Qualla: Gaberoun https://qualla.com/gaberoun en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:29 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/k/c/8/gaberoun-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Gaberoun https://qualla.com/gaberoun Gaberoun: Introduction https://qualla.com/gaberoun/ Photo credit Franzfoto, CC BY-SA 3.0. In the middle of one of the most lifeless landscapes on Earth, there is a lake. The Ubari Sand Sea rolls on for tens of thousands of square kilometers, a hyper-arid ocean of dunes in southwestern Libya, and then, abruptly, a sheet of blue-green water appears in a hollow between the crests, fringed by date palms and the broken walls of an abandoned village. This is Gaberoun, the largest of the Ubari lakes. The water is a mirage that turns out to be real, and stranger still, it is alive. The lake is salt, nearly five times saltier than the sea, and tiny red shrimp swarm its shallows.

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Image: Franzfoto | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/k/c/8/gaberoun-wp/skc8-gaberoun-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Gaberoun: A Lake That Shouldn't Be Here https://qualla.com/gaberoun/ Photo credit Qyd at English Wikipedia, Public domain. Gaberoun is a relic. The lakes of the Ubari are the last shining remnants of a far wetter Sahara, pockets where ancient groundwater still reaches the surface in the low ground between the dunes. There is no rain to speak of and a brutal sun overhead, so evaporation concentrates w...

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Image: Qyd at English Wikipedia | Public domain

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/k/c/8/gaberoun-wp/skc8-gaberoun-a-lake-that-shouldnt-be-here.mp3 0:06 2 full Gaberoun: The Worm Eaters https://qualla.com/gaberoun/ Photo credit Carport, CC BY-SA 3.0. People once lived at Gaberoun, and they lived in part off the lake itself. A small community settled here, and among their foods were the tiny worm-like crustaceans, a kind of brine shrimp, that they harvested from the salty water. The trait earned the lake people of this sand se...

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Image: Carport | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/k/c/8/gaberoun-wp/skc8-gaberoun-the-worm-eaters.mp3 0:06 3 full Gaberoun: What the Palms Hide https://qualla.com/gaberoun/ Photo credit Franzfoto, CC BY-SA 3.0. On the northwestern shore, scattered among the date palms, the old village still stands in ruins. Mud-brick walls, roofless and softening back into the ground, mark where families once lived beside the water. The abandonment gives Gaberoun a doubled character: a place of startlin...

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Image: Franzfoto | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/k/c/8/gaberoun-wp/skc8-gaberoun-what-the-palms-hide.mp3 0:06 4 full Gaberoun: Reaching the Water https://qualla.com/gaberoun/ Photo credit Franzfoto, CC BY-SA 3.0. Gaberoun does not give itself up easily. The lake lies off the road that runs between Sabha and Ubari, but the road only gets you close. From a point roughly 150 kilometers west of Sabha, reaching the water means a 36-kilometer crossing by four-wheel drive straight through the du...

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Image: Franzfoto | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/k/c/8/gaberoun-wp/skc8-gaberoun-reaching-the-water.mp3 0:06 5 full Gaberoun: Shrinking Mirages https://qualla.com/gaberoun/ Photo credit Franzfoto, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Ubari lakes are not permanent fixtures so much as a slow-motion farewell. They survive on the same underground water that civilizations have tapped across the Fezzan for millennia, and several of the smaller lakes in the sand sea have shrunk dramatically or dried out entirely...

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Image: Franzfoto | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/k/c/8/gaberoun-wp/skc8-gaberoun-shrinking-mirages.mp3 0:06 6 full