Page 11 - Traveling 71 eng

AUTHORS’ JOURNEYS
For centuries, before GPS and before
borders, white gold crossed the Sa-
hara in silence. These were salt cara-
vans setting out from Idjil, in northern
Mauritania, bound for the markets of
the Sahel. Hundreds of camels, wee-
ks on the march, guides reading the
desert like a book. Today, that for-
gotten route can be travelled once
more—not on humps, but in 4x4s, fo-
llowing the invisible tracks of a trade
that shaped civilizations.
The route crosses a wild landscape:
stone plains, shifting dunes, dry pas-
ses that only open after rare storms.
Along the way, you discover wells
carved into rock that have given wa-
ter for centuries, villages where life is
still lived beneath nomad tents, and
landscapes that don’t seem real:
mountains of black sand, fossil
seas, oases where green explo-
des suddenly amid the dust.
There are no hotels or comforts.
You sleep under the stars or in
adobe houses where time pas-
ses more slowly. You eat whate-
ver is cooked over the fire. You
talk to those who still remember
the passing of the caravans. And
every stop is also an inner pau-
se. This is not a journey for post-
cards: it’s a physical, sensory,
spiritual experience. Luxury is
not what you seek—truth is. And
here, the truth appears without
adornment, like the clean hori-
zon of the desert.
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