Omran/Zahara
team discover they are not alone in the Empty Quarter
Camp
location 19.03.148 N 050.25.681 E
Another wonderful 24 hours in the Empty
Quarter. We have not seen any sign of human activity for a
few days now, but the dunes around us are full of life. A
routine is now appearing in our day; we both wake up about
0400 due to the cold (last night was down to 6.4 degrees),
pull camel coats over sleeping bags and drift off back to
sleep. At 0400 the moon has dropped below the horizon, and
the stars are amazingly bright. For the last two mornings
sunrise has been announced by two noisy ravens that have discovered
our camp and obviously feel it may be worth checking out each
morning for a scrap of food (They won’t find any of
that – whilst my first attempt at baking Bedouin bread
was a bit of a disaster, the second was much more successful
and we went to bed on full stomachs last night). One of us
then steps out onto the cold sand, starts up the stove for
a cup of tea and the next hour or two is spent wandering the
dunes taking pictures in the early morning light, and looking
for animal tracks, of which there are many. The tent we are
sleeping in is of Bedouin design, 5x3 metres, completely open
at the front to avoid overheating and so we can admire the
night sky from our sleeping bags on the sand. Signs in the
sand tell us that for the last two nights we have had various
creatures crawling and hopping around our heads as we sleep,
including a desert gerbil that comes in just before sunrise,
and a number of lizards. Fox tracks were in evidence when
we arrived two days ago, but last night we think a sand cat
(there are very few records of this animal in Oman) has been
about, and we spent some time this morning following the trail
over the sand.
TE
Lawrence described the fireplace as the university of the
desert, ‘for it is here where stories are told, news
is exchanged and points of view aired’. With the absence
of distractions we are spending much of our day talking, and
our conversations often drift back to when we spent an entire
year living in a Lappish reindeer herders tent (called a Lavvu)
some 500 miles from the North Pole, on an island called Svalbard,
a place where polar bears outnumber people. Whilst the contrasts
are obvious, there are also many similarities between the
two environments. Deafening silence is one, as is the purity
of what lies underfoot. The patterns in windblown sand are
almost identical in snow; both are moulded by the wind. Saudi
Arabia’s ambassador in Canada once sent me a poem he
wrote likening the igloo to the bedouin tent, and how both
the Inuit and the Bedouin have adapted to living on the very
edge of human tolerance, at one and with a deep understanding
of their surroundings.
Our
challenges for the coming 18 hours are to try and capture
the night sky on our cameras, a challenge easier with film
when things were less battery reliant, but harder with digital
cameras, and then we plan to climb to the summit of the 300
metre high dune to our south at 0500 to photograph the sunrise,
by which time we’ll be ready for our breakfast, and
the ravens wake up call.
Day
7 January 7 2009
Omran/Zahara
team experience contrasting fortunes in Empty Quarter
Camp
location 19.03.148 N 050.25.681 E
Another day is drawing to an end and it
is time to reflect on the past 24 hours. The northerly wind
has eased, and temperatures overnight were much warmer than
they have been of late. It is impossible to spend time in
the desert without noticing the existence of duality. Sun
and shade, hot and cold, day and night, fire and water. Our
activities today have emphasized these contrasts. We were
awake throughout the night, taking hourly temperature readings
to monitor the diurnal change, and searching for Polaris,
the North Star, in an effort to photograph star trails as
stars revolve around the sky, pivoting on Polaris. At 0500
hrs we left the camp, donned our head-torches and fleece jackets
and set off to scale the nearest large dune to photograph
the sunrise. Such is the size of the dunes that it took us
45 minutes to scramble to the top, due to a combination of
advancing years, steep slopes and soft sand that slid backwards
with every step. Despite only dropping to 11 degrees last
night, the sand was extremely cold, and both of us had numb
feet by the time we reached the summit ridge. A steady breeze
on the top ensured that freezing toes were soon joined by
freezing fingers, and despite a wonderful sunrise lighting
up the enormous landscape beyond our camp, it was an inability
to properly operate my camera that drove me back down the
dune, the descent time taking a fraction of the ascent. Just
as we look forward to the heat of the sun easing in the late
afternoon so we can step out of the shade, so I looked forward
to the heat this morning as I massaged life back into throbbing
fingers and toes.
John
could be excused a brief bout of homesickness this morning
as we spotted the Southern Cross constellation high above
the southern horizon from the dune summit. Efforts to photograph
the stars last night ended with mixed results. With the moon
building up to full it is not the best time to capture the
light of the stars, so we will try again later in the month
when the moon has all but gone. John is wandering about in
the dunes now, photographing the sand patterns that emerge
as the shadows become stronger with the decreasing angle of
the sun.
We
have to be very aware of how dry the environment around us
is. Lips crack quickly if you forget to apply lip-salve, and
it is easy to kid yourself that because it is winter, dehydration
is not an issue. Fortunately we have enough water to last
us another week; resupply, should we need it, is about two
hours drive away. The diversity of Oman’s environment
lends itself well to the theme of duality. Whilst we are living
in one of the most arid environments on earth, where the largest
plant around us is less than one metre high, and mere existence
is a challenge, less than 250 km to the south of us, in Wadi
Hanna, is luxuriance itself. The annual monsoon waters what
is possibly the largest tree in Oman, an enormous Baobab tree
that towers 30 metres high and has a trunk 14 metres around,
hard to imagine as we empty the sand out of our Bedouin socks
at the end of another day.
Day
8 January 8 2009
Temperatures
drop to just above freezing for Omran/Zahara team
Camp
location 19.03.148 N 050.25.681 E
Last night was the coldest to date; just
before dawn the thermometer dropped to 2.5 degrees, and we
shivered in our sleeping bags until things had warmed up a
bit. The day has been spent talking and drinking coffee with
some local camel herders, the first people we have seen for
four days, who had followed our tracks into our camp. We are
about to head off up the large dune to our north, which we
have yet to climb, to photograph the sunset.
Despite
our best efforts to keep on top of things, when you spend
a week living in one place in the middle of the biggest sand
desert on earth, sand gets everywhere. Food needs to be eaten
quickly, bags zipped up and bedding stored away securely,
and photographic and electrical equipment in particular needs
careful cleaning at the end of each day to avoid costly repair
bills. Despite the nuisance factor, sand provides us with
a beautiful landscape in which to live. The colour changes
throughout the day; straw and yellow at midday, yet with a
rosy terracotta glow at dawn and dusk; it also acts as a message
board, telling us each morning what has gone on the night
before.
Some
of the sand beneath our feet may have had its origins many
hundreds of miles away in the granite fields of north-west
Saudi Arabia. The high pressure weather that dominates Arabia
generates a wind that carries sand in a clockwise direction
from the large Nafud desert north of Riyadh, in a narrow conveyor
belt of sand hundreds of kilometers long in eastern Saudi
Arabia called the Dahna Dunes (that one drives through en-route
from Riyadh to Bahrain, clearly showing up on Google Earth),
eventually dumping the in the Empty Quarter, where it mixes
with sand carried from the mountains in Oman. Like snow, sand
has its own qualities, reacting to changing temperatures and
to changes in moisture. It can only hold a certain angle before
sliding down what is called a slip face, and after a heavy
dew, what was soft and difficult to drive upon becomes hard
and easy. Some people get very excited about sand, perhaps
none more so than Brigadier Ralph Bagnold who devoted much
of his life to writing his classic book ‘The physics
of wind blown sand’ based on his observations in North
Africa-heavy going, but of interest to those of us who want
to work why they get stuck so often when they drive in the
desert.
The
mountains of sand here in the Empty Quarter of Oman, whilst
moving slowly south west, are generally static, and have been
in same place for 20,000 years, which is but a mere blink
of an eye in geological time. It is hard to imagine, but in
days gone by the khareef that waters Salalah each summer once
reached much further north; the dunes that we now sit in the
middle of were rich grasslands, and it was possible to walk
from Dubai to Iran without getting your feet wet, save wading
across the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that then emptied into
the Gulf of Oman. That environment supported large numbers
of people, and evidence of those people can be found in the
form of Neolithic flint arrowheads and scrapers lying on the
sands and gravels of what were once lake beds. Find one and
you’ll find many-the key is trying to visualize a landscape
that existed thousands of years ago, and ask yourself where
you might have lived, and where you might have hunted- then
you might find what you are looking for, but not before several
hours of walking slowly, staring intently at the sand.
Day
9 January 9 2009
Winds
increase in Empty Quarter as Omran/Zahara team prepare to
move west towards Yemen border
Camp
location 19.03.148 N 050.25.681 E
We were up and about early this morning
in preparation for a two hour walk around the base of the
large dune to our north. Fox tracks were joined by at least
two snakes, in addition to the numerous beetle, lizard and
gerbil trails that told the story of another busy night in
the not so empty Empty Quarter. Last night was not so cold,
dropping to 6.4 degrees just before dawn. During the day however
the wind has increased from the east, lifting the sand into
our faces and making us leap up to steady the tent at times-we
hope it eases during the evening or we could be in for a fitful
sleep tonight. Our plan for tomorrow is to dismantle the camp
where we have lived for a week now, and use our remaining
fuel to head west to explore the dunes towards the border
with Yemen.
2009
is the International Year of Astronomy, so it is only right
that we spend some time looking at the skies above our Empty
Quarter camp. Oman is a perfect place to observe the heavens
above; clear skies and minimal light pollution (zero here
in the Empty Quarter) means we are able to enjoy all that
the night sky has to offer. Ask a tourist who has visited
Oman about what they remember from their stay, and after mentioning
the wonderfully hospitable Omani people, many will mention
the amazing number of stars they saw on their night in the
desert.
As
the moon builds up to full on January 11th, the stars are
becoming fainter, but once the moon dips below the horizon
about 0400 hrs, and darkness returns, the sky we can see from
our sleeping bags on the sand is extraordinary. So strong
is the light outside our tent at night that we do not need
a torch to find our way around the camp, and small bushes
on distant dunes are clearly visible. We have seen shooting
stars, and Venus (Zahra) is especially clear to the west.
Thomas described in 1932 in Arabia Felix his observations
that people of southern Arabia practiced an ancient worship
of the stars, and various superstitions came from that worship;
during a period of five days when the moon is in the constellation
Scorpio, activity was deemed unworthy, and no raids or journey
could ever be undertaken. The age of the moon was taken as
a guide in the direction of a journey, with the first, eleventh
and twentieth days, called Duwar, being good to move in any
direction. Many of the ‘western’ names for the
stars above us have their roots in the names given by the
great Arab astronomers of Mesopotamia; particularly evident
above us last night was Orion (Sa’ad), and Orion’s
belt (Janbiya); also Polaris (Al Jedi), and Pleides (Al Thuraya).
In
our year living in the Arctic, John and I lived in ‘darkness’
for four months, when the sun did not rise above the horizon
from when it disappeared in mid-October until it reappeared
in mid February. The moon was the only source of light we
had, and when reflected off the white snow made things appear
almost as daylight. Whilst there we took part in a simple
international experiment to measure light pollution, organised
by a British charity called the Campaign for Dark Skies, set
up by a group of astronomers in southern England fed up with
not being able to see anything in the sky at night because
of all the street lights. This is something you can easily
repeat in and outside of Muscat-all you need is a cardboard
tube from the inside of a toilet roll. Lie on your back on
the ground and locate Polaris (the North Star) in the sky.
Place the tube to your eye, and with Polaris in the centre
of your circle of view, now count how many stars you can see
around it. Compare what you count in Muscat with what you
can see outside of the city. A crude experiment, but with
thousands of results from around the UK the charity were able
to come up with a simple map of light pollution. Comparison
with their findings shows just why so many visitors to Oman
are justifiably impressed with what they see in the sky at
night.
Day
10 January 10 2009
Challenging
sand driving and a snake in the tent; another day in the Empty
Quarter for the Omran/Zahara team.
Camp
location 19.12.708 N 053.06.618 E
Today
has been hugely enjoyable. We have covered some 40 km north-west
towards the triple point border of Oman, Yemen and Saudi Arabia,
against the lie of the land. Separated by wide valley floors
white with gypsum, the dunes tend to run in lines north east
to south west, meaning we had to work our way over eight or
nine lines of enormous dunes to move in the direction we desired.
There are no tracks to follow, and a GPS only tells you where
you are and how to get to where you want to be in a straight
line-something that is not very helpful in the Empty Quarter.
So it is down to you to read the sand and the landscape; careful
concentration is required to safely weave through the maze
of passageways and slip faces over and through the dunes-with
only two vehicles, if we get ourselves into a situation we
cannot drive out of, we have a problem. In some places the
sand is very soft, yet in others it is as hard as concrete-patience
is the key, and getting out to walk in front and check if
the route ahead is uncertain is essential.
Temperatures
dropped to 6.9 degrees last night, and once things had warmed
up a little we collapsed our Bedouin tent and headed off on
our journey. Mid afternoon we spotted a distant camp in the
sands, where several camels with recently born young were
congregated, and we shared coffee, rice and dates with two
Sudanese camel handlers, Mahmoud and Mohammed, who are a long
way from home. Our final hour of the day has brought us to
our campsite, in a small flat bowl between some dunes; the
moon, which is nearly full, has just risen over the dunes,
and the wind has thankfully dropped.
Collapsing
the tent this morning revealed that we had had a new visitor
to the camp last night. We have become used to waking up to
gerbil, beetle and lizard prints in the sand within inches
of our heads as we slept, but this morning it was clear a
snake had slithered its way under the canvas, and had been
within inches of my pillow at some point before slithering
out again. Our theory that snakes would not be active in the
cold was clearly wrong. Spending six days in one location
enabled us to really get to know the dunes, and the local
wildlife, of which there is so much more than is initially
apparent. Whilst for us the life was of interest and entertainment,
to the Bedouin of old most living things had a value of some
kind. Certain plants have healing properties, some are better
than others for starting a fire, and others useful for dyes.
The bile of the large black Ravens that have circled over
our camp each morning was considered to be good to cure eye
ailments, and some of the larger lizards a nutritious source
of food. On his pioneering journey across the Empty Quarter
from Salalah to Doha in 1930, British explorer Bertram Thomas
paid his Omani companions extra if they were able to catch
anything living that was different, which he promptly killed,
preserved and took back to the Natural History Museum in London
for identification. Shortly after leaving Salalah, and entering
the mountains to the north he had collected, amongst other
things, five hyenas, one wolf, one badger, two tree rats,
sixteen scorpions and twenty one snakes. Once he headed north
out of the mountains across the gravel plains that lead to
the Empty Quarter life became scarce, but he still managed
to gather antelope, two hedgehogs, three types of snakes,
including the horned viper, and ten kinds of lizard. By the
time he reached Doha his poor camel must have carried an enormous
load.
