The story
Tozeur Desert Marathon Festival in Tozeur
The Ultra Mirage El Djerid sends trail runners across the blinding white salt flats of Chott el Djerid outside Tozeur every October, offering 25km, 50km, and 100km distances through one of the most extreme landscapes in Tunisia's Sahara. Founded in 2017, the race has grown into the country's best-known desert ultra-marathon, drawing roughly 500 international runners from nearly 30 countries by its ninth edition in 2025.
Tozeur sits at the edge of the Chott el Djerid, a vast seasonal salt lake that stretches for more than a hundred kilometers across southwestern Tunisia and, depending on rainfall, can appear as a cracked white desert or a shallow, mirror-flat sheet of water reflecting the sky.