water water I don't need any water just as yet but I will if I stay here long because my friends here I am on The Fringe Of The Great Saharan Desert the largest hot desert on planet Earth emphasis on largest hot desert on planet Earth because deserts my good friends uh are defined by the amount of precipitation that falls on the area over over the course of the year not by temperature and not if it's sandy or rocky or has anything else it's all about precipitation I think the general rule is less than 10 inches of precipitation be it rain sleep snow hail a year less than 10 inches a year qualifies your area as a desert okay well the largest desert in the world is Antarctica covered with snow and ice you're like oh it's got lots of stuff on lots of precipitation right now it it only it gets less than 10 inches a year but it just never goes anywhere because it's so cold so it just keeps stacking up but Sahara the mighty Sahara is the largest hot desert this is a place that gets temperatures in excess of 90 100 110 degrees in the big hot summer months and on the precipitation front it's full on desert for sure they're way under the 10-in mark because I believe over half the Sahara gets less than 3/4 of an inch of rain a year uh and the other half gets only about two Ines on average I'm sure there's some places to get three or four but this is one arid landscape the largest hot arid landscape on planet Earth and my friends this sucker is large I want to say roughly just guesstimating 3,500 miles long by about 2,000 miles wide that's just a kind of a rough average you could fit the entire United States of America inside inside the Saharan Desert woo you can fit the ENT ire state of China inside the Saharan Desert of course the US and China are roughly about the same size so point is the sucker is Big this sucker's dry and this sucker is a divider of Africa what do I mean by that it's a divider climatically as well as culturally and I assume historically climatic is obvious this is full-on dry full-on desert surrounded by Fringe short scrubby grasslands and a little bit of Mediterranean style clim up near the Mediterranean Coast particularly around Rocko Algeria Tunisia but the vast expans is full on full Desert and by the way desert does not again qualify that it's sand dunes I intentionally picked this little piece of The Fringe of the desert here uh to show you some sand behind me this is atypical for the Sahara though uh most of the Sahara is Rocky craggy and I'll show you some landscape here where I'm at uh it's rock covered strewn small hills that are cracky and Rocky and it's it's a rocky landscape like Mars or something only a small percentage of it is fullon what you would consider sand dunes big and those things get big too hundreds of of feet high uh and they're called URS actually ERG so most of the saharon is Rocky dirt flat landscape some salt flats here and there most of it's kind of Rocky though all over the place with some urg sand dunes scattered in okay that's the north that's the Saharan part of Africa about the rest obviously this is radically different uh than the southern part the subsaharan part of Africa uh that is fullon tropical in the tropical latitudes and has tropical rainforest and jungle and even tropical Savannah which is kind of like this but gets more than 10 inches of rainy year so they have short grasses and tall grasses and Scattered trees everywhere think Lion King and in fact here's a Geo term for you uh the Sahel s a h e l the Sahel is a little uh border on this southern part of the Sahara helps Define the southern uh side of the Saharan Desert and it is a tropical short grass land it gets more water than this so it does have grasses and and you kind of think of Lion King and animals and stuff like that the sahal that Fringe on the southern uh let's define the northern part of the Sahar while we're here too by the way I call it the mreb another great Geographic term uh m a re EB the mreb is kind of where I'm at that's why I wanted to bring up the mreb I have been uh for the last couple days traveling through the Atlas Mountains and the Atlas Mountains aren't just one single chain there are a whole series of chains that float all the way up Northwestern Africa uh mostly in Western Sahara of Morocco uh Algeria over to Tunisia and it's a series of ranges all kind of with the name Atlas in them there's the middle Atlas the high atlases which is where I'm On The Fringe of right now the anti-atlas the hell Atlas which is the Coastal Range that runs from Algeria over to Morocco uh and the Saharan Atlas which run through Algeria all these are different chains that run up uh on the Northwestern coast of Africa and they do help Define the northern Fringe of the Saharan Desert so in between the sahal and the uh the Atlas Mountains and of course the Mediterranean Sea up there and the Red Sea that's the borders of this voluminous ginormous dry area back to the mreb for a second though what's that mean the mreb is this area I've now defined the Atlas mountain ranges in northwest Africa that is traditionally separate from the rest because the Sahara is a divider uh from the rest of Africa and it's mostly Berber people at least it was back in the day 100% Berber uh that's an ethnicity and it's a living language and there's still Berber people around here maybe 20 to 30 35 million of them uh that are speakers of the Berber tongue maybe 50 or 60 Mill million berbers in general uh uh ethnically in fact many would say that the berbers are the original indigenous North African tribe that everyone else is related to and I really wanted to point this out because they kind of have their own culture their own history their own language their own ethnicity uh and they've been here for a long time maybe the protohumans up in this part of the world that they're different than the Arab peoples from the Arabian Peninsula I know when people see l SC capes like this or they hear North Africa or the Saharan Desert they think of bedwin tribes and Arabs uh and camel riding Arabs that are coming across uh uh the sand dunes uh Arabs are an ethnic group from Arabia the Arabian Peninsula currently the states of Saudi Arabia UAE uh United Arab Emirates Oman Yemen that's where Arab people originally from people get confused because those Arab people uh back in the seventh and eth centuries after Islam was uh founded born created uh uh uh given to the prophet Muhammad uh by Allah at that point the Arab peoples took this Islamic religion from the Arabian peninsula where they're from and moved it all across North Africa indeed all the way over here to the Atlas Mountains where these Berber people were and converted the Berber people right so the Berber folks all around here they're all Islamic now too and back in the today like a thousand years ago these is islamicized bers mixed in with some of the Arab folks who had moved across North Africa became kind of a fighting force that took over Spain and Portugal yeah the Iberian Peninsula uh the expansion of the Arab Islamic empire started in Arabia way over there made it all the way here all the way to the far Fringe of the Saharan Desert here in the Atlas Mountains and expanded all the way into Europe when those bers SL Arab uh Islamic folks back in the day 1300 years ago swept into the Iberian Peninsula in 711 not just a store it's a date uh they got to be known as the Moors so maybe you've heard this term maybe you've heard the term mreb this the area we're here uh this Coastal area the Atlas Mountains this historic Berber territory uh it now consists of countries from uh Western Sahara to Morocco to Algeria to uh Tunisia this is the mreb uh defining the Saharan Desert on that Fringe but also historically the mreb produced these folks called the Moors that invaded uh Europe with Islam now back to the Sahara I bring you all the stories up by the way because the Sahara has been a big divider between the Arab folks way over here way over that way 4,000 miles that way and the Berber folks here uh the Berber folks are becoming arabized a lot I should say because I've talked to a lot of folks around here but again Berber is still a living language still an e different ethnic group but when Islam takes over a place or is adopted in a place the Arab language usually is too so a lot of folks around here speak and read Arab as well uh and a lot of for Berber folks be like oh maybe they're losing their identity uh and they're fighting back to save their language all the folks who brought me out here through the Atlas Mountains are all berbers is all Berber country uh you can still go to Berber Villages uh in the mountains of the atlases you can go to berber encampments and Berber bedwin encampments around here in the Sahara but let's get back to the Sahara it this big desert has been a divide between the Arab folks over there the bed folks over here that Islam helped bridge and Conquer okay uh the Sahara is a divide climatically between North Africa and South Africa it's also culturally a big divide between North Africa and South Africa as I've now told the story the uh uh the Arab folks who came out of the Arabian Peninsula with Islam uh spread Islam throughout all of North Africa North Africa Sahara Africa subsaharan Africa is not only not Arab folks not nor Berber folks so ethnically they're different folks we might say uh tropical Africa black Africa uh uh uh tribal black Africa they are in today's world mostly not Islamic they're mostly Christian down there so another group from another part of the world went down and started converting folks down there so you have ethnic divide ethnic I would say divide ethnic differences between North and South that the Sahara ER splits climatic differences obviously vegetation differences obviously historic differences obviously religious differences now obviously the Sahara is the divider of all these things but but there's always a butt when I'm in the desert it's not as if no one ever crossed the Sahara so I'm saying it's this Great Divide but back in the day there were all sorts of Caravan trading routes between uh between North Africa and South Africa uh that's where the camel comes in the ship of the desert uh of course don't need any Waters they can carry big cargo loads uh from South Africa southern Africa sub Sahara Africa up here to the north and indeed I am on one of the very such classic trade routes that folks would have been coming in out of the desert over here uh on their camels uh in their convoys bringing in things from very rich kingdoms back in the day uh the kingdom of Mali let's see get my bearings here kingdom of Mali down that way of the Ghana Coast there was a a huge Ghana Empire a big Molly Empire down that way for a very long time uh in different periods that were exceptionally rich in Gold uh they also had a lot of salt uh also they would have been bringing in say exotic animals from sub Sahara in Africa so you have these camel Caravans bringing all these exotic Goods particularly gold and salt into these areas uh many of the small cities and Villages that are in the Atlas Mountains grew up as was stations as trading stations where people would bring in their stuff and barter and I can only imagine a thousand years ago these hubs of activity that were really Cosmopolitan especially given that this is the landscape they're in it would have been amazing to see these little Villages and cities with people from all over Africa possibly the world maybe European Traders there maybe Arab traders there uh Subs African folks in here trading what a crazy Cosmopolitan place but it ain't like that no more while you did have classic Western Saharan trade routes that would have connected up the Ghana Coast the Mali Empire Tim Buck 2 which is down that way the classic ancient capital of mly the Mali Empire timbuck 2 people would have been coming up here uh to make it to marash and then offload stuff Mar cash is near cablanca uh would bring stuff through the mountains offload in marash take it to the Coast uh then trade with Europeans or to put it on boats and take it around to the Mediterranean to try trade in the classic Middle East that was the Western rout the Western uh paths over here but you also have of course had a lot of north south bridging of the Sahara over on the other side the other side where the Nile River was the classic Nile River uh uh civilizations uh the Egyptians spring to mind but those Nubians over there as well and Phoenicians and other folks that used the mighty Nile that went Way Way North started Way South and headed north that connected up folks and bridged the Saharas too but again the Sahara is always kind of a divider one way or the other those trade routes way over there these trade routes were over here uh this religion's up here that religion's down there so the Sahara fantastic fantastic biggest hot desert on the planet and now it not a whole lot of activity happens here anymore because it's the largest big hot desert on the planet what happened to all that activity I was just talking about with the Nile and the Nubian and the berbers over here with the Molly Empire well we had this thing called technology come along so while back in the day tracking across the desert with a th000 pounds of salt would have been worthwhile at the end when you traded it it's not so much anymore you wouldn't even be able to get your uh price out of gold if you traveled across the desert with it on camels because starting in the 15th 16th century these European dudes started exploring the African Coast particularly the Portuguese and they had a certain boat called the caravel they started exploring the African Coast setting up Trade Post and it suddenly became way more economically feasible just put your gold and salt and spices and Slaves by the way I should say slaves are always a part of this trade uh and elephants and camels and whatever else put them on a boat and Float them right up the coast over to Europe over to the Mediterranean over to uh Middle Eastern Shores so the caravel the Portuguese Caravel and try or exploration by the Portuguese Spaniards and others around the African Coast kind of short circuited the whole trade routes of the ancient world here in the Sahara and essentially they've been bypassed and the uh the Sahara as a whole has been kind of marginalized ever since then sorry Sahara I love you Sahara but it's it's it's a marginalized part of planet Earth not that many people hang out here uh it is a tough life although although I'm not trying to suggest no one's here All Along The Fringe again where we're at here in the mreb there's lots of decent sized towns that are still thriving but for the most part this vast expans of North Africa is largely uninhabited or extremely sparsely inhabited it is kind of marginalized in today's world meaning it's off to the side no one really deals with it anymore so what else is going on in the Sahara then huh funny you should ask whole lot of activity still does happen in places like the Sahara Desert and the fringes of the Sahara Desert like what who what economic activity would be viable here well none uh so why would people be hanging out here because the Sahara and places like this on planet Earth are so thinly populated so sparsely populated it's so hard to keep a track on who's out here and what's going on people who want to hide come and hang out in the desert people like I don't know terrorist groups who want to train Rebel groups who want to train uh maybe local native groups who want to train to have an uprising and so you have groups some of these are legit I'm not saying anybody's terrorist uh but there are Rebel groups who were trying to liberate uh Western Sahara from the Moroccans and they're hanging out in the desert hiding from uh the local government uh you also have the tar EG uh Rebellion which happened if anybody remember that Molly uh was hot in the news about two years ago because a bunch of Islamic extremist took over the entire Northern section of Mali this giant country that's in the Sahara uh yeah and that's because you it's hard to hold this place nobody from the outside wants to come in here and start building fences and governments and Roads and keeping tabs on who's here it's just too big you can't take care of it all you can't watch it all and so therefore people don't and rebel groups terrorist groups criminal groups they know that uh one other uh criminal group I should add is uh that Western Sahara has now become a trans shipment point for drugs from South America yeah the Mexican C cels now load stuff in let me get my bearings north south the Mexican cartels will load stuff in from the Ghana coast and bring it through here for Trans shipment into the rest of Western Europe and the Mediterranean world go figure activities that people don't want anyone to know about occur in places where there are nobody at so now you've got Mexican cartel presence in the western Sahara uh you've got Rebel groups uh uh uh Islamic extremist terrorist groups full on you know that al- Qaeda and in fact they I think one of their branches even called al- qaa of the mreb go look that up I could be wrong on that but these folks have found great utility in the desert once more some people think this is great because there ain't nobody out here to mess with us and we can plot our little activities and do what we want to do or live our life the way we want to either way you look at it the desert is becoming of great interest again because of the illicit activities that have been going on the United States has been doing I believe a lot of covert investment in Fringe areas of the Sahara I know we have been building bases or at least drone bases in places like Ethiopia and jibuti and possibly Somalia and possibly Kenya and mo a lot of people are really worried about West Africa now because of another radical EXT extremist Islamic group called boo harm that's in Northern Nigeria right over my shoulder that way and they're On The Fringe of the desert as well and so you're the US is working with Nigeria so you're going to see a shift I believe of us uh troop deployment it's still going to be small but you're going to start seeing more us covert bases here more us drone bases here more us Personnel in Africa and where are they going to be they're going to be on The Fringe Of The Mighty Mighty Sahara Desert why to stop those groups that are now taking advantage of the mighty mighty Sahara Desert for its vastness for its Bleak landscape and for the fact that nobody else wants to be here to m with them how's that for a podcast from the Saharan Desert again let me end by saying On The Fringe of the Sahara desert just come out of the the Atlas Mountains the high Atlas mountain range so we're just there's still Hills you'll see hills around here when I pan around so we're just on The Fringe if we kept going that way for another 5 10 20 miles we're in fullon Aid landscape desert with no more plants for about 3,500 miles that way but for now were out from the Sahara