Chott el Jerid

Chott el Jerid is the largest salt pan in the Sahara, a basin below sea level that fills with a shallow film of water after winter rain and then bakes dry, leaving a crust of salt that stretches to the horizon in white, pink and grey. A single causeway crosses it, and driving out onto that road with nothing on either side but glare and salt is a genuinely disorienting experience. Mirages here are frequent and convincing. Along the crossing, opportunistic stalls sell desert roses, crystallised gypsum formations, and the salt is stained in places by mineral and algal colour. At either end are the mountain and desert oases of Tozeur, Nefta, Chebika and Tamerza, where springs support dense palm groves against bare rock.

What you actually see

• The causeway crossing - driving the road across the open salt pan.
• Coloured salt - pink, ochre and grey staining in the crust after rain.
• Tozeur old town - distinctive patterned brickwork in the medina.
• The mountain oases - Chebika, Tamerza and Mides in the hills to the northwest.

When to go

October to April. The crust is at its most colourful shortly after winter rain, though heavy rain can flood sections of the causeway. Summer temperatures on the chott are dangerous and the glare is severe.

Honest expectations

There is very little to do but drive across and stop, and visitors expecting a landmark find a lot of flat white nothing, which is either the appeal or a disappointment. Stalls along the causeway are persistent. Do not drive off the causeway onto the crust: it looks solid and is not, and vehicles get bogged in the mud beneath.

Nearby

Tozeur and Nefta are at the western end; Douz and the sand dunes lie southeast.