Saharan splendor

BY JILL WORRALL

The word is a sigh . . . an arid puff of wind that stirs the golden granules . . . Sahara.

In Arabic, a language that is, mysteriously, both mellifluous and guttural, Sahara simply means "desert".

Did a nomad swathed in indigo blue hear the word on the air? See it sculpted in the dunes? We'll never know, but as my bare feet sink into the cool drifts of Saharan sand for the first time, I realise it's a perfect noun.

We are on top of a ridge, a wave of sand, its crest frozen in sinuous perfection. From this peak, the Sahara undulates away into the distance - the world's largest hot-climate desert (for the geographically pedantic, Antarctica is, strictly speaking, the biggest desert on the planet). It ebbs and flows where it will, today encompassing 11 countries.

I'm standing on a Libyan dune. The Libyan Sahara is one of the driest parts of the desert, receiving less than two centimetres of rain a year.

Despite the dearth of water, the simmering summer heat and the freezing winter nights, the Sahara has always been crisscrossed by humans - hunting, trading and skirmishing.

I'd like to say we have camels gurgling and complaining nearby, but instead we have the modern-day ships of the desert - four-wheel-drives.

I have five, in various states of repair, loosely under my control. I say loosely because neither me, as tour leader, nor Mahmoud our tour guide are really in charge out here. The Boss is nearby, draped decoratively over the bonnet of his Toyota Land Cruiser.

Six foot-plus of Tuareg clad in a full-length blue robe, a sculpted face of ebony skin wrapped in a white turban. he is every inch the nomad chief - even with the wraparound sunnies.

The other drivers lie in the sand in the shade of their vehicles while the Kiwis take photos, or simply stand around, gazing into the distance.

I pass around a box of fresh dates - swapping between my halting Arabic and slightly more fluent French.

Libya has an open door policy. For Africans, the country is a glorious exotic potpourri of Algerians, Tunisians, Ghanaians, and workers from Chad, Mali and Niger, along with the locals, who include Berbers and Tuaregs, the original nomadic people of the desert.

The driver from Niger and I debate what the English term is for a person from Niger. We are ensnared in an etymological tangle when the Boss languidly stands up and climbs into his vehicle. The other drivers leap to their feet immediately.

Our motorised caravan scatters across the dunes. Abdul the Boss is in the lead.

I learn later from his passengers that if the other drivers recklessly edge ahead, Abdul calls them on his cellphone and orders them to "get in behind".

There's no chance of our driver Hamid receiving a bollocking for stealing the alpha male spot.

We seem a little underpowered, and often don't make it up the steeper dunes at our first try. Before each subsequent attempt, Hamid leans forward, kisses the steering wheel and whispers words of encouragement.

This seems to work most of the time.

It's not until later that I realise that when Hamid's telephone burst into life each time we didn't make the summit, it was Abdul in full cry.

Apparently, not getting to the top in one go is seriously emasculating . . . even by proxy.
BY the end of the day, when his 4WD seems to be getting even slower, Hamid doesn't even bother to answer the insistent rings.

He just turns up the volume on his radio and drowns them out. Maybe he's been emboldened because he's carrying the rest of what our group call, tongue in cheek, "our glorious leaders".

Sitting beside Hamid is Mamoud, our national guide. He's a Libyan who grew up beside the Roman ruins of Leptis Magna near Tripoli.

His childhood was spent playing among the fallen columns and half-buried statues and fossicking among the mosaic floors of 1900-year-old villas.

He's wearing a galabiyya (robe) today and a turban, unlike Majoud, our attendant policeman, who is sticking to jeans and a T-shirt.

I'm told he is armed, but he refuses to confirm or deny this. Presumably, it is hard to hide a handgun in the folds of a galabiyya.

All groups of more than eight tourists are assigned a tourist policeman in Libya. We never had a single occasion to call on Majoud's official skills.

Majoud comes from Benghazi, and he's homesick for his wife and two small children.

"I don't like sand, " he tells me, which I find inexplicably funny coming from a resident of a country where only 5 per cent of the land is not Saharan desert.

But he's also appointed himself my language teacher, and is proving to be a hard taskmaster. As we lurch down a precipitous dune, the prayer beads hanging from the rear vision mirror swinging wildly, he is making me count backwards in Arabic.

When I make it to wahad (one), Majoud grudgingly says, "Not bad".
Hamid briefly takes his hands off the wheel to applaud. I hope Abdul the Alpha Male is not watching.

When we stop again to survey the desert, one of my tour party approaches.

"Is there a toilet somewhere?" she asks. I struggle to maintain my professional aplomb.
Pristine dunes, their flanks alternately struck with sun or deep in shadow, sweep away on all sides.

There are nine million square kilometres of Sahara. Could there be more space, more freedom to be alone, than here? I slip away from my travelling circus to sit in the sand.

I take off my shoes. Deathstalker scorpions might be lurking - and, apparently, sand vipers bury themselves beneath the surface, with just their eyes at ground level to spot their prey.

But at the moment, who cares? This is the world's greatest sand desert, and I want to feel it, to know that the Sahara is in between my toes, polishing the soles of my feet.

A desert breeze is moving along the cool, shaded face of a nearby dune.

It moves the grains of sand so gently, the landscape seems to swim before my eyes.

Tiny coils of sand spiral silently across the slope, wraithlike plumes reshaping the desert, sculpting the Sahara once again.
* In two weeks' time: Oasis in the Sahara and the Alpha Male unveiled.

- © Fairfax NZ News