Slideshow: Wide-eyed in Wonder at the Sahara Desert

18 Dec

Scroll down for a slideshow with music

In 2022 I visited the Algerian Sahara on a 4x4 tour with Tuareg guides.

My trip was inspired by John Michael, a family friend and National Geographic photographer, who crossed the Sahara Desert in his Land Rover the late 1970s.

After he returned he gave a slideshow of his Saharan photographs to my school. As the slide carousel clicked away (set to the Beatles song here comes the sun), I saw an otherworldly landscape so beautiful that I shed a tear.

Whilst the glory days of Saharan overland travel are long gone, it is still possible to visit the Sahara Desert from Djanet in Algeria.

What I found in the Tassili N'Ajjer National Park in the south of Algeria left me in a state of open-mouthed wonder: 72,000 square kilometers of sand and rock, colossal dune ranges, sandstone pinnacles, thousands of ancient rock art drawings and strange ‘rock forests’–with few other visitors (mostly French and Algerians from the North).

After a few days, I ran out of superlatives, and was content to wander under the luminous North African skies, imagining that we had this vast tract of the planet to ourselves.

Slideshow: sit back and let the Saharan magic wash over you.