The Erg du Bilma is the desert that surrounds Kawar on its western and southern sides, and it is enormous. The dunes here are proper Saharan dunes — high, steep-faced, and arranged in the sweeping parallel ridges characteristic of ergs shaped by consistent wind. Standing on a crest and looking west, there is nothing to interrupt the sand until well past the horizon. This is not a place to go casually; the erg should be explored only with a vehicle you trust and a driver who knows the terrain.
What the erg offers, beyond scale, is silence and clarity. The sand absorbs sound and the air at this altitude and distance from any road is clean enough that the horizon stays sharp even in the heat of the day. Sunrise and sunset on the dunes are genuinely spectacular — not in a postcard way, but in the way that happens when light hits a landscape that has no clutter in it. If your tour or expedition includes time in the erg, use it well: walk up a dune alone at dusk, sit at the top, and wait for the colour to change. It's one of the better hours you can spend in the Sahara.