REPORT: ALGERIA

In preparation for a longer upcoming trans-Saharan journey we conducted a scouting trip in south-eastern Algeria during April 2017. We spent about two weeks traversing roughly 650 miles of desert, primarily off-road. Using the town of Djanet as a base point we looped southeast almost to the Libyan border, and then back north west to the Ihrir oasis. The journey was made in a locally-sourced Toyota Land Cruiser and focused on the UNESCO world heritage sites around Tassili N’ajjer. The primary goal of this mission was to assess terrain, security, driving conditions, logistical concerns and approximate timeframes for a future expedition.

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LEG TWO: EL BERDJ TO WANTA BERKA

The morning sun was late to rise over the sheer-sided canyon walls of El Berdj. Our camp location in a narrow fold of rock proved to be ideal, providing shade in both morning and afternoon as well as protection from the wind. The desert had gotten quite cold overnight and I was glad I had brought my winter sleeping bag. This part of the Sahara typically sees a 25-35 degree temperature fluctuation between day and night. It was still chilly in the morning, but as soon as the direct sun hits the open desert the heat could get unbearable. The search for shade would become a strategic necessity in our routing and timetable, and I would be reminded more than once that the camel caravans of old moved mostly at night.



The eroded sandstone walls of El Berdj seemed to glow red as we set off to follow the line of the main canyon in a north-easterly direction. We were headed into an open-air treasure-trove of rock carvings and cave paintings. The Tassili n’Ajjer grouping of prehistoric cave art is considered one of the most important in the world. Over 15,000 drawings and engravings record the climatic changes, the animal migrations and the evolution of human life from 6000 BC to the first centuries of the present era. The artwork is “hidden in plain sight” spread out across the rock walls and geological formations in a surreal lunar landscape defined by rock and sand.

We stopped at the base of what looked like a sheer wall, then carefully found footing along the rockspill making our way up to a non-descript ledge shaded by a larger outcropping of rock. It took my eyes a few seconds to adjust to the darkness of the shadow, but then I saw the outlines etched deeply into the surface — overlapping cows, with expressively rendered faces and floppy ears. It seemed bizarre to see cows in such a barren desert. But one of the most interesting aspects of the Tassili art is the insight it offers into the desertification of the Sahara. This area was once lush and green. Water was plentiful enough for the people to herd cows here.



The Sahara wasn’t always a desert. Hundreds of millions of years ago, it was covered by expansive inland seas. Later, while Europe was still shivering under an Ice Age, the Sahara became temperate, with lakes and forests rich in wildlife. A comfortable Mediterranean climate prevailed and supported a population of hunters and herders. Though archaeological evidence suggests that human habitation in Algeria goes back as far as 200,000 BC, it was at this period between 15,000 and 10,000 BC that two distinct groups, referred to today as the “Oranian” and the “Capsian“, appear in North Africa. Their integration with indigenous peoples spread the Neolithic culture characterized by animal domestication and subsistence agriculture across the Sahara. They were the ancestors of the Berber tribes and the rock art of Tassili N’Ajjer is one of the greatest sources of knowledge about their history.

The Tassili art depicts vibrant and vivid scenes of everyday life during the Neolithic Subpluvial period (about 8000 to 4000 BC). The earliest works were executed by a hunting people who lived in a savanna region teeming with giraffes, elephants, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus, animals that no longer exist in the region. Later pastoralist populations left imagery of abundant wildlife, domesticated animals, chariots, and a complex culture. The cows in this engraving are domesticated, part of a herd, and a clue to the historical period is the depiction of pottery alongside the animals — significant because it indicates that the area was already drying up and herders had to get water for their animals.



We were able to see a second engraving not far from the location of the first one, again in the shadow of a fold of the rock wall. I wondered how many more of these engravings may exist hidden from view. Every fold and twist of the canyon could potentially hold a museum’s worth of art. It would take three lifetimes to explore it all.

The rock art of the Tassili was first mentioned by European explorers in the 19th century, when Heinrich Barth and Gustav Nachtigal, made some sketches to accompany their field report. But it was only in the middle of the 20th century that the art was given serious scholarly attention. Henri Lhote, the first expert to examine the work, visited the Tassili N’Ajjer in the 1930s and returned to catalog the art in 1956. Lhote was a French author, explorer, ethnographer, and expert on prehistoric cave art. He was introduced to the Tassili by a French Lieutenant known only as “Brenans” in 1933. Brenans had ventured into a deep wadi on the plateau and came upon rock art. He met with Lhote in Djanet and shared information about the discovery. Lhote then mounted an expedition with the support of the Musée de l’Homme and along with his associates uncovered about 800 works of art. Photographs and drawings of the images were presented in 1957 and 1958 at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and drew international attention to the Tassili.



We continued following the line of the canyon eastward, with a brief stop to cut some firewood from a dead tree that was still standing in the middle of a oued. The local Tuaregs are very conscious of the fragility of their desert. We carefully cut only a few branches of the dead wood. Even downed wood plays a role in the eco system and a dead tree still standing can help to bind the soil. Overconsumption of firewood is a serious issue across large sections of Africa. The desert is a series of very fragile, delicately balanced ecosystems — often a mosaic of microclimates. Small hollows support vegetation that protects the land from the prevailing winds. In these marginal areas, human activity can stress the ecosystem beyond its tolerance limit, resulting in further degradation of the land. The collection of firewood reduces or eliminates plants that help to hold the soil in place. The Tuareg respect their land and we try to keep our impact to a minimum following a locally-adapted version of the Tread Lightly ethic. We use only a small amount of wood for our evening fire, and bury the partially burned pieces in the sand to dig up in the morning for use as charcoal en route. The wood we cut here will last us for the next few days.



The shadows were growing longer as we reached the place where the canyon opened up on to a spectacular desert landscape unlike anything I had seen before — the black-blue-and-gold color scheme of the Sahara sculpted by the wind. Tall sand dunes seemed to rise up out of the flattest part of the desert in perfect golden curves, and interspersed right in the midst of the dunes were towering ragged rock formations of black sandstone. The whole scene was dramatically set off against a bright blue sky. The light was perfect. I was drawn into it as if by getting closer I could prove to myself that it wasn’t some kind of mirage.

The place, called “Wanta Berka,” was named after a Tamarisk tree which no longer stood according to the Tuareg. There seems to be a habit here of using landscape features for place-names, and the scarcity of trees in the desert often leads to them being referenced as landmarks. The most famous “landmark” tree, “l’Arbre du Ténéré” (“tree of the tenere”) located in Niger, is actually labelled on maps up to a scale of 1:4,000,000. A solitary acacia — the only one for over 400 kilometres (250 mi) — it was a waypoint on caravan routes for centuries. Ironically, it was knocked down in 1973, supposedly by a drunken Libyan truck driver.



As we moved closer to the dunes we spotted a couple of camels on a distant crest. They were soon followed by a whole herd majestically crossing the desert as in a film. They were considered “wild” camels, though technically there is no such thing as “wild camels” in the Sahara. The designation of “wild” is reserved for a specific breed of Bactrian camels in northwest China and Mongolia. These free-roaming domesticated camels in Algeria would be more precisely referred to as a “feral” herd. But the distinction is academic — they were free and on their own in the wilderness and unused to human contact. And they were beautiful to watch.

Interestingly, the Sahara’s most iconic animal is actually not native to North Africa. The oldest cameloid fossils (which date back 50 million years) were found in North America. About two million years ago, a branch of the family crossed the Bering Strait land bridge into Asia and eventually Arabia. It arrived in the Sahara sometime around the first century, probably introduced by Arab traders. The camel, capable of ferrying people and goods across the desert through sun and sandstorms, quickly became indispensable.



While the days of camel caravans are long gone, the animals remain an important measure of wealth in most parts of the Sahara, and it is rare to find camels that do not “belong” to someone, even if their owner is far away. We left the herd to graze and kept going towards the tall dunes to look for a good spot to set up camp for the evening. There was a protected bowl with a nice flat area that was already in shadow near the top of one of the higher dunes. A long run up gave us enough momentum to get the heavily laden truck to the spot. The sand was very soft, and a light wind was blowing it right off the crest creating a faint visual cloud of dust at the top of the highest dune.



The evening chill set in as soon as the sun dropped below the cliff line and we got our fire burning quickly. With the first stars visible the team relaxed, strumming the familiar rhythms of the “desert blues” known as “assouf.” The musical style, made internationally famous by the band Tinariwen, is inspired by a sense of nostalgia for the desert itself. It developed in the 1970s and 80s as a rough, artisanal, homespun sound played on guitars that chronicled the uncertainties and isolation of modern life. In one generation the semi-autonomous rural nomadic society of the Tuareg had been transformed into a dependent semi-urban one. Families had been uprooted from the independence of the desert and forced to confront the alien realities of modern ‘civilisation’ that rendered the old hierarchies, customs and knowledge irrelevant. This music expressed the loneliness, the longing for a way of life lost forever, the pain deep in their hearts. They recorded songs onto cassettes which were endlessly re-copied and shared across the desert. By 2001 assouf went global, with Tinariwen’s first European tour.

The sound is rooted in the traditional beat of the tendé drum and the complex inflections of the teherdent, a three stringed lute played by the Tuareg and Songhoi griots of Gao and the Niger bend. The lyrics are modern poetry, and can be improvised on the spot in a fashion similar to urban rap. Saghd and Mohamed playfully mix the well-known lyrics of Tinariwen songs with their own accounts of events from the day going back and forth between Tamashak and French with ease. The music seems to echo in the desert night as the moon rises over the dunes and for the moment the ephemeral magic of the Sahara feels eternal.

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