Algeria > Tassili N'Ajjer National Park

At 12:30 we land at Djanet Airport. Everyone walks to the airport building. Here, someone collects the passports of foreigners. It seems I have no choice, so I hand over my passport as well. Why this is required is unclear. At the baggage belt, it is chaotic. All kinds of tour agents are moving around the hall. Some pick up stacks of passports. It turns out this ensures that no one enters the desert without a tour operator. Soon, Salah appears. He is our agent and collects our passports. The baggage takes almost twenty minutes to arrive. Is there only one plane at this airport? Fortunately, all our luggage arrives this time. Salah drives us to the Hotel La Grotte des Ambassadeurs. It is already two o’clock when we arrive. We quickly go to the room to sleep. The next morning, breakfast is ready in the courtyard. It seems a large group has just left. The tables are cleared, and a table for four is set for us. At ten o’clock, we meet the crew for the coming days: a guide, a cook, and two drivers. The luggage goes in one vehicle, and the supplies are in the back of a pickup truck.

Algeria - The perfectly straight road through the desert

We distribute ourselves over the two cars and drive out of Djanet. Ibrahim, the guide, tells us that about 20,000 people live in Djanet, and another 15,000 soldiers are stationed in this area to guard Algeria’s borders with Libya and Niger. Immediately outside the town, we drive onto an asphalt road into the desert. Left and right, there is mostly sand and rocks. We briefly stop at a sign indicating the split toward Libya or Niger—a funny choice. Today we are driving to Tassili N’Ajjer National Park. This park lies mostly on Algerian territory, but a small part extends into Libya. Around noon, the drivers take the vehicles off the asphalt road into a valley. We pause under a tree while the crew prepares lunch. Meanwhile, we walk around a bit. The sun is not very strong; there are clouds in the sky, so it isn’t excessively hot. On the ground, we find small round fruits the size of tennis balls. They look like tiny watermelons. We play a few games of pétanque with the fruits. Then lunch is ready: vegetables, meat, and salad. Afterward, there is tea—sweet tea. It is poured from a height, creating a layer of foam. This foam layer, we are told, prevents sand or flies from getting into the tea. The crew takes their time. We only depart around two o’clock, giving us a chance to relax a bit. After the lunch break, we drive briefly on the asphalt road before turning off to continue through the sand. The drivers try to find the best track and sometimes create a new one. I had expected that we would follow existing sand tracks through the desert. Around us, the scenery becomes increasingly beautiful, though the clouds are thickening and the sun disappears.

Algeria - Spending the night in a tent in the Sahara

Ibrahim explains that there are three entrances to Tassili N’Ajjer National Park: east, central, and west. We take the central route and will return via the eastern side in five days. At the end of the afternoon, we look for a place to spend the night. Behind a rock out of the wind, the bivouac is set up. I get a tent to pitch—a pop-up tent. I release the tent, and it unfolds automatically. I place a mat and my luggage inside. Meanwhile, the crew has prepared tea and some peanuts. As the sun sets, it quickly gets cooler, so I put on a sweater. Dinner is prepared over a small campfire. In the evening, when I go to my tent, I see a magnificent starry sky above me. I can even make out the Milky Way.