Hannah McKeand - Live Dispatches

Saturday 22^nd February 2003

The packing is done, the goodbyes said, and I am finally alone, waiting for the plane. It is time to examine and assess the extent of the quite unfamiliar anxiety, which has been quietly growing, somewhere between my chest and my stomach, over the past few days. I’ve tried to ignore it. I don’t understand where it comes from. My hands are shaking. All should be well. I’m returning to my heart-home. The place I walk every night when I sleep. The desert will welcome me as its daughter. Why then, do I feel afraid?

Events feel beyond my control this time, I’m no longer a curious traveller peeping into the empty places. This time I am being plucked from my life, from all things familiar like a shivering leaf. The desert is claiming me.

I have had to exercise no small strength of will to give an order to my leaving. I have performed my goodbyes with considerable inner ceremony; spoken my words of love like mantras. I will not be torn away until these rites have been properly observed. I’m sure my friends are a little bemused, I’m just off for another two weeks in the desert, I must be an old hand by now? But I have lost my compass and I am full of disquiet. There are things that are important to me today, things that influence me, guide me, locate me in my world. The desert will strip them all away, leave me naked with clarity. All my experience, all my knowledge tells me nothing more than this, I am to be laid bear once more.

Here is the root of my anxiety. I am happy at home. There are people, things I love, but only the desert will tell me how much. I’m afraid to let them go. I have spent days, touching them anxiously with my mind, checking our bonds, committing the path home to my heart. I’ve lost my compass. How will I find my way?

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Tonight I will stop in Switzerland, I will meet up with Georg and the others tomorrow before flying out to Algeria. Not wanting to miss the opportunity of getting at least a taste of something Swiss, I went onto the internet and looked for somewhere rural to stay. I found the Restaurant Baslerhof in Bettingen, about 10kms from the airport. All the description said was, ‘Beautiful country inn, excellent local cuisine and the biggest chestnut tree in the region.” The Restaurant Baslerhof is exactly what it says on the tin, and the room that it has to let turns out to be a whole flat looking out onto the closely-wooded, snowy hillsides.

It’s 5pm and dusk is approaching but I need some air, I need to clear my head, I need to walk. I climb up the steep closely populated streets towards the tree line and find a path that takes me into the woods. The woods are shadowy in the falling half-light, but still I press on, I must gain some height, get some space. The path brings me out on the edge of a high snowy pasture and I stop for a moment and breath deep and slow. I’m warm all through from the exercise, but the air on my face is cold, cold, cold.

As my eyes adjust, I see I am not alone. Two deer have paused on the far side of the meadow to assess my unexpected appearance in their evening. For a moment we mirror one another in stillness; then they turn away and melt into the gloom of the far forest. Suddenly I feel alone, but determined to walk in the open before returning to the valley, I head out across the snow towards a group of thick pines.

It’s almost dark and I’m wary of the shadows under the trees, but I can see a shape in their branches and my curiosity edges me forward. Soon I am among them, peering upwards, it’s a tree house, a beautifully crafted tree house with little windows and a narrow deck around it. I can’t see a way up. I feel my way around the trees and my hands find a ladder. I climb. The little house has been constructed with extraordinary skill and care, and the neat pile of tools in one corner suggest its maker is still at work. I sit with my back against the house and dangle my legs over the edge of the deck. The first star appears and I can’t see the ground down below. There were church bells far off, but now they’ve stopped, all is still in the dim, silver snow.

The landlady of the Restaurant Baslerhof takes me under her wing, and instead of making me struggle with the German menu, brings me a big bowl of delicious rabbit stew and chunks of sweet bread. I am beginning to feel removed and with this removal, I start to calm down.

Sunday 23^rd February 2003

I arrive at the airport at 9am, driven through the snow in a taxi by a man who talks sadly of two horses he once had and then falls silent and thoughtful. I am excited about seeing Georg and Geert again but when I arrive at the airport I am the first and I am still alone. Basel airport is half Swiss and half French, and I wander back and forth through the passport control, unsure which country we are meeting in. On my third re-entry into Switzerland I find Georg beaming at me, and a moment later we are hugging warmly. He hasn’t changed at all, it could have been yesterday we parted in Cairo.

He wastes no time in introducing me to the rest of our companions, Gerhold is a tall, quiet man who is married to a cousin of Georg. Franz Weiss is a carpenter who used to work for Georg, he is solid and stocky with a shaved head and Germanic moustache. He and Georg have travelled together for years, most remarkably a stint they spent together deep in the Amazon jungle. The quiet man’s appearance is deceptive, he is a formidable adventurer. Unfortunately he doesn’t speak a word of English, so it might prove difficult to get to know him as well as I would like.

Elizabet is a fierce and beautiful 52 year old. She seems quite serious at first, but soon betrays an infectious laugh and a lively sense of humour. She tells me she married a boyfriend of six years when she was 26, but that after one year it was all over. She says that since then she has enjoyed her life alone. She is proud and independent. She frightens me, I see myself in her. This will be her eighth major trip into the deep desert, we are undoubtedly women from a particular mould.

Romana is a funny and intelligent 25 year old who has never travelled to a desert before, but gives the impression she is up for anything. Our sense of humour clicks immediately, I feel at ease with her, she would fit in completely with the girls back home. I’m surprised to feel a little rush of relief, I hadn’t realised I had been worried about missing the girls, but now I recognise that Romana will keep the lightness and femininity bubbling in me, instead of me turning into a tough, lone creature.

Geert’s connecting flight gets him to us only just in the nick of time, and he joins us at the gate where I have mischievously purchased a bottle of Champagne. He grins and twinkles as we toast the trip and I swear looks ten years younger than when I last saw him. It is so good to see him and to listen to his soft deliberate voice. He enchants me by producing a new and never before seen pair of special sand-resistant glasses. Once again, I can’t believe it’s been a year since I saw him last.

One international flight is generally much like another, but I have to say that this one is really spectacular. First we fly over the beautiful snowy Alps and Georg points out Mount Blanc and the Matterhorn to me. Then, some time later after we have crossed the Mediterranean, we have several hours to look down and appreciate the true vastness of Saharan North Africa. For hundreds of miles at a time there is no sign of habitation to be seen, only the numberless dunes of the Grand Erg Oriental texturing the surface of the world with their unmistakable star shaped formations. Georg walked 200kms across this dune field as a young man. They walked up the dunes and skied down them for a week. Now I see them from the air, their terrifying size and remoteness strikes home and I am filled with admiration for his achievement.

As we fly over the Tassili plateau into Djanet, the terrain grows spectacularly mountainous, even from this altitude I can sense its magnificence. Oh! I can’t wait to get into this country. But wait I must. After filling out endless entry forms, Georg’s two Tuareg contacts drive us from the small one-building airport down the desert road towards Djanet. 10kms out of town we stop at the Hotel Tenere where we will spend the night. It’s a pleasing and quiet complex of mud built buildings, sprawling inoffensively down a shallow hillside. There is nothing much else around and after dumping my bags, I am able to walk up onto the smooth rock hill behind the hotel and watch the light drain out of the night.

We eat a supper of coriander soup and chicken stew in a large white hall, sparsely adorned with a few ornate camel saddles. The hotel staff and their friends are eating here too. It is refreshing to be in a place that is so relaxed with its tourism.

My room is plain and comfortable, but I feel shut in and dream that the walls are falling down and that I can’t breathe. I wake shaking and sweating, and sleep only fitfully for the rest of the night.

Monday 24^th February

Nevertheless, when Georg bangs uncharitably on my door at 7.30am, I start from a deep, deep sleep. The room is cool and dark behind the shutters and for a minute I have no idea where I am.

After a simple breakfast of dry baguettes and sluggish Turkish coffee, I walk back onto the hill for some air. When I reach the top and look down into the little gully beyond, I am surprised to see two ostriches. Not as surprised, it would seem, as they are, and they flounce away with unnecessary fluster before spinning round to further asses the threat, which is me. The ridiculous creatures put me in good spirits and I return to the hotel grinning to myself.

We pack our gear into the two cars and head into Djanet to collect last supplies and the last of our Algerian companions. Four local Tuaregs are to join us – Ali and Sala are our two drivers and we have still to meet the other Ali who will be our cook, and Parca who is our compulsory ‘official guide’.

Djanet is an easy going and cheerful town, tourism is its life-blood, but once again, its inhabitants take a very relaxed approach to everything. There is no hassle on the streets, everyone goes about their business and lets you go about yours. We stroll through the primitive market and it seems I could buy just about anything here; everything that is except the one thing I want, a compass. I am resigned to spending the next two weeks without one and begin to climb through the town up a maze of little staircases leading between the houses. The day is bright and clear, and near the top of the hill I come out on a horizontal road and sit on its parapet looking out across the oasis. It is not a large settlement, but it seems neat and ordered, contained by its desert frame.

Back on the main street I find the others drinking tea, but I am hungry. I make some enquiries and am pointed through a dark doorway. The dim room is clearly a little restaurant at times, but not at this particular time. A surprised little man appears from the kitchen and looks at me quizzically. “Es-ce-que vous avez un sandwich a porté?” I ask in my dreadful pidgeon French. It’s a miracle he has any idea what I’m on about. He grins at my efforts and asks me if I could get a sandwich, what would I like in it? “Errr.. anything… Whatever’s facile.” I reply incompetently. “Poulet?” He asks with an unmistakable smirk. “Oui! Oui! Poulet would be trés bien. Merci beacoup.” He disappears for a while and I look disconsulatly around the dark little room. Do I really want to eat something from here? My new friend soon puts my mind at rest when he reappears with the most enormous baguette stuffed with fresh chicken, salad and chips. It is a complete meal in a bun, I’m delighted. I rejoin the others in the sunny street and share my booty with Georg. It has been a nice morning and I like Djanet very much, but I have had enough of people and places and things. I am ready to leave the noise behind now.

I am put in the car with Georg, Geert and Romana as they are the best English speakers. Big Ali is our driver; Elizabet, Franz and Reinhold go with Sala, Little Ali and Parca in the second car. Georg is being really thoughtful about making sure I am not left out linguistically, he repeats all the important things for me in English, but there is no doubt that I am the odd one out on a completely German speaking trip.

We drive west out of Djanet and after around 10kms we turn north off the road and continue parallel with it through sandy slopes and rocky mesas. We stop for an hour while the drivers make tea and a salad lunch for us. I climb to the top of a rocky outcrop, but I can’t see far. It’s a pretty enough spot, but I just can’t connect with it. It has taken no effort to get here, a place that looks remote is no more than half a day’s walk from town. The hundreds of tyre tracks and footprints betray this desert’s accessibility. My fear of the empty places has dissolved into concern that I am never going to experience the disconnection I crave on this trip.

We move on again and after some time pass a caravan of seventeen camels. Our drivers stop and chat with the camel men. They are conducting a tourist trek; the camels are laden with back-packs. I guess their owners are walking some other route. This is no wilderness.

There were rare rains last November and the green, although faded, shines through the sand wherever you look. Camels range freely over the land, grazing greedily on the precious vegetation.

We spend a couple of hours picking our way along the southern edge of the Tassili plateau; the further west we go the taller the cliffs and pillars about us become. We are winding through a maze of gradually deepening broad sand channels. The area we are heading into is called Tikubauel which means ‘cut by swords’, and the name is easy to understand. You can imagine a great warrior slashing down, slicing the rock from top to valley floor again and again, and leaving the cracks for the wind to blow smooth. The channels between are full of sand dunes, some small, some huge and blocking the way entirely. We stop at one particularly spectacular dune complex in a valley called Tilalen, and we climb up to their dizzy interconnecting ridges. We pick our way along them like high-wire artists, cautious of the almost vertical drops down to the base of the surrounding cliffs, when in fact we could fling ourselves down them without harm. It is almost evening and the light is rich orange, falling into deep black shadows. It is dune light.

We slide down to the waiting cars and some 12kms further on we stop to make camp in the sheltering heart of a beautiful deep wadi system. It reminds me very much of Wadi Sura on the Gilf Kebir, more enclosed, but the same character of towering, squat, horizontally scored sandstone mesas. The others make camp, but in the last light I head into the cliffs above the big barchan dune behind camp. I cross a ridge and drop into a high natural amphitheatre. Georg mentioned there was a place like this here and I guess I have stumbled across it accidentally. I can hear the sounds of the others settling in the distance, so I decide to try and get up to the cliff edge above them. I climb slowly and carefully. I am still nursing my injured ankle from October and the knee is also giving me trouble; the last thing I want is to hurt myself again on my first day here. The route I have picked is not hard, but it is high to be doing alone, and near the top I have a moment where I think I might have bitten off more than I can chew, but I back down a little way and choose a different route and I am soon at the top. I sit down on the small turret of rock and look down at my companions. I can hear Geert talking quite softly, but when I call out to him he can’t hear me; I remember this trick of the mountains from Uweinat.

It’s almost dark when I get back down to camp. “I followed your footprints so far.” Says Georg, ”How is it that you get out of the car and walk straight to my special amphitheatre?”

“I could just smell it I guess.” I reply, grinning.

Little Ali the cook prepares us soup and then mutton stew with chewy French bread. It is tasty and filling and makes me sleepy. I think of András who is at this moment in the same desert a few thousand kilometres east of here at the Gilf Kebir. Part of me wishes I was there too, so far from civilisation. But this place, though not remote is beautiful, and now we have settled somewhere I can feel the deset peace creeping into my bones. I am starting to feel positive again, and by the time I have drunk several helpings of Geert’s surprise vodka, I feel rather jolly. A lot of the evening’s conversation is in German and I don’t understand most of what is said, but it doesn’t matter; there is a good atmosphere and I feel relaxed with my new companions. The morning will bring good things I am sure.

Tuesday 25^th February

I wake up disorientated once again. I was cold in the night and didn’t sleep well. I dreamt I was walking across Uweinat in the night again, but this time I was alone and I knew morning would never come to that dark hillside. It is a relief to crawl out of my tent into the bright morning. This really is a spectacular place.

After a breakfast of bread and jam and coffee we climb as a group back up to the little amphitheatre above camp and then to the turrets I found last night. It’s much easier for me the second time. Geert, Franz and Elizabet walk down into the valleys and explore the sandy corridors and dunes.

Georg, Reinhold, Romana and I climb from peak to peak all morning, the views are spectacular. We take a long circuitous route back to camp, gradually meeting with the others along the way.

Little Ali prepares us another huge salad lunch, this time featuring tuna. He chops up potatoes and peppers and beetroot and tomatoes and lettuce and olives; it’s absolutely delicious and we devour the whole lot enthusiastically. The best thing however is a basket of mandarins which he produces at the end. All this delicious food definitely highlights one of the perks of being close to civilisation.

It’s 1pm and too hot to walk after a big lunch. We creep into whatever shade there is and read or write or sleep, each to their own. I write for a while but realise after an hour that I am actually getting cold. I move down into the sun, but find that there is actually very little sun to move into. The sky is growing unmistakably overcast. Little Ali brings me a blanket to put round my shoulders, but soon everyone is awake and cold and walking is obviously the best way to warm up.

We walk out of camp all together, back into the maze of rocks. We come across camels grazing, their front legs hobbled together with rope. They seem indifferent to our presence and before long I pluck up the courage to approach one. His big brown eyes blink their long eyelashes at me down his malleable, velvety nose, he chews thoughtfully. I feel encouraged and give him a friendly scratch on the neck. I’d like to say that he seemed pleased, but really I don’t think it registered at all, so I thought ‘Stuff you then’ and walked away.

Georg and Elizabet have moved ahead and as we hurry after them I spot a curious animal trotting busily along a crack in the cliff 20m above us. It’s some kind of large rodent with a round bum and a pointy, inquisitive face. I’ve never seen anything like it, something like a cross between a badger and a guinea-pig. It’s pretty unconcerned by us and pauses to give us a good looking at before going about its business. Parca tells me in the evening, when I draw a picture in the sand, that it is an acouca and quite good to eat. He promises to feed me one later in the trip. I can’t wait…

We climb high dunes and look down them into steep ravines. The steep stream beds we descend, although now dry are full of scrubby plants and delicate flowers. This is truly a living desert. The party divides and while most follow a lower route on the sand, Georg, Reinhold and I climb up into the fortress of cliffs once more to find a route back to camp over the top. We clamber through some of the most fabulous rock formations I have ever seen, following narrow ravines into great natural sand basins, walled all about by cliffs several hundred metres high. It is the most fantastic afternoon. Almost back at camp we are met by Parca strolling towards us. He has been exercising a strong fatherly concern for us all day, and only just manages to contain his horror at the thought of us climbing up stuff. We try to explain that Georg is an experienced climber, but he just points up at cliffs and peaks saying “Here? And here?” and shaking his head in bewilderment when we nod. I really like this little old man, he has a real twinkle about him. Indeed all our Tuareg companions display a great sense of fun. Back at camp someone produces a set of juggling balls and for half an hour mayhem breaks out as a big game of catch ensues. No one can turn their back for a moment without having a ball thrown at them. Big Ali sits on top of one of the cars making remarkably accurate shots at Romana from a great distance. She does her best to get him back but without success and he rocks back and forth with laughter at her attempts.

Elizabet produces a game of pick-up-sticks Mikado, and Romana, a travel draughts board, and more peaceful game playing follows. I have been reading a lot about the Tuareg and their complex social structure and I am keen to know who and what our four companions are, but have been too shy to ask so far. Now I settle beside Parca and in my broken French begin. “You are all Tuareg?” He nods. “ Are you Ihaggaren or Kel Ulli?” The Ihaggaren are the noble class and the Kel Ulli or goat people are the vassals, although they are equally respected. He is utterly caught out by my question and looks at me for some moments in complete amazement, then repeats my question as if to check that I haven’t just asked it by accident. Then his face breaks into a delighted smile and he says, “Vous et Ihaggaren.”

“Are you Kel Haggar?” I ask. This is the largest Tuareg group in the Kel Rela tribe or drum group.

”No.” He replies. “We are Kel Ajjer.” Which makes sense of course as we are in Tassili N’Ajjer not Hoggar.

“Where are the Kel Ulli now?” I continue.

“Mostly in Tamanrasset now.” He says. “Most of them have settled there.”

“How many Ihaggaren are there today in the Kel Rela?” I ask

“Oh beaucoup! Beaucoup!” He says. “Very many, all over Algeria, Chad and Niger.”

“And is it true that the Kel Rela are the only drum group left now?” I ask. “Have the Taitok and the Tegehe Mellet really all gone?”

“Yes. All gone now.” He says. He is clearly very pleased to be talking about all this and goes on to tell me how the Amenukal of the Tuareg (their leader) lives in Algiers now and is an important man in government, but as he gets more and more involved I find his French harder and harder to follow, and I am relieved when we stop to eat as I feel guilty for missing so much of what he is trying to tell me.

Little Ali prepares us another delicious soup and a thick lentil stew, which we wash down afterwards with two bottles of Austrian red wine. There is lots of lively conversation, most of which I can’t understand, but I enjoy the atmosphere very much. Every so often I am taught useful German. For example it was very amusing for everyone to listen to me attempting the Austrian word for a squirrel’s tail – wahkatzelschwaff, which is quite possibly impossible for a non German speaker. Georg produces Manawaffle, traditional Austrian chocolaty waffle biscuits, which are devoured by the happy group. Roman produces a bottle of Rosé wine which everyone gets very excited about. Rheinhold explains that in Austria it is thought of as a ‘three man’ bottle of wine, meaning that if one man drinks it, it takes two more men to hold him up. Romana pours it with great ceremony with a white cloth over her arm as though we are in a swanky restaurant. She has Geert taste the wine first and when he nods his approval she pours for the rest of us. It tastes, quite frankly, like lemon juice, and Georg explains that it should be drunk very chilled. Even chilled I can’t imagine it being pleasant to drink, but it is undeniably potent. Soon after it is finished we all wobble off to bed rather drunk, but very satisfied.

Wednesday 26^th February

I had a dream last night that was so funny I actually woke myself up laughing. I dreamt that I was watching Richard and Vince doing an open rehearsal of some play. They were part of an all female chorus and for some reason they were all displaying symbolic pregnancies. Each woman stepped forward and dropped onto one knee, presenting her swollen belly, until it came to Richard who tried to follow suit with a cushion up his jumper, but was simply failing, point blank, to conceal his contempt for the whole idiotic spectacle. Vince starts laughing, completely out of control and the scene begins to disintegrate, which was when I woke up screaming with laughter myself. I couldn’t go back to sleep for about half an hour because I kept getting the giggles when I thought about it and it is still making me smirk now.

As a result of the jolly dreaming I wake up in a tremendously good mood this morning. I open the bottom zips of the tent flaps to let some air in while I wash and am surprised to receive some post. Georg has dropped his first drawing of the day through my zip as a gift.

After breakfast we all head up into the cliffs east of camp. We found a spectacular ravine yesterday afternoon and we want to explore it further. As we ascend, it reminds me of the route we took down from Uweinat, a series of steep rock channels leading from one huge sandy basin to another. At the top of the mesa we climb a broad shallow ramp of smooth steps onto a high lookout platform and for the first time we can see the whole rocky fortress around us. Two enormous gorges fork either side of our vantage point and before us their spectacular opening onto the desert plain beyond frames the hills and dunes on the far horizon. It is without exception the most beautiful and spectacular place I have ever been.

“What do you want to do now?” Says Georg.

“It doesn’t matter.” I reply. “It doesn’t matter what we do after this, it’s already the perfect day.”

In fact we slowly make our way down the gorge and out to level sand. We find a sheltered spot and soak up the space and the silence for an hour. You don’t get that really dizzy feeling of remoteness here, like in the Western Desert, every day we see a car or a camel trekking caravan in the distance, but there is certainly enough space for everyone out here and, by climbing, we quickly get away from the beaten track.

Back at camp we eat a good lunch of rice and salad and hard boiled eggs, and without a cloud in the sky to ease us today, we creep away into the shade until almost four o’clock. Big Ali joins me for a while on my rocky ledge and we talk again about the Tuareg tribes. He has removed his veil to reveal a proud and handsome face. When we fall silent and I return to my writing, he rests his elbows on his knees and looks thoughtfully out into the sunlight.

We decide to climb up to the high ridge to the east of camp to watch the sun go down. Georg has found a suitable route in the afternoon. Parca is desperate that we should be contemplating such a fool-hardy exercise, but there isn’t much he can do as we are all laughing good-naturedly at his henniness. To make things worse for him, Big Ali and Sala decide to come with us to see what all the fuss about climbing up things is about. We head over the valley and into a narrow gully at the foot of the cliff wall, and we are immediately faced with a simple but vertical bridging climb up a 10m crack. Geert thinks better of it and goes off for a walk; Elizabet has already given us up as a gang of good for nothing climbers, but the rest of us scale the obstacle. The effort is well worth it. After half an hour of scrambling up rock strewn gullies and edging across cliffs on narrow ledges, we reach the highest point we have seen so far and the view is absolutely splendid. The soft light of early evening replaces the harsh glare of the afternoon, and the mountains and sandy plains paint themselves in creams and smokey greys.

“How old are you Little Ali?” I ask him later. “Eighteen? Nineteen?”

“No! 25!” He says indignantly and the others laugh heartily, he has obviously heard all the jokes about being little he ever wants to hear.

“All right! How old are the rest of you?” I ask, to change the subject. Big Ali is 34, Parca is 63 and Sala keeps quiet until I press him. “Hey! How old are you?”

“23.” He replies reluctantly.

“Aahh! Bebe!” I sing, which just finishes the others, they roll about laughing in the sand.

“Bebe! Bebe!” They sob helplessly.

Sala sings and dances all the time, he is a true happy soul. Big Ali is serious and watches us all with intelligent eyes. Parca is the little father and Little Ali is spritely like a cat, one minute standing on his hands, the next bounding up a rock after a small blue-headed lizard.

After supper I fetch one of my bottles of wine for us to drink. It is a bottle of Faustino Rioja, possibly my favourite red wine. The smell, the taste, takes me home. I close my eyes with my nose in my cup and I am at my kitchen table; my friends are laughing, Dugald is playing the guitar. But there is sand under my fingers and they can’t see me here; I am a long, long way from home.

Thursday 27^th February

The Tuareg lent me an extra blanket last night and for the first time I was truly warm. We are to move camp today, but there is no rush this morning. We pack up our things slowly, stopping to eat some breakfast half way through. By 8am we are ready but the Tuaregs are still packing, so we decide to walk ahead with Parca and the boys will pick us up when they are ready.

It is a bright blue morning and I stride ahead, full of the new day. We are heading north to have a look at a big rock arch before making for the new camp. The cars soon catch up with us and carry us on to the site. The arch is spectacular, 30m at its highest point, but the moment is spoiled by our sharing it with another large group of trekkers. We have seen groups in the distance every day, but this is the first time we have run into one. They must feel the same way about us and we all politely ignore each other before running away.

Tikubauel has been breathtakingly beautiful, but I am glad that today we will head away from this popular tourist region and into the deepest wilds of this particular desert. We turn back south and trundle out through the cliffs until we re-join the Djanet road. We turn west onto the tarmac towards Fort Gardel, where we will pick up fresh supplies.

It is decided that we will not all go for the shopping, both to save time and to avoid any unnecessary interest in where we are going. We drive well off the road just before the town, and settle in the shade of a big tamarisk tree while Sala and Big Ali take the cars for the groceries. They are gone for a couple of hours and Parca lights a fire and Little Ali prepares another huge salad lunch. It is a quiet time. Some walk, some read or sleep in the sun. It’s really peaceful. I sit with Parca and watch the fire. There is a well beside the tree and he tells me that when he and his family were all still living as true nomads, this was one of their places. “Sometimes,” he says, “there were as many as 60 people camped here.” I really like this little old man, he is as true as they come. His only concern is for everyone’s welfare and happiness and he watches over us like his flock. As we wait, he sets about his lengthy tea ceremony, pouring the cloudy, dark brown liquid from one pot to another again and again, then adding handfuls of sugar and pouring it back and forth again to mix it. Finally it is poured from a great height into the little glasses that will be formally handed to us in a moment; froth seems to be a highly desirable element in this final stage. I accept mine, as I always do, five or six times a day, with helpless, enormous gratitude, and as I drink the first glass, knowing that I must drink three before he will be content, I think, for the countless time, how ridiculous it is that so much love should go into making a drink that is so utterly, utterly, disgusting.

When the boys return we pile into the cars and head, at last, away from the people, south west into the deep desert. We are making for the Ajilli Mountains that run south from the main Tassili Plateau. Mount Tahzat is the southernmost peak of the range and at 2061m, the highest thing in the area. We will cross a shallow pass between Tahzat and the rest of the range and camp at the remote Tinabaru dunes on its remote western side.

We cross a large sand plain and occasional tamarisk-dotted wadis, and the mountains grow slowly bigger on the horizon. They are a formidable set of peaks and quite different in character from the plateau. As we draw close to Tahzat there is no mistaking that it is a fairly serious mountain and not to be tackled casually. Tahzat is one of the main reasons we are here. Georg and I, Franz and Reinhold and possibly Romana plan to be the first people (as far as we know) up it during the next three days. As we make our way through the pass I study its steep slopes, ravines and lofty cliffs. We are not intending to do any roped climbing and there is certainly no obvious route up this side. Georg says the southern slopes are more promising, but I still vaguely wonder what we are getting ourselves into.

My mind is soon taken off the mountain when we reach the far side of the pass and we are able to look up the vast valley plain to the Tinabaru Dunes. I barely know what to write. I have never seen anything quite like this. These dunes are simply immense. No, really! Absolutely immense! I would never have even dared imagine such dunes, not in my wildest dreams. They sprawl in a range roughly 10kms long and 3kms wide and climb to a height of almost 400m. They are as big as the smaller mountains around them and with their smooth, creamy elegance, their intricate flowing waves, are easily one of the most striking sights I have ever seen in the desert.

We drive to their foot and, kicking off shoes, walk onto their lower slopes, there is no question of climbing to the top, which would be my usual response to such joyous yellow sand, it would simply take hours. The cars leave us to make camp nearby and we walk slowly after, prospecting for tools on the stony plain as we go.

There is a broad tamarisk filled wadi in the centre of the valley. 1km from the sand giants we make camp in some tiny but sheltering dunes around the foot of a tangled group of trees. It is another beautiful spot. For the first time in a long time I am able to pitch my tent with a distant view to the east; I will at last be able to watch the sun rise over my feet again in the morning. When I’ve finished setting up my little home, I lie back in my tent and look out through the opening. Not only am I facing east but Tahzat is at the right of my view, forbidding and magnificent, and the vast and beautiful dunes are on the left. I lie there grinning, it just doesn’t get much better than this.

Everyone’s good mood is evident and after supper the daily bottle of red wine is quickly opened. Unfortunately it is also quickly drunk and it is clear that this state of affairs doesn’t suit our mood at all. A third of a bottle of vodka we were saving for emergencies is swiftly polished off and heralds the beginning of a general sing-song. The party is soon in full swing, but we are all too quickly out of alcohol again. Suddenly Franz disappears and returns with a little bottle of schnapps. Everyone demands to know where it came from and when he explains in German everyone collapses into hysterical laughter. It takes me some time to extract the story. It would seem that Franz is nursing some injured ribs after a weight lifting accident at the gym and he has been using the alcohol to rub on his chest. We spend the rest of the raucous night drinking Franz’s chest medicine.

I don’t quite know what comes over us. I can’t blame it all on the chest medicine as even the t-total Tuaregs go completely bananas. We start demanding songs from them too and eventually Big Ali grabs an empty water container and starts beating out fantastic tribal rhythms; Sala starts to sing and before I know it I’m up on my feet with Romana stamping out a wild dance in the sand around the fire. We sing and dance and laugh until late into the night, until only Romana and I are left with the Tuareg, and we fall to singing soft, gentle harmonies to lullabies, much to their delight. God knows what time we eventually fell drunkenly into our tents, but I slept straight through and certainly didn’t feel the cold.

Friday 28^th February

Rather than being the gorgeous awakening I had planned for, the light of the rising sun flooding onto my face only serves to highlight the pounding in my head and the unmistakable nausea of a terrible hangover. I quickly take 2 Nurofen, drink half a litre of water and pull the blanket over my head to sleep it off for another hour.

As luck would have it, when I next awake, my actions seem to have done the trick and I feel fine. Nevertheless everything does seem to be taking me twice as long this morning and I am the last one to be ready to leave.

We head across to the small mountains between us and Tahzat and the cars leave us at their foot. One group sets off at ground level and Georg, Franz, Romana and I set out for our first peak of the day. Romana is feeling even worse than I did earlier and half way up the first steep slope decides to turn back and take it easy on the level. The remaining three of us push on.

By 9am we are at the top of the first big hill and within easy striking distance of the higher points around us. We spend all morning working our way from summit to summit across the small range until we finally reach the highest one. We are, for the first time above the vast dunes, and can see their extremities stretching away to the north. I have a bit of a disaster when I open the back of my camera to change films and discover that the film I have been using all morning has not rewound and has just been wrecked. At least I am at the top and can take new pictures on the way down.

We make our way down the far side of the mountain towards the dunes that come up to meet us. The easiest route is down a steep, dry river ravine, and I am again amazed to find it dotted with little flowers. The gully is full of colour, this is a many coloured mountain. Everywhere you look the mineral-rich rocks flash and twinkle bright with silver and the stone itself is veined with green and red and white and blue marble. It is incredibly beautiful.

By traversing across a steep and annoyingly slippery slope, we are able to step from the mountain side onto the top of the nearest dune. We’ve worked hard to get up here, but not nearly as hard as we would have done had we climbed up the dune itself, so it’s a bit of a cheat. But hooray for cheating, and we walk, three in a line, along nearly a kilometre of the high dune crest. The wind is getting up and sends the fine sand into the air. Such a long way up, being buffeted by the increasingly strong gusts, it feels as though we are flying. The best thing about being on a dune of course is coming down it. We have followed the sandy ridge away from the mountain and out over the plain; some 4kms from camp we decide to slide down and slowly make for home.

Between us and camp is a wide, flat, stony plain, running between mountains and dunes. We have already found a few prehistoric tools and implements out here so we decide to prospect our way back. There is something really relaxing about letting your pace fall into a slow step, step, while your eyes feel their way across the ground. If you know the kind of shapes you are looking for you can let your vision go soft and your eyes will catch only on what you are looking for; the things that are out of place, the things that although they’ve been here a long time, did not get here by themselves, things that were lost or discarded.

There is a lot to be found here. At one point we find a patch of about 30m² covered in little chips of orange flint, where they must have actually have been making arrowheads. Walking away into a clear patch of sand my feet take me, by chance, to a big stone hand axe, lying alone on the ground. This piece is quite out of place, lost rather than discarded. I crouch down over it and watch it for a while. This chiselled tool is around 150,000 years old, and it hasn’t moved in all that time. I become aware that it is locked in time, 150,000 years has been nothing to this stone, a slight pause between events; between hands. At this moment, as I watch it, it’s still in the then, not yet joined to the now. If I walk away, it will stay there, only with my touch will it become a part of the present. The last living thing to touch this smooth, chiselled shape was the rough brown hand of some prehistoric man. If there were an instrument to detect the last living resonance to touch a thing, what would this stone tell me about that man? What was he thinking? When did he last eat? Was he heading home to a family group or travelling alone across the land? I slowly reach down, down towards that hand, down through 150,000 years and I pick up the axe. It leaps through time, faster and farther than it has ever been, and slides into my pocket, a thing of my world now. Georg is very jealous when he sees the axe, but it’s the first one I have ever found and he has dozens, so he can’t really grudge me it.

By about 4pm we are back at camp, tired after 8 hours of walking, but it isn’t possible to relax very much as the wind has gone crazy. Everyone’s tents are flapping wildly and the air is full of dust going several hundred metres high. Mount Tazhat, only 5 or 6 kilometres away has completely disappeared. I roll myself up in a blanket, wrap my shesh around my face and doze for a couple of hours under the tamarisks. It is impossible to be in the tents, which Elizabet’s thermometer tells us are just over 40º inside. I remember this from the two big storms in the Western desert last year; despite the wind and the lack of sun the ambient temperature seems to soar. This dust storm has nothing like the violence of those two and Georg and I are both keen not to repeat the experience. Happily, as night falls, so does the wind, and by the time Little Ali dishes up our suppertime stew we are able to talk without shouting and eat without each spoonful getting coated in sand.

It’s a quiet evening due to the fact that we drank tonight’s ration of alcohol last night and must do penance this evening; but we are all very tired and happy to turn in early.

Saturday 1^st March

I had a terrible night’s sleep. The dust storm half buried my tent yesterday and blew uncomfortable ridges of sand under where I slept. Consequently I never woke enough to actually get up and smooth them out, but I tossed and turned all night and have woken with puffy eyes and aching bones and a grumpy head. Breakfast cheers me up a bit because the two Alis toast the chewy stale French bread over the fire and Georg produces a pot of delicious coarse pate to go on it. Combined with hot, black coffee it’s a magnificent feast.

After breakfast the two cars drive us 12kms to the really remote far side of the big valley. Here in the west is a second range of mountains called the Imegra. We head into a broad valley mouth at the foot of the biggest peak and get out and start to walk. I walk ahead with Georg and we follow the wadi into the mountain. Georg is bright and chatty, but I am still a bit tired and grumpy and after a while I realise that I really just need to be quiet and alone.

I have even lost my will to climb up stuff this morning and have no intention of going up the mountain, but when he stops to examine some rocks, I stride ahead of Georg and head to the right, straight up the side of the steep mountain gorge. I hope that he won’t be offended by me taking off, but he knows that desert people need to be alone sometimes and I’m sure it will be fine.

The only trouble is that I am now very much climbing up something when all I want to do is lie down and go to sleep. I look up resentfully and see a big outcrop 100m or so above me and think, ‘Well, I’ll just go up to there and then stop.’ In 20 minutes I’m there and the view is starting to look quite nice and there is another really nice looking outcrop of rock another 100m above me again. ‘Well,’ I think, ‘If I just go to there then the view will be really great and I’ll stop there.’ After the next three outcrops I see that I’m not far below the top of the ridge, and as I set out for it I snort out loud at my ridiculous behaviour; I should know better than to try and kid myself, there is only one place to be on a mountain and that is at the top. Once I have admitted this to myself my brain clicks into gear and I look up at the mountain to plan my strategy. I think my subconscious has probably been in control all along, as this ridge is almost certainly the route I would have chosen to the top anyway.

Just below the ridge I hear a voice above my head. “Hello Hannah.” It is the thickly Germanic broken English of Franz. I grin at him, too breathless to speak. He is absolutely incredible, he just powers up the mountain sides with his short stocky strides. It is really impressive to see him in action. As he speaks just about no English and I speak just about no German we continue in friendly but silent camaraderie, which suits my still remote mood just fine.

This is a big mountain. It has two imposing peaks with a deep saddle between them. We are on our way, on the right side, to the higher of the two, but there isn’t much between them. The centre of the saddle is sand, which drops at a good 30º angle over 500m from mountain top to bottom.

Franz follows the very top of the ridge over its many craggy outcrops while I stay on the valley side and cut underneath them just below him. The two peaks are classic round, upright cols and as we reach the end of the ridge, at the base of the steepest one, the way gets trickier. Franz gets caught up crossing the last big outcrop on the ridge and I reach the top momentarily alone. Georg later tells me that this unnamed mountain, the highest of the Imegra is 1600m high and it certainly feels like the most mountainish peak I have yet been on. The ground drops dizzily away on every side and there is nothing higher than me at this moment for miles and miles around save Tazhat itself far off to the east. Franz joins me after a few minutes and we sit grinning and looking over the plains for 20 minutes or so. He gestures questioningly at the opposite peak and I nod in agreement. It might be lower at the top, but it looks unscalable from here. We decide to cross the saddle and climb round behind it to see if there is a way up from there. We clamber down the steep inside slope of the first peak and work our way down into the narrow saddle. When we get near the middle we are faced with sand ridge and can see it in all its splendour. It is in fact the highest dune I’ve ever seen and drops from here to the valley floors on both sides. It is a crazy 30m wide sandy high wire. I step down onto it and the liquid sand falls away under my feet on both sides, I start laughing helplessly, but simply can’t make myself cross. I struggle to get my vertigo giggles under control and wave the bemused and grinning Franz past me to give me a lead, but it doesn’t help. It’s not that I could fall and hurt myself from here; if I fell I would just slide a few metres and have to try and crawl back up, but the vertigo has me and there is nothing I can do. Eventually I have to crawl across on my hands and knees much to my embarrassment and Franz’s amusement; it is completely ridiculous.

We stop for a little on the far side to eat an orange and see Georg, Romana and Rheinhold make the peak we have just come from; then we set off to see behind this new one for a route. Franz, up ahead of me, calls back to me that it’s possible but steep, he probably tries to tell me other stuff which I don’t understand, because he turns away from the second peak and sets off down the mountain ridge. I reach the spot he was at and look up. He’s right, it is steep, but the rocks are like steps and it is quite manageable. I decide to take it on alone. In 10 minutes I am alone on my second peak of the day and it feels great. This is a wonderful place. This peak is much smaller than the other, perhaps only 20 feet across, it really feels like standing on top of a tower. It has a sandy patch in the middle, which I settle myself onto to enjoy the view. I can see the others like tiny ants still at the top of the far peak but, but for this, I am completely alone and calm and my head is crystal clear. Before I left, a friend that I love told me he had written something into my Coming Home Book, and I told him I would look when I was furthest away. I pull out the book and start to search through its pages. I find a song written out, complete with chords, which he wrote in my house a couple of weeks before I left. The song is called ‘I Go Where I Please’ and could not be more appropriate. It makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time. I hug the book to me and I wish for all the world that I was hugging him. I send my love over the mountains, across the oceans, back to my country, over my town, through my garden and into my house, where he will be sleeping. He has made me feel something I have never felt in the desert, I miss something, I miss him.

Georg crosses over from the far peak and joins me for a while, then leaves on the ridge down this side of the valley. I could join him, but I am alone at the top of a mountain and there is nowhere else I want to go. I tell him I will stay and write for an hour then descend down the dune. Usually I take nearly as long to descend mountains as I do to go up them, I hate coming down, but this one’s sand dune offers a speedy short cut to the valley bottom far below. After a peaceful hour I make my way back down to the dune top and this time force myself out onto its steep slope on my feet. I launch myself down with big floating strides, sinking with each step almost to my knees in the silky, liquid sand. It takes about five minutes to descend about 500m or so. Every mountain should have one of these.

I pass Geert at the bottom having his lunch on a rock. We exchange pleasantries and I stroll on down the dry river bed. After leaving Geert I see no one else save two small lizards for the 40 minutes it takes me to get back out to the plain. My mood is completely repaired by the lovely day and I am glad to meet up with the others waiting for the cars to collect us.

Back at camp we decide to have a relaxing afternoon in order to gather our energies for tomorrow. Tomorrow we will climb Tazhat. We siesta for a while, then gradually gather, in the extreme afternoon heat, for coffee and biscuits by the fire. As the day cools, Romana and I stroll out through the dunes and tamarisks behind camp, and then onto the plain beyond. The big dunes behind us are beginning to glow orange and black in the early evening light. The wind sighs over the plain. Romana is the person I was meant to meet on this trip I think. We have immediately clicked and she will certainly become a long term friend I am sure. It’s nice to hear about her life back in Austria and the more she talks, the more I recognise the similarities between us. She is a lovely girl.

We have a jolly supper, full of anticipation for the morning’s task. Even the four Tuareg (who have taken to calling me Nana for some reason) are in a boisterous mood. They are much impressed when I make them a flat disk of Bedouin bread as taught by Salama in Egypt. However, in need of a good night’s sleep I head for my bed soon after we have eaten.

Sunday 2^nd March

I'm awoken at 6am by Georg’s voice. “McKeand! Are you awake?” I open my eyes blearily to see torch light shining on the side of the tent in the dark.

“Yes! Yes, be out in a minute.” I reply with completely fake cheery wakefulness. He tromps away and I lie still for a few minutes staring into the darkness trying to will myself to life. I sit up and dress and carefully pack my rucksack. Two bottles of water, my torch, my shesh, my camera and 4 films, sun cream, lip salve, a climbing harness (Georg has rope, and I’ve decided caution is the better part of valour since our adventure on Uweinat), 2 karabiners, a belay device and most importantly my Coming Home book – that book could get me off a mountain when all else fails. Then, as prepared as I can be, I crawl out of my tent into the cold, grey morning and stumble down to munch some breakfast and warm up by the fire.

Little Ali has prepared us fantastic food supplies to take with us. We each add to our loads a length of the chewy French stick, a couple of soft cheese triangles, a boiled egg, a big cold baked potato and an orange. When we are all ready Big Ali drives us out over the plain towards the south of the mountain. The Tazat looks grey and forbidding in the morning gloom but as we drop down along its western edge the sun, rising directly behind it in the east, flings fantastic golden beams up from behind the mountain. It is as though light is pouring out of the rocks themselves, it is a happy portent if ever I saw one and we watch the display in hushed delight.

We drive slowly along the southern edge of the mountain examining its intimidating slopes for a penetrable route. The plain around it is strewn with boulders and the car is forced to drop us a good kilometre away from the valley mouth we decide to enter.

I quickly find my stalker’s gait and stride out towards the mountain ahead of the others. I am the quickest over the flat but as soon as we reach the shallow lower slopes Franz powers up beside me and then ahead. I climb quickly but even I can’t keep pace with this unbelievable little Austrian. Soon I have pulled away from the others and Franz has pulled far ahead of me, so I am once again alone on a mountainside. It is a big and tiresome landscape of merciless, awkward boulders and the way is criss-crossed with deep river gullies. It takes a full hour to cross the wasteland and climb up the first steep wadi, up between the first foothills of the mountain and, already breathless, the mountain itself still seems annoyingly far away. I stop for a rest in the shade and, as I can see there won’t be much more of it, I take the opportunity to carefully apply sun cream. After a while the others join me and Georg restores my spirits with a surprise chocolate bar. We continue on together and I match my pace to theirs, suddenly glad of the company.

It takes us another hour to clamber through the maze of foothills and up onto the true mountainside and the sun is starting to gather warmth. Romana has never tackled anything like this before and is the slowest of us, but she shows great spirit and none of us minds waiting for her. In fact she faces a much tough job than the rest of us as, being faster, we get much longer rests than she does, both waiting for her to catch up and then enjoying her rest too. I point this out when I realise and we have an extra long rest at 600m to let her recover.

The steep mountain slope is about 30 degrees and hard work to scramble straight up, but nevertheless, up we go and at each rest the view becomes more and more magnificent. There are two high, classic peaks to this mountain and we are climbing towards a saddle below the slightly taller of the two. But the closer I get, the more doubtful I become that we will manage the sheer cliffs of the last stretch to the top.

The wind is growing in intensity and I’m actually starting to feel cold each time we stop. The others have sensibly brought spare jumpers but it never occurred to me I might get cold, so I grin and bear it in my light top.

We haven’t seen Franz since he left us early this morning, but when we reach the saddle his pack is lying between some rocks and we know he can’t be far. Before long he appears and we sit all together drinking in the spectacular view. We aren’t at the highest point but we have reached the top of the mountain and for the first time we can see over the crest we’ve been ascending and down the other side. The side before us, the side we have not climbed, plunges away down vertical cliffs and impassable cracks, turrets of rock soar up from the ridge about us. We eat our lunch at what must be one of the most impressive picnic spots possible, sheltering behind rocks from the wind whistling over the saddle. Romana solves the problem of her cold hands by putting her spare socks on like mittens.

“Now I know we are mad.” She says. “We are in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of a desert, 2000m up a mountain and I’m wearing socks on my hands.” We laugh for nearly five whole minutes.

The summit is still just under 100m above us but a quick investigation shows that we will be going no higher today. The route is too steep, the rocks too loose and the vertical drops below too high. It doesn’t matter. Tazat has given us everything we could really wish for. If it holds a little something back, we can’t grudge it.

The route down is straight forward but tiresome. I’m second only to Franz in speed for climbing up and I don’t think it’s to do with fitness or strength, I think I’m just good at picking routes, but coming down a steep slope I’m just about the slowest. I think it’s since I hurt myself coming down the Unnamed Plateau in Egypt in November and now I just don’t have any confidence. I find it much harder to pick a route ahead coming down and consequently seem to pick terrible ones. The rocks wobble and slide away under my feet giving me the jitters. The injured left knee and ankle soon start to ache and the knee gets worse until it burns with every step down. I curse it quietly the whole way.

As we get down to about 400m from the plain the wind drops and the temperature creeps up. Time to get out of this place I think. We come out of a long winding gully onto the lower boulder strewn slopes and down onto the plain. The cars will be there soon, I switch back into my relentless stalker’s gait and 45 minutes later I’m flopping into the shade by the cars and Sala is giving me an orange.

Back at camp my body is tired as stone and I lie in my tent and sleep until dark. The sleep does me good and I wake up hungry. We all gather in the dusk y the fire and discover that Geert is missing. We establish that he left for a walk about an hour or so before sundown, but he definitely isn’t back yet.

Georg and Franz drive out a little way in the direction he went and he eventually answers their calls nearly two kilometres from camp. He had been bewitched by the maze of dunes and tamarisks and thought he was quite close by. We are merciless in our teasing of him. He broke a big rule of desert walking by leaving without a torch and we aren’t going to let him forget it in a hurry. Later, after supper, Georg gets a length of rope from his tent and a karabiner and I tie one end to a tree and clip the other end to Geert’s belt. The good natured fellow takes everything we give in good humour and is as happy to laugh at himself as we are.

Having drunk nothing last night we are able to enjoy two delicious bottles of red wine tonight, they are referred to as ‘apres Tazat’. Georg puts the icing on the celebration by producing a tin of peaches. Strange how at home tinned peaches just make me think of school dinners, but in the desert they send me into raptures.

I go off to bed early full of nice wine and nice food.

Monday 3^rd March

We are moving camp this morning and I pack up before going down to breakfast. I dreamt I was journeying through a wasteland with a ruddy faced clergyman. After weeks of desolation we came to a ruined villa. In the courtyard, facing the gateway framing the ravaged land, this man, who has never mentioned God in my presence, sings out a great long, single, resonant note. I imagine now it is how the voice of God would sound were there such a being. As the note fills the air around us it calls life out of the cold clay. Plants and flowers push out of the cracks, colouring the world. It grows warm. “How did you do that?” I ask my mild and jolly friend, who is looking about with interest as though the miracle had nothing to do with him. “I didn’t really. You did. It’s what you have to learn to do without me.”

“Oh.” I reply, and can think of nothing else to say.

I wander down to breakfast still thinking about the dream. I munch my dry toast with soft cheese and jam and try to remember the clergyman’s name. It was a good name. A name that, if I could remember it, would tell me something about him. It was a forename and a surname that you always said together as a single complete thing. It was a name…. I can’t remember.

When Georg has finished packing up also it is half past eight and we won’t be leaving until 10. He suggests a short walk to a little hill on the plain where he has been finding tools and perhaps a sit down to draw. The little hill is fascinating, there are literally thousands of rough tools and spear heads here, many of them chipped beautifully from the crystal we have seen up in the granite mountains. I become completely absorbed by searching for them and Georg says he is going forward to the next low hill half a kilometre away.