Assekrem

Assekrem is a pass at 2,726 metres in the Atakor, the volcanic heart of the Hoggar, reached by a rough track from Tamanrasset. Charles de Foucauld built a stone hermitage on the ridge in 1911 and it is still tended by a small community of brothers. Travellers sleep in a basic refuge below and climb in the dark to watch the sun come up over a horizon of black lava plugs and needles left standing when softer rock eroded away. The name means end of the world in Tamahaq, and at dawn the description is hard to improve on.