Chad Extreme : Camel Trekking - Ennedi - Gerewol Festival

By invitation only If you have traveled with us before and you are very interested in this trip after reading the physical requirements please contact us.

Chad is still one of the safest countries to visit in northern Africa. Across the northern part spreads the vast and very sparsely populated Sahara desert while the south is dominated by grass and bush savannah which receive seasonal rain falls. The spectacular landscapes are as diverse as the colorful and traditional tribes.  The mix of large sand dunes, bizarre rock formations, volcanic mountains, grasslands, dense forests, swamps and lakes make this country one of the most beautiful in the northern half of Africa. Chad is simply magic.

Our expedition starts is the dusty capital N'Djamena, formerly Fort Lamy,  and is located on the southwestern border, adjacent to Cameroon. It has the charm of a typical frontiers town with a mix of old and new, dusty and paved roads and the stark contrast between modern office and hotel buildings rising above primitive old brick houses. From here we will drive for 3 days on lonely gravel and sand tracks across the Sahel and southern Sahara Desert to a small town in the western part of the Ennedi Plateau. Only a few hours after leaving the capital we will have left civilisation behind and enter a wild world that hasn't changed much over the past centuries. Fada is the largest town in the Ennedi region and the starting point for our Camel Expedition across one of the most beautiful parts of the Plateau. Ennedi, a World Heritage Site, with its stunning, bizarre rock formations, needles, arches and canyons is often being compared to the landscapes in Utah. Many consider the Ennedi Plateau the most beautiful part of the Sahara. We will ride on camels for the next 5 days, always leaving enough time for stops to photograph or just to enjoy the dramatic scenery around us. In the evenings we gather around a campfire while enjoying the silence of the desert and the brilliant night skies. There is no better way to explore this remote region than on traditional camelback which until today is the main means of transportation for the locals. On the fifth day we finish our camel expedition at one of the most spectacular landscapes in all of Chad, a long, deep canyon with a year round source of water where daily hundreds of camels come to drink. The view down from a cliff at the end of the canyon onto hundreds of camels filling the gorge truly is an overwhelming experience. During the following 6 days we will explore the natural wonders of Ennedi by Land Cruiser. The landscape is dominated by rock needles reminding one of Bryce Canyon and sandstone arches as spectacular as in Arches National Park in Utah. The nights are brilliant and clear, offering perfect conditions for astrophotography. Our next stop on the way south will be a Wadi where scimitar- horned oryx and critically endangered addax antelopes have been reintroduced in 2020. There we also will encounter the critically endangered dama gazelles. These are usually very shy and not so easy to approach as the antelopes. On our way back to N'Djamena we will travel across the Sahel where we will see scattered villages that are traditionally built out of reeds. The huts are organized in a circle surrounded by a brush fence to keep the life stock - mostly goats -safely inside over night. Arriving in N'Djamena we will look forward to a cold beer, a shower, swimming pool and comfortable rooms for one night before we depart for our last adventure, the visit of the Gerewol Festival.