North of Jebel Telerhteba, stopping at the first large dune we encountered to take some photos. Our second camp was on a gentle slope of sand under one of the large basalt hills in the area. Djafar went off in search of water, and as we climbed the hill we could see him far away, a tiny speck in the desert, heading for some greenery. The hill has outcrops of basalt columns like the Giant’s Causeway in Antrim. 

The next day we stopped to check a rattle under the car, and instead found a different problem – lots of diesel. The fuel lift pump had given up and was spraying fuel out of a small hole. We tried driving a few hours, but it got so bad that the Dutch could see a trail of diesel behind us in the sand, so we stopped to change the pump, as we had a spare.

It was a pleasure to drive on the regs as we got closer to the Erg d’Admer, since we could do a good speed without fear of hitting something nasty. Nevertheless, because of the repairs, it was later than planned when we reached the tar for Djanet. We did the last couple of hours in darkness on the potholed road. We made Djanet at 9pm and the town was brightly lit but already shut down. The campsite was taken over by the military, but we found a nice place in the town centre with a car park and adequate rooms. In Djanet we heard news of bomb attacks in Algiers. They were suicide attacks, which is unusual for Algeria, but apart from that the local opinion was that it was - sadly - not unusual, intractable, and far away. 

We ended up spending three nights in Djanet. It is the Alice Springs of Algeria - an outback outpost, full of hard looking desert characters, Berber and Arab, Toureg and Tourist. The standard vehicle is an ancient Land Cruiser with a rack of jerrys, sand ladders, shovel and grill on the roof and always a guerba – a water bag made of an entire goat skin – slung on the body. It was good to have a break, eat pizzas garnished with tinned tuna and mayonnaise, and laze around in the café under an arcade. This, like all the cafés in Arab world, is a mens' world, and sadly also alcohol free. But it does very good coffee and croissants.

Photos from Claire and Leon below.