During the daytime in the Sahara Desert, you can't see the horizon, it's just a blanket of white, making it difficult to tell what's near or far. As you drive south from the oasis of Inshallah to the center of the desert, you will slowly feel a dark patch thickening in the distance and stretching out to the sides. Gradually, it becomes clearer and transforms into the boundless cliffs of the Ahaggar Mountains, Algeria's outermost barrier. Among Africa's many astonishing wonders, the Ahaggar is one of the strangest, looming like a huge island - roughly the size of France - in the middle of the Sahara's desert ocean.

Asparagus forest

Surrounded by cliffs on three sides, with a gaping hole in the west leading to Tanez Rufte, the Thirsty Country, it used to be a certain death sentence for anyone left in a caravan.

Ahaggar, though called a mountain range, is actually a granite plateau. In its center, called Atgar, volcanic magma piles up to 180 meters high in granite soil, forming basalt that breaks up into a large slag-like pile.

Additionally, up to 3,000 meters high, there is a spectacular array of rock towers, columns and needles made of another type of volcanic rock, rattlesnake. When the magma cools, it breaks up into long prismatic shapes, generally resembling organ pipes, while others resemble huge vertical bunches of asparagus. In the 770-kilometer square Atgar range *** there are 300 rock pillars, making this spectacle even more amazing. 2000 years and Ahaggar bond with the nomadic Tuareg people, called this place for the Asekram, meaning the end of the world.

The mountains are devoid of vegetation, and even the entire Ahaggar range has very little. Rainfall is sporadic and short-lived, and only in the craggy canyons, where it does not evaporate much, does it collect in pools, with some greenery growing nearby to bring a touch of coolness to the deep valleys. Such pools, though rare, are extremely important to the Tuaregs' livestock.

The Tuaregs of Ahaggar are strikingly tall and fair-skinned. Men wear veils from puberty onward, supposedly to prevent demons from entering the body through the mouth. They wore long swords, daggers and shields made of white antelope skin. Certain scholars believe they are the descendants of the mysterious warriors depicted on highland rock paintings who came south in force from Libya 1,000 years ago BC. Their name, Tuareg, is an Arabic word meaning "forsaken by God" because they were late adopters of Islam and did not follow the strict rules of the religion. The women of the tribe do not wear the veil when they go out, and are authorized to handle household chores.