We went in search of a camel caravan in Chad!
We went in search of a camel caravan in Chad!
Chad is one of those countries about which most of us know practically nothing, except that it's located in the middle of the Sahara Desert and that it's one of the least developed countries in the world. Beyond that, we all know very little. This applies to Chad, but also to many other countries in the world, especially African ones.
Visiting Chad was never a priority for us, partly because we didn't know much about the country; however, we knew it's one of the last places in the world where camel salt caravans still exist, where tribes travel for weeks across the desert in search of this precious (but almost economically worthless) mineral.
Getting to Chad was difficult and very expensive. Visas are hard to obtain, flights are extremely expensive, and traveling within the country is a challenge. In this adventure, we didn't want to visit Chad as if we were taking an X-ray. We wanted the opportunity to do something unique in this country.
We gave up exploring the country in favor of having a single experience. An experience we know is unique, one we can never repeat, because it's disappearing.
We came to Chad to join a group of men who will spend two weeks on a camel caravan in search of salt. These men are Tubo Goran, one of the ethnic groups in northern Chad, whose society is very closed.
Along the way, we crossed a country without electricity, without paved roads, without phone or internet coverage. A country with thousands of inhabitants disconnected from the world, but connected to life, a life certainly different from what we are used to seeing even in Africa.
We stopped to buy turbans and blankets, as well as food, in two of Chad's largest cities. The cities seem like an accumulation of sand and dust, with roads where donkeys, camels, and horses compete for parking with rickshaws and pickup trucks from political parties. The cities are places of desolation.
In this Muslim part of the country, it's easier to find beer than Coca-Cola, although the locals hardly consume either. They come from Libya and travel hundreds of kilometers through the desert. They are on their way to Djamena, the capital of Chad.
It took us almost three days by jeep, crossing the country to near the border with Sudan, in search of the village where we would find the men. It was four days of driving, from sunrise to sunset. But we reached a village, completely invisible to the eyes of the world, but which would be our last contact with anything resembling a settlement.
There are no shops, cafes, or even anything to buy or sell. There is nothing but precarious dwellings and people covered in dust. Not even goats are sold, so we can cook and eat in the coming days. These were definitely signs that the next few days would be much harder than we had imagined.