The crater of an extinct mosquitoes

The crater of an extinct mosquitoes

Wau-en-Namus is an extinct volcanic crater, which is far away in the Sahara desert in Libya. His name Wah-en-Namus (translated as "Crater Mosquito") he received because of its surrounding small lakes infested with mosquitoes.

Wau-en-Namus - dormant volcano surrounded by black sand.

Tells the traveler Borisov Nikolai: Today I was invited to a hammam traveler Borisov, who has several times been in the Sahara.Alexey, tell us about your experience. Alex: When I remember my trip to the Middle East and North Africa, the first thing comes to mind is the image of the desert. Indeed, most of the territory of these countries are in the desert, including the greatest of them - the Sahara. On it I'll tell you. "Lost World" - not one of whom wrote Conan Doyle, and existing in reality - is at the heart of the Sahara and is indicated on the map of Libya in Arabic script, emerging in the name of "Wow en-Namus". The road to it we started a thousand kilometers from the Mediterranean Sea in the oasis Temessa. Here the asphalt ends, hence we had to overcome 300 kilometers of emptiness - emptiness absolute, where there are no roads, no people, no animals or even plants. 

Can you imagine what is yet unknown to you over the planet. Ivan: And you're not kidding? And today you can get lost in the world? And it's so simple? Alex: Of course not. Venture on such a journey should prepare for the fact that you have to face the real dangers that await the traveler in the desert. Of course, those days when caravans crossing the Sahara, slowly move from oasis to oasis and leave behind a dead camel and the people are gone. Today's travelers are moved by jeep, enjoying the coolness of the air conditioners. And yet ... Anna: Journey to the modern machines, air-conditioned ... What kind of risks do you say? Alex: The main danger in these trips - a shortage of gasoline. Too heavy sands lead to excessive consumption of fuel. 

And if, disoriented, the machine skips past the oasis, gasoline is quickly coming to an end, it ends with water, and with it the life. Natasha: You're talking seriously? Alex: That's serious. Desert - is unknown. However, before going into this absolute void, tourists are sure to report to the police, and if the tourists do not come back for too long, the power, of course, will organize the search. However, finding lost in the wilderness of the car is not easy, believe me. And even if you are, then help comes too late. In January 2003, more recently, was killed in the Sahara racer Paris-Dakar rally. No, the desert requires a very serious preparation.

Very much in such trips depends on the conductors. Back in the ancient times, they were responsible for the safety of his head and the lives of travelers. It would seem that the times have changed. But no! So it is now, either with their "wards" guides safely back to the oasis, or with them will remain the same in the Sahara forever. Conductors do not work out just paid them dengi.Oni open a new world. They love the desert, and are doing everything to those whom they accompany, also fell in the Sahara. Most of the guides - whether Arabs or the Tuareg - the children of nomads were either of nomads. After all, until recently Bedouins made ​​up a significant part of the population of Libya, and go to a settled way of life, they have started only after the revolution of 1969. 

Yes, they like to live in cities, but at heart they are still the people of the desert, and every exit to the Sahara for them - a holiday. You will not believe me, but I also saw how they were transformed in preparation for a trip to the Sahara. 'll tell you about a trip to the mysterious Wow en-Namus. Most of the way to it passes through the endless plains covered with giant pebbles, large black stones on which, swaying from side to side, the car slowly creeps forward. It is hard to imagine a lifeless place. But the more of these black stones after striking a meeting with the "lost world". On the bright sky suddenly appears something like a shadow of a cloud. This is a blue-black, covered with lava dust slope behind it - open in the 200 meters deep. Opening from the edge of the slope form is difficult to describe in words, of him literally breathtaking. Wau en Namus - is the crater of an ancient volcano, covering the ten-oval lies in its crater valley. 

In this valley, on the yellow sand are three bright blue lake fringed belts four-meter cane. Between them scattered several smaller, miniature lakes ultramarine color, each of which is surrounded by a ring of snow-white salt. Next to them are two small lakes with water ... red, dazzling sparkling in the sun. The black edge of the crater is projected green palm and tamarisk trees. first impression of this witch landscape: this can not be real. But running a minute, and not a mirage dissipated - lakes are blue and red, the tops of palm trees and tamarisk swaying in the wind, and in the middle of the imposing towers, as guardian of the basalt, another small volcano. There are no clouds, no rain. Surface of the lake reflects the millennia even sunlight.

Area near the caldera is of great interest not only for geologists but also for historians and archaeologists. In this region, had traces of the ancient Nok culture, including very high quality items made ​​of iron. Wau-en-Namus - a popular tourist attraction, it annually visited by hundreds of guests from all over the world.

Suddenly, our guides standing up and peered anxiously into the distance. On the opposite side of the crater there are any reflections. What is this? Mysterious hello once existed and then backfilled sand mysterious civilization of the Garamantes - Garamandity? Or is it - a UFO? Neither one nor the other. Penetrates the strained silence the roar of engines: a hard-breaking toughness, someone's car slowly climb the hill. We asked the conductor who it might be. They answer that, perhaps, the tourists, but confidence in their voices do not. course, there may be tourists. But here they climb extremely rare. Army patrol? Probably. Or lovers of gain? That would be the worst. The attacks on travelers in the Sahara are extremely rare, but there are ... Headlights are approaching. Going first motorcycle slows dramatically, and with it comes off ... a girl of twenty-five. Before us Italians, six people who travel, relying on the "G-Pee-Es" - the satellite orientation. 

They are going to go down into the crater. We explain to them that go off in the dark on the two hundred meter cliff is almost impossible, but what if they even manage to do it, where they will be eaten right away - not wild animals, as "Nessie" is not it, there's mosquitoes. Italians decide to heed the warnings and break up camp next to ours.With the first rays of the sun to travel around - the Italians to go down into the crater, and we - back to Temesse, leading to Tripoli asphalt. In the whirl of the Moscow Wow en-Namus is quickly forgotten, rooted in the past. But sometimes it seems that Moscow is not real, not snowy slush, not the low sky, and napping under the dazzling sun "lost world" Sahara.

In the Sahara there are no roads. There is no good cards: even at the famous guidebooks "Mishlen" these areas are shown only schematically. Appreciated, however, maps of the Soviet General Staff during World War II, went on sale in Germany after the collapse of the Soviet Union. They used to be top secret, and the name of the Soviet Lawrence of Arabia, Shtirlitsa Sahara, is still unknown, but the fact remains that neither the Germans nor the Allies did not have these cards that have been made ​​by Soviet intelligence. And now to get them due to low circulation is not easy. second danger - sandstorm. In Libya there is the word "death" is the title of the worst wind that brings death, "death", the accent on the last syllable. Wind picks up clouds of sand, travelers find themselves in a haze of torque. Sand penetrate the clothing, leather whips, clogged nose and mouth, preventing breathing. But worst of all - the loss of sight, barely visible when the hood of his car. 

This wind can blow for several days, and travelers are doomed. It is this wind destroyed many years ago the entire Persian army. But that's another story ... It should be prepared for sudden changes in day and night temperatures, to the unusual dryness of the air, to the searing znoyu and blinding light hanging over the head of a red-hot sun, as well as unexpected encounters with poisonous snakes. And these treacherous quicksand, which, as a swamp, suck, swallow people? But the one who dares to leave this world without shadows, the earth will be able to admire the landscape of unearthly beauty, feel and understand the wilderness, to realize her greatness. Along with the green oasis of the last spot on the horizon fades everything related to the normal, everyday zhiznyu.Vy forget even their own prshlo. The man turns out to be one-on-one not just with nature, and with the Infinite, one-on-one with the cosmos.

On a picturesque volcano was first reported to the outside world, Karl Moritz von Boyrman (1862) and Gerard Rohlfs (1881), although they have never visited this place. Probably the first European who visited the volcano and reported it was a Frenchman, Laurent Lapierre (1920). Lapierre was an officer who was captured in battle and escorted through these places. He had the opportunity to report on his adventures after his release a few years later.

In the evening when the wind dies down and the desert comes complete rest, the surface of lakes is broken circles: one swims to the surface. Maybe it is - another Loch Ness monster? Anyway, if you like, and lives somewhere, you probably are not in Scotland, but in the "lost world" of Libyan Sahara.

Here in isolation live, hunt and breed animals, fall down in the sand over-ripe figs, but not a single person . Why? Maybe because Wau en Namus is too much already "in the suburbs?" Or for some other reason? Anyway, for some reason the conductors are not advised to spend the night at the bottom, strongly suggest picked up on the outside edge of the crater. They explain this by the fact that in Wau en Namus lot of mosquitoes ("Namus" just means in Arabic "mosquito"). When we offer them is still to stay there for the night, given that the tents are equipped with mosquito nets and we have a failure drugs, blood-sucking insect repellent, the conductors come in obvious confusion, and, after consulting with each other, they say that it is better all- did not do that at the bottom is unsafe. "A top - safe?" - "Yes, absolutely." - "Why is dangerous here?". In response to the silence. And so we can not figure out what was going on. As the sun falls instantly dark. Studded with big stars cosmic abyss suppresses its grandeur.

Common phenomenon in the Sahara desert - the appearance of drinking water close or almost the same place as the salt lakes.This water source feeds the lake, and has even been used by travelers in the old days. Because of the presence of fresh water in this remote volcano, Wau-en-Namus has always been an important point for caravans en route from Vav Al-Kabir to the oases of Al Kufraha Rebiany and the south-eastern Libya.

After the Second World War, several scientists visited the volcano, including the geographer Nicholas Benjamin Richter, who made several visits and published a book on his trip to the area in 1960. Since that time, and as the Libyan government began issuing oil concessions in Libya, several geologists, geophysicists and tourists visited Wau-Namus to explore related areas, or because they were involved in the descriptions of the volcano. Over the past two decades Namus has become one of the top destinations for most tourists who visit the Libyan desert in general, and the Fezzan region in particular.

Pre-Islamic burial place in the south-west Marideta.

Approximately eleven years later, the Italian geologist Ardito Desio reached Wau-en-Namus during his famous expedition on camels. In his geological expedition Desio also visited a lot of places and published geological description of the volcano for the first time in 1935.

Dimensions caldera Wow-en-Namus and the adjacent fields are so large that they can be seen from the Earth's orbit.