Agadez 1

After a week in the Tahoua region, we headed north to the region of Agadez, which was once a very important city, is still the seat of the Agadez sultanate (now mostly ceremonial), and was a major stop for camel caravans going both north-south and east-wewst across the Sahara. Niger is an incredibly huge country, but is mostly inhabited in the southern one-third. The northern two-thirds is largely desert, with huge dunes covering most of it. That area is fairly inaccesible unless you are in a camel caravan, or the more modern motorised version of it across the trans-saharan "highway".
It is over 400 km from Tahoua to Agadez on a mostly pretty well tarred road. As you go north, it gets drier. Millet cultivation stops, and trees (and hence places to hide behind to use the restroom) become scarcer.

In the end, this didn't really matter. In the domain of TMI, Niger it's a place where it's possible to drink 2 liters of water in the morning and still not pee until 10 pm that night. I probably spent most of my time pretty dehydrated, but it was more convenient.
When you did get out to walk around, the little grass was often covered with these incredibly painful, tenacious little burrs that you then had to spend the next half hour removing.

There is an escarpment south of Agadez that has some amazing rock formations and has been the site of rich archeological deposits. Many important fossil finds have been made in this area.

Standing water is a litle scarcer here, and so large herds are usually congregated around them. Here was a good sized bunch of camels. I thought camels were some of the most curious creatures I had ever seen. One, they're huge! I think they're the same size as giraffes, only the neck doesn't go up as high. It's so fun to see herds of them grazing, or scattered like Saharan ice bergs above the sheep and cows. And running - I heard they have camel races in some places. It has to be a sight! It's the most disorganized thing I've seen - legs flying everywhere. I loved watching a bunch of them run across the road in front of a vehicle, but never really satisfactorily captured it on film.

Sunset - so many were just gorgeous. And during Ramadan, much looked forward to. Ramadan started in the middle of the survey, and made already grueling work (house to house mapping all day in the sun) much harder. Our teams got up at 5 am to eat and drink, and then didn't eat or drink until sunset. Some of the especially religious ones, don't even swallow their own saliva, something that was particularly annoying in our driver. Every 5 minutes, the vehicle would slow down, he'd roll down the window, and spit. Anyway, everyone knew exactly what time sunset was every night, and we'd stop right then so they could have a drink (we'd often spend the previous hour procuring ice and drinks) and a snack, and then prayer. Dinner was much later. In most Muslim countries, more food is bought and consumed during Ramadan than during other months!

Here is Moussa breaking his fast with dates. Moussa Malam Barke was easily my favorite supervisor - absolutely brilliant, very hard working, very upbeat, and total problem solver. He was just terrific and I enjoyed working with him.