At The Edge Of The Dunes: Changes Within And Without
[A moment of rest and a photo op on the way to the Sahara. The river Ziz. Photo is mine.]
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Don’t want to be a richer man…
~~ David Bowie
Said our guide and driver, Kamal…
We’re coming to a tunnel. When we come out on the other side, we are officially in the Desert.
We passed through the tunnel and emerged not fifteen seconds later to the very same landscape. The same, except a Palm tree to my right. Another to my left. Trees, Palm trees. There were no clear indications that we had entered another biome. There were no changes. But, wait. Something in me was ever so slightly altered. It was in my mind like all good and bad thoughts and ideas. I somehow felt I had arrived at a destination that I had been seeking much of my adult life. I found a part of it in Death Valley, California, where I knelt on the salty sand of Bad Water and ran my fingers through the dust. I found another part of it in Zzyzx, California. (Only The Golden State would have a place name like that. Look up my blog post about it.) Joshua Tree provided yet another bit to the Big Search I was engaged in.
So, what was I looking for?
The answer would be found someplace in my childhood. My first cowboy movie? An old National Geographic Magazine article about Persia? Reading the tales of The Arabian Nights when I was camping on a glacier? Maybe the glacier, the Juneau Icefield, vast, clean, empty save for the surrounding mountains. The poems of Robert Service…verses about the Great Alone? It was all there in my head. But all those places I’ve mentioned were practice. As important and awesome they were, it was rehearsal.
Our car pulled into the Hotel Xaluca in Erfoud, Morocco. It resembled adobe but was made of sand, salt and clay and I was grateful. Six hours, a painful back, a need to pee…I was grateful we had arrived. Today, September 21, we go into a camp among the dunes. Yes, the Dunes of the Sahara. Just typing it, whispering it, saying it aloud, it brings a tingle to my sore back. It fills me with anticipation. What is out there? What is there besides more grains of sand than any other place on earth?
There is a Moroccan folktale:
At first the earth was all green with plants of every kind. Pools. Springs. All the people treated each other with kindness and honesty. Respect for all. Love for all.
Then one day someone wanted something that belonged to a neighbor, so he took it. God saw this and called all the people together. One of you, he said, wronged another. Every time some one does this, I will drop a grain of sand.
That’s nothing, the people said. It’s only sand. A tiny grain of sand.
Soon, harmful acts were committed, people were hurt. And the grains added up.
Today, I will face the Sahara. I will be walking on the grains of sand…the penance for the uncountable ways one person hurts another. A blow to the head by a fist, a gun, a knife, a sword, a landmine, a poison, a bomb or a lie.
I will take a small glass vial of Saharan sand home with me. It will sit on n my bookcase and remind me of the beauty, solitude, and starkness of the desert. And I will think about not harming another living thing.
A Photo Gallery:
[We arrive at our hotel. Video is mine.]
[The walk to our room. Photo is mine.]
[Outside our room. Photo is mine.]
[Night = Weary and ready to dream away the dark hours. Photo is mine.]
