Across the Sahara in 1973

There is something about deserts that I love. It is the dryness of the landscape, the spectacular barrenness of the countryside where, to use the words of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley: ‘the lone level sands stretch far away’. The Sahara shattered all my preconceptions of a desert. Far from being a vast area of featureless sand dunes and nothing else, I found the countryside was remarkably varied. The sand seas only occupied a small area of our crossing. Much of the Sahara consisted of rugged rocky mountains, such as the Tassili N’Ajjer, which although lacking hardly any form of vegetation somehow seems to support an amazingly large population. 

The oasis town of Ghardaia in the Algerian Sahara

I remember one incident when we were deep in the desert. We had been driving all day, having not seen another vehicle or passed through any form of settlement. Several of us were sitting on a dune well above our camp site in what was a very black night. I thought I glimpsed, from the corner of my eye, a slight flicker of light in the next valley, as if someone had lit a cigarette. I immediately dismissed it thinking my eyes were playing tricks. Half an hour later we had returned to our camp, scaring our rostered ‘guards’ in the process – they hadn’t realised some of the group were not in camp - and settled in for the night. Just a short time later two shadowy spectre-like figures ambled into the camp. This time the guards thought it was another attempt to scare them until a voice called out: “H-hang on, guys, they’re real!”  The two intruders were Tuaregs, the nomads of this part of the Sahara and, out of curiosity, were paying us a friendly visit. It appeared we were camped by one of their tribal wells. Language was a barrier, but we were able to communicate in pidgin French, and after offering them a cup of tea, they disappeared happily into the desert as silently as they had appeared.

Sand dunes in the Sahara

  As we drove into the Sahara, towns just seemed to appear out of the desert. Why were they here? No doubt water was the key factor and places such as Tiaret, Laghouart, Ghardaia, and Ouargla would once have been on caravan routes. We stopped at the market at Ouargla which was full of what are colloquially known as ‘desert roses’. These are gypsum crystals naturally welded together into rose-like shapes, some quite large. Many of these were for sale with a few other uninspiring crafts. I commented, more than once in my diary that I wondered how people survived out here: ‘Herds of goats and the odd Tuareg or two seem to appear in almost every small area of tussock which appears capable of supporting nothing!’   

The road heading into the Desert town of Ouargla, Algeria  1973

In the desert south of Ouargla we passed the oil flares of the refinery of Hassi Messaoud and the next day, out of the heat and sand of the Grand Erg Oriental we came upon a cluster of small huts, as remote from civilisation as could be found anywhere. 

Refinery fires of Hassi Messaoud, Algeria

This was the tiny settlement of Bel Guebbour, a refuelling stop along the road which stretches off into the shimmering mirages of an even bleaker, more barren region of the Sahara. Sleepy lethargic Algerian men sat or squatted in shady doorways; we never saw any women. In the cool interior of a hut which seemed to double as the village shop, one of the group asked, without much hope, for a beer. Beer! We had hardly seen a bottle since we had been in the country and it was also Ramadan, the Moslem period of abstinence. Bier, no problem said the sleepy shopkeeper and pulled an ice-cold beer from the depths of his refrigerator. We were amazed – here in the middle of nowhere in the depths of the Sahara we were able to purchase a beer – and a cold one at that!  Just a few kilometres out of Bel Guebbour we found an sulphurous, artesian spring with a concrete trough which gave us a welcome opportunity to wash, watched on by a number of bemused camels.

Camels at a waterhole in the Sahara, Bel Guebbour, Algeria

As we drove further into the desert, the settlements became more basic with places like Fort Polynac, now called Ilizi, and Fort Gardel having been outposts of the French Foreign Legion. Sparse huts and nomad tents had sprung up around the original forts and, over time, a small trading town would form. I remember Ilizi having a main street, replete with pavements and relatively modern street lighting, which did not now work as the lights were broken or just had wires dangling from the standards. There was one shop from which I bought a small tin of sweetened condensed milk. Lethargic Tuareg, in their signature bright blue garments, turbans and veils, lay or sat in the shade of walls, or house doorways, sheltering from the hot midday desert sun.  

Tuareg desert dwelling near the town of Ilizi, Algeria 1973

© Neil Rawlins  text & photography

Excerpt from my book  One Foot in Front of the Other - First Steps available from Amazon Books.  An account of travels in the Pacific Islands, Asia, Europe & Africa in the late '60s early '70s. My second book & companion volume  One Foot in Front of the Other - Full Stride continues my travels in New Zealand, USA and my experiences as a tour guide on the Asia Overland routes & as a special interest tour leader in Rajasthan, Kashmir, Jordan and Turkey.