"Touching the Sahara" Top 5 Page for this destination Libya Things to Do Tip by TheWanderingCamel

No visit to Ghadames would be complete without a journey out into the desert dunes that lie not far from the city. This is where the classic Saharan landscape of your imagination begins - great sweeps of rippled dunes that rise in a long slope to a crest that can fall away on the other side in a near vertical drop - 4x4s are a must here. Late afternoon is the time to go, to see the sunset turn the desert sands from palest gold to burning reds - providing it's not overcast as it was the day I went. Never mind - the trip out was so interesting - beginning with a steep climb to a ruined desert castle (reputedly Roman) at Ras-al-Ghoul (Hill of Ghosts) with wonderful views across to Tunisia and Algeria - the borders are very close here. Some serious hooning around on the dunes followed - heart in mouth stuff at some of the vertiginous descents from the dunes. We stopped to look for - and found - some small desert roses (crystalline gypsum and barite formations), picked herbs to add to our tea ( how does it grow in this arid place?), observed the beginnings of a dune-in-the-making where the wind was blowing the sand up against a tiny plant.

I still got to see the desert glow red the following morning, as I watched the sunrise.