Sunday, April 09, 2006

Safari in the Sahara

As I have said before, I love deserts. I have experienced deserts in East Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East. The Sahara is everything I could have dreamed of. Enormous, varied, beautiful. Hiding secrets at every turn. Dune fields, rocky outcrops, black fields of shale, oases of green - sometimes around a deep blue lake. Cave paintings older than the mind can fathom and seas of sand that stretch further than the eye can see.

Stunning.

And we are here for 5 full days. Words and photos cannot communicate all that is the Sahara, it begs to be experienced first hand, but here are some of the highlights from the first four days, in no particular order:

Some deep-rooted trees manage to survive here.


Varied rock formations about in the wadis.


Hooning across the Saharan sands.


Dragoman spelled out on the sand


Sunset over the dune fields of the War Qasr (Sea of Sand)


The Natural Rock Arch of the Jebel Acacus, vaulting more than 150m high. That speck in the bottom left is a land cruiser.


A photo of me for those who complain that I'm always behind the lens.


Sheer rock cliffs.


The Sahara is not all sand. However, this field of black shale was not deemed worthy of a name by the Tuaregs.


Magnificent cave paintings, the oldest are more than 100 centuries old.


Saving camels from dehydration


Tuareg with well endowed fertility cave carving in the background.


Sunset in the wadis


Mountains fading into the distance at sunset


The abandoned mud and brick city of Garama, once the capital of the Garamantian empire that controlled the Sahara and its trade routes in Roman times.

4 Comments:

At 2:34 PM, Blogger mars said...

these photos are amazing! i really want to go to the sahara. it would be awesome! good job.

 
At 10:50 AM, Blogger palakkad said...

These are very beautiful i loved it very much .

 
At 1:29 AM, Blogger Scott said...

Hello, My name is Scott Narjes

I am 22 years old and I need your help.

Me and my friends have created a video that contains a photo of cave paintings you have taken. We used it briefly in a fake commercial for the Doritos company. In our video we use the cave painting with a dorito placed infront of it. This commercial is not being used for profitable purposes. At the time of making the video we were unaware of the copyrights involved. We apologize for this. But we need your help, we love the commercial and believe it is great and do not want to change anything about it. So we come to you on our knees begging for your consent to use the photo. We would be more than eternally grateful.

thank you for your time

Scott

 
At 6:21 PM, Blogger Anijo said...

Salut
Indeed, absolutely beautiful. I also love deserts. Thank you for sharing, Annie

 

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