Our second four-day stage took us south of Ghat (see photos), to the Algerian border (in the photo below) and further southeast to Akakus mountains, which is where most of the photos were taken, then onward, over a series of dunes and a pass to the northern edge of the sand sea in Murzur. We reached Jarmah today, after covering 560 km. The first evening – despite the constantly growing temperatures – our mood was slightly spoilt by a bashful shower of rain, especially since I decided to spend the night under the stars. It wasn't until my recently bought sleeping bag proved that it wasn't water proof, that I grudgingly stood up, shoved the bag under Noise's Toyota and spent the rest of the night on the right seat of the car. The rain kept on falling in the morning and we spent another day riding in our rain suits. However, the ride was much easier, because the sand was soaked; five centimetres deep even on top of the dunes. Plus, we weren't exactly dying of intense heat. Ali, the police officer, sat on a motorbike (Climber's Yamaha) for the first time in his life on a vast plain. He had some difficulties at first, but soon there was no stopping him (we suspected stopping was actually tricky for him), while he was flashing past us at full speed, imitating off-road bikers, standing upright, with sunglasses on his nose.
The last night started of with strong wind, constantly shifting direction. Around midnight the wind broke my tent and I moved to our Libyan friends. Until five in the morning I fought with Ali's snoring, unexpected gushes of wind, an occasional shipping of sand, that poured in through a small hole in the sleeping bag, my aching arm and shoulder, that have never been set in place properly, my neighbour Abdu er-Rahman's knees, sand in my teeth and my camera in my ribs (it sleeps next to me because its batteries are sensitive to low temperatures). It's truly interesting to see how tolerant you gradually become to sand; first you try to avoid having sand anywhere, including your socks. In the morning you try to put the sleeping bag and the tent away with as little sand possible, you try desperately to avoid the sand in your backpack. The sand in your ears bothers you, you try to elegantly remove the sand from between your teeth. Right now I'm in a stage where I just don't care anymore, I simply grind and swallow the »genuinepigmyLibyancrunchie«, that nearly every meal here is seasoned with. There isn't a part of my body where it’s not present. Only one thing assures me I've not yet become like a fish in the sea in this sand – whenever I get a new shipping of the »crunchie« in my face, I still try to keep my breath. I fear the next stage of assimilation.
Wind and sand marked the entire day except in a part of road of a disastrous surface with sharp, protruding rocks. Due to a sand blizzard we dropped the speed a couple of times to 40 km/h, twice even to 25 km/h. In the early afternoon we stopped at a police check point and took shelter from the strongest wind in a tin little house for little over an hour, munching on peanuts and sardines.
Climber and I agree that we wouldn't really mind if this day never happened. Even Tomos looked somewhat apathetic, with his wounds from a couple of days ago still healing. With all this general enthusiasm not one new photo was taken with my camera, perhaps Bladzo will add something. We sleep in a camp and are gathering our strengths; tomorrow a new field awaits, dunes and nothing but dunes, to desert lakes in the north.
PS Today, when the entry was finally added, we’d like to let you know that the wind was too strong and the guide refused to go to the dunes, so we're enjoying the rest of our day off in a town in the middle of nowhere.
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