The Grand Erg Oriental at Altitude

Of adventure trips in Tunisia many have been made and many more will follow, and this forces us to renew the routes each time, trying to make every trip unique.

This year Rollers Adventures — "organisation and assistance for Saharan adventure travel" run by Claudio and Margherita — organised a fine adventure, unique of its kind, called "Tunisia at Altitude"; the peculiarity of this trip was in fact reaching the highest dune of the Tunisian Grand Erg Oriental, which measures 420 metres at its summit, and setting up all the bivouacs on sand at altitudes above 350 metres.

A special trip, where the easy options of sandy valleys or interdune corridors were never sought, but simply tracing a decisive straight line from South to North, keeping the Algerian border at an average distance of 1000 metres.

The Grand Erg Oriental is therefore tackled by us over the largest dune chains.

The route includes a quick descent towards the troglodyte village of Matmata, where we'll spend the night, in its thousand-year-old hotel carved into the heart of the mountain. The following day, transfer to Tataouine to take care of the military formalities that grant us access to the great Sahara.

Once the increasingly complicated bureaucratic procedures are dealt with, in the afternoon we manage to leave the asphalt; the compass needles now point firmly South.

We cover about fifty kilometres and decide to set up the first bivouac. In the evening, around the campfire, we give the maps a check, because the following day we'll have to enter the Grand Erg Oriental, where it will be indispensable to know and follow perfectly the route that begins our travel project… Tunisia at Altitude.

The next morning Margherita, group leader of Rollers Adventures, gives the wake-up call; timidly everyone comes out of the tents. Among us there are also some Sahara newcomers, and you notice it right at the first waking: they have a bewildered and ecstatic expression at the same time. Having had breakfast and tidied up the camp, we set off towards the Tjaret Oil Station to top up with fuel — yes, because from Tjaret onwards, in fact, we'll have no other chance to get the precious liquid until the end of the route. Once past Tjaret, after a few kilometres, we leave the safe track to head into the sands, so we deflate the tyres. Thus begins what then turned out to be one of the greatest challenges: the straight-line route along the Algerian border.

The first difficulty is presented by the Owed Tjaret, an underground river that cuts clean across our route; the surface, at alternating stretches, can be very damp and the vehicles risk getting stuck in the grip of the wet sand. To avoid risks we decide to skirt the oued, look for the best point to cross it, reach the narrowest stretch, which measures about 100 metres, and try to cross… a big run-up and it's done, we reach a dry area in the very middle of the Owed Tjaret. We press on undaunted and gain the opposite bank; one after another all the vehicles cross the damp zone and we continue our approach to the great dunes.

The most comfortable interdune corridors seem to call to us, but we (only for this particular trip) deaf to the easy options, head towards the largest dune chains that overlook Algeria. Here the nature that a little earlier had allowed us to decide the route becomes Sovereign and Powerful; the human and mechanical effort is considerable, but in the evening the first camp at 350 metres repays us for the effort.

On the summit of these dunes, even those who understand the trip only from a motoring point of view cannot help but be moved by the scenery the Desert offers them. At this particular point, each of us feels free — free to decipher the images, the play of light and shadow of dawn and sunset, free to count shooting stars, but above all free to listen, in total silence, to Nature.

The days follow one another, the steep climbs offset by the steep descents; we reach an enormous depression, almost as big as a football pitch. At the bottom, sheltered by the southern side, we see numerous medium-sized holes in the ground: they are Fennek dens. We decide not to pass through so as not to contaminate this natural habitat, so we'll divert by a few hundred metres. Before diverting, though, we choose to switch off the engines and get out of the cars to watch… the wait is rewarded: after about half an hour, here are the boldest ones coming out of the dens. They grant themselves just a few moments, hardly the time to capture them on our cameras; in fact they immediately notice our presence and dash back into their safe refuges at full speed. We set off again.

Evening is falling; we set up the fourth high-altitude bivouac. This camp, renamed by us Campo Panorama, is the highest of all those we'll make. It's a flat terrace, big enough to hold about ten vehicles, at 380 metres of altitude. It's a unique place; from here you enjoy an incredible panorama. It's not easy to find a spot like this to camp, and it's a secret we jealously guard.

In the morning, the wind has erased every trace of our passing; like a miraculous medicine it has healed the wounds inflicted by our tyres on the virgin sand, turning back the hands of the desert's clock to the previous day, as if we had never passed… … and as if we came from nowhere, we move away with the secret of Campo Panorama… …

Today we'll reach the apex of our trip: we'll climb the Great Dune. We see it in the distance, more imposing than ever; we draw near and begin to climb. The sand is good, compact, and will stay that way all morning. We reach the highest crest; on the summit the space is just enough for everyone; we check the maps and the altimeter confirms it: we're on the roof of the Tunisian Grand Erg Oriental at 420 metres. Below us are hundreds of metres of sand, billions of harmless silicon grains that, united by history, pushed and shaped by the wind, are the protagonists of this challenge of ours.

We continue North; here the Erg descends gently, turning into a fast sandy track that leads to the El Borma oil base, from where, once refuelled, we'll make our way towards Douz, where we'll spend a couple of days resting, and finally towards Tunis, still many hundreds of km away, for the return to Italy.