The corridor
Southern Algeria. Djanet, the Tassili n’Ajjer plateau, the Tadrart.
Southern Algeria. Djanet, the Tassili n’Ajjer plateau, the Tadrart.
Sandstone canyons and dune corridors. Fesh-fesh basins a kilometre wide, where momentum decides. Camps on hard ground under rock.
The plateau country. Escarpment lines, old riverbeds, navigation by feature and bearing.
Mornings are cold. The convoy moves when the light is flat enough to read the sand. Dune corridors ask for momentum; fesh-fesh does not forgive it late. Midday is shade under rock. By late afternoon the sandstone goes red, and camp is wherever hard ground meets shelter. After dark the sky does what no photograph of it manages. There are very few places left this empty. This is one of them.
The corridor sits within the FCDO green interior. Escort protocols current. Fuel points, water, border sequencing at the Tunisian line — verified on the ground, kept current.
The Mountain. 445 million years ago an ice sheet sat on this rock. The scours are still in the stone you camp under.
The Breathing Desert. The Sahara does not dry out and stay dry. It breathes — green to dust and back on a 20,000-year cycle. You cross it mid-breath.
The People of the Emptiness. The Kel Essuf figures are the oldest human images in the central Sahara. Cut into Tadrart rock by people the Tuareg still have a name for: the people of the emptiness.
The Martian That Wasn’t. Lhote’s team nicknamed a Jabbaren figure “the great Martian god” as a joke. The joke launched the ancient-astronaut industry. The man who knew where the paintings were was Jebrine, the guide.
The Post in the Sand. Berliet, 1959: truck trials south of Djanet settled it — wide single tyres beat twins in soft sand. Proved on this ground. Your tyre pressures descend from it.
The Crying Cow. At Tegharghart, cattle carved 7,000 years ago stand at a waterhole. The water left 5,000 years ago. The herds are still waiting.
There are twenty of these. The convoy hears the rest.
Algeria is the first corridor. The route book grows each season.