David's Diary: Tuesday, December 3, 2002
The Sahara Dessert
Leaving El Faour
The morning was spent getting organized. We had to meet our guide, Saïd, who provided lunch in his home. We also bought scarves to cover our heads and mouth. Most of the buildings in El Faour are built of brick and the streets are wherever tracks in the sand lead you. People get around on foot, by donkey cart, and in four-by-fours. After loading the camels, we all mounted up and started making our way out of the village.
Three Children Play in the Sand
Before we had left El Faour, Kevin's camel had tried to buck him off twice. Not wanting to risk getting Kevin hurt, he and I dismounted and we walked through the afternoon. The guides set a brisk pace and we were hard-pressed to keep up. We had to negotiate our way across a river in the sand and found there's good reason for the name "quicksand". We were never in danger, but it was a struggle to find a safe spot to cross the wet sand.
Cooking Over an Open Fire
We arrived at our campsite by 4:00 PM. The sun sets at 5:30 and the guides wanted to have the camp put together and dinner started before it got dark. The guides built a fire and made bread in a special way. They dug a hole in the sand, filled it with hot coals, put bread dough over top and then covered it all with sand.
Around 5:00 the guides kept asking us the time. At the stroke of 5:20 they dug up the bread, served themselves, and started eating. We found it strange that the guides would eat before us, but then we remembered that it was Ramadan. None of the guides had eaten before sunrise and 5:20 was the time of sunset. They had their first meal in over twelve hours before serving us our dinner. We sat around the fire for an hour and tired after all of our travel, we settled into our Bedouin tent by 7:30 for a well-earned rest.
These diary pages only have a few of the pictures that we took in the desert. For more pictures, view our Sahara Desert pictures Web pages, then use your brower's back button to return here.
