The Blue Mountains (,

Tamasheq Tamashek or Tamasheq is a variety of Tuareg, a Berber macro-language widely spoken by nomadic tribes across North and West Africa in Algeria, Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. Tamasheq is one of the three main varieties of Tuareg, the others bei ...

: ''Izouzaouene'', ''Izouzaoenehe'') are an outcrop off the northeastern section of the Aïr Massif in

Niger Niger, officially the Republic of the Niger, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is a unitary state Geography of Niger#Political geography, bordered by Libya to the Libya–Niger border, north-east, Chad to the Chad–Niger border, east ...

, about 100 km ENE of the town of Iférouane and 30 km NE of the Tezerik oasis. Isolated from the main massif by dunes of the Erg Temet and a flat gravelly

desert pavement A desert pavement, also called reg (in western Sahara), serir (in eastern Sahara), gibber (in Australia), or saï (in central Asia) is a desert surface covered with closely packed, interlocking angular or rounded rock fragments of pebble and ...

plain, the rocky outcrop from the desert rises to a height of 924m, almost 300m over the surrounding topography. The area is in Aïr and Ténéré National Nature Reserve, which is a

UNESCO World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

. The mountains themselves are also within the smaller Aïr and Ténéré Addax Sanctuary. They are characterised by cipollino marble outcroppings, which give the hills a bluish tint. Despite their relative remoteness, they became a tourist destination during the upsurge of desert

tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure, and the Commerce, commercial activity of providing and supporting such travel. World Tourism Organization, UN Tourism defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as ...

in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

References

Further reading