Crossing Africa: An Unexpected Route
This passage over
Africa was different, as the plane veered east, deviating from the typical
western route over France and Spain. We headed towards Germany, Switzerland,
and Italy, leaving Genoa to the east to cross the Ligurian Sea, with the
islands of Corsica, France and Sardinia (Sardegna), Italy, also to the east,
before making landfall over Africa at Skikda, Algeria, a coastal city
whose port has been a gateway between Europe and Africa for centuries. Constantine, the
dramatic "City of Bridges" perched on a limestone plateau, shows
prominently on my map, but it lies much further west of our route.
Pretensions to
slumber never came, and one feature of the in-flight maps was missing: the
detailed "Flying over..." section that leaves me mesmerised for hours
on end. It offers snippets about places up to 250 kilometres away that I may
never visit, yet I remain intrigued by their histories, geography, culture, and
the people who have made those places their homes.
Above the Sahara
Soon, about four
hours into the flight, we were already over the Sahara Desert. I expected to
see an ocean of sand without form, stretching into the horizon, but I was in
for a surprise.
This place looked as
if it were once verdant, the land carved through as rivers sculpt landscapes,
as if Eden decided to relocate to the Amazon, took its goods, but left the
house bare. I have since learnt that this intuition was remarkably accurate:
the Sahara was indeed a green, fertile landscape during the African Humid Period
(approximately 11,000 to 5,000 years ago), supporting rivers, lakes, forests,
and diverse wildlife before orbital shifts and climate feedback mechanisms
transformed it into the desert we see today.
Yet a barren
landscape it is not. The circles that resembled cylindrical containers,
arranged in patterns clearly indicating human intervention, were in fact
irrigation systems in the desert, humanity's ingenious attempt to recreate what
nature once provided across the entire region.
I did not spot an
oasis from above anywhere from Algeria into Niger. This is a harsh place, where
daytime temperatures can soar to totally uninhabitable levels.
Settlements and
Landforms
My map showed named
settlements within 50 kilometres of our flight path: Djanet, known for its proximity
to the UNESCO-listed Tassili
n'Ajjer plateau with its ancient rock art; Ghat, a Tuareg town near
the Libyan border that has served as a trans-Saharan trade post for centuries;
and Tamanrasset, the
largest city in southern Algeria, as we flew towards Agadez in Niger, once a crucial
caravan centre and sultanate on the trans-Saharan trade routes.
I see alpine
landforms, but not of ice. These are gullies eroded by winds rather than water,
dunes drawn by the hand of nature, moving as if alive, and they surely are.
A Desert Redefined
A desert is more than
its definition. It offers another perspective: the presence of hardy species of
flora, fauna, and animal life that thrive in what we might consider impossible
conditions.
As we continued
south, the landscape gradually shifted. Flying over Nigeria, I caught sight of
place names that stirred something deep within me: Jos, the highland city built by
tin miners; Bukuru, where I
attended primary school; Rayfield, where we lived; and Vom, the veterinary
centre where we took a school trip. These are places emblematic of my
childhood, each one a marker of memory suspended between earth and sky.
Now, flying past
Douala, Cameroon, to catch a sight of the Gulf of Guinea, I realised something
striking: from over 30,000 feet, some nine kilometres in the sky, there had
been no clouds above the Sahara. Not a single wisp dipping its toes in that
vast expanse. I suspect I need a deeper understanding of the ecology of that
extraordinary place.
