In the year 1905, experienced desert guide Dirk Lubbe leads a group of tourists through the treacherous Sahara Desert, planning for this to be his last journey before retiring to a peaceful life in Switzerland. As they traverse the vast, unforgiving...
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SANDSTORM IN THE SAHARA DESERT
It is the year 1905 and eleven camels are walking neatly in line, one after the other, across the vast Sahara desert. On the back of the front camel sits Dirk Lubbe lazily daydreaming. This is the last time he will act as a guide for tourists who want to get to know the Sahara better. Over the past ten years, he has already made a tidy sum of money by acting as a guide for tourists. He rightly considers himself the best guide in the whole world to teach people about the Sahara, and there is probably nothing he does not know about the insects, animals, the desert itself and its history.
However, this all comes at a price, and therefore he asks double what his closest competition asks for the same work. Despite this, his diary remains full of bookings because his name is well known, and his clients know that they get value for every cent they pay. For now, he has had enough of the dangers and the terrible heat of the desert. After this last tour, he will take his money and buy himself a place somewhere in Switzerland, where it is at least much cooler than here.
Then he suddenly wakes up from his daydreams as a gust of wind almost blows his hat off his head. He looks around and notices here and there a whirlwind picking up loose grains of sand and then settling down again. One of the whirls catches his hot face for a brief moment and cools it down slightly. Since he got up this morning, he has observed that the air looks different from usual. The sun is not quite a bright, boiling ball of fire, and the air pressure is more than usual. The camels also seem restless, and it is as if the whole desert is waiting for something big to happen.
Dirk turns around in his saddle and looks back, where his ten clients are coming on their camels. There are five women and five men, and they still look relatively fresh at this time of the morning because it is still reasonably cool now. Soon, however, the sun will burn fiercely over the desert and the mercury can then climb quickly to fifty degrees Celsius and even more. Together with the extremely dry air, it seems to suck the moisture out of a person's body, and you have to drink water frequently to prevent dehydrating quickly. The scorching heat and extremely dry air will make it feel like an oven in which they are moving, but on their third day in the desert, the tourists already know what they can expect soon.
From experience, Dirk knows that in this desert one can survive at most one day without water and two days if you are very lucky. Due to the scarce vegetation and dry air, the night also cools down rapidly and temperatures can then turn very close to zero degrees. Strong winds can change the dunes that you see today in the blink of an eye so that you look out over an almost entirely new desert the next day. It is precisely one of the Sahara's properties that makes it so dangerous for inexperienced travelers. Many have already got lost and died after simply relying on the immediate surroundings. You must also use the sun, moon and stars as aids, along with years of experience and a kind of sixth sense to know which direction you need to move in. Daily water is critical here for human and animal survival, and if you miss an oasis, it can mean your end. The Sahara in all its splendor is therefore also full of dangers and only the smartest, strongest and bravest can survive here.
