Sunrise On Africa's Peaks: Chad & Libya

The highest mountain in Libya, Bikku Bitti, is in one of the most remote, least accessible and least known parts of the Sahara Desert. This region was selected by NASA as the earthly region most similar to conditions on Mars. The area is unfit for human habitation and there are periods of 20 to 30 years with no rainfall. There is no permanent human habitation, no roads and no tracks – just the great open void.

Wars and conflicts have also played their part in keeping people away. Although Libya has recently

We encountered this snake

started opening up, southern Libya is still off limits, as is the Tibesti in northern Chad. This has created one of the biggest areas in Africa that foreigners are not officially allowed to visit.

My lifelong ambition is to summit the highest peak in each of the 54 African countries. I recently travelled 3615 km through the Sahara Desert, one of the harshest environments where water is always scarce, to become the first woman to summit this remote mountain. I was also the first African woman to summit Emi Koussi, the highest peak in Chad

Unexploded weaponry

The two mountains visited can easily be classified as some of the most difficult mountains to reach in Africa. There is very little infrastructure in Chad, communication is extremely difficult, and tourism is almost non-existent, but I managed to get the necessary permits to travel to the north with the assistance of a local guide. We encountered several minefields, unexploded weaponry, snakes and scorpions on our way to the mountains.

There are no roads in this part of the desert and of course, the locals do not use GPS equipment but always seem to know where they are going – after travelling for hours through a desert with little or no landmarks.

A Scorpion we found

To navigate through the desert and locate the highest peaks, I relied on GPS equipment sponsored by NavWorld, who supplied two Garmin Dakota GPS units for the trip. These units became very important when our team was split up due to a vehicle failure and the serviceable vehicle had to head back 180 km though the desert to the nearest town for spares.

This vehicle was then able to navigate back to the rest of our team stranded in the desert based on coordinates. The units were also very valuable in mapping the location of water resources and water rations which were left at strategic places and ensured that we could go back to known sources of water when necessary.

Our closest water was 750 km from the mountain

We had to push the vehicles several times

Any serious mechanical breakdown of both our vehicles would have left us stranded, so we carried basic spares and repair items for the vehicles, 600 ℓ of water as well as extra food rations to last two weeks, since surviving a walk to the nearest population would have been extremely unlikely. If something went wrong, it would have taken up to two weeks for help from N’djamena to reach us by land.

Because of my love for the mountains, I started a non-profit organisation in 2006 called Sunrise on Africa’s Peaks. The aim is to create environmental awareness amongst the

Sunset in the dessert

vulnerable children in Africa. Amongst other things, the organisation teaches children not to kill animals such as snakes, spiders, bats and scorpions, so I objected strongly after a local killed a scorpion. But in Chad more people die from scorpion bites than from malaria, and I realised afterwards that many in the western world are close to medical help, and are not in a position to judge people for the measures they take to stay safe in very remote areas.

I am passionate about Africa, prefer to use local transport and I feel privileged to have seen things few tourists experience. Being a woman, some of these experiences were even more exceptional. In the Sahara, the Toubou tribe do not allow women to mix with the men. Although I was not allowed to eat with them, I

Sunset

was allowed into their huts and could experience the interaction between the men. The fact that I was unable to use a drop of water to wash during the ten-day trip into Northern Chad was not a deterrent at all.

Bikku Bitti is located on the Dohone spur of the Tibesti Mountains in Southern Libya. From driving along the spur with views that could be out of the Avatar movie, to seeing the gentle locals in Chad praying in the desert with the sun setting behind them, no picture would ever able to genuinely capture the highlights of my travels.

Watching the millions of stars every night and even the constant wind across the desert left a lasting impression, and equally as beautiful was the experience of waking up in the desert to a breath taking sunrise.

Taking pictures

I have climbed the highest mountains in 31 African countries so far, and I normally get the guides involved with clean-ups of the mountains. In the desert, it was something else – burying the litter was not an option so I started collecting rubbish and handing it to the guide to burn after we had eaten. It took them five weeks to realise that the “crazy lady” would only get in the vehicle once all the rubbish in the campsite had been picked up and burned.

On top of the world

One of the scariest moments was when I was detained by the security police at the airport after they noticed that I was using a satellite phone – something that is illegal in Chad. Eventually the head of security, who could not speak a word of English, dropped me off at my hotel. Whilst driving there, he swerved left and right whilst showing me pictures of himself with VIPs on his camera. I thought it would be really tragic to die in a car accident in Chad before the seriously dangerous bit of the adventure started.

Once we were on our way up Emi Koussi, the highest peak in Chad, I was convinced my porter was going to die. Mahadi had a heart condition and we hiked alone for quite a bit. He was very stubborn and insisted on going to the top. I was petrified that he would have a heart attack while it was just the two of us.

Something that I have learned from my travels is that if you want to live your dream, you sometimes have to let go of your own ego. I met the kindest people, but learned that not everyone shares the same value system.

Follow your heart –even if your adventure does not make sense to anyone else