Bilma

Dunes on the outskirts of town overtaking abandoned family
compound walls

Bilma is isolated. Smack dab in the middle of the Sahara Desert, getting there requires a four day drive across dune seas. You have to want to go to Bilma in order to get there.

The oasis and town on the edge of endless sand

Tucked into the northeast corner of Niger, near borders with Chad and Libya, Bilma is part of a string of oasis towns called the Kawar. These towns are an important crossroads for trans-Sahara trade. Consumer goods like rakes, radios and plastic chairs come south from oil-rich Libya, while people eager to find better employment and a little adventure head north.

Truck loaded with cargo and people headed towards Bilma

The trucks that cross the desert are old Mercedes beasts. People and ride on the high-walled open-topped freight beds in the back. People crowd on top of the cargo, often clinging to ropes and bundles, trying to hold on as the truck bounces across the sand.

On the way to Bilma

The road to Bilma

Quiet Bilma streets at dusk

Once you're there, Bilma is not an unpleasant place. At the center of town are natural springs, shaded with lush vegetation. Footpaths weave between shallow pools of clear water. While there isn't exactly a lot to do in town, there's no less than any other village in West Africa.

House at dusk

Traditionally a salt-producing center, the dune seas now traversed by freight trucks were long travelled by camel carravans carrying salt blocks to Sahel trading towns to the south. Some salt is still produced, and in the cooler months Tuareg caravans make the three week journey by camel from Agadez to buy salt. But salt production is no longer on the scale that it once was. The local economy has contracted in recent years, and the town now gets by mostly by trading dates, and with locally produced agriculture and animal products.

Houses built with salt blocks, which gradually melt in what little
rain falls in Bilma

Bilma sits on the border between Toubou and Tuareg territory. While wars were once common, now they just compete for bragging rights for toughest desert nomads. A handful of Kanouri live in the town, plus one or two French N.G.O. workers. Tourists rumble through town in Land Cruisers in the winter, stopping just long enough to see the salt mines. Most residents have long family connections to the area, and even though young people often do leave for the bright lights and big action of Niger's capital, Niamey, the town isn't likely to disappear any time soon.

Houses in Bilma consist of small enclosed rooms surrounded by
walled courtyards where most socializing and domestic work takes place

Bilma street scene