Travel Guide Chott El Djérid

Welcome to one of the most beautiful places in Tunisia! The Chott el-Jerid is the largest Tunisian salt plain(sebkha) with an area of about 5,000 km2. It is the largest of the sebkhas of the Maghreb. This very mysterious lake looks like a huge sea of ice which would have the particularity not to melt in the sun. A thick crust of salt, resting on a mass of clayey mud or sand more or less aquifer, covers it and all these crystals which glitter and change color according to the play of light give it a little magic air. In this somewhat dusty mirror, dryness obliges, the first attraction lies in the sight in the distance of mirages, when the temperature exceeds 30 °C. One can see cliffs as well as oases or even groups of houses, depending on the superposition of elements. The list is far from being exhaustive, and it is interesting to know that these optical illusions, immortalized by a photograph, are found intact on the photograph! Stretching over 250 km in length and 20 km in width, this strange dried lake is the legendary Triton Lake, cradle of fantastic stories and that some utopian Westerners wanted to use to supply the desert with water. But all these projects were abandoned. From Douz, Kebili, Tozeur, Nefta..., the Chott el-Jerid is never far, it is the soul of the region, and its inhabitants are called Djeridi.