Azaouad

Azaouad stretches north of Timbuktu into the Sahara, a country of dunes, scattered wells and sparse pasture. The wells gave pastoral communities and their animals access to an otherwise dry landscape, while routes through the sands connected the Niger with desert settlements. Camel caravans travelling between Timbuktu and the salt mines to the north crossed this broad region. Its dunes mark the transition from the river country of the Sahel to the deeper Sahara.