A definite highlight of camping in the Hoggar Mountains in the Sahara region was witnessing the sunrises and sunsets. I'm usually up early so I caught every sunrise. I also discovered the trick that when it's coming up on the side of a mountain then you can walk back and forth in the mountain's shadow to experience infinite sunrises.
the moon hasn't set yet
I won't bore you with the back and forth I did to capture many more of these pics. Here's just two.
Last night's dinner spot stays up to be the breakfast spot. Keep the tourists busy... we take an after breakfast hike every morning after we take down our tents so the driver and cook have time to tear down the rest of the camp and pack it all up. They drive to catch up with us and then we continue to the next place.
They found a big tree to setup lunch in the shade.
Here's the first of the Saharan rock art that we were shown. There weren't signs or anything to show their authenticity or age. There's supposed to be over 15,000 individual pieces of artwork in Tassili n'Ajjer near Djanet, so these could all be legit and not just something done a few decades ago for the tourists.
This Tuareg Berber writing in Tifinagh script on a nearby rock made us wonder about the true age of the rest of the drawings. There were no markers or signs about the site. We were disconnected from the world at the time and all I could do was get our GPS coordinates to try to look it up later. The Internet yields no information because we were essentially nowhere as far as I can tell.
These carvings looked older than the ones we saw earlier, but it's not an identifiable place on Google Maps. Follow that link and that's where we were. It's essentially nowhere as far as tourism on the Internet knows. The locals know about these places and Tuareg nomads are still wandering around these areas. People live in the oddest places and endure harsh living conditions. Why stay? There's a rugged beauty to it all, but I can't see making this environment my home.
this carving was twice as tall as a person
Our first night had other tour groups and campers in the same area near us. This dinner and campgrounds had no other tourists around as far as we could see.
Another dinner in the dark under all of the stars of the universe and then an exhausted sleep as the warm day turned towards freezing temperatures...
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