The Wour border post marks the frontier between Libya and Chad on one of the most remote trans-Saharan crossing routes in existence. This is not a crossing for the unprepared: the terrain is trackless desert, the infrastructure is non-existent, and the paperwork requirements are unpredictable. What you will find here is a cluster of buildings, a flag, and officials whose patience and goodwill you will need to cultivate carefully.
Travellers heading south from Libya's al-Qatrun arrive here after crossing hundreds of kilometres of open Sahara. The formalities can take hours or days depending on the mood of the officials, the clarity of your documentation, and the presence — or absence — of other travellers. Bring stamped authorization from Chadian authorities in advance; attempting the crossing without it is a serious mistake. The post is the gateway to the Tibesti Mountains, and despite its ordeal-by-bureaucracy character, standing here with the Saharan plateau stretching in every direction carries a genuine sense of being at the edge of the mapped world.
story: "The Tibesti route through Wour was one of the ancient trans-Saharan caravan trails linking sub-Saharan Africa to North Africa. The same tracks that today require a 4WD and satellite phone once carried traders on foot and camel across terrain that looks utterly unchanged."