My experiences in the Chad desert in tents in quite extreme conditions. I don’t know how to start. I only know that she has no memory, the daughter of Africa. He accepts everyone, but lets back only the one he wants. After each awakening is different. Memory is a limitation. We are like this because of the memory in our DNA. Sahara.
There are no outlines for her. An ocean without waves. A forest without trees. Land without roads. That’s her. The person who has passed through it leaves with deep scratches in the soul that will never heal, fortunately. He already carries the change within him. Food and water shortages are a trial. The sun is the breath of God. The local tribes live on her mercy, mercy and grains of sand in their mouths. Sahara. Whatever I tell you about her won’t be true.
My 15 days, which flew by in an instant, are just a conversation forbidden to the Western mentality, with my forgotten nomadic nature.
What is there in Chad
I was often asked before I left. I don’t know, I answered embarrassed and I don’t want to know. I want to experience it. When asked what they believe, the local people answer – we are 50% Christians, 50% Muslims and 100% animists/ they believe that nature has a spirit and it is an expression of the divine/.
Sahara – the desert without memory. Meditation, jumping into the afterlife, portal to other worlds. A river without banks. Road. Enlightenment. Wrinkles on the forehead. That’s her. In northeastern Chad is the Enedi Plateau, which has no analogue. Here, giants came to us from another dimension millions of years ago, as if patiently and unsuccessfully waiting for us to wise up. In a territory like Bulgaria, you can see extinct volcanoes, the bottom of the sea, dunes and lonely rocks as a result of erosion.
Labyrinth – that’s the name of one part of this natural phenomenon where I spent the night. You enter and get lost. I sleep in the tent and dream of getting lost and never find my unhealthy thoughts again. Something more. Couldn’t the human race get lost here and find a reason to start over? Enedi is a real labyrinth for the souls of its visitors. In its eastern part to the border with Sudan, the savannahs are picturesque corners of paradise, still spared from human intervention.
The western one flows smoothly into a shapeless desert that wants nothing and swallows you inexorably. I admire the proud nomads riding their camels. They confidently plow the endless expanse along the invisible paths of their ancestors, with a smile and contentment that I can only dream of. For them, camels, sheep, cows, goats are everything – their assets, bank accounts, status. They live for millennia without a social security number, a passport and a birth certificate.
Meeting them, I get the heretical thought that we are from two different worlds and one here is redundant/ mine of course/. Kadarit – that’s what a friend of mine called me recently. In Arabic it means kissed by fate. After this trip to Chad, I think he is absolutely right. For you from the Sahara was Marco Polo de Sarir.
Sahara’s photos are charming, but presented in such a way that it provokes thought – that’s talent! I am always particularly pleased to share experiences, not just to be in a certain place, but to note that I have been there. About the organization of the trip itself, overnight stays, food, lifestyle of the people I met, you can read in my next articles.