N'Djamena

N'Djamena sits where the Chari and the Logone shake hands and set off together for Lake Chad — a low, hot, patient capital of mosque minarets and mango courtyards on the border itself: Cameroon begins mid-river. Her real magnetism lies in what she opens onto: Zakouma, the park where elephants were poached to the brink and have come roaring back under careful guard — one of conservation's great comeback stories —, and the Ennedi, a desert of stone arches and hidden gueltas where crocodiles survive from a greener Sahara.

The traveller who goes — with counsel taken and operators arranged — takes the river at dusk when the pirogues cross between two countries as casually as streets; walks the Grand Marché for leatherwork and indigo; eats grilled capitaine fish from the Chari with lime and pepper; and then flies or drives to the true destinations: Zakouma's elephant herds moving like weather, and the Ennedi's arches, which hold their own against any stone on Earth.

The Guide's honesty, gently: the region's winds are serious — conditions vary by zone and season, several chancelleries counsel caution or against, and the prudent traveller checks current advice and goes, if they go, with licensed operators on established circuits —; the heat from March is a physical fact: hydrate like a professional; French and Arabic open the doors; and Zakouma books far ahead for good reason. The comeback of its elephants deserves witnesses, in their time.