In the Sahara with 11 People, or, How to Make Your Own Peace with the Sky

Last Thursday, with a long weekend courtesy of Egypt's "glorious victory" holiday, I journeyed into Egypt's western desert -- the northeastern hem of the Sahara. I was unabashedly a tourist, with white skin, a Boston Red Sox cap and a shiny digital camera. There were 12 of us: three men, nine women. Almost half of our crew hailed from Georgetown in D.C.


Split into three Land Rovers, we sped down the highway into the unknown. The early-afternoon sun was playing for keeps, but our open windows and excessive speed whipped the desert's breath in one window and out the other -- blow-drying our hair and parching our eyeballs.

Our first stop was the Black Desert -- sand flats with brooding pyramids of black and tan rock. We were dropped off at the base of one such monument to heat and geography, and encouraged to climb. You could almost hear the guides chuckle. We all made it, some better than others. At the peak were dozens of rock piles and a view that would've made Ansel Adams swing out his big camera. After some aimless staring. photographs and conversation, we slip-slided down the slope to the waiting guides.

Down the highway we continued. I nodded off, my lack of sleep the previous night catching up to me. Then, the highway was gone. At least that's what the seat of my pants told me. I looked up and we were sailing across rock and sand, no longer a smooth black asphalt track. We chortled with glee, but Mohammed, our driver, seemed more intent on correctly fishtailing behind the Rover in front of us.

We stopped at sand dunes and rock outcroppings, our overcrowded senses delighted with anything and everything. The dropped in the west, and at one overlook, our guides pointed where they would be, off in the distance. "That's where we make camp," they said. And they were off, our three mechanical camels slaloming through the sand, toward the horizon.


We wandered past hulking limestone, weathered by the sun and wind. By then my shoes were off, the soft and suprisingly cool sand filtering between my toes with each step. It turned out the horizon wasn't as close as the guides had implied. But distance, like Cairo, became something abstract and unimportant.


We huddled together on the rugs of the shelter, open to the sky - a friend, not an enemy. Within minutes, the soft walls of our world echoed with the sounds of foreigners talking about life. Movies, music, the school in Cairo. I zoned out, the sky darkened and I slept. Only to be awakened by a plate of steaming food in front of my face. I ate. It was amazing.

After the food, the crowd continued its communion. I needed to get away, into the world of sand and stars that lay somewhere away from their favorite actors and boring classes -- topics fittingly shared under the harsh pool of electric light.


I wandered, not sure how far I had gone. The light of the camp became but something to cover with a foot as I lay down on the sand. There was magic here; ageless wisdom the stars whisper only when you're alone. The wind laughs a bit, and sighs. The sand sifts and settles like a blanket below the window of night.

The twilight woke me, early the next morning. I quietly moved out of the mass of bodies in the shelter and sat against the hard rubber tire of my Land Rover, wrapped in my blanket, waiting for the sun. It took its time, but I had plenty to spare.


We cruised hard that day, stopping at an oasis filled with Europeans and and a large date palm that wasn't. The scenery became hauntingly repetitious -- like a fashion show full of chisel-featured models parading for our inspection.



Another night, another high mass with the stars.

********

And now I'm back in Cairo. The air is filthy, the night sky choked with halogen light and suffocating smog. No stars muttering truth or wind cracking a joke.

Somehow, in those few days, the desert gave me something. Magdy, an Egyptian and frequent desert traveler, stayed at our shelter that first night. We talked quietly of work and home. But quickly circled back to this land, the desert. He was given something too, I think, everytime he came back to this wasteland that had so much to give.

"When you're out here," he said. "There's . . . something."

He and I both stared out at the gathering night. I felt it.

"A quiet?"

"Yes," he said, looking back at me. His eyes full of stars, night, wind.

"a chance for your heart to be still."