Chad
ENNEDI
A vast sandstone plateau, Ennedi has been called ‘the lost garden of the Sahara’. Situated in a remote region of north-east Chad, it stretches east to the Sudanese frontier, and north as far as the great sand-sea of Mourdi.
A labyrinth of fantastically weathered sandstone gorges, towers, buttresses and pinnacles, interspersed with rippling sand-sheets, dunes, boulder-fields, and shady wadis, the plateau has a surreal, dream-like ambience. The thousands of rock paintings and engravings that cover the walls of its many caves and rock overhangs, attest to the fact that the area has been considered a sacred site for millennia.
THE EXPEDITION
Ennedi is a remote site, but can now be reached by flights from N’Djamena. You fly to Faya, where you will be met by 4WD vehicles for a short drive to the Archei gorge. Here you meet your camels and camel-men. From here, for the next 12 days, the expedition is by camel.
The expedition covers an average of 25 km per day, roughly 7 hours of marching and/or riding: you halt for 2 hours at mid-day, and stop for camp in the evening just before sunset. As often as possible, the caravan stops in places where rock-art is likely to be found, giving you a chance to search for as yet unknown or unrecorded material.
ITINERARY
Day 1
1215: You arrive in N’Djamena. Check into your hotel. In the afternoon, you visit N’Djamena market. Night at the Hotel.
Day 2
Arrive Ennedi – Archei gorge. Explore the rock chasms with their pools inhabited by dwarf crocodiles, and examine the caves with their vivid rock paintings and engravings. In the evening meet camels and Tubu camel-men. Night camping among acacia trees in the wadi.
Day 3 (Camel)
You climb up between rock buttes into the undulating sandy plains, meeting camel-nomads and small caravans. You halt in a tree-shaded wadi for lunch, then through a tortuous, narrow gorge, dominated by towering needles of rock. The gorge opens out into a rock pass, where you spend the night.
Day 4 (Camel)
In the morning, you trek with your camels through twisting corridors of weathered sandstone, through drifts of sand, and between sheer rock walls. After lunch you descend a long, sloping valley into acacia groves where you spend the night, near a Tubu nomad camp.
Day 5 (Camel)
You trek across rippling sand-sheets, skirting the walls of the plateau, dominated by serried ranks of peaks, eroded into shapes both grotesque and bizarre. These cliffs and re-entrants are riddled with caves and rock shelters, some of them covered in ancient rock art. Riding or walking with your camels, you travel towards a single stump rising from the bed of the desert. Night near the cliff.
Day 6 (Camel)
Today you enter more vast plains, trekking beneath bizarre, wind-sculptured towers of sandstone: for the first time on the trek you find yourself in the mind-blowing vastness of the Sahara–dunes, hogs back ridges, rippled sand beaches spreading on to infinity. Night in the shelter of an inselberg: another chance to hunt for rock art.
Day 7 (Camel)
You continue north with your camels, passing eroded canyons and weaving around stone plinths and pedestals, until you see a green island of acacia trees below. The trees hide a Tubu village, where you water your camels and fill your water-vessels at the well. In the afternoon, you press on across plains of rolling sand, bordered by deep rock alcoves, in one of which you spend the night, taking another opportunity to search for rock art.
Day 8 (Camel)
You head north, climbing up on to a plateau of black basalt blocks, and heading towards an inselberg, rising above the horizon. After lunch, you descend into rugged rock and sand-dune country. Night at a storybook oasis of blue water surrounded by reeds and palm-trees, under a towering cliff overlaid by a single great dune.
Day 9 (Camel)
You trek along the western edge of the Ennedi massif, passing through spectacular country of sand-dunes, depressions and palm oases.
Day 10 (Camel)
You enter the great sand-sea– an endless valley of crescent and fish-scale dunes running East. Weaving a path between the dunes and the continuing outline of Ennedi, you make camp in the sand-sea.
Day 11 (Camel)
After breakfast, you continue, threading your way through the labyrinth of dunes, walking on the dry bed of a great river that flowed here perhaps 6000 years ago. In the afternoon, you travel through an area of mixed dunes, sandy valleys, and weathered rock-formations.
Day 12 (Camel)
In the morning, you turn west along the sand-sea, heading for a Tubu village. In the afternoon, you sight acacia groves around a well, arriving there before sunset. Night in the desert.
Day 13
FWD vehicles arrive in the early morning. After breakfast, you say goodbye to your camels and camel-men and drive to the local airstrip. You fly to N’Djamena, arriving at your hotel in time for lunch. In the afternoon, you are free to explore the city. Night in the hotel.
Day 14
At the end of the morning you motor to the airport and check in for the 1415 flight to Addis Ababa. Depart.