Libya
In 2003, in the Christmas holidays, I travelled trough the Fezzan, a vast desert province covering Libya's south-western quarter. A major attraction of the Fezzan are the great sand seas, where off-road vehicles can race, dip and plunge across endless rolling dunes, some as much as 300m high. Hidden in the Ubari Sand Sea (Edeyen Ubari) are postcard-perfect desert oases with pools of clear water, surrounded by green palm trees.
Satellite Map
An illustrated and its neighboring countries shows the Sahara's diverse landscape 'from above' and reveals a diversity of land surface features, including ancient lava flows and volcanoes.
Jabal Akakus
The Akakus chain of mountains runs north-south for 250 km, starting from the area just west of Serdeles (Awinat) and finishing down at the Takharkhouri Pass. Geologically, the mountains of the Jabal Akakus are a continuation of the Tassili-n-Ajjer in neighboring Algeria.
GPS data
Check out a list of the nine . Libyan tour guide Jalal Azzabi has provided detailed GPS data.
Music
Listen to vocal music performed by our Libyan crew sitting around the campfire. (50 sec.) courtesy of Elisabeth Finger, Vienna.
Tour operator
This tour was organized by Hauser Exkursionen, Germany, and led by German tour guide Uwe Weimer and Libyan tour guide Jalal Azzabi.
Links
Jalal Azzabi, our local tour guide in Libya, has founded his own travel agency, Taziet Tours.
Libya Online - This site provides information about Libyan history, culture, geography, music, literature and sports.
Fezzan Rock Art - The 'Italian-Libyan Archaeological Mission in the Akakus and Messak' collects information on the region's extraordinary rock art.
Gallery: Libya - Fezzan 4WD Tour
The Fezzan has all the main desert features you can think of, from vast sand seas to rock plateaux, oases and eroded sandstone mountain massifs. Must-visits include the Jabal Akakus (aka Tadrart Akakus), the Messak Settafet, the Ubari and Murzuq dunes and the legendary oasis town of Ghadamès.
Gallery: Libya - Fezzan Rock Art
The rock paintings and carvings of the Jabal Akakus provide a unique record of life in the Sahara thousands of years ago. The empty, pebbly plateaux were once grassy savannah, grazed by elephants, giraffes and curvy-horned cattle. Some fine examples of prehistoric rock art can be found in the Wadi Teshuinat area.
Gallery: Libya - Leptis Magna & Sabratha
In Tripolitania, Libya's western province, the sprawling ruins of Roman Leptis Magna, near Khums, and Sabratha, halfway between Tripoli and the Tunisian border, are among the most extraordinary ancient sites in the Mediterranean. Leptis Magna was designated a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1982.