Tibesti Mountains of the Sahara

Last month I visited Chad for the second and last time for MAF. I had the opportunity to fly to the northwestern corner of the country, close to the Libyan border in the central Sahara. I’ve been to remote and dangerous places due to human threat, but this is different. The harsh landscape and weather is the biggest threat should one become stranded or lost. 

I had the fortune to fly – three hours north to Faya across an endless sea of sand stretching to the horizon – then two additional hours west over the wildly dramatic Tibesti Mountains to Bardai. I was also fortunate to be in Bardai during a ‘cool’ time of the year that even became sweater-cold at night. Compare this to stories I’ve heard from April of heat soaring past 120ºF (49ºC).

Here are a few pictures from the flight. 

We stayed with two women who had recently moved to a ‘new’ house and were attempting to fix it up to their liking. It was a traditional style of home for this area – a mud-walled compound with open and covered areas. The temporary toilet consisted of a room with a hole to the outside for pee, and another temporary toilet outside the compound walls for other business. Jenny Davies (who was traveling with me) and I set up mossie tents in the room that would normally be used for dining on mats on the ground.