We drove north west from Tozeur for an hour in the middle of a seemingly endless, completely flat desert.
Suddenly, coming up from nowhere a mountain range to our right (north). And an oasis spilling out of a gorge in the mountain.
We skirted the oasis on the left (west).
And soon found the source of the water - a waterfall in the desert! It was a tiny nano waterfall, but a waterfall nonetheless. Some Russian tourists happily bathed in the little pond. Knowing how many people have been in there, I avoided the waterfall.
This was not really the source because the water came from further up the stream. The water actually came from underground, out of a spring.
We hiked up the gorge to the rim, and was rewarded by spectacular views of the mountain range, gorgeous gorges, and the desert plain in the distance.
Coming down the mountain, we encountered an abandoned Berber village. The village had been occupied for more than a thousand years and was abandoned in 1969 because of the damages by a flood. Imagine that - a flood in the desert which destroyed a village. It sounds too incredible to be true. Yet apparently it was.
The people from the village have since moved to a new one a little further down. That includes the family of our guide into the oasis.
The whole thing is just too amazing.
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