Lake Gaberoun, Libya

Welcome to Lake Gaberoun, located in the Sahara Desert about 800 kilometers south of the Mediterranean Sea.

How big is that dune, you might be wondering.  Well, look below and you'll find out.  That's a person near the top.  

You can swim in Lake Gaberoun, and it's quite an experience.  Up close, the water looks like this.

The water feels cool and refreshing when you dip your toe in.  But as you wade out along the soft, muddy ground, you discover that the cold water is a thin layer only a few inches deep.  Below that, the water's warm.  And below that, the water's hot!  Bizarre.

While you're in the water, you'll also notice that it's very salty.  I tried to tread water but found it hard to keep my legs under me -- they kept drifting behind me or in front, and then quickly up towards the surface.  Another feature of super-salty water is that when you get out, you are covered in fine powdery salt particles and you look a bit like a ghost.

Near one bank of Lake Gaberoun lies a ruined town, fittingly called Old Gaberoun.  I saw a lot of wrecked houses, a mosque, and a school.  Some of what's left looks like this.

 

Apparently, Libya relocated the entire town of Old Gaberoun to what's known as New Gaberoun.  New Gaberoun is conveniently located near the highway, but the scenery is not uplifting, certainly not when compared to the lake.

I met a guy who lived in Old Gaberoun for 28 years before it was moved in 1991.  He said that there were about 800 residents, give or take.  They loved living next to the lake, but the Libyan Government had other plans.  I asked him if the families were compensated for the move, and he said yes, but linguistic difficulties complicated my efforts to learn the terms of compensation.