2005-04-25 - 1:03 p.m.

At first I thought expedition, a caravan of fourteen people travelling across the desert for two weeks. It’s been done before. My friend Sidi knows Europeans that have travelled from Chingetti to Tdjekja, a quarter of the length of the country. During staj I talked about a camel trip nearly the entire group showed interest. I should have predicted that when it came to walking the walk I would be left with my rag-tag boys club (Jared S , Jarad and Luke). Additionally, there was a reduction in the trip length. Contrary to popular belief, Peace Corps is not a two-year vacation. There are rules about leaving site, and if one does so without permission than there are repercussions (see entry on Returning to M’Beidia). There are loopholes, however. For instance, if someone’s job is involved in the education system and he or she is travelling out of site, but not outside their region during a school vacation, they do not need to report the days as vacation. So as long as I stayed in the Adrar region for the trip I was in the clear. From 14 days to 3 we finally decided on a 6-day trip from Terjitt to Chingetti.

The Deuce described Terjitt as Heavens embassy in hell. There are photos on my website of the trip I took there for Alexis’s birthday. One could easily spend a lifetime there lounging under the palm trees adjacent to the moss covered cliffs. The mosses and ferns are maintained by water evaporated from a meter wide stream running the length of the oasis. The stream in turn is fed by an aquifer that breaks in at top of the canyon. The amount of biodiversity maintained in this bubble of moisture is almost as foreign to this barren desert landscape as I am.

We arrived around noon. Our guide, my host brother Salek, insisted that we stay at an auberge just south of the oasis. I believe he must have some sort of arrangement with the owner. The price of entering the oasis is the same as staying overnight there. To stay somewhere else is a waste of money. In the end Salek agreed to pay our cost of visit, so we would stay where he wanted. For the most part the day was spent lying around in the small basin at the base of the canyon where water from the spring collects. It is no deeper than a bathtub, and about the area of a modest backyard pool. We all talked endlessly, and I laughed more than I had since returning from WAIST.

Later that night a string of fights broke out in front of our auberge. It started with a set of boys arguing over a game. One of them went back to get his father. The other got most of his family. The war ended somewhere around 9 when a 16 year old tried to pull a knife on one of the boys grandpa’s. We found out later that the guy carrying the blade would be travelling with us for the next six days caring for our camels (called a chamelier). At least we knew one of us would be able to handle himself should things turn bad.

When briefing the others on the trip I had told them to bring along their mosquito nets. This was not for the trip itself, but for sleeping at the regional house, which is infested with the little bloodsuckers. I must not have made this clear. When we began lying out for the night, my three colleagues began setting up their tents in what I believed to be an insect free zone. Not wanting to make them angry for having brought excess baggage, I kept my mouth shut and went sans tent to the far side of our rooms. Later that night while I was being eaten alive by mosquitoes I first began to suspect that the trip might not go as I had originally planned it.

Day 1:
We left town at 8, delaying for a rather expensive breakfast of bread and coffee provided by the auberge. After, we loaded up the camels, which would be leaving ahead of us by a different pass that was easier for them to traverse. A half-hour later we headed up the steep footpath going directly out of the canyon onto the desert floor. With speed and agility reminiscent of Gollum leading young hobbits up the paths of Cirith Anor, Salek lead us out of Heaven’s Embassy and onto the planes of Hades. Now in the desert, we moved at a speed that would rival a team of bloodthirsty race horses. An hour and a half later we stopped to rest looking back to see if our camels were following. They were nowhere in site. Previous conversations we had about getting left in the desert began surfacing in all of our minds, but we kept our mouths shut. At 10 we stopped with a group of Nomads to take tea and wait for our camels to catch up. Talking together for a while my fears mounted when I noticed Salek had slipped out and departed. Several other nomads came by to try to sell us artisinal goods. We told stories and tried to ignore the problem at hand.

In early October of last year, I was friends with a tour guide named Sek who I’ve since learned to be one of the ringleaders for sex trafficking in Atar. Obviously I have ceased contact with him, but on that day he and I were talking outside of the Marakesh, a restaurant in town. A young boy looking to be 14 years old approached me and began to barrage me with questions. At first I tried to ignore him, but slowly was caught in a full on inquisition. Where was I from? Where did I live? Was I Peace Corps? Did I know Megan? Did I know that Megan used to eat at his house? Would I come over to his house for tea? When would I come over? I finally agreed to visit the following Sunday just to get the kid to leave me alone. Talking to Audrey later about the situation, she doubted Megan had ever visited this family. Apparently Megan was notorious for being lazy in her travelling around town. This boy’s house was located on the outskirts of town near my old place. There was no way she would have gone out that far. When I finally made the trip over I was unsure if I had the right house. Forgetting the boy’s name I knocked softly at the door. When a 20-year-old girl answered, I asked if a young boy lived there. She said yes, and gave me the name of Mohammed Salek. I was pretty sure that was the one Id heard before so I walked in. I sat down with the girl her mother and a 2-year-old girl. My little friend was nowhere in site, so I inquired as to his whereabouts.
“Oh, he’s in Chingetti. He’ll be back in a few days.”
“Well I guess I’ll be going then…”
“No. No, he told us you would be coming. Stay and have tea with us.” I sat back down and tried to maintain some form of conversation.
“So, you knew Megan?”
“Who?”
“Megan. Mohammed Salek told me she used to eat here with you.”
“I’ve never heard of that person,” the mother told me. After I found out that the girl, Azziza, was Salek’s sister and the baby, Salema, was hers. She didn’t speak any French, but I could get by communicating with her in simple Hassanya. Before leaving I made a second rendezvous with the Mother, Nana, for when Salek was supposed to return. When I came back I found that once again Salek was not there. He had again left for Chingetti earlier the same day. I was about to give up on the whole thing. The mother then asked me if I would be willing to give French lessons to Azziza. I was desperate for a host family, so I agreed to do it if I was repaid with a meal and a round of tea. They were more than happy, since they would have offered me that just as courtesy in addition to money. After, I began visiting Salek’s house once or twice a week to give French lessons. In doing I was able to create a good relationship with his family. Salek himself is rarely around, so he is the member of the family I know the least.

Stranded out in the desert, I was a bit worried because although I knew Salek’s family well, and trusted them completely, he was still a live wire for me. Would he leave me stranded just to steal my baggage? The day began to heat up under the nomad’s tent and my eyes were intently fixed out the window. After 40 minutes of absence our guide appeared on the horizon followed by our three camels and two assistants.

We headed out for another hour moving down into another oasis to rest till 4. This oasis was about twice the size as the last, but not quite as beautiful. One side of the canyon in which it was situated is made up of rock stair steps, the other, an almost shear wall of sand. There was an irrigation pool at the camp we were resting at, so we paid them to fill it so we could cool off. It was about the size of a Jacuzzi, and just as enjoyable laying in the shade of the palm trees. After soaking a while the Jareds and I climbed the dune, moving up the face at an angle so that we wouldn’t topple downwards. The sand scalded our feet as we sweated our way to the top. Once there we leaped over the edge bounding down the side as if we were running moguls down a black diamond ski slope.

After bathing again and taking lunch we headed out of the Oasis in two groups. Luke and Jared would be riding camels. The Deuce, Salek and I would be walking. The deuce mistakenly brought Dr. Martin Sandals for the trip, which weren’t the most ideal for trekking through the sand. We initially tried to climb a straight face on the large dune leading out of the oasis, but Jarad wasn’t able to make it because his sandal’s kept falling off, and the sand was so incredibly hot he couldn’t go barefoot. In the end we doglegged around to an easier graded slope and made it out no problem. Salek told us that we would be camping that night outside of another oasis. On the way there we came across a nomadic encampment. Salek told us that we couldn’t speak Hassanya when we arrived. He was going to try to convince the people we were tourists, and that if they gave us tea and water we might buy something. In the end it didn’t matter because they had nothing to sell and were more than willing to offer us something to drink. Sitting together I noticed there was a young girl lying on the carpet motionless staring at us. The father asked me if I had any medicine for her. Apparently she had had a fever for a few days, and was quite ill. All I had on me was some aspirin. I gave them a few packets and explained to them the dosage.

Meeting the others at the camp we found that Luke and Tang had named the camels. The white lead camel with a mean disposition was Whittaker. The second nicer brown camel was Jugenjubu. The third small white camel that was used solely to carry luggage and water was named Pacman.

That night our guides headed into the oasis for a wedding. We slept under the stars, and supplemented our meagre meal with some MREs the boys had picked up in the Peace Corps office in Nouakchott. We went to bed around 11, sleeping soundly under the desert stars. The boys set up their tents making reference to the snake tracks we had seen earlier that day, but I slept out in the open without fear.

Day 2
Somewhere around 4 a.m. our guides came in to camp and fell down exhausted on the mats. I woke them up 3 hours later to begin our day. When Salek and I first began to plan this trip he ran down a schedule of each day for me. He told me he generally got up at 5 a.m. and woke the chameliers (guys taking care of the camels). He then would prepare breakfast for the group, and politely wake us all at a quarter to 6. “The biggest problem on these trips”, he explained to me earlier “is tourists who refuse to get up on time. They always want to sleep in.” For the entirety of the trip Salek never woke up before me (I got up at 6:30 everyday), and normally I had to shake him for over 5 minutes to get him up.

That morning I started off on the camel, but only lasted an hour. Camel saddles are quite possibly the most uncomfortable devices in the world. I’m quite sure they’re used as means of torture in remote regions of eastern Turkey. The previous day I had mentioned to Salek my desire to catch and eat a lizard. My friend Mustafa had told me about it back in Atar. He described it as tasting similar to chicken. Salek said it would be possible

Lab(dHab) is the Hassanya word for the species of lizard we were hunting. They are completely black and covered with spikes. They range in size but the biggest are only slightly smaller than a monitor lizard. Around 10 Mohammed, the head chamelier, spotted one about 50m off. It quickly scurried under a rock, but he was able to tear it out by the tail. It was a little more than a foot long, and seemed relatively calm. There is a Mauritanian saying about this particular lizard species. If it bites you won’t be able to get it off tell cows are flying in the sky. Mohammed handed it to me by the neck. I grabbed it and it immediately began trashing around. I grabbed its twisting tail to hold it still. Blood trickled down my hand where the spikes dug in, but I steadied the creature, and eventually it relaxed. About 20 minutes later I spotted another larger one about 70m away. It hid under a rock, but luckily it was too big to fit all the way so its tail was still sticking out.

Mohammed tried for ten minutes or more to pull it out but was unsuccessful. The lizards have incredibly strong necks so that they can lodge themselves under a rock, and brace their head back against the top. After Mohammed had given up I handed the first lizard to Saleck and gave the new one the old college try. The lizard wouldn’t budge. Najii, the other chamelier, brought a rope over and tied it around the hind legs of the lizard. The three Mauritanians on the rope and me on the tail, we all pulled together and ripped him out of his hiding place. This lizard was nasty right from the start, and almost bit my index finger of as I released his tail. Salek dragged him along by the rope till we stopped for lunch, afraid to pick him up by the neck. The lizard was almost 2 ft long.

We marched on. I held onto the first lizard, which drew new blood when I picked it back up. After another hour we took midday break under the shade of a Balantes tree. We tied the lizards together and let them rest under a nearby bush. Temperature got up to 120 that day, and the thorny tree we were lying under provided little relief in the form of shade. We split off to find better resting areas till 4. On returning I could see Salek chasing something though the desert. I ran after him realizing the lizard had gotten loose. The string was still attached to the tail, but Salek was afraid to grab it. Using skills I could only attribute to hours of watching the crocodile hunter, I grabbed a stick and forced his head to the ground. Then working from the back I first grabbed the neck then the tail. We threw both lizards in a bag and attached them to the camel for the afternoon trip.

We mounted the third ridge for the day around 6:30 only to be looking down into another rock valley with a set of tents lying at the center. When we arrived at the encampment we were greeted by a woman and her 15+ children. She had 3 warm Fantas she had brought in the last time she was in Atar. The Jareds and Luke, who were going through major sugar withdrawal, bought them off her for double the normal price. Despite her capitalistic tendencies she was extremely welcoming. There was an extra tent at the edge of the encampment, and she offered it up to us for the night. Though we only used it for storing our baggage, preferring open air and a star filled sky, we were still grateful for her offer. She brought out the normal touristic goods you can find on any corner store in Atar. Being taken by her hospitality, I felt I had to at least buy a few items to take home. Without any regret for the inflated price I bought two necklaces and a bag of dates.

After the sun set I reminded Salek of the lizards still wrapped up in our baggage. We brought them out and I slit their throats and cleaned them. Every morning on the trip we ate hubza, a bread that is cooked under the sand the night before. Essentially you build a fire and get some good coals. Then, you push the coal to the side and dig up the sand. You then place a ball of dough (add sugar or salt for taste) in the hole, and recover it with sand and coals to cook. After our bread was ready for the night Salek wanted to bury the lizard carcasses to be sure they were cooked all the way through. We would leave them over night and eat them for breakfast. I left him in charge and retreated to my sleeping bag.

Day 3
The next morning I got up and woke our guides. Next I went to the fire to check on my delicious lizard breakfast. Lying next to the now ice cold coals were the uncooked carcasses I had cleaned the night before. Fury rose in me.
“Salek, what the hell is this?”
“You forgot to put them in the fire,” he said.
“For one, you said we had to bury them. For two, you said you were going to do it.”
“I thought you would prefer to do it so I left them there.”
“Were you going to tell me that?”
“I thought you would know.”
For 4 years prior to Peace Corps I was a moderate vegetarian. The only reason I could justify the killing of the lizards was to use them for food. Now it seemed their lives were taken for nothing. Salek calmed me, and assured we could cook them up that evening. I doused the meat in salt then wrapped them up in a bag for that day’s trip. I was very torn on the subject. I could either abstain from eating them and have their lives wasted, or I could eat them, and risk any number of sicknesses.

We moved up what would be the last rock ridge to a plateau covered by the normal rock field and sparse plant life. Reaching the end of the stretch we looked out on an endless horizon of sand in different shades of yellow orange and brown. The only obstruction was a towering mountain to the right of our path. Moving down the plateau Salek pointed to a line of huts near the mountains base. Speaking in a giddy voice he told me we would soon meeting his fiancé. We took tea with the young woman, who in Salek’s absence proposed marriage to each of us in turn. Tang was talking about some bug crawling across the floor when she inquired about our conversation. Being brief I simply said the Hasaniya word for bug (humvus).
“Oh, yes there are lots of them here,” she said to us in an almost bragging manner. “I always have them in my hair. They itch terribly,” We all inched our way a bit further from the walls.

With the mountains near, the climbing bug was driving me crazy. I tried to encourage the others to come along, but the all declined, preferring to rest in the lice infested hut. I exited on my own and used my already sore muscles and joints to make the ascent. It wasn’t as high as I had thought taking around 20 minutes to reach the top. The mountain itself was a mix of sand and rock. I did my best to hop between boulders on the way up so as to have solid ground to push off. The top was the granite remains of some million years of weathering which was now broken into large slabs 5 stories high. Crevices between the rock created a labyrinth at the base, which I precariously navigate to the top. The panorama was incredible, thousands of miles of dunes to one side, and incredible stretch of rocky peaks and valleys to the other. The boys were going to come up here if I had to use a heated prod to get them to move.

Again reaching the lice hole, I told the others about my short adventure. Using my best sales techniques (exaggeration and lying) I sold the trip, and they all agreed to go up after lunch. We ate our normal meal of rice and vegetables, and then packed up to spend the next 2 hours on top. They all cursed me as we made the ascent, but were as pleased as I was with the view on top. We opened a few MREs to have our second lunch.

This next passage is mostly directed at my cousins James and Brian who passed so many hours of play with me as a child making me scared of my own shadow. One of the games we liked best was GI Joe. Years we wasted arranging our figures for attack and defence of the secret bases in grandma’s basement. Anyway, around the time that such great hits as “The Super Bowl Shuffle” were hitting radios everywhere, the popularity of one William “The Refrigerator” Perry was reaching a fever pitch. In one of the many cameo appearances he had at the time, he was in a spot on an episode of GI Joe the cartoon. Shortly after there was issued a The Fridge GI Joe figure. I remember quite distinctly owning said action figure and using its immense power and physique to overtake the enemy bases held by my merciless cousins. Can either of you confirm or deny the existence of this figure?

An argument started on the summit of our mountain over the existence of not only the GI Joe figure, but (and I laugh at the poor fools now just typing this) the existence of the super bowl shuffle. I adamantly affirmed numerous times, “It was called The Fridge GI Joe.” Bringing on images of an actual refrigerator with a gun at the side, my fellow adventurers were in hysterics. In the end my friends conceded that it was quite possible that both the song and the figure could have existed, they were just all unfamiliar with them. Having reached such an honourable accord we named our summit Mount The Fridge GI Joe. On the way down we took the southern slope that was nothing more than an enormous dune. Doing flips and riding down the sand like we were on skis we arrived at the base in less than 2 minutes. When we arrived back our camels were ready and we headed out.

We arrived at a small village that night that was slightly out of our way. We had run out of water and needed to be sure of our water source. We camped at the eastern edge of town near the deepest well I have ever seen. At least 5 stories down, it was created by the Saudi Arabian government when they and the Mauritanian government were close allies. A local farmer asked if any of us would be willing to go down and free his bucket that had gotten stuck at the bottom. I volunteered, but Salek insisted adamantly I not go down, so I stayed at the top.

I had bitched all day about wanting to take a shower, and at the end of the day it was possible. An enormous well and a bucket were at our disposal. Salek told me to go to the well and have them draw a bucket. Arriving there I gave my command, and an old man asked what I needed it for. I told him to wash. He clicked his tongue in disapproval “ilayn had yissavir, had ma yistaham (when one travels they don’t wash).” Although not necessarily the best advice, I took it to heart. Tango and Luke washed up that night, while The Deuce and I wallowed in our filth. Luke went out after nightfall about 50 yards from camp. Covered by the darkness he took his clothes off to bathe without fear. It was at that time Salek decided to make the fire for Habza. Our surroundings were illuminated and there was Luke naked as the day he was born smiling at us. That night before going to bed, I made sure that my lizard carcasses were properly buried under the hot coals, so that they would be nice and delicious for me in the morning.

Day 4
The first thought on my mind when I awoke was the lizards. Not that I was anxious to eat the things, which may or may not take my life. I was just anxious to have the whole thing over with. I walked over to the coals to fish them out. Poking around with a stick I didn’t immediately find my breakfast. Fishing around more intensively now, there was still nothing there. I finally got down on my hands and knees and began uncovering the coals with my hands. They weren’t there.
“Salek, wake up!”
“What is it?”
“What did you do with the lizards?”
“I left them in the fire.”
“They’re not here now.” He got up and stumbled over to the fire to fish around himself for a while. He himself seemed puzzled and he began looking around the surrounding area. Suddenly understanding flashed in his eyes. Pointing at the ground he said, “See the tracks here. The dog came in from this way, dug up the lizards and left by that way.”
After days of trouble the bloody lizards were eaten by a dog. Privately I thanked God, having feared any number of gastro-intestinal problems brought on by the spoiled meats we were carrying. God willing I will still eat lizard one day. It just has to be fresh.

We were late heading out because Najii had never returned the previous evening from a trip to buy flour. Around 10 Mohammed mounted one of the camels and headed out after him. An hour later they both were riding back towards us, Mohammed making Whittaker move at a gallop. It was the first time I had seen anyone ride a camel without being pulled. I knew full well it was possible; it is just that nobody does it. I had to do it. Slowly I convinced Mohammed to let me give it a try. He first made me get on Whittaker, the more mean tempered camel. After some resistance I was able to get him to stand. Using the rope tied to his nose I steered while kicking his shoulders to make him move forward. I soon learned to use a stick to make him turn holding it out in the opposite direction I wanted him to go, threatening to hit him if he didn’t turn. Not quite like riding a horse but similar. Finally I dismounted, taping him on the neck to make him sit, then hopping off. They were impressed. After some further prodding on my part, Mohammed let me take my camel, Jugenjubu, solo for the trip that day. He tended to lag behind, which was fine by me, because every 20 minutes or so, I got to make him gallop to catch up.

At lunch we camped under a tree, and began a heated argument over the possibility of time travel. Tang was adamant in the fact that if one travels faster than the speed of light they can go back in time. Luke argued that travelling at the speed of light or faster would only make one move forward in time. I argued that one would have to reach a velocity of warp 9 or greater while circling the sun in order to travel back to the late 1980s to retrieve a set of humpback whales in order to communicate with some weird probe that was threatening to destroy the earth. In the heat of our debate, realizing the ridiculousness of our conversation, we began to wonder what our Mauritanian guides were talking about. We listened in on their conversation:
Salek: “I drink 15 glasses of tea a day.”
Najii: “I really like tea. I wish I could drink it more.”
Mohammed: “Najii you are so young. If you drank more tea you would surely puke like a small baby.”
All:
We wondered if they would even understand our conversation if it were in a language they knew. We attempted to continue our argument in Hassanya. Soon they began to notice:

Random girl from nearby tent trying to sell us stuff: Listen the White people are speaking Hassanya.
Najii: What they’re speaking Hassanya. Why aren’t they speaking in English?
Other Random Girl: That one just said light. That’s hilarious.
Mohammed: Shhh, listen…
They all quieted just as Jared began to say in Hassanya “if one moves very fast, like the beam of a flashlight, one can travel yesterday.” Our Mauritanian companions remained silent for a moment longer then began speaking among themselves again:
Najii: “I really like tea. I would not get sick if I drank more.”
Random Girl: “I make tea. I make it everyday.”
Mohammed: “Your tea is no good. I’ve had it before. You don’t know how to make tea.”

In the afternoon Tang gave solo camel riding a go. I traded off with him and he galloped ahead. Salek was about 100 yards behind me yelling for me to wait for him and Mohammed. I motioned for him to hurry to catch, up but he kept a steady pace. Finally I walked back and met him.
“Tell your friend not to run the camel. We just filled the water tanks and there is too much weight. We don’t want to hurt them.” I agreed and headed forward at double pace to try to catch Jared. It took me near 20 minutes to get close again, but when I was almost there Salek began yelling at me again to stop. I tried to ignore him, but he continued yelling over an over. Again I motioned for him to catch up, but he maintained the same lagging pace. This time I waited for him to reach me.
“What is it?”
“Tell your friend not to run the camel.”
“I was just doing that before you told me to wait for you.”
“…Oh, yeah I know. Just…for later. Tell him later…”

We camped on the dunes that night. Before the sunset we played a game of Frisbee with our guides. Najii was the only one to learn how to throw the disc. The others failed miserably. In the end we played a few games of 500 before the sun finally set.

Day 5
The hiking was getting harder. Not only were our muscles sore, but we were entirely in sand now. Your legs have to work twice as hard to push off of the soft surface. Slowly you learn tricks for spotting sand that has more tenacity. Still it was exhausting. We alternated off on the camels taking breaks. I felt guilty, since this was my trip, and I had dragged everyone else along, so I tried to stay off as much as possible. Towards noon we reached an encampment,. The people there informed us there was a well nearby. Salek and Najii stayed behinds for tea, and we moved on with Mohammed to find the well. “How far off is this,” I asked.
“Oh, only 5 minutes.” The Deuce and I were walking at the time, and I could tell he was about at wits end. A half hour later he let out a string of profanities I don’t care to repeat here. I again asked about the well. “Oh, only 5 minutes.” I stopped Jared before he could strangle the life out of our guide. Fifteen minutes more we stopped under the shade of a tree, and began preparing for lunch. The well was still nowhere in sight.

We were in the middle of nowhere and were all exhausted. We laid down on our mat and all quickly fell asleep. Upon waking I heard some sort of clinking to my left, which sounded curiously like jewellery being sorted. I turned my head and saw it was jewellery being sorted. While we were sleeping 6 women had set up shop around our mat. We were completely encircled in wears. We tried to act as if we didn’t notice, but when The Deuce awoke with a shocked face to say, “Where the hell did they come from?” We all burst into laughter. I have no idea how they found us, but it seemed as though these women had been waiting their entire lives for us to show up. Luke negotiated for a necklace for a while, but the rest of us abstained. We had already seen enough Mauritanian goods to last a lifetime. We certainly didn’t need any at triple the standard rate.

That afternoon we again suffered through the desert. Towards 5 I saw a village in the distance and asked Najii if it was Chingetti. He told me it was a different town, and that Chingetti was still a ways off. Twenty minutes later Salek came up to me laughing.
“Najii told you that wasn’t Chingetti?”
“Yes.”
“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. This is his first time making this trip. He’s never even been in the desert. That’s Chingetti. We’ll be there by 10 tomorrow morning.” Confidence again restored in our guides we camped that night an hour from our final destination. We split up the last of our MREs and had a feast. While Salek and Najii went off to gather wood, I had Mohammed hide me under a blanket to scare them. When they arrived Mohammed told them he wanted them to see something. He uncovered me, and I jumped out tackling Salek, who nearly wet himself. We all slept well knowing it was our last night in the desert.

Day 6
In the morning Mohammed and I raced camels. I was on Jugenjebu (who we found out was really named “Brownie”). He was on Whittaker (who was really named “Whitey”). He beat me by 4 camel lengths, but it was still fun riding them without all the baggage. After we packed up and headed into town. Salek left me with a bunch of stuff to take to his family and then they all headed back the way we had come. They were going to make the same trip we had just finished, but were going to do it in 2 days.

We waved goodbye and soiled Jeff’s house with our dirty bodies as we waited for a truck to take us back to Atar.

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