Meet your guide, Virginie, at the Paris “Charles de Gaulle” airport and depart for a 3-hour flight to Djanet (a former military airbase in the middle of the desert). There you will be met by your Touareg guides, who will load your gear into the 4×4 and then set off on a 3-hour drive. The first 30 minutes is on a paved road, then we turn onto a track which leads into the Tadrart National Park, a UNESCO World Biosphere preserve. We stop for lunch in the shade of a hardy acacia tree and then have another transfer to the start of our first hike. A two-hour hike over a ridge leads us down to the campsite which the boys have set up for us in the lee of an enormous limestone escarpment. Dinner by campfire light.

A typical day: You open your eyes and wake to a clear, pale blue sky. There is no tent to obscure your views as you turn your head and take in the dramatic landscape of immense rock pillars that seem to grow out of the surrounding undulating dunes. The air is fresh, there is a slight breeze as you get out of your sleeping bag.  You have a half-litre of water with which to wash, so you wander off to find some privacy and do your ablutions. Instead of making like a bear in the woods, I guess you make like a jackal in the desert. Everyone eventually reconvenes around the breakfast fire where our cook Haled has stoked the fire and made some tea or coffee. Breakfast is toast, cereal and fruit. We then pack up our bedrolls and prepare for our morning hike. The air is quickly getting warmer so you change out of your fleece and into a T-shirt. Grab your backpack, water and camera, and follow Mohamed out of camp as he leads you on a morning of discovery. The desert is vast, but it is certainly not empty. Wadis (dried lake beds), rock caves, escarpments, and deep-water supplies lie hidden amongst the limestone rocks. Ancient paintings and engravings only appear when revealed by your guide. After a couple of hours of hiking, we arrive at the lunch stop that the cook and drivers have set up. They always manage to find a shady spot. The fire is going again and a welcome cup of tea is offered. Lunch can be salad, fruit, cheese, couscous, etc. After lunch we always enjoy a siesta. Some people fall asleep, others take the time to read a book or update their journal.

Depending on the day, we may have an hour transfer to the beginning of our late afternoon hike. Sundown is about 7 p.m. so the heat of the day is waning, and the light is magical as it plays off the soaring dunes whose colours range impossibly from gray to gold, to yellow, to orange. We often hike in bare feet up the dunes, the south faces are hot to warm while the north-facing sand is positively cold to the touch! We wind our way to the new campsite where we have time for a quick wash and a change into warm clothes. As the sun sets the temperature drops quickly. Soon we are all sporting long trousers, fleeces, and woolen hats, surmounted by headlamps. We gather around the fire where our Touareg guides prepare the meal while chatting amongst themselves. Dinner is always delicious, partly because the day’s exercise combined with the cool night air gives one a good appetite. We enjoy a small glass of the impeccably prepared and delicious tea that our Touareg hosts offer us after the meal. Now it is time for riddles and stories around the campfire, or music! The Touaregs are fabulous musicians. Moulay brings his 12-string lute with him and plays to himself and anyone else who wants to listen.  The other boys invariably lay down a percussion beat by clapping or beating on an upturned pot or empty water tank. Their melodic songs may well act as a lullaby. When it is time for bed you can find a good spot close to the fire or in the lee of the sheltering rocks, or you can wander out into the desert and plunk your mattress down and enjoy an unobstructed view of the heavens. And what a view it is. You have never seen so many stars in your life. You close your eyes and go to sleep, nestled in your warm sleeping bag.

Besides the stunning beauty of the desert landscapes, what really makes this trip so special are the local guides. The Touareg are a nomadic people who for centuries traded using camel caravans. Your guides continue to live as nomads, only now using 4x4s to ply the desert. They have a marvelous way about them. They love a good story or joke, do everything in the time it takes, with patience and efficiency. When they cross paths with another caravan smiles break out all around. Being with them around the campfire, hearing their stories, sharing their recipes, and listening to them sing, you get a glimpse into a totally different world. Everything is different, but the basics remain the same. Friendship and family are paramount. But I am getting carried away! They also look after us and lead us unerringly through the desert for a week with good humour and patience.

Mohamed, our hiking guide, knows the land like the back of his hand. He leads us to 10,000-year-old cave drawings and engravings from a time when the Tadrart was a temperate climate teeming with wildlife. Elephants, tigers, crocodiles, and giraffe were painted and engraved on the rock walls by the Touareg’s ancient ancestors.

Emerge from the desert. Stop at the hammam in Djanet for a wash before boarding your flight back to Paris (or, spend the night and fly out tomorrow morning).

Please note: Some details of the itinerary may change according to the departure date of your tour. Whenever we run a tour, we make discoveries. Sometimes they are good discoveries, like a wonderful new trattoria, and sometimes bad, like a trail has been washed away. Therefore, we sometimes change our itinerary to improve it by adding wonderful new elements or by removing something that does not work anymore. Rest assured; we always aim to provide you with the best possible experience. We will advise you of any changes to the original itinerary before departure.