A guelta is a pocket of water that survives in a desert canyon, and this one, in a gorge of the Ennedi Plateau, is the most famous in the Sahara. Camel herders bring their animals down the rock to drink and the water is stained black by their dung. Living in it are West African crocodiles, one of the very last colonies left in the Sahara, marooned here since the desert was green and the species ranged across almost all of it. The other holdout, on the Tagant Plateau in Mauritania, is thought to have died out around 1996, which leaves this pool carrying a population that has nowhere else to go. Getting there is a roughly four-day drive by 4x4 from N’Djamena with no paved road, southeast of Fada, which is part of why the crocodiles are still there.
Ennedi Plateau, Chad
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