by Ning Cai
For some reason, I remembered what our new friend Rosa Membrado, a spunky Spanish woman from Barcelona who has visited the Sahara repeatedly for the past 14 years, told us. She said walking on the sand dunes is so impossible while wearing shoes that she always walks barefoot when she wanders out there. Gosh, this little desert man was a miracle walker! (Miracle worker! Get it? Get it?)
NING
Our guide in a big blue turban did not speak English but we mostly understood what he was trying to communicate. Mr Turban used a wide range of throaty noises to order his camels around, but it disturbed me when he would kick them.
I was the tallest person in the group so I got the camel right at the back, which was also the tallest. The one behind me carried sacks on his saddle. It was that curious camel behind me that bit me for no apparent reason! Pam rode in front of me, behind Cindy and Gary, both postgraduate students from London on a school break.
The Erg Chebbi dunes were a deep rich golden orange. They were especially magical, because the rest of the Sahara did not boast this beautiful shade of sand.
Camels have huge feet and I don’t know if it’s the same with men with big feet... who have big shoes. Er. My point is that they have the perfect feet to walk on sand. We climbed up slopes and slid down dunes, and at times I feared that one of the camels would trip and we would all tumble since everyone was connected via a chain.
PAM
As my camel ambled further and further into the sand dunes, all I could hear were our guide’s muffled footsteps on the soft sand, the evening breeze caressing my ears, and the magical hum of quiet energy from the desert. The powerful energy humbled me. For the first time, I understood why Rosa returned to the desert time after time.
“I feel a connection with the desert,” Rosa had shared with us one night after dinner, as we sat barefoot and cross-legged outside our tents, under a spectacular canopy of stars. “I love the energy of the desert. It’s very quiet out there and I love to wander barefoot out in the sand dunes. The desert resonates with my soul.”
I will never forget her words. Rosa is a desert child, just as I’m an ocean child.
NING
Mr Turban suddenly stopped and made a gesture with a hushing sound, pointing with his palm down and pulling down the first camel. We dismounted and walked on foot, a tall order because our sandals kept getting lost in the fine sand.
“Ahhh... I’m sinkiiiing,” I called out dramatically to Pam, as I pretended to get sucked into the sand at our feet. We were at the back of the group. Mr Turban was silently leading the way up a very steep sand dune so we could catch the setting sun. “I’m taking off my sandals, gonna go barefoot.”
PAM
It was so surreal to walk barefoot in the Sahara! And as usual, we spared no time fooling around. Ning and I love to play, and we played everywhere we went, around the world. We’re like silly little girls that way.
Ning posed for me as a model in a make-believe magazine photoshoot, scarf flying in the make-believe wind as I gave her make-believe art direction as a quack stylist. What amazing shots we could take here! Ning is such a ham in front of the camera, and she was all decked out in her headscarf and traditional harem pants too!
After hamming it up for the camera and giggling like two silly schoolgirls, we realised that the rest of the group had gone way ahead of us. We had to climb to the summit on foot and they were almost there, while we were still fooling around by the parked camels down below. So we decided we had better catch up. Ning picked up her flip-flops and started sprinting barefoot up the sand dune, the desert wind whipping through her hair.
NING
“Last one up the hill is a fattybombom!” Pam grinned as we started up the slope, bare feet touching hot sand, the fine grains oozing through our toes. I’d checked with our guide earlier and he promised that there wouldn’t be any nasty scorpion or rattlesnake surprises at this time, so bare feet were okay.
“Ahahahahaha! Loser!” I snickered as my long limbs gave me an unfair advantage over the pint-sized BFF. She was far behind and I was moving as swiftly I could while climbing the sand dune so I wouldn’t slip back down. That was when I suddenly felt fabric collapsing around my ankles. “What the...”
I looked down, horrified. The strings of my harem pants had somehow come undone...
PAM
The next thing I knew, this magical photoshoot moment dissipated with a poof. My eyes flew open and my jaw dropped. Ning’s harem pants had slid unglamorously down to her ankles, leaving her running on the sand in her panties!
‘Magic Babe’ Ning in her panties in the Sahara Desert... NEAT.
The BFF glanced at me in horror as she hastily reached down and pulled up her harem pants. We looked at each other for a moment, before bursting into uncontrollable laughter! The rest must have heard us shrieking away and shook their heads. Those nutcase girls are at it again, tsk tsk.
But it was my favourite moment in Heatwave Capital. I still laugh when I think about it! That image is forever seared into my brain, stored in my Hilarious Moments mental folder for when I’m angry with the BFF or when I find myself walking out the door with my bitch face on again.
Ah, don’t we just love harem pants!
Us with our camels & harem pants!
17
moonshadows & sandstorms
Morocco · September 2011
NING
The moonlight was so bright that I could actually see my shadow on the Sahara desert sand. We were on our camels, and the stillness and power emanating from the Erg Chebbi dunes was incredible. It radiated a silent pulse, which you could feel once you quietened your mind and soul.
The sun burnt red and orange as it slowly dipped into the horizon. Sunsets all over the world look different. In Santorini, the sun disappears into the sea with an explosion of purples, reds, pinks and yellows. In Singapore, it hides behind cityscape silhouettes. And in the Sahara, it births moonshadows.
In reverent silence, we watched the powerful star take its final bow for the day, leaving streaks of purple and pink in the evening sky before the blues gradually blossomed into a deep indigo.
We rode back on our camels in silence, and I relished the feel of the desert at nightfall. The moonlight was harshly bright and we needed no lamps to find our way back to Sahara Garden, a desert bivouac owned by Hassan, or the wild desert man, as Pam called him. On the sand, I could see our shadowy silhouettes, all lined in a row.
At Sahara Garden, we were to sleep in tents or out in the open under the stars, like Hassan loved to do. On our first day, we met Rosa, a Spanish woman who was truly a desert child.
“What do you love about the Sahara?” I asked her over dinner, curious as to why this European woman had been coming back repeatedly to the desert for 14 years.
“Some people love the sea, some people love the mountains, or forests, but there is something about the desert that speaks to me,” my fellow traveller shared, her dark Spanish eyes flashing as she gazed at the sand dunes before us. We were seated cross-legged under the open sky. “There is just this energy...”
It’s true. I’ve felt it.
“Look,” Hassan pointed up at the constellations above us. The clouds had parted, revealing stars twinkling in the velvet sky.
“Wow,” Pam breathed as she rocked back on her heels, soaking it all in. It really was a pretty sight and for a moment I wished for someone special to share this with.
A drop of rain suddenly hit my bare shoulder, surprising me. A breeze caressed my skin and I heard a distinct howl coming from the brewing depths of the Sahara. I raised a quizzical eyebrow at our desert guide.
A thoughtful expression had come over his sun-beaten face as he raised his face to the sky. His eyes searched for something we could not see. Then, without warning, he jumped on his feet, startling us all. His blue robes began to billow in the growing wind.
“Get inside! Now!” Hassan barked, jolting us with his forceful insistence. He gestured to the small brick bu
ilding near the tents. “Please, hurry!”
We had barely gotten through the door when the situation outside changed drastically. Hassan’s men swiftly shut all the windows as he bolted the heavy wooden door. I noticed that the furniture we had used outside was now being upturned and dragged along the ground by an invisible force.
A desert sandstorm had hit us.
PAM
Huddled together inside the building, we sat in silence and watched the flurry of sand swirling outside. It had all happened so suddenly – there was hardly any warning. One moment we were joking that we might just be able to tell our friends back home that it had rained in the Sahara, and the next, we were in the middle of a sandstorm!
“Does this happen often?” I asked Hassan, when he had a moment to spare amidst directing his men. He was watching one of them cover the slit at the bottom of the door with rugs.
“Hmm?” He turned towards me, looking a tad distracted. “No, not often here. Sometimes.”
“But how... how... did you know a sandstorm was coming?” I asked him, my mind still reeling from the way he had almost closed his eyes to sense the desert air, just moments before.
Hassan raised an eyebrow in amusement, not quite certain how to answer me. Then he broke into a hearty chuckle.
“We grew up in the desert!” was all he could say by way of explanation, and I accepted that reluctantly, the journalist in me still restless and dissatisfied.
I recalled an earlier conversation we had with Rosa, Cindy and Gary, about how desert people find water out in the vast Sahara. Hassan’s explanation had been that some people – usually the medicine men of their tribes – just have a supernatural gift. Holding a simple olive branch over the sand, they can pinpoint the exact location of a water source. And according to Hassan, they are always a 100 percent accurate.
That was when Ning took the olive branch Hassan had been holding and started playing with it. And that was also when the first drops of rain landed on her shoulders. Coincidence?
* * *
I had been curious about Hassan’s turban all evening. Earlier, he had lifted the entire turban from his head and placed it on Gary when we were dancing in the moonlight. It made me wonder if it was really a long strip of cloth wound tightly around his head, or a hat.
When a journalist is cooped up indoors with nothing to do, these random thoughts – which are stored away in KIV folders – get dug up and dumped into the Inbox.
I stared at the black turban on Hassan’s head. It looked like a long strip of cloth, coiled round and round... but if so, why hadn’t it crumbled when he lifted it off his head earlier?
“Hassan,” I called out to him again.
“Hmm?” He turned to smile at me, redirecting his gaze from the window for a moment.
“Is your turban like a hat?” I asked, the question sounding infinitely sillier out loud than when it was in my head. I almost wanted to take it back, but it was too late.
“A hat?” Hassan looked puzzled.
“When we were dancing outside just now, you took it off and placed it on Gary’s head,” I explained sheepishly. “I thought your turban was wrapped tightly around your head.”
I reckon Hassan must think this city girl a bit screwy in the head. But he was as patient as a camel and motioned Ning and I over to him. Ning settled herself beside him as he took his black turban off his head and unravelled it so that it became a long, long strip of cloth!
Oh my God, it was a single strip of cloth after all, but coiled so perfectly that it could stay in place without pins or starch or velcro. Hassan proceeded to create a turban from scratch on Ning’s head, explaining as he shaped the cloth with his expert hands. I saw the BFF slowly transform from a dorky girl in harem pants into a Bedouin desert man right before my eyes!
When Hassan finally slid off his blue robe and wrapped it over her, the transformation was complete. Ning was a handsome Bedouin dude, complete with attitude.
Hassan gestured for me to hand him my black Amsterdam shawl (the one that had stained Ning’s Le Cordon Bleu uniform a Smurf blue) and proceeded to use it to create a turban on my head. A small shawl like mine could work too? Really?
So you see, no question is too stupid. You always learn something new!
Us with Hassan, our desert wild man, who gave up his turban & robes for Ning.
NING
The sandstorm had been brewing and blowing for a while, with no signs of letting up. We were pacing restlessly around the room after the thrill and laughter of hamming it up in front of the camera in our Moroccan desert outfits had died down.
“There’s nothing we can do, I guess, but wait it out,” I shrugged as we tried to make ourselves comfortable in the small quarters.
I noticed Hassan’s musical instruments in a corner of the room. I wasn’t familiar with any of them because they were traditional Moroccan instruments; but because we had nothing else to do, the instruments were inviting me to pick them up.
“May we?” I asked Hassan, who was looking out of the window, staring at the swirls of sand dancing in the wind. He smiled and nodded.
Like gleeful children, Pam and I scampered to the instruments resting on thick rugs on the floor and started hitting, plucking and shaking them, creating quite an orchestral ruckus.
The BFF, who can play the drums, had first dibs on the percussions. I picked up a stringed instrument that resembled a canoe paddle, and started strumming it like an electric guitar. I’m sure wasn’t meant to be played that way!
Cindy, Gary and Rosa soon joined in, and an impromptu jamming session ensued. Everyone was making music, making merry and making memories!
PAM
It was almost midnight when the sandstorm finally subsided. As we emerged from the building one by one, blinking in the musty air, we could not see much because it was so dark and the generators had stopped churning and rumbling.
We held on to each other as we stumbled back to our tents about 200 metres away. I could feel the uneven ground under my feet. The thick rugs outside the building had been dragged across the sand and were now strewn randomly in the compound. I could not tell exactly where our tents were so I held on to Ning’s arm as I stepped gingerly in their general direction.
Our dwellings were traditional cloth tents that could not be zipped up. The “entrance” to our tent was closed with just one giant wooden toothpick pierced through two pieces of thick cloth. There was no electricity or oil lamps in the tent. We had a single candle, which was our only source of light.
Because it was very hot and stuffy in the enclosed tent (there was absolutely no ventilation and no windows), and because Ning and I were afraid the candle would topple from its loose wax base while we were sleeping, and burn down the entire tent with us inside, we always extinguished it before we climbed into bed.
Ning was holding the candle in one hand as she crept towards her backpack on her side of the tent, leaving my side in darkness. Carefully, I managed to feel my way to my bed.
“I’m exhausted!” I declared with a huff, collapsing dramatically on my thin mattress.
And that was when I felt it. Instead of a mattress under me, I felt a sandy beach. I’m serious. Scratching against my arms and legs was a layer of grainy rough sand.
“Whoa!” Ning exclaimed across the room before I could. “My backpack is filled with sand! Oh my God, come look at this!”
“No, come look at this! What the hell...” I sprung from my bed with a yelp.
Stunned by my response, the BFF rose slowly to her feet and headed over with the single flickering flame in hand, holding it over my bed.
Oh my God.
The entire bed was covered with a layer of sand. The clothes we had laid out were coated with a film of sand, our open backpacks were filled with sand... in fact, everything was covered with sand!
We ended up spending another half hour beating the sand off our mattresses, emptying our bags, and repacking in the darkness.
When morning cam
e, we saw the full extent of the damage. Although it was a mild sandstorm – by Hassan’s definition – all the rugs that lined the exterior of our tents had either been flipped over or blown away. There were colourful heaps strewn across the campsite. Our tent was like a sand pit in a children’s playground.
What an amazing adventure it had been out in the Erg Chebbi sand dunes! But this ocean child was pretty relieved to be leaving the heat and sand of the desert and heading to the cooler and more cosmopolitan Marrakech.
But the memories of moonshadows and sandstorms in the Sahara will forever be etched in my mind, never to be blown away in the shifting sands of time.
The beautiful orange Erg Chebbi dunes.
18
journey to the zen-tre of the earth
Oudtshoorn, South Africa · September 2011
NING
“Do you know the one about the two city girls in the forest?” I sniggered as Pam and I made our way up towards the historic Cango Caves, which have been around since the Stone Age. The two of us were all decked out in spelunking attire, and excited to begin our “extreme sports” caving adventure.
“Uh, no... let’s hear the joke.”