Z is for Zouar – Oxford Uni Expedition 1965

Part of the Sahara A to Z series
oxchad13

Back in 1965 the pro-Western Kingdom of Libya was just fourteen years old. US and UK military bases used the desert for training and testing, then the discovery of high-quality, low-sulphur oil just 200km from the coast transformed Libya’s fortunes. 

Gaddafi’s coup was still a few years away.

oxchadmap


Like many former french colonies, Chad had gained independence in 1960 but, as has been the case on and off since then, France retained military and Foreign Legion bases there. In the film you’ll see a French tricolour still flying in Zouar.

oxchad12

And best of all, the Chadian civil war was still a few months away, so what better time for a bunch Oxford university students to drive 5000 miles to Zouar for their summer hols in a a couple of 88 Landies and a 2WD Ford D-series lorry loaned by Ford. This was a time when it was still common for truck manufacturers to prove their vehicles on Sahara expeditions.

oxchad1

The film includes episodes of Tubu horseplay, lashings of corned beef and a Landrover door that just will not shut!

46-grinder

Interestingly you’ll also see a woman making flour with a grinding stone of the sort still commonly found abandoned all over the Sahara, wherever people once lived. As the narrator says ‘in remote parts of the world it’s hard to tell when such [Neolithic] tools were last used.’ At 14:20 there’s also an engraving of what might be a Garamantean chariot. Germa, the former Garamantean capital in southern Libya, is not so far from Zouar.

2 thoughts on “Z is for Zouar – Oxford Uni Expedition 1965

  1. gord

    Door won’t shut on your vintage Series Landrover? Simply remove it, sling it in the back and use it under the wheels to cross soft sand :)

    Like

    Reply
  2. Pingback: Mercedes Saloons across Chad | Sahara Overland

Leave a comment