This extraordinary desert country has long been difficult for tourists to visit. That’s all changing

By Angela Dansby, CNN

Tassili n’Ajjer National Park, Algeria (CNN) — “Labès?” (‘OK?”) asks Baba Atanof as a tourist struggles to get her leg over a large rock on a steep ascent in the Algerian Sahara Desert. Fighting jelly legs and vertigo, she can barely answer.

This desert makes up 83% of Africa’s largest country. It’s the focus of a government master plan for tourism development by 2030 that aims to make Algeria a major tourist destination after decades of self-reliance post-French colonialism, which ended in 1962.

Atanof takes the woman’s camera bag — he’s already carrying her small backpack. With nothing weighing her down, plus a push upwards, she becomes sure-footed again.

Meanwhile, 20 donkeys carry extensive camping gear and supplies for a dozen people without faltering. There are four tourists and eight staff, including guides, cooks and shepherds.

In worn-out sneakers, a chèche (head-and-face scarf for Touareg men) and daraa (long, loose gown), topped with his own backpack and a large solar power bank, Atanof stabilizes the tourist.

The 57-year-old father (“baba” in Arabic) of seven has made this challenging climb many times as a guide for 30 years. As a Touareg — a person of Berber origin, traditionally a nomadic pastoralist, who principally lives in the Sahara Desert — he can navigate the challenging, vast terrain.

Atanof works for Touareg Voyages, an accredited travel agency that facilitates visas for international visitors to the Algerian desert.

In January 2023, the government introduced a visa-on-arrival program for all non-exempt foreign tourists traveling to the Sahara — essentially everyone except citizens of Mahgreb countries (five neighboring states), Malaysia and Seychelles.

That December saw the launch of an Air Algerie flight between Paris and the oasis town of Djanet.

Once challenging to obtain, visas of up to 30 days are now practically guaranteed and visitors pay the relevant fees ($38 to $376, depending on length of stay) upon arrival.

Tourism is increasing significantly as a result. In 2023, Algeria had an all-time record of nearly 3.3 million tourists, including almost 2.2 million foreigners — a year-on-year increase of 44% and 65% respectively, according to the Algerian Ministry of Tourism and Handicrafts.

The government wants to increase the number of international visitors to 12 million by 2030, according to Reuters. It’s produced a roadmap that includes a Tourism Development Master Plan 2030 aimed at enhancing the quality of tourism services and infrastructure and significantly increasing investment and hotel capacity.

There are reportedly also plans to strengthen connections with various European capitals, particularly for visiting the desert.

Forests of rock

Atanof leads the tourists to the top of Tassili n’Ajjer National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site filled with giant, sandstone “sculptures” by Mother Nature — “forests of rock” eroded over seven million years.

Located near Djanet in the southeast of the country, the nearly 50,000-square-mile park is like a moonscape on a high plateau at altitudes of 4,600 to 6,600 feet.

Among these rock formations are an estimated 15,000 prehistoric paintings and engravings dating from 10,000-750 BCE. Atanof is one of the few people who knows where they are.

The Algerian Ministry of Tourism and Handicrafts reckons this might be the world’s largest open-air museum — a place where concave rock bases were “canvases” for paintings made of natural pigments like red and yellow ocher.

They depict humans in everyday life and ceremonies such as hunting and dancing, as well as animals, including cattle, giraffes and camels, represented over five stylistic and chronological periods.

Those are Kel Essuf (over 9,875 years old, the oldest form of engraved anthropomorphic rock art in the area), Round Head (7,575-4,575 years ago), Bovidian (6,575-4,575 years ago, depicting cattle and herdsmen), Caballine (3,575-2,075 years ago, known for its representations of horses) and Cameline (from 750 BCE, famous for its depictions of camels).

In the abundant rock sculptures, the visitors see all kinds of objects. Atanof jumps on a rock shaped like a gymnastic vault and pretends to ride a motorcycle, beckoning someone to jump on the back.

Later he points out black fossils estimated to be a million years old on shards of red rock, and shows how colored stones can be pulverized into pigments. “Make-up,” he jokes, streaking some on the tourists’ cheeks.

The quest to see this prehistoric art involves an extraordinary adventure: a trek of about 75 miles across the craggy plateau where there is nothing but nature.

In other words, it’s a week without a shower, toilet, electricity, phone reception (though the guides carry a satellite phone for emergencies), Wi-Fi, media and most 21st-century comforts.

These tourists think of it as a “desert spa,” they say, with daily exercise, healthy food, no alcohol, pure air, serenity and plenty of sleep. They aptly don custom T-shirts with the phrase: “It’s all about the journey.”

“The people who live in the desert have good health,” notes their other guide Sidi Baika, who grew up in a tent as a Touareg but now lives in a house in a desert town, working as a meteorological engineer at a global atmospheric watch station.

“The life of nomads is very simple and healthy — better than the town,” he says. On this trip “I am returning to my primitive life … It’s a very beautiful feeling.”

‘Sweet like love’

Wholesome meals are prepared by a professional cook with the help of a gas stovetop in a cardboard box. There are campfires and, at night, flashlights and headlamps.

Fresh breads are even baked with hot coals. Every lunch and dinner ends with three cups of tea per person: the first “hard like life,” the second “sweet like love” and the third “light like death,” as the Touaregs say.

A dedicated tea-maker ceremoniously mixes green tea with powdered sugar, pouring it back and forth from the teapot to a metal cylinder until it’s well blended and frothy (the froth makes it easy to remove any wayward sand).

“No tea, big problem,” says Baika, who explains that teatime is for storytelling — part of the Touareg oral culture. “Tea is very important in the desert. News is spread from person to person over tea around a fire,” he says.

Baika shares several stories, including about “jinn” (Arabic for “genies”), invisible spirits believed to do bad or good.

The tourists move close to the fire to try to keep warm — it’s February, and winter desert temperatures drop from an average of 60 F (15.5 C) by day to freezing at night.

They pull wool blankets over themselves as he opens an offline stargazing app on his phone to show constellations in the clear starscape.

Touaregs traditionally use the stars and sun to navigate, and time to measure distance.
Based on the hours of walking, Baika estimates they’ve gotten as close as 30 miles from the Libyan border on this trip.

Security and operations along this border are being augmented by new customs agreements between Algeria and Libya.

The Algerian government has also made recent efforts to secure borders with other neighbors: Tunisia, Niger, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco and Western Sahara territory. These are among several actions that have positioned Algeria — which now views tourism as an imperative for sustainable development — to slowly open up to the world.

“In the desert, you have more time… with yourself, with your mind,” Baika says. “In one week, you can review all of your life.”

The Touaregs on the journey have an inherent sense of peace. They are never annoyed or stressed and speak softly, philosophically and humorously. The visitors are completely unplugged in another world. There is not a car, building or sign of modern civilization in sight except for the brief passing of a few other tourists.

Trees older than time

Tassili n’Ajjer has spiritual and cultural significance for Touaregs. It contains endangered Saharan cypress trees that are more than 4,000 years old, says Baika, as well as medicinal plants and other organic materials used to treat a variety of ailments. (Who knew that steam from dried camel poop helps a cold?!) Sefar, a stunning part of Tassili that the group visits, even means “medicine” in the Touareg language Tamahaq.

To the visitors’ surprise, there is a virtual pharmacy in plants, plus a few freshwater ponds and even rain one night in the dry winter. “It’s a myth that the desert has no water,” Baika says. “If that were the case, nothing could live here. But it only rains a total of five days a year.”

The Algerian Sahara is also home to several animals like the desert fox, wild sheep, jackal and gazelle. Their footprints prove it. But the group only sees donkeys and birds, whose sounds are amplified by the otherwise silent terrain.

Every sunrise, the tourists hear the donkeys slowly return to the campsite from overnight in a pasture as well as the beautiful singing of Muslim prayers by the Touaregs.

They become acutely aware of sounds: the sides of tents flapping in the wind, popping of steaming vegetables, crackling of fires and the whistling of air running through holes in their aluminum walking sticks. They also become attuned to silence and the power of non-verbal communication.

“If you look for peace and want to take rest for your mind, from your stress, you go to the desert,” Baika says. “It’s a really magical place. Every time you travel there, you discover something new.”

A ‘magical place’

That’s true throughout Algeria, which has remnants from several civilizations over the centuries from Neolithic, Numidian (Berber) and Roman to Arab, Ottoman and French.

Its northern coastal strip, the Tell, includes the port capital Algiers, Mediterranean beaches, vineyards, mountains — and abundant Roman ruins, including the UNESCO-listed archeological sites Djémila, Timgad and Tipasa, which have spectacularly well preserved ancient Roman cities.

South of the Tell lies the Saharan Atlas mountain range and oases. The rest of the country is the Sahara Desert with lunar and volcanic landscapes, stony plains and ergs (“fields” of sand dunes).

After descending a steep gorge leaving Tassili, monster trucks drive the tourists to the sand “sea” of Erg Admer, where they walk upon golden dunes of epic proportions. Three sandstone inselbergs (isolated mountains) rise high on flat sand — one has prehistoric etchings of cows. The various shades of chèches in the group and Baika’s bright blue daraa contrast against the beige rocks and sand.

The visitors see each other on top of dunes — mere dots among infinite grains of sand rippled by wind — and realize how small they are in the magnificence of nature.
As streaks of sunlight diffuse over the ethereal landscape, from the top of the highest dune at least 300 feet up, one says, “Salam alaikum” (“peace be upon you” in Arabic).

Beyond its majestic sights, the desert’s magic comes from living simply and simply being. In fact, it is all about the journey.

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