The story
Douz Camel Marathon Festival in Douz
The International Festival of the Sahara fills Douz's H'naiech Stadium each December with camel races, galloping fantasia horsemen, and a reenacted Bedouin wedding celebrating southern Tunisia's nomadic heritage. First held as a camel festival in 1910 and revived in its modern form in 1967, it is one of Tunisia's oldest festivals and draws more than 50,000 visitors from across the Maghreb to the edge of the Sahara.
Long before Douz became a stop on Sahara tourist itineraries, its H'naiech Stadium hosted what locals still describe as a camel festival, first recorded in 1910 as a local celebration of the nomadic herding culture that has sustained oasis towns on the edge of the Sahara for centuries.