Crocodiles and Giraffes in the Algerian Sahara
Below you will find a sample itinerary of just one of Expert Algeria's Sahara tours. For comprehensive details and photos of the Algerian Sahara, please see our Algerian Sahara pages - or, better still, email us at: info@expertalgeria.com.Most of Expert Algeria's tours and circuits are made-to-measure and are accompanied by qualified guides. Tours last from three days to three weeks and can be designed for between two and thirty participants. Please contact us for further details of all our itineraries.
Expert Algeria's Djanet and
Tassili adventure focuses on the
Sahara's mountainous Tassili region, bordering Niger to the south - an immense swathe of desert distinguished by its towering dunes of sand, its sheer-sided canyons and its beguiling "forests of rock".
The Tassili - "plateau of the rivers" in Arabic - is an open-air treasure-trove of more than 15,000 rock carvings and cave
paintings
that depict pre-historic crocodiles and cattle and giraffes.
Starting from the white-washed oasis town of Djanet, our five day itinerary ranges across the Tassili's intoxicating landscape of palm-groves, wadis and dunes by camel, on foot and by jeep. This tour spend will spend a night or two under the Saharan stars as we track down the region's gueltas, the desert water-holes that sustain the Tassili's Tuareg nomads.
We will also seek out the tarout, the endemic Saharan cypress trees that are over 2,000 years old...
but we cannot guarantee that we will encounter one of the Sahara's most extra-ordinary living creatures -
crocodylus niloticus, an indigenous dwarf crocodile!
For much more information on the Algerian Sahara, please visit our Spotlight on the Sahara pages.
The Tassili - "plateau of the rivers" in Arabic - is an open-air treasure-trove of more than 15,000 rock carvings and cave
paintings
that depict pre-historic crocodiles and cattle and giraffes. Starting from the white-washed oasis town of Djanet, our five day itinerary ranges across the Tassili's intoxicating landscape of palm-groves, wadis and dunes by camel, on foot and by jeep. This tour spend will spend a night or two under the Saharan stars as we track down the region's gueltas, the desert water-holes that sustain the Tassili's Tuareg nomads.
We will also seek out the tarout, the endemic Saharan cypress trees that are over 2,000 years old...
but we cannot guarantee that we will encounter one of the Sahara's most extra-ordinary living creatures -
crocodylus niloticus, an indigenous dwarf crocodile!
For much more information on the Algerian Sahara, please visit our Spotlight on the Sahara pages.
Day 1
Fly from Algiers or Paris to Djanet (white-washed capital of
Tassili) deep in Sahara and transfer to hotel. Evening meal in
Djanet.
Day 2
Breakfast of local produce then by jeep / on foot to Timras (sandstone "mushrooms", cave paintings) and along remote tracks to Tagherghert to see "Crying Cow" (one of finest examples of Tassili rock art). View evening sunset over dunes then return to hotel.
Day 3
By jeep / on foot to Tillalen and Tikoubaoine through landscape of dunes and immense rock formations towering above desert floor ("Elephant", "Nutcracker", "Balancing Rock") for rock paintings and gueltas. Overnight in desert.
Day 4
On foot / by camel to
Essendilene (verdant canyon with dense vegetation, crystal waters, towering cliffs, dry waterfalls) then by foot across dunes of Admer, sleeping out in desert.
Day 5
Return to Djanet for palm oasis, museum, 16th century ksar, workshops, local market. Farewell dinner. Transfer to airport for return flight to Algiers or Paris.
