ALGERIA: TASSILI, FADNOUN PLATEAU; LANDSCAPE, ROCK ART & PREHISTORY, AUTUMN 2008, SPRING 2009 - 18 DAYS

SAMPLE ROUTE

This tour is an exploratory tour and begins at IN AMENAS.  After a night’s stopover in In Amenas, we will refuel and restock with supplies. We will head generally southwards by road (N3) approaching the TASSILI from the north.

We will spend a little time in ERG BOURARHET before continuing southwards to ILLIZI.  At HASSI BEDJEDJENE we will follow the road south to ILLIZI.  

We follow this track until we reach the OUED TEKHAMMET wadi approximate midway between Illizi and HASSI IN AKEOUET (where it crosses the road, approx 30-40 kms along the earthern track) and explore this area as far as we can, as there is a chance that we might well find unexplored (or undiscovered?) rock art sites in this area, south (the wadi becomes the OUED IMIRHOU).

Looking back northwards this wadi is called OUED TEKHAMMET, and southwards the OUED IMIRHOU.

This whole area is the FADNOUN PLATEAU (Tassili-n-Ajjer).  There are a number of earthen tracks that can be followed, and we will be backtracking to the road after following wadis, and use it as our orientation guide.

We turn back to ILLIZI where we refuel and restock, and then join an earthen track to AIN EL HADJADJ (turning right or east, at the junction just south of ILLIZI). EL HADJADJ (Djebel Tahinaouine) is an abandoned well where we will ‘wild’ camp for up to 4 nights (5 days) exploring the Fadnoun Plateau escarpment (Tassili-n-Ajjer) from its northermost south- facing side.  There are two principal smaller wadis to explore (OUED EHANE and OUED AMARHOU) before we arrive at EL HADJADJ.

The main wadi (OUED SAMENE) might provide an interesting diversion, it begins way up in the Tassili, as do the others, and consists of two wadis the OUED AMARHOU and the OUED SAMENE that converge on the piste/ISAOUANE-N-IRARRAREN before the ERG ISSAOUANE proper.  The wadi exploration will take us a little deeper into the northern Tassili allowing us to explore the massifs at either side of the Oueds.

We will need then to backtrack to the earthern track that will take us westward back to Illizi.

Before arriving in Illizi we will take another detour along another Wadi, the OUED OURET to explore the area for rock art sites, as there are rock art sites recorded here just south of Illizi in this area, just before we go up onto the Plateau. Again we will explore this oued as far as we can before returning to the earthen road. 

From our base in the Illizi area we will be able to explore this area more fully before proceeding to the second of the recorded (published) rock engravings site we will visit on this trip. We will spend some time visiting other rock art sites before returning to Illizi and to In Amenas for our return flights.