Sahara Desert 2024
When I had reached the High Atlas Mountains I thought that it was the coolest place I had ever been, but then I went to the Sahara Desert.
We arrived in darkness after driving through small dunes for about 20 minutes from the closest town, M’hamid. The only glimpses of the sandy desert we had seen were in the headlights of the 4x4 that was throwing us around as it rode the choppy waves of sand that took us to our campsite. The next morning we finally got to lay our eyes on the real desert, looking past the mud huts and past the boundaries of the campsite there lied the expanse of sand. I walked out to the edge and stood scanning over the mounds and folds of gold, complete silence, butterflies grew in my stomach, why? It was similar to the feeling I get when I open my curtains to see a fresh and perfect blanket of snow that has settled overnight, that feeling of anticipation for the day ahead that you plan to spend in your altered world. I ran back to the hut grabbed my camera and left my shoes. The next few hours were spent climbing, sinking and basking in the stillness.
In the evening of our first day in the dunes I wrote the following passage in my journal:
“We have made it to the Sahara. Dry, soft and quiet. The dunes embrace our feet like long lost lovers, its dusty nature highlights every line in our skin, reminding us that we are ageing. But these sand dunes will be here long after we go, just as they have been here long before we arrived. The sand holds the chill of the night just inches below the, sun soaked, powder coating. The sand envelops our every move, finally and happily I allow it to fall around me and hold my body. Its soft touch ever so gentle against my skin, meeting my every curve.
The sun warms my bones, completely uninterrupted by any breeze. There is a stillness, a silence only broken by the eager flies, there is one roaming the expanse of my underarm right now. There is no point swatting them off, they are not biting or stinging, only licking at any moisture or salt they can find on your skin.
Time does not exist in the dunes, only shadows. Tufts of palm trees are the only things to disturb the sea of sand. The camels are strange, huge bodies suspended in the air above legs that seem disproportionately long. The humps and curves mimic the landscape they roam. I like being amongst the dunes, they make me calm and subdued yet my inner child is thrilled to be in a giant sandbox, the dunes there to catch me from a fall that will never come.”
The pages written during the week we spent in the desert have a grainy texture and have sand caught in the gutter of the notebook, I refrain from parting the pages too wide in fear of losing any of it.
On the first day I didn’t take any photographs, I was too distracted by the experience to even think about capturing it for later. How strange to feel so comforted in a landscape that is so alien to me. A friend I was exploring the dunes with on the first day said something that stuck with me, he said “ I’ve never seen your body so alive as it is now” whilst I was softly scooping and pushing my body around the sand, the more I pushed my limbs in the more it pulled me in.
On the third day in the desert camp I ventured out into the dunes on my own, there is nothing and no one to stop you from walking out and never coming back, I come from a western world of health and safety regulations so to be here is no less than complete freedom. I wandered and photographed, tried to do some headstands, crawled around with Scarab beetles and eventually fell asleep in the sand out of sight from the campsite. Not a soul in the world knows where I am right now. When I woke up my cheek was to the sand and my breath was causing grains of sand to fly around and tickle my face, I giggled to myself when I realised I must have fallen asleep, what a funny place to wake up. I traipse back in the direction of the campsite and pass it to get to the derelict buildings on the other side. The edges of the desert are dotted with mud huts that have long been uninhabited. No roofs, no shutters, just walls, doorways and small dunes that have formed inside from sand carried on the wind. These buildings are surprisingly big, made from many rooms and some even have evidence of an upstairs. I’m sure they were once lived in or used as stop off points for the Nomads when they came to the desert edge during summertime.
On the fourth day we journeyed back into the town of M’Hamid where we had planned to stay for a night before being taken deep into the desert to some of the largest dunes, for a night under the Milky Way. This trip however, was postponed for a couple days because a sand storm had blown in. The air was orange and gritty, nothing was saved from the fine grains of sand which had worked their way into every aspect of the local people’s lives, including their eyes and lungs. This stoically still landscape I had fallen in love with a couple days ago was now enraged by the winds causing the town to become the desert. It was beautiful.
I never imagined to feel so connected to this alien land. This once shallow sea is now just a skeleton, a skeleton I have promised myself that I will roam again someday.
