La Frontera

This is an odd one - I was (well, actually am) in a writing contest with a very odd prompt. We had to write 1500 words based on this photo of an old van:
Anyways, that's what today's post is - more of Triumphant Sun will be coming later in the week, I think, but it needs editing so it'll have to wait.

La Frontera

“Hijo de la puta!” swears Ezequiel as the van swerves tightly around a hulking cactus. In the seat next to him, Hector grits his teeth and guns the engine harder, 6 cylinders screaming in dry protest. The spiralling cone of dust remains in the rear-view mirror, dogging them at a distance as it has for the past 2 hours, a tiny black dot at its center.

“Why don't they make up their chingado minds?” Ezequiel spits out the window through the gap in his teeth. “How long is this shit going to last, cabron? What's with the fucking Border Patrol?”

“No patrol,” says Hector. “Police never take this long. Anyways, remember what Arturo said?”

“Si, si. But maybe they got the wrong sergeant. Maybe just sold us down the river, you know?”

“No. El Gallito, for sure.”

Ezequiel sucks in a long breath and fixes his eyes on the rearview again. It hangs at a queer angle, reflecting his own bloodshot grey eyes and thin, mahogany face back at him. He unconsciously fingers the jagged scar running down his chin from the left ear. He fishes a battered cigarette from a crumpled packet in his jeans and lights it with quivering hands.

“What's back there, anyways?”
“You want to know? Go look,” snaps Hector. “And light me one of those, man.” Hector holds out his hand to receive the cigarette.

They hurtle forwards and the desert gleams around them like old brass under the sun's burning disc. The endless pounding of the tires gives a repetitive quality to the minutes, flowing by slow as molasses. Scrub and brush dot the flatness of the sands, and occasionally a bird starts from the ground in front of the van with the swiftness of a gunshot. The two men remain silent, smoking grimly and staring straight forward, avoiding the oppressive presence of the dust cloud behind them, edging ever closer.

Ezequiel finally breaks the tension. “You know what they say El Gallito does...”
“Shut up.” Hector slams his hand on the dashboard. His voice cracks with tension and dryness, and he fumbles under the seat for a bottle of water to soothe his cracked lips. Ezequiel twists the top of the canteen off for his friend and watches in silence as he drinks. He takes only a brief sip when Hector hands it to him.

The shock comes brutally and without warning. The van lists to the right and the wheels dig into the sand, spinning in a fury of sparks and shredded rubber. Hector grimly fights the steering as it fishtails deeper and deeper into the ground, the gearbox tearing itself apart as the axles grind against the burning desert. Ezequiel slams into the door and hurtles on to the sand, his shoulder plowing down and wrenching painfully backwards. The van slides to a halt, the spine of its chassis broken by the impact. Black grease slithers onto the dirt.

Hector leans out of his door and vomits noisily. Ezequiel drags himself backwards and leans against the black metal of the van. It burns to the touch from endless exposure to the sun. He gingerly rotates the shoulder and sighs with palpable relief, the first time he has felt this that day. The crash did not dislocate the joint. He stands and squints into the distance, head still ringing from smashing on the earth. Their pursuer has slowed, circling too far to be made out clearly in the shimmering heat haze.

While Hector voids his stomach, Ezequiel slides under the vehicle. Oil drips onto his face as he fumbles with a long package wrapped in cloth and tied to the steel crossbeams. He rolls back out into the afternoon sun. He carefully lays out the cloth on the ground and runs his hands down the gleaming but pitted steel of the rifle, tracing his fingers along the wood of the stock, splintered in places from the force of the impact, raising it to his shoulder and peering down the sights, checking the straight length of the barrel.

Hector stumbles around to the other side of the van and slumps against the shattered wheel.

“You think that will help?” he mutters sullenly, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

Ezequiel stares down at him. Hector's pale face looks almost white from his sickness, and the heavy muscles of his body seem collapsed and defeated in his dejection. He turns away and searches through the chaos of the glove compartment and emerges with a handful of shells. His hands move like automatons as he carefully slots them into the breech of the rifle.

The pursuer in the distance circles closer, a shark waiting for its prey to grow tired. He can see now that it is a black truck, hulking with menace and cruising easily across the rough ground. Ezequiel kneels down and raises the rifle to his shoulder. His vision narrows down the iron sights, contracting to a tight circle as he carefully leads the front end of his target. He holds his breath tightly, body tight like a steel spring, and then fires. The rifle roars and bucks, the truck swerves to the left and with a practiced motion he digs in his feet and rams the bolt down, bringing another shell into the chamber, firing and reloading three times. Men pile out of the truck as it skids to a halt, steam rising from the engine.

Ezquiel quickly ducks back down next to Hector as bullets zip back towards them, rattling like steel raindrops against the side of the van. “I think I took one of their tires, maybe the radiator.”

“Give me one of those chingado cigarettes.”

They light the last two cigarettes and Hector inhales greedily, sucking smoke into his lungs. He peers around the fender and ducks back as more bullets slam into the ground, kicking up puffs of sand.

“Six, maybe seven. Mierda.”

Ezequiel leans around the other side and snaps off another quick shot. A strangled cry fills the desert air. “That's one.”

“Can you do that five more times?”

He sneaks a look over the hood of the van and crashes back down as more bullets fly by in a hail of automatic fire. “No.”
The two men sit silently for a while, smoke drifting in lazy curlicues above them. Occasionally, the van rocks under the impact of sprayed bullets, the harsh metallic sound of screaming metal echoing around them.

“Puerco pibil,” says Hector

“What?”

“Puerco pibil. My wife was cooking in it when we left. I didn't have time to eat, but I was going to when we returned.”
Ezquiel grins lopsidedly. “Would you call her and like to tell her you're going to be late?”
Hector stares at the other man for a moment. “Si, I would.”

“Well, you could go over ask them if you could use their phone. See what they say.”

“You are a strange little man. You know that, cabron?”
“What can you do, eh?”

They lapse back into their wordless state. High above them in the crystal sky, the black silhouettes of vultures wheel and turn. The desert is strangely silent. Hector leans forward and grabs the disjointed remains of the side mirror and tilts it carefully around the edge of van.

“I think they're trying to fix the truck,” he says.

“To leave?”

Hector shoots him a look. “What do you think?”

“Listen, Hector. Do you have that revolver? The one that Arturo gave you?”

Hector pulls it from beneath his shirt and lays it on his lap, ugly and snub-nosed. “It's no good. This for for shooting maricons in a bar, not this out here in the open. Maybe if they walk up and knock, or something.”
“Si. It's not for them.”

“You mean...”

“I have three bullets. Maybe we get one, two, but then nothing. I'm not letting them take me back to El Gallito. So one of us has to do it. Do both.”

Hector runs his hands over the revolver. “Which one?”
“I don't know. You have a coin.”
Hector fishes in his pockets. “You know what, I'll do it. I always wanted to shoot you anyways.”

“Chinga tu mujer.”
“She wouldn't. She says you look like a rabbit.”

Ezequiel shrugs and pulls a rosary from his pocket, distractedly running the cheap wooden beads through his fingers.

“You believe in that mierda, man?” Hector looks incredulous.

“Not really. But, you know. What's the worse that can happen?”
The two men sit back as the sun sinks lower in the sky. The metal of the engine pings as it cools, a weirdly melodic sound like a music box falling slowly out of tune. The last lines of smoke spiral away into the fading light and in the far, far distance a desert owl lets off a mournful call. Hector hums a few snatches of a Mexican song as the two men wait, watching the shadow of the van slink longer and longer across the landscape before them.

Voyage to the Hidden City, Pt. 1

My adventures for this weekend revolved around visiting Petra. Strictly speaking, however, most of my time was spent in transit - an experience, I can assure you, was a bit less than exemplary. As a study in how the Middle East basically seems to work, however, it was pretty invaluable. So I'm going to drag you through every excruciating moment of it. I will, however, refrain from using the phrase "Rose Red City," throughout, because I'm thoroughly sick of that epithet.

We set out from Cairo late Tuesday night to take a bus to Nuweiba, a little port city on the Red Sea in the Sinai Peninsula. The plan was to take a ferry from Nuweiba to the Jordanian port of Aqaba and from there another bus to Petra, about two hours inland. There's another way to get there, by cutting through Taba in Egpyt and Eilat in Israel, but that involves getting an Israeli stamp on your passport, which is the kiss of death for trying to enter any Arab nation except for Egypt and Jordan.

Little did we know that Nuweiba is pretty much the sphincter of Egypt. It wasn't quite a wretched hive of scum and villainy, but it was pretty damn close. Apparently the tourist part of the town is actually quite nice, but the port authority area is a sprawling mess of dirty cafes, loading docks, shipping offices, and filth. This place was seriously disgusting even by lax Egyptian standards. We spent most of our time in the shaded courtyard of the ticket office, which was the least awful of the available locations.

Don't even get me started on the cement-block hole-in-the-ground Egyptian squat toilets. The most foul truck-stop restroom in America wouldn't even be able to hold a candle to these - in fact, if they did there might be some sort of explosion. I will never be able to understand how an Islamic culture which places such a high value on personal cleanliness and regular ablutions allows its streets and especially its washrooms to become such vile cesspits.

The bus which we had taken was actually chock-full of AUC students, but most of them were going to Israel, so they got off in Taba to head north to Jerusalem. There were a couple of others with is in Nuweiba, including two crazy guys who planned to visit Petra, Amman, and Damascus all in one weekend. And even though it often takes 8+ hours to cross the Syrian border - if you get across at all - they still probably spent less time in transit then us.

Joe and Ben - another guy visiting Jordan - and I chilled in the ticket office until they finally decided to start boarding the "fast ferry." After being shuffled through six or seven different waiting areas, having our passports and tickets checked innumerable times, and being put on buses that sat idling for 10 minutes to travel no more than 500 ft. from the terminal to the boat, we finally boarded the ship - only to have our passports confiscated for "processing."

Now, being out of control of your passport is a worrying state of affairs at the best of times. Giving it over to the grimy hands of the Jordanian/Egyptian state port security services would be enough to give the Dalai Lama an aneurysm. But, we bore it with admirable patience, and after finally shuffling everyone around, the boat took off from the dock. And it was a fast boat - the "slow ferry" was still boarding trucks when we arrived in Aqaba an hour later, around 6pm. We were optimistic that we would be in Petra by 8, and happy that our investment in the "Fast Boat", about twice as expensive as the regular ferry had paid off. So we pulled into port...and waited.

And waited.

And waited some more. We sat in our seats, with no one telling us a bloody thing about what was going on. A few other foreign nationals were let out but they weren't letting Americans anywhere. Mind you, they still had our passports during this whole ordeal. Finally, over an hour later, they relented and let us out of the boat and put us on another 500m bus ride to the Jordanian customs/arrival terminal.

Where they didn't have our passports. Now, I'm used to Egyptian bureaucracy and official stupidity, but I have never before encountered a customs bureau that had simply vanished our passports. For almost an hour, I couldn't get a straight answer out of any of the duty officers as to where they had gone. People walked back and forth. There was shouting in Arabic and a fair amount of gesticulation. We were repeatedly assured that the wait would be "10 more minutes." Some of the Americans' passports emerged, while others inexplicably remained hidden in the bureaucratic void. It finally emerged that they were "processing" each passport for security, a process which appeared to take about 5 minutes per passport. They trickled out over the course of the hour, emerging in small, illogical batches - one guy got his while his girlfriend didn't, while a Korean family was handed all of theirs - except for their 5-year-old daughter.

Finally, having determined that Joe and I and two middle-aged travelling companions from Ireland and Oregon did not represent pressing security risks to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, we were allowed out around 9pm - to get a bus to Petra. At this point, Joe and I had been travelling for 24 solid hours, with only brief naps on the bus and boat. But we got a taxi, and after being shunted between four different drivers and twice as many arguments about something - Allah only knows what, although it undoubtedly involved money - we were on our way to Petra.

I was honestly only conscious for the first bit, where our driver pointed out the world's biggest damn Jordanian flag flying over Aqaba port and bought jerry-cans of petrol from a station run exclusively by eight-year old boys. Then it was off into the Jordanian countryside. Fortunately, Joe was able to make conversation with the middle-aged couple who had gotten stuck in the same trap as us, and I was able to lie back, sleep and have my head repeatedly slammed into the doorframe of the car by the squealing hairpin turns that led to Petra.

We got to our hotel, and found that two other groups of AUC students were already occupying it, so that was an interesting surprise. Fortunately we had booked ahead of time, and through the incompetence of the hotel staff we were for some reason given a four-bed room for the price of the two-bed room we had booked - not particularly useful, but it at least gave us clean linen for each night we were there! They briefly tried to charge us the 4-bed rate, but we were so thoroughly fed up that we took our bags upstairs and told them we expected the right rate when we returned. They obliged.

That was the end of our voyage to Petra - or strictly speaking, to Wadi Musa, the village just outside Petra. The next day brought all of the good, awesome, and beautiful stuff. Stay tuned...

Glimpses

News remains slow here, but what can you do. I apologize that I can't get mugged by Turkish pimps every week - although that might get old. Anyways, here are five or six of my favorite photos from the trip. Hope you like them! Click to see them in all their full-res glory.

Stairway in Cairo. I like it because it sums up the physicality of the city.

Bizarre volcanic cones in the Black Desert. Looks like an alien landscape.

The beginning of the white desert and its bizarre cones and whorls.

Footprints in the White Desert.

Old man in prayer at the Suleimaniye Mosque, Istanbul.


Ceiling in the Roman Temple at Baalbeck.

Turkish Delight

Istanbul is hard to sum up in words. It acts one way and then, without warning, surprises you with hidden delights. The tiny alleyways with children playing soccer, the cluttered houses and gleaming boutiques, the bars, cafes and restaurants tucked into side streets and lining broad avenues - you could wander this city for a year and see a new mosque and eat in a new place each day.

Yesterday, we saw both the Blue Mosque and the Haga Sofia, and the contrast could not be more apparent - as was intended. It was a grey, rainy day, and the Sofia was a cold, almost brutal marble structure with a soaring dome - unfortunately somewhat obscured by scaffolding. There are massive pillars and the remnants of old, gilt Byzantine mosaics. Even the remains of the Islamicization that took place after the conquest are massive wooden wheels with the names of Allah, the Prophet, and the first four Caliphs.

By contrast, the Blue Mosque is an almost weightless structure of thin, gold-topped minarets with an airy, lofty interior. Carpeting and careful lighting make it seem far more delicate and open, and from the exterior it appears to be made of porcelain or glass next to the heavy brick and stone of its Christian counterpart.

Today, on the other hand, was sunny and gorgeous. We wandered the streets of Sultanahmet, visiting a number of other major and minor mosques. Ottoman architecture is very regular and elegant on the outside, so we began to get a sense of deja vu as we approached each, but the interiors differed wildly. The lovely weather meant we had some great views of Istanbul.

The greatest sight I have seen was last night as I walked back to the hotel by the Blue Mosque. Fireworks went off over the Golden Horn, glittering in the rainy night sky. They startled the flocks of seagulls that nest around the Mosque, which took off simultaneously, and were lit up by the Mosque's floodlights so that it looked like hundreds of golden arrows soaring over the spires.

...My Name Is Ozymandias, King of Kings...

Saturday was given over to the "West Bank" of Luxor, referring to the Western side of the Nile which holds The Valley of the Kings, Madinat Habu, the Colossi of Memnon, the Temple of Hatshepsut, and a whole host of other relics and ruins. We hit the Valley first, which was both an entertaining and frustrating experience. We were part of a 13-person guided tour, one of those where a local guide with a strong accent and peculiar command of English explains the historical significance of every damn lump of stone along the route.

So it wasn't that bad - nevertheless, it could still get pretty annoying, and the Egyptian "th" to "zz" lisp started to drive me insane: "ze Pharaoz zat are buried in ze valley zought zey might be zafe from zieves...." Despite that, the tombs and the valley itself were pretty cool, and the different configurations and evolutions were really interesting. Unfortunately, photography is forbidden in the tombs; on the flip-side, so are tour guides, so they are pretty peaceful places. Disgustingly hot and humid, though - emerging into 90 heat with beating sun never felt so good!

One of the funny things about the tombs was the big pit-traps in the entry shaft of every one, which really reminded me of Prince of Persia or something - I half expected to have to jump over a lattice of extending spikes. Actually, that might have helped impale some of the hordes of loud, obnoxious, and inappropriately dressed tourists that were swarming the place.

Thoroughly tombed-out, we headed towards the Temple of Hatshepsut, the only female ruler of Egypt. It was a fairly imposing but also substantially dull structure, with a breathtaking view of the West Bank valley. The only problem was the haze that hung over the city, making it hard to see beyond the Nile - I don't know whether it comes from pollution, river-fog or some combination. In any event, guide- and temple-fatigue made this sight less than stunning. It also had the world's stupidest tram ride - literally a hundred metres towed behind a forklift. Seriously, what's the point????

After that we visited Madinat Habu, the Pharaonic name of which I don't recall. It was built by Ramses III to commemorate some of his military accomplishment. The sheer scale of the columns and pylons made it pretty damn impressive. Once again, you couldn't help but be awed by the hubris of these men. They were larger-than-life in every sense. I particularly liked some of the details of the carvings - cartouches etched a foot into solid stone, a somewhat ghastly frieze of the Battle of Armageddon/Meggido, the depiction of Ramses's slaves severing the hands and penises of captured soldiers and the giant image of him offering sacrifices to Osiris.

Finally, we visited the Colossi of Memnon. There's a funny story behind these - they're two huge statues of seated men, fractured and broken all over. They were the guardians of the massive Temple of Amenhotep, a complex which once covered 350,000 sq. metres(for comparison the Mall of America covers 230,000 sq. metres). It was destroyed in an earthquake and raided for quarrying purposes - many of Egypt's greatest monuments have been cannibalized by other pharaohs. The Colossi remained broken and were reputed to cause a weeping, moaning sound every morning - some strange effect of the wind and the dew. A Roman emperor re-assembled them on an oracle's instructions and the sound stopped. (N.B. The name Memnon is from the King of Ethiopia in the Iliad - the Greeks assumed that it was to this mythical person the statues were dedicated).

Anyway, a good story for two impressive monuments. I'll tell the last part of my adventure - getting home - tomorrow.

Through the Sun-Drenched Dust: Part 2

The White Desert was an alien-looking landscape studded with weird limestone formations that eroded at the slightest touch. After clambering around the spires and mushrooms we found ourselves covered in a fine white dust that got into every corner and coated every surface. The sun was beginning to set, casting everything in a liquid golden sheen. After taking a lot of pictures we began driving through the desert again.

It became obvious that we were doing a quick tour of every notable rock formation. We were getting pretty tired at this point, covered in limestone and sand. Jacob quipped after the third or fourth stop that if it was another rock he wasn't even going to bother getting out of the car. The Chicken was a pretty funny resemblance, though, and that was worth seeing.

Finally, we pulled up in front of a large, flattish rock and the drivers maneuvered the cars together to form a makeshift windbreak. While we watched the sun blaze down towards the horizon and the moon rise out of the purple sky, the guides began to set up our camp. The funny thing was that standing atop this rock we could see at least 6 or 7 other groups of cars doing the exact same thing, and yet we felt utterly alone out among the rocks and sand. The sky is amazing out there – it just seems infinitely bigger than any sky even on the top of a mountain – the desert sky is an element unto itself.

The guides set up carpets hung against the cars and on the ground and built a firepit in the ground. It was actually a roofless tent – what's the point of a roof when there's no rain? We sat around and ate yosteffendi(mandarins, I think), and discussed various points of racism and religion. It was an engaging although somewhat depressing conversation. Finally, dinner was ready.

It was easily one of the top five meals of my life – perhaps it was the onions and spices rub in the chicken, perhaps the setting, or perhaps the maxim that “Hunger is the best spice.” Whatever the reason, chicken, rice, and potato stew have never tasted so good. Everything was hot and savory, and only Jay was unable to eat – his stomach was upset and he retired early. I think I must have eaten a half-pound of rice and a whole chicken.

Afterwards came the inevitable – the guides inviting us to sit by the fire, sipping tea and smoking shisha. Saeed, the head guide, had actually disassembled his waterpipe and brought it out into the desert with him - I guess they can't live without it. Naguib brought out his tabla(basically a hand-drum), and they began to sing Arab desert songs and play away. It was really an incredible moment, just listening to the rhythms and the cigarette cured voices under the brilliant light of the full moon.

Saeed started a sort of question game where we would ask him questions about his life in Arabic, and he would respond in kind. It got going once we overcame our initial shyness, and had a bit of fun at his expense about his girlfriend back in Cairo. Then he passed the torch to me, and I had to endure an Arabic grilling from the guides and my fellows. It was tough, but I was proud of the moment where Naguib asked me “What do you love in life,” and I responded – in Arabic - “Strong coffee in the morning, good work during the day and my best friends in the evening.” It's satisfying to express real thoughts coherently in Arabic.

Naguib kept hollering these names out into the desert as he sang, and at first I thought he was just kidding around, saying “If only Ahmed so-and-so were here.” As it turned out, he was really yelling to some friends of his out in a (relatively) nearby campsite. So these 5 or 6 Arab men materialized out of the moonlight; from a long way off they appeared like shadowy raiders attacking our camp.

They sat around the fire and brought a big bass drum, and then they really launched into their celebration. A fat man began to bellydance in the middle of the circle of men, using his kaffiyeh as a prop. He brought us into the circle and we danced around the fire and tried to sing along.

At one point, they asked us to sing American songs. We found that between us, we could barely manage Yellow Submarine and I Will Survive, as well as a somewhat pathetic rendition of Wonderwall. In contrast, all the Arabs knew several folk songs and could at least sing the chorus of everything that they tried. Most of the songs were pretty simple, though, along the lines of “Habibi, habibi, habibi...hiya tuhib shai shaheeda.” Which is basically “ My love, my love, my love...she likes strong tea.”

Finally, after more dancing, singing, tea, shisha, games and conversation, we fell to sleep under the stars and the moon. It was almost like early morning in how bright the light was – the full moon seemed like a glowing hole in the blue-black dome of the sky. The whole thing was an incredible experience, seeing how the desert culture works. Without women around, the men dance and joke with each other in an incredibly free way, although they are drawn like magnets to the women with us. They all seem to have a real sense of cultural solidarity – knowing the same songs, the same jokes.

The feel of the desert has something to do with it as well. The emptiness, the sky, the wild sands and stones all contribute to the feeling of being very alone in a vast world. I can only imagine what it must have been like to live your entire life among these dunes and oases, and how that would affect your culture and religion. It's a harsh land, and we experienced only a tiny fraction of its power. Nevertheless, it has made a people who are hospitable in the extreme – never have I felt so welcomed into a group as that night out in the White Desert.

(Next time: The Journey Home; Thanks to Claire Marie-Hefner for the last picture!)

Through the Sun-Drenched Dust: Part 1

This weekend was another intense adventure. I haven't written in several days because I've been away - in the deserts surrounding the oasis hamlet of Bahriya. There are two, actually: the Black Desert and the White Desert.

But first things first. Joe and Kimberly organized the trip through a tour guide, who after a bit of haggling and a bit of pressure were pushed from 450 LE down to 300 LE, a nice break. Thursday night, half an hour after class ended, we were standing at the door of the dorm with our luggage. A microbus - van, really - pulled up and we piled in with our suitcases, bags and cameras. They spoke no English - us, only the Arabic we'd learned in class and the streets. Off we went.

The drive lasted around 4 hours, barreling at upwards of 140 km/h down the center of a two-lane desert highway. The drivers would flash their lights and occasionally pull just far enough to the right to allow semis to blast by going the other way. Believe me, out in the middle of the blackness a one-headlight car is a scary thing. At the end of this long and harrowing voyage, we arrived in a tiny hamlet, spotted with mud walls and palms, and pulled up through the still-bustling streets at the Western Sahara hotel.

We ate typical but delicious Egyptian food: bread, rice, potato and tomato stew, couscous soup, tomatoes, chunks of grilled beef. After that we retired to the roof to admire the view, sip Bedouin tea, and shoot the breeze with our guide, Saeed. As it turned out, he was a university student in Cairo at the prestigious al-Azhar University, where he studied French language and literature. The conversation flowed in a mix of English, Arabic and French, and somehow we managed to get all of our ideas across as Saeed smoked his shisha and we drank cup after cup of strong, sweet(and occasionally salty?) tea.

The next day found us leaving bright and early, in varying degrees of rest. Our first destination was the volcanic peaks and valleys of the Black Desert. The LandCruisers - our faithful steeds throughout the two days, that required neither refueling nor repair despite the abuse we put them through - quickly turned out into the desert.

After a brief stint on a small dune, we headed out for some serious off-roading. While Naguib, the driver of the red Cruiser, seemed to be pretty calm, our fellow, Abdel, was a madman. He loved to slalom through the sands, throwing us around like dice in a cup, and take the crests of dunes at full speed. A short drive with him made the hardest rock seem like a tossing ocean.

We arrived at the foot of a curving valley and went for a walk while the Cruisers took the long way round. It was a bizarre and unique environment - it reminded me alternately of the landscape in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Mordor from Lord of the Rings. We scrambled up and down the sand and black rocks, and Thalia and I braved a sheer - and probably foolhardy - ascent to the top of this cliff/mountainside/valley wall. It was worth it, though, for the sheer breathtaking vista. The descent was even more terrifying, as footholds crumbled beneath our very feet.

Reuniting with the 4X4s, we headed to another, more manageable mountain, snapped a couple of group photos, and then rolled out for lunch at a roadside cafeteria. This was excellent despite - or perhaps because - of its simplicity. We did feel a bit bad about being served by a woman at least 8 3/4 months pregnant - with twins! But to refuse her hospitality would have been a terrible offense.

We climbed reluctantly back into the LandCruisers - the combination of our full bellies and Abdel's driving would combine to create an effect like a food-processor gone haywire. Slip-sliding our way across the dunes, braced against the walls, ceiling, and even doors for support, we turned our supplications to Allah. Finally, we reached a huge dune that dropped away between massive white limestone formations, giving us a stunning view of wildly eroded pinnacles and gnarled peaks.

After time spent climbing, watching, taking pictures, and helping some fellow-travelers fix a flat(ish) tire, we blitzed down the dune and into that bizarre landscape. For those of you have never driven through serious dunes - it is intense. The steady reverse to a high vantage on tractive terrain, the moment of anticipation, the teeth-rattling eyeball-jolting charge down the side, and then the long, whining climb to the peak, holding your breath for the moment of truth - will you make it or fall short. If you make it, cheers and sighs of relief. If not - climb out, dig, turn around, and try again. And these weren't even the great dunes of the Dune Sea farther west, which we'll visit later on, Inshallah.

To Be Continued...

(Next time, on The Sun-Drenched Dust: pyroclasm, tents with no roof, fat men bellydancing, Yellow Submarine, chickens both stone and savory, and much much more)

Tripping Homer

So I'm trying to sort out my plans for this coming Spring Break. There are a lot of options up in the air right now, most of them involving the Mediterranean. I think my number 1 destination is going to be Istanbul - I've always wanted to go there, and it seems like a truly amazing, cosmopolitan city. Lots to see and do, not too far away, and fairly welcoming to Westerners.

Some of my friends are lobbying for another trip after Istanbul - to Beirut. I have to confess, I'm kind of nervous about the prospect. As amazing as Beirut may be, I can't get away from its automatic associations with the kind of violence that plagued it both in the 1980s and last year. I want to go - I want to be able to say that I've gone, and I don't want fear to deter me - but commonsense keeps butting its head in.

Another thing that seems to interest only me is seeing more of the Aegean and the Greek and Turkish coast after seeing Istanbul for 4 or 5 days. There are a lot of interesting, beautiful little sights and places tucked in amongst the coves and crags of that part of the world. But everyone else is focused on seeing the Middle East, so if I did that, I'd probably have to do it alone.

This probably sounds like an embarrassment of riches rather than a dilemma, but I would appreciate anyone's advice on the matter. People who have been, people who know the deal...anything would help.

I am, however, going to be spending this weekend in a desert oasis called Bahriyah. Should be a blast!