!!!Chad-3: South Sahara. Sands and Oases

Photos by [Dmitry Moiseenko|https://www.facebook.com/dmitry.moiseenko],
member of the [AirPano Team|Geography/About/Consortium/AirPano,_Team] that is a member of the [global-geography Consortium|Geography/About/Consortium]. \\

14 October 2020

with kind permission of [AirPano|http://www.AirPano.com]

The largest hot desert in the world, the Sahara, covers large parts of
Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Mali and many other African countries —
nearly a dozen in total. To the south, there is the country of Chad.
Several AirPano tours have already been dedicated to the natural beauty
of this country and now we invite you to have a look at landscapes of
its famous desert!

[{Image src='01_Chad3.jpg' caption='Road to Sahara\\© [AirPano|https://www.AirPano.com]' alt='' width='900' popup='false'}]

Rocky areas alternate with sand mounds occasionally covered by plants
such as Tamarix, Acacia or Alhagi. Huge sand dunes form a kind of a sea
with sand whirling in round, star-like, cross-sectional and crescent
"waves".

[{Image src='02_Chad3.jpg' caption='Chad. South Sahara. Sands and Oases\\© [AirPano|https://www.AirPano.com]' alt='' width='900' popup='false'}]

Oases form a bright contrast to the desert silence. The most known one
is the oasis around the Lakes of Ounianga. The shores are covered by
palm groves, the waters are full of fish and local people grow delicious
fruits and vegetables irrigated by the water taken from the lake.

Video by Andrey Andreev

18 Ounianga Lakes covering around 20 km² were inscribed as a UNESCO
World Heritage Site for its uniqueness. Some of the lakes are fresh,
others are saline or hypersaline. These lakes form a hydrological
system, replenish their supplies from groundwater sources and feed off
each other.

[{Image src='03_Chad3.jpg' caption='Chad. South Sahara. Sands and Oases\\© [AirPano|https://www.AirPano.com]' alt='' width='900' popup='false'}]

The largest of the group, Lake Yoa, covers an area of 3.5 km² and is 27
meters deep. Its highly saline waters only sustain algae and some
microorganisms. Its surface evaporates a 6-meter layer of water annually
but its "neighbours" manage to restore this amount of water.

[{Image src='04_Chad3.jpg' caption='Chad. South Sahara. Sands and Oases\\© [AirPano|https://www.AirPano.com]' alt='' width='900' popup='false'}]

There are some man-made landmarks in this part of the desert, too, and
rather unusual ones. In the 1970s and 1980s, these lands were the
subject of military operations between Chad and Libya. The army of
Gaddafi possessed modern soviet weapons of that time, such as the
helicopter Mil Mi-24, fighter aircraft MiG-23, air defence complexes,
T-55 main battle tanks and BMP-1. Chad, in its turn, was supplied by
France and creative Frenchmen found the way to reduce the expenses.
Instead of tanks, they supplied Toyota Hilux pickups. This car gave the
name to the final stage of the conflict: the Toyota War. An incredibly
manoeuvrable pickup truck was actively used by the Chadian troops for
rapid movement on sand dunes while the body was equipped with an
anti-tank gun. Awkward tanks of the Libyans couldn't control the
movements of pickups and finally, the tanks were destroyed.

[{Image src='05_Chad3.jpg' caption='Soviet tanks in the sands of the Sahara\\© [AirPano|https://www.AirPano.com]' alt='' width='900' popup='false'}]

The war ended in 1987 and tanks remained in the sands forever. This kind
of an open-air museum is the reminder of the military actions of the
past.

[{Image src='06_Chad3.jpg' caption='Soviet tanks in the sands of the Sahara\\© [AirPano|https://www.AirPano.com]' alt='' width='900' popup='false'}]

We started telling you the story about the Sahara with a reference to
its hot climate. Most of the desert has more than 3,500 hours of
sunshine per year and it's not just sunshine but furious burning rays.
Just to compare: the average annual sunshine hours in Moscow is 1,731,
in New York — 2,680. In the Chadian Sahara, there are areas with less
than 30 mm of annual precipitation and an average temperature of
+35...+42 °C. This is a very uncomfortable place for travelling but this
AirPano virtual tour will allow you to visit this unusual corner of our
planet with no inconveniences!

[{Image src='07_Chad3.jpg' caption='Chad. South Sahara. Sands and Oases\\© [AirPano|https://www.AirPano.com]' alt='' width='900' popup='false'}]

\\ \\
[11 panoramas of Chad-3: South Sahara|Geography/Africa/Chad/Pictures/Chad-3]

[{SET customtitle='Chad-3: South Sahara (AP)'}]












[{Metadata Suchbegriff=' ' Kontrolle='Nein'}]