The Tuareg are the ultimate desert dwellers – adapted to surviving in harsh conditions. Mark Eveleigh journeys with them across the Algerian Sahara

For the past week our camels have been carrying us through one of the least hospitable regions on Earth.

We are in southern Algeria in what is, geographically and literally, the ‘dead centre’ of the Sahara. Only the Tuareg travel here with any real degree of security.

The word Tuareg comes from an Arabic word meaning ‘the God-forsaken people’ but they call themselves simply the Imouhar – the Free Men. Even today, the Tuareg are part of a nation that transcends international borders to spread through Algeria, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Libya. They are fair-skinned people – although burnished by sun and wind – who consider themselves white. Although Tuaregs are well respected in Algeria, their southern counterparts often complain bitterly about the ‘racist’ attitudes of black governments.

The Tuareg are unique in that among them it is the men who traditionally cover their faces, not the women. For the first couple of days of our acquaintance I never saw the faces of our four guides and it felt like a compliment when they began to let their guard down and I was able to converse with them (albeit in my stilted French) face to face.

The way in which the tagelmoust headdress is worn can denote tribe, maturity and status. The leader of our little group was Abdelkrim of the Dag Rali Tuaregs and he showed me how to wind the three-metre strip of cloth around my head in such a way that it seemed to set up a very effective circulation of cooling air. On formal occasions a Tuareg will wear a tagelmoust of eight metres and set it off with the indigo-dyed robes that stain the skin and give his people their other name – the blue men of the desert.

Much has been written about the nobility of the Tuareg and the code of honour by which they live. The explorer Robin Hanbury-Tenison made several trips in the central Sahara and he noted, in Worlds Within: Reflections in the Sand, that ‘travelling with the Tuareg is like being one of a group of medieval knights.’ Or perhaps Samurai. They share similar warrior codes and a tea ceremony that is central to their social life. Three thimble-sized glasses of heart-thumpingly sweet mint-tea must be drunk at each sitting. The Tuareg say that the first bitter cup is ‘as harsh as death’, the second ‘as sweet as life’, and the third ‘as light as love’.

We slept under the countless Saharan stars and woke with the first hint of a fiery sun – by which time the first of many pots of tea would be brewing. We would ride until midday and then search out a patch of shade under which to lay our mats.

Lunch was usually salad, refreshingly chilled by the simple use of a hessian saddlebag that was constantly moistened throughout the day.

In the afternoon we would ride for another couple of hours. If we camped near a well our guides would water the camels and refill the guerbas (water-carriers made of entire goat skins), while we took turns to bathe. For three days there was no water for bathing at all. In the evening we would eat a hearty meal of soup or stew, with the flat Tuareg loaves that Abdelsalam and Achmed, the cooks, baked in the sand under the fire. The bread is washed and scraped afterwards and is surprisingly free of grit. Once we bought a goat from a village and our guides slaughtered it in the halal way so that we could all join in the feast.

After dinner we would sit around the fire, sipping tea, and listening to the sound of our camels chewing acacia cud in the moonlight.

‘If I was travelling on an ugly, scrawny camel with a droopy hump,’ Abdelkrim said, ‘I would do almost anything to avoid passing even a single nomad tent. As it is, with these fine, strong white beasts – well, this is better than cruising around in a Mercedes with an arm out the window!’

The Tuareg are immensely proud of their camels. They are carefully neck-trained – like Western horses – so that you steer with the slightest motion of a single rein that runs under the neck and into the pierced nostril. The command ‘Ouit! Ouit!’ is enough to get going and at the slightest hint of ‘Shhhhhhh!’ the camel lies down – albeit with the characteristic jolt of a three-metre deckchair collapsing. Camel riding is surprisingly comfortable once you have adjusted to the rhythm. The gentle rocking motion and the soft swish-swish of the camels’ padded feet have a soothing effect that is somehow conducive to lazy contemplation in a way that horseback travel rarely is.

As we travelled in a wide circle around the mighty tabletop of Aga Lela Mountain there were times when our sprawling caravan of eleven camels seemed to be just an insignificant dot on the desiccated landscape. Sometimes we stopped to look at ancient rock art, dating back perhaps 6,000 years and depicting a time in which the Sahara was forest and lush savannah on which elephants, rhinos and giraffes grazed.

Just the word ‘Sahara’, evocative as it is of the sigh of shifting sands, brings to mind an endless sea of rolling dunes, full of the romance of Beau Geste and TE Lawrence. But this is actually an immensely varied region and the Tuareg have as many terms to describe desert conditions as the Eskimos do for snow and ice. Our camels plodded through desolate, rolling tassili where jerboa scampered from bush to bush and we crossed the sandy wasteland of the Tenéré where Saharan hares would break from cover and go racing off over the plain. Even here, in the heart of the Sahara, we saw lush oases where generations had toiled to cultivate pomegranates, dates and figs and towards the end of our travels in Ahaggar National Park (a place that is 20 times bigger than Wales) we crossed mountain passes between peaks that rise to 3,000m.

Crossing a wide wadi riverbed one day Abdelkrim stopped and stared down at a jumble of faint camel tracks on the ground. A few words of Tamahak (the Tuareg language) passed between him and young Achmed, who suddenly turned and marched back in the direction from which we had come. Among the tangle left by a dozen camels Abdelkrim had recognised the tracks of a youngster that Achmed had lost near here several months before.
The camel has evolved perfectly for desert travel and the Tuareg have turned the beast into a formidable ally. A good camel can do anything between 80km and a 170km a day on nothing but a few shreds of spiky acacia. They will go for days without water and then drink 100 litres at a time. A camel can drink even the rankest of water and, if a Tuareg will bear the perceived stigma of riding a female, he will have a portable still that is capable of converting stagnant water into wholesome milk.

It is said that a Tuareg can live for nine days on nothing but three dates: he will eat a skin one day, the meat of a date the next and on the third he will suck a stone. On the tenth day, however, he will die. In the final desperate bid for life Tuaregs have been known to tie themselves to the tail of a camel and hope that they will eventually stumble on water.

This is remote frontier country and in many places the trail was dotted with graves. According to tradition, a wayfarer is buried where he falls and a perfectly good campsite is often made uninhabitable by the grave of a luckless nomad. Perhaps the only things that a Tuareg truly fears are the hosts of mischievous – and often downright diabolical – djinns that haunt the desert nights. Unexpected firelight on the horizon, the fearless stare of a hungry jackal or even a piece of acacia dropping on a windless night can be reason enough to break camp and move to a less threatening area.

Many Tuareg wear a sacred grigri charm (usually a leather pouch containing verses of the Koran) to protect them from these spirits and from snakes and scorpions. Even the tiny sand-coloured scorpions might put a man in a fever for two days, but many Tuareg consider that they have partial immunity from these. Tuareg mothers put a dab of scorpion poison on their nipples when they are breastfeeding as a form of vaccine for their babies.

The old ways and traditions of the Tuareg are still alive and well and, unusually, youngsters seem to have retained the will to live up to the code of their forefathers. There are few things a Tuareg would rather do than make a journey with his camels, but a well-known maxim has it that in this day and age ‘there can be no nomadism without tourism and no tourism without nomadism’.

Algeria has long been known to French adventure travellers. Now a few Tuareg-run operations – specifically in Tamanrasset, gateway to the Sahara – are attracting international tourists from other areas. Recent bombings in Algiers have had a damaging effect on tourism in the desert, yet Algeria is almost 10 times the size of the UK and the distance from the capital to Tamanrasset is about the same as that from London to Algiers. As the Tuareg point out, little of what happens in the capital is likely to have any effect on life among the Free Men.

Many hope that growing tourism in the Algerian Sahara will provide the source of income that will allow a new generation of Free Men to follow the Tuareg path.

Getting there
Global Village offers return tickets from London to Algiers for £344 ($675). Air Algeria connects Algiers with Tamanrasset for £228 return.
www.gvillage.co.uk

When and how to go
The best time to travel in the central Sahara is the winter months of October to May. Specialist trekking operator MK Tramping is working with local Tuareg operators to organise tours with camel caravans and 4×4 convoys around the central Sahara from £1,460 (including return flight from Algiers).
www.mktramping.pl

Security
In recent years Algerian tourism has suffered at the hands of fanatics and isolationists. There were bombings in the capital in April 2007 and Algiers – once seen as the Paris of Africa – is only now beginning to attract tourists again. Even in parts of the city where a few years ago it would have been considered dangerous for a foreigner to set foot, you are greeted with smiling faces and hospitality that is rarely seen across the water in Europe. In cafés old men insist on paying for your tea and in the markets traders offer a handful of dates as welcoming gift and wish you a happy stay.

Banditry and smuggling are not unknown in the south – you should travel with a reputable operator and an Algerian guide is compulsory.

Liberté Tours can arrange tours and accommodation in and around Algiers.

liberte_tours@yahoo.fr.