Trip to Chad: Ennedi Desert and Ounianga Lakes, Gerewol Extension

13 - 30 March 2022 / TRIP COMPLETED

Travel-expedition through one of the most beautiful deserts on the planet and UNESCO World Heritage sites: dunes, rock formations, and hundreds of cave paintings that tell us about a more fertile Sahara with complex civilizations centuries ago. The route has a strong ethnographic and nature component and has been designed for adventurous travelers seeking authentic experiences in the heart of Africa.
Excursions in 4WD and on foot through the Ennedi Desert, the Ounianga lakes and tribal encounters. We will move in Toyota 4WD vehicles through this wild country. We will be accompanied by an expert Chadian anthropologist, a cook and local guides from the beginning to the end of the expedition.
For lovers of color and ancestral ceremonies, this trip offers an extension to the Mongo region (6h from N'Djamena) to attend a Gerewol ceremony.
Guide: Joan Riera, BA in Anthropology and Sociology from the University of Richmond (UK). He has worked in Africa since 2002 where he has lived and studied many tribal societies. His first ethnographic expedition to Chad was in 1998. Languages: Spanish, Catalan, English, French.

Highlights about the trip to Chad

Chad is a great destination, recommended for any traveler interested in natural spaces that are still unspoiled and not overcrowded by mass tourism that is reaching further and more frequently. Chad is a huge country, with a purely Saharan north and a scrubland south, with herds of elephants and scarified tribes. Chad has great potential and there are more and more travelers, exploring new deserts, new tribes and ceremonies. The lack of comfortable accommodation may have hold some people back, but this is changing due to social and political peace in a long-troubled country. At Last Places we have made a determined bet on Chad for its beauty, authenticity and unlimited potential.

Ennedi Desert, World Heritage Site

The Ennedi desert is the most beautiful and spectacular of the great Sahara, with large rock formations and full of impressive rock paintings and engravings. Ennedi is a natural sandstone masterpiece spanning 50,000 km2 of sculpted landscape punctuated by cliffs, natural arches, mushroom-shaped rocks, and giant labyrinths. Nicknamed "Eden in the Sahara", the reserve is located within the Ennedi Massif, a mountainous refuge.

Nomadic desert tribes and the Fulani tribe

Chad is a nomadic country with more than 50% of the population moving each year from north to south in search of water and pasture for dromedaries, cows, goats and sheep.
Tribes such as the Red Arabs and the Fulani stand out for their facial scarifications and complex hairstyles.

Ounianga Lakes, a World Heritage Site

The last great lakes of the Sahara are disappearing. Since 1970 they have lost up to 70% of their waters. The culture around the lakes and in the interior of their islands is fascinating.
The Ounianga Lakes are a series of 18 lakes, divided into three groups, in the Ennedi Region in the northeast of Chad, in the middle of the Sahara Desert and located in a basin between the Tibesti massifs, to the west, and Ennedi, to the east. The lakes were declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2012. They are located in a hot desert of extreme aridity and are of great beauty thanks to the variety of shapes, sizes and colors due to their chemical compositions. They form the remnants of a larger lake that occupied the basin some 5,000 to 15,000 years ago. The evaporation rate of the lakes is one of the highest in the world and, in addition, the region is one of the most arid. However, the lakes are kept with fresh water thanks to the fact that they are essentially fed by the fossil water table, created when the climate was not desert.