The Sahara

  The journey undertaken by Palin and his crew covered 10,000 miles through nine countries in 99 days. Although Sahara was undoubtedly very entertaining, what made it special was the way it exposed its audience to some of the remotest corners of the planet, and revealed otherwise ignored or unknown lives of those who call the desert home, including the fate of refugees in the on-going dispute between Morocco and the independence starved people of Western Sahara. From their favourite armchairs, millions who would otherwise never get close to the North African desert were able to do so.

  Wilfred Thesiger

  Writing in 1930, Evelyn Waugh said, “Every Englishman abroad, until it is proved to the contrary, likes to consider himself a traveller and not a tourist.” This sentiment would undoubtedly have resonated with, indeed might have been written for, Wilfred Thesiger. In many ways the archetype of an old-school British explorer, Thesiger shunned motorized transport in favour of the hardship and concomitant pleasure of travelling with animals and men. Although he became a household name - at least in those houses where books about deserts are read - with Arabian Sands, which is about crossing the Empty Quarter in Arabia, his first expedition was in the Sahara.

  In 1938, while working as an assistant district commissioner in the Sudan, Thesiger crossed the Ennedi Plateau from Darfur to the Tibesti Mountains. About his chosen, car-free means of travel Thesiger wrote, “I had hired camels to take me as far as Bornou, after which it would be necessary to use Tibbu camels used to travelling among the mountains... We travelled light, the distance before us being great and the time at our disposal short... We had no kit other than our rifles, sheepskins, blankets, and a small tent.”

  The inhospitable Tibesti Mountains

  It was in the Ennedi that the last lion in the Sahara was spotted two years after Thesiger’s visit. (Another Saharan-based species that managed to avoid extinction by living in the Ennedi is the Nile crocodile, which is noted for its dwarfism, because of the harshness of the environment and the limited availability of prey.) Although not guilty of eliminating the last lion in the Ennedi, Thesiger was a keen hunter in his early years, usually for food on the trail for his guides and himself In his account of the Tibesti journey Thesiger’s party does not encounter any animal more threatening than a gazelle. He did, however, come across and record a number of items of rock art, as pointed out to him by his guide. These pictures included hunting scenes and petroglyphs of numerous animal species long since vanished both from the Ennedi and the Sahara as a whole.

  During the course of the journey, Thesiger and his guide, Idris Daud , climbed to the top of the volcano Emi Koussi, which at 11,302 feet, is the highest point in the Sahara. Downplaying the importance of his journey in a region then almost unknown to outsiders, Thesiger modestly remarks, “I had covered a considerable distance during these three months, some 200 miles in all, but only at the cost of continuous travelling. Many of my observations were in consequence superficial.”

  Even in Thesiger’s day cars were virtually ubiquitous in those places they could travel. Yet this does not mean that for desert travel the camel has been consigned to the past. Since Thesiger there have been a number of individuals whose pleasure it has been to walk in the Sahara, renouncing cars in favour of camels (myself among them). Michael Asher is one such traveller who has wandered many miles on foot in the Sahara, and who fully appreciates the importance of local knowledge when doing so. In 1986 Asher embarked on a camel-borne journey to demonstrate that the age of non-mechanical travel is far from a thing of the past. Having lived and worked for a number of years in Sudan’s Darfur region, Asher and his wife, Mariantonietta Peru, walked the breadth of the Sahara. Heading east from Mauritania, their epic 4500-mile foot journey with camels ended at the Nile at Abu Simbel. It took them nine months and was the first crossing of the Sahara at its widest point. The title of his account of the trek, Impossible Journey, is only just short of the truth.

  Eschewing camels, Bruce Chatwin’s own Saharan outings were more touristic in nature than those made by Thesiger and Asher. In deciding to travel to the talismanic oasis of Timbuktu, Chatwin understood that he was perhaps not making an entirely rational choice. And indeed, the legend did not survive his initial encounter. As he writes, “There are two Timbuctoos. One is the administrative centre of the Sixth Region of the Republic of Mali ... And then there is the Timbuctoo of the mind - a mythical city in a Never-Never Land, an antipodean mirage, a symbol for the back of beyond or a flat joke. ‘He has gone to Timbuctoo,’ they say, meaning ‘He is out of his mind.’... ‘Was it lovely?’ asked a friend on my return. No. It is far from lovely; unless you find mud walls crumbling to dust lovely - walls of a spectral grey, as if all the colour has been sucked out by the sun.”

  Adventure Tourism

  If the basic business arrangements involved in package holidays have not changed much since Thomas Cook started taking travellers to Egypt, the type of experience customers now want means they bear little resemblance to those holidays enjoyed by our Victorian forebears. The rise of adventure travel is one of the more obvious departures from the more traditional Nile cruises, which brush against one of the Sahara’s sandy fringes.

  Those inclined to take adventure holidays do not sleep on beaches with unread paperbacks beside them. If it is possible to draw up a league table of adventurousness, one likely element to feature would be the effort or endurance required to complete, or survive, the so-called adventure holiday. The Sahara is able to provide the setting for such individuals in the form of the Marathon des Sables. An annual foot race that takes place in the Moroccan Sahara, contestants cover 150 miles in five days. They also have to carry everything they will need for the duration of the race, except water and tents.

  In spite of two recorded competitor deaths, this ultra-marathon annually attracts an international field of runners, professionals and very fit amateurs alike, and with a limited number of available places, there is generally a waiting list of those hoping to join in the fun. First run in 1986, the event has been dominated in recent years by local athletes, the Moroccan Ahansal brothers, lahcen and Mohammed, winning an impressive thirteen times since 1997. Described by the event’s organizers as the word’s hardest foot race, a self-effacing friend of mine who successfully completed the race in 2008 described it as “the hardest race anyone could do.” I have yet to test the veracity of this claim.

  Although the Marathon des Sables is unquestionably an extreme race, there is an exclusive group of three athletes who might consider that challenge little more than a training run. Starting in November 2006, Ray Zahab from Canada, Kevin Lin from Taiwan and American Charlie Engle ran an incredible 4,300 miles across the Sahara, starting from the Atlantic coast at St. Louis, Senegal. Followed by their support team and a small film crew, on hand to record the unique event, the three ran approximately forty miles every day for the next 111 days, their journey ending when they ran into the waters of the Red Sea.

  The documentary about their journey, Running the Sahara, highlights both how fraught with emotion the atmosphere can become when three athletes are undergoing such a challenge and also how small three people running across the Sahara are. Others have already walked, run and cycled around the globe, but in taking on the Sahara the three-man team were tacitly acknowledging the unique place this desert still has in the popular imagination. More than any other similar massive stretch of the planet, and none is truly comparable, the Sahara continues to excite and terrify, even at a safe distance.

  For those who shun foot races, the Sahara until recently also hosted the world’s most famous motor race. First held in 1978, the Paris-Dakar Rally is so famous that organizers and followers these days more usually refer to it as The Dakar. In spite of its name, the rally has not been held in the Sahara since 2007 because of fears about al-Qaeda terrorist activity in the Maghreb. As a result, subsequent races, while retaining the Dakar Rally name, have taken place in South Amer
ica.

  Competitors are divided into categories for cars, motorcycles, and lorries and, when it took place in the Sahara, the rally attracted criticism from various quarters, including environmental groups, who were concerned about the impact the race would have on delicate Saharan ecosystems and other campaigners who questioned what benefits the race would bring to those who live in the desert, the populations there being among the poorest in the world. The rally has also resulted in nearly sixty deaths since it was first held, mostly local bystanders. Perhaps note should be made of the Tuareg saying: “Patience comes from God, and haste from the devil.”

  The most famous incident to occur during the rally was in 1982, when Mark Thatcher, son of the then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and proudly sponsored by the condom manufacturer Durex, got lost in the desert. The disappearance of Thatcher, his co-driver and their mechanic set off a full-scale land and air search of the area. They were found safe and uninjured after six days, having become lost after stopping to carry out essential repairs to their car.

  As the decision to relocate made by the organizers of the Paris-Dakar Rally proves, a recent increase in kidnappings, particularly in Algeria, Mali and Niger, has had a negative impact on the numbers willing to visit remoter parts of the desert. However, with planning and careful management, there is every reason to be optimistic about the possibilities that travel and tourism will become future sources of income for the desert dwellers. On the other hand, without careful planning, any untrammelled expansion in this sector will inevitably damage a unique environment, one that is a great deal more delicate than most people realize.

  ***

  Thinking about foreign visitors to the Sahara brings to mind the closing words of Chatwin’s article on Timbuktu, where he writes, “The inhabitants of Timbuctoo are Arabs, Berbers, Songhoi, Mossi, Toucouleur, Bambara, Bela, Malinke, Fulani, Moors and Touaregs. Later came the English, French, Germans, the Russians and then the Chinese. Many others will come and go, and Timbuctoo will remain the same.” Although the catalogue of ethnic groups that have come to the Sahara is accurate, the romantic idea of the Sahara and its people as something unchanging is far from the truth.

  As we have already seen, the Sahara’s physical landscape, its outward appearance, has changed beyond all recognition over the centuries. But the desert is not just a landscape; it is also made up of people, who likewise continue to change over time. Each of the nationalities and races mentioned has had some impact on the desert. Future migrations will doubtless do the same.

  People of the Sahara

  “No one lives in the Sahara if he is able to live anywhere else.”

  Saharan Arab saying, quoted in Paul Bowles, Their Heads Are Green and Their Hands Are Blue (1963)

  While tourists come and go, there are those for whom the Sahara is home. Whether indigenous North Africans, Arabs or Europeans, a few million natives and foreigners have managed to find a place in the desert in which to settle. The best known, whom most associate with the Sahara, are the Bedouin or Bedu, Berber, Toubou and Tuareg, but there are others, smaller, less well-known tribes, sub-tribes and confederations.

  The Bedu themselves, having settled in the region more than a millennium ago can comfortably claim indigenous status, so much so that they are often seen as the least distinct of the region’s racial groups. This is especially true for those who have abandoned the traditional, nomadic way of life.

  The most numerous and widespread of all the indigenous people who live in the Sahara are the Berber, who can be found from the Isle of Djerba, in Tunisia to the north to as far south as the River Niger and whose settlements are spread from as far east as the oasis of Siwa to the Atlantic coast in the west. In spite of this extensive range, their heartland remains the north-west parts of the Sahara in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. Famous Berber names include such diverse characters as St. Augustine, Ibn Battuta and the French-born international footballer Zinedine Zidane.

  Although known in the West as Berbers, it is very rare for the people to use this name, referring to themselves rather as Amazigh or Imazighen, which Leo Africanus claimed meant “free people” in their native language, Tamazight. The Tamazight language group demonstrates, as one would expect considering the distance over which it is spread, great variety from one side of the Sahara to the other. These dialects do, however, have a common Punic ancestry. Now extinct, Punic was derived from ancient Phoenician, which the Tamasheq script, Tifinagh, resembles.

  Although it is not known where the Berbers came from, nor when they first entered the region, Ibn Khaldun says of them, “They belong to a powerful, formidable, brave, and numerous people; a true people like so many others the world has seen - like the Arabs, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans. The men who belong to this family of peoples have inhabited the Maghreb since the beginning.” The Romans also used specific names for specific Berber communities, for instance the Numidians and Mauri, from which latter term we derive Mauritania.

  The Tuareg

  The Tuareg are actually a branch of the Berber family, whose origins are likewise unknown. As Hanbury-Tenison observed in Worlds Within, “They are a Berber people, who consider themselves white, although their skin is burnt dark by the sky. Babies are born snow white.” He adds: “The Touareg, an ancient offshoot of the Kabyle Berbers of Algeria, were unappreciative of the ‘civilizing mission’ of the Roman legions and decided to put a thousand miles or more of desert between themselves and their would-be educators.” Many Tuareg still live according to their traditional nomadic pastoral lifestyle but they are increasingly found leading settled lives, albeit still largely confined to their traditional Saharan heartland in southern Algeria, northern Mali and Niger. Their familiarity with the desert means the Tuareg have an unparalleled understanding of what it means to be a Saharan, being unique in their ability to survive the unforgiving desert. This knowledge, or philosophy, is encapsulated in the Tuareg saying, “The desert rules you, you don’t rule the desert.”

  As a culturally and historically nomadic people, the Tuareg suffered in the colonial and post-colonial divisions of the Sahara, with their traditional lands being divided among modern nation states, including Algeria, Libya, Mali, Mauritania and Niger. The Tuareg were known as great warriors before the arrival of Europeans bearing rifles, which immediately made swordsmanship redundant. Today Tuareg blacksmiths still produce traditional swords, but very much as decorative items. Tuareg silversmiths are renowned for their fine jewellery, which is now primarily made for tourists conducted across the desert to the craft vendors by Tuareg guides.

  Like the main branch of the family, the name Tuareg is a foreign term of ancient standing, the Tuareg themselves using various other names including Imazaghan and Kel Tamasheq, or speakers of Tamasheq. According to Paul Bowles, Tuareg means “lost souls”, and has only been in use since the sixteenth century. Some writers have consequently wondered if perhaps these central Sahara people are not in fact the otherwise long-since vanished Garamantes.

  A Tuareg craftsman, Algeria

  Whatever name is used by or for them, the Tuareg’s most famous moniker remains the Blue Men. The nickname comes from the brilliant blue turban or veil that the men wear, which they use to cover their heads and most of the face. Known locally as a tagelmust, the cloth traditionally gets its colour from being dyed with indigo, and can be up to forty feet in length. Over time the indigo will leech from the cloth, staining the wearers’ skin a distinctive shade of blue, making them literally the Blue Men of the Sahara. Interestingly, in Tuareg society it is only the men who cover their faces, women going about with head and face completely exposed. Tuareg women also have a saying: “A good husband is the one who brings enough water.” This is as practical a test of masculine mettle as any in their dry world.

  Although not at present a significant economic sector, tourism once held out the promise of large income in the heart
of traditional Tuareg lands. Today the industry is in tatters, with many would-be desert tourists put off by the threat of kidnapping and more general banditry by genuine or otherwise al-Qaeda-affiliated groups. By far the biggest Tuareg cultural event to draw foreign visitors is the music-oriented Desert Festival, which is held annually in Mali, terrorism permitting.

  Tinariwen

  Among Tuareg musicians, Tinariwen - from the plural of tenere, or desert, in Tamasheq - have undoubtedly met with the greatest international success. Apart from the appeal of a gutsy, bluesy, guitar-driven sound, the band became the darlings of western promoters and the media alike with their background as desert warriors, literally veterans of fighting in Libya and Mali. Having hung up their weapons, Tinariwen have since graced the stages of western music festivals from Glastonbury to Womad, and have had their music lauded by, among many others, U2, Radiohead, Carlos Santana and Henry Rollins.

  Many early European travellers believed the Tuareg made their living solely by robbing desert travellers. As a result, the tagelmust was thought to be primarily a device for concealing the wearer’s identity, rather than an important means of keeping sand out of eyes, nose and mouth. By the late twentieth century they had largely managed to shake off this reputation for thievery, and now increasingly work as guides in the burgeoning market for Saharan tourism. Hanbury-Tenison, who spent forty days with a group of Tuareg, wrote of his experience: