The Sahara Desert

by

  Yusuf

-> More Articles I've just returned home to Malaysia after about 45 days driving a 4x4 with some friends across the Sahara Desert in North Africa. It was a fascinating journey and I've much to say about the desert and its impact on Cameras. First off, here is a picture shot at Dusk deep in the Sahara of Libya. We shipped our vehicles to Port Sudan & Khartoum from Malaysia, and started driving from the Sudan, through Egypt, then Libya, Tunisia, and on to Oren in Algeria, from where we shipped the cars across the Mediteranean to Alicante in Spain, and then from Almeira in Spain back again across the Med to Nador in Morocco, from where we crossed the Atlas mountains and finished at Casablanca. The border between Algeria and Morocco is closed and mined. That was why we had to go to Morocco via Spain. The Sahara is the largest desert in the world, covering about 9 million sq km of North Africa. Here's a couple of pictures of our cars crossing dunes. The Sahara Desert stretches across Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Sudan, Chad, Niger, Mali and Mauritania. Just in Libya alone, the Sahara is almost as large as India. It is stunningly beautiful in an intimidating sort of way, with bleached bones of dead camels seen in many places. The landscape comprises mainly dry hills, bare and loose rocks, dunes and shifting sands of various grain sizes. In Algeria and Morocco the Sahara is rocky. In Libya the sand grains are large and coarse while in Tunisia the sand is powdery like flour. The dunes and the colours are also different in different places and at different times of the day. The desert is constantly changing its landscape. Pebbles and stones on the surface are rounded as the blowing sand works like sandpaper blasting everything smooth. In the oasis, villagers need to put up fences of date palm fronds to prevent their homes from being buried. When the water runs out at an oasis, people move on, and the desert slowly but surely reclaims the oasis. This typical desert house has been abandoned because the water here has dried up. Already the sand is swallowing the houses here and in a few years all will be buried. In many places we saw date palms buried by the sand such that only the fronds and fruit are visible and at ground level. At this time of the year the dates are ripening and I had great fun gorging myself on dates which I simply stoop down to pluck instead of climbing up the trunk .... The sky is beautifully blue. Absolutely clear with not a single wisp of clouds. With the sun directly overhead, the sand is slightly more yellow - like 18 carat gold I would think, as compared to 24 carat gold whenever the sun is lower. We were about a thousand kilometers deep in the desert in Libya. Water and fuel supplies were running low. Our GPS indicated an oasis at a certain co-ordinate, 65 km westwards. So we head for the oasis. We arrived at the co-ordinate within an hour and a half. And this is the oasis .... There were signs of previous human life there - three scraggly date palms, some desert bushes and a few creepers in 50 Celsius heat. An oasis of green in an unending expanse of 18 carat gold. But where is the water ? We found a small tube well amongst the bushes. About 25 feet below the surface there was perhaps 2 inches of clear water. If you are patient and dying of thirst, you could probably fill a plastic mineral water bottle tied to a long piece of string and carefully lowered down the tube. Lesson learnt ? Carry a long piece of rope and a few empty mineral water bottles if you plan on going into the desert .... The fine dust of the Desert is a killer for cameras, Within two weeks of my journey through the desert, many cameras and lenses went kaput as a result of very fine sand entering the spaces and gaps in cameras and lenses. Focussing rings had a gritty feel each time they were turned. Some button switches wouldnt work. The exposure reading jumped all over the place. And needless to say sensors had tons of dust on them for those foolish enough to change lenses in the open. I now understand why the pro lenses like Canon's L lenses are a little pricey - they have better seals against the elements besides being built of better materials. The first cameras to fail were the cheapo pseudo-SLRs without interchangeable lenses. Then the low cost after-market lenses failed one after another. Fully charged batteries showed low charge in the morning after 10 Celsius temp at night and 55 Celsius at midday. None of the L lenses failed. I was smart enough to slip a long sports stocking (like a condom) over my camera and lens barrel with an opening cut at the eyepiece, so I guess that helped protect my lenses somewhat .... One of the most painful sights I saw during my exploration of the Sahara Desert, was a completely smashed Nikon D70 !!! We were driving over loose sand. In the sand you have to drive fast - greater than 60 kph- and you have to reduce the air pressure in your tyres to as low as 18 psi and even to 12 psi to extract maximum grip and traction. If you stop, or slow down to below 40 kph, you will get into big problems. You will simply sink in the sand and you will have to be winched out. It is the momentum of speeds greater than 60 kph and the soft tyres that allow you to move forward. While we were speeding in the sand in convoy, this friend of mine poked half his body out of the window with his D70 in his hand trying to shoot a picture of my speeding Toyota Landcruiser behind him. Unfortunately his car passed over a rut and whaddaya know ??? His bouncing vehicle caused him to drop his D70 and my car went CRUUUUNNNNNCCCCHHH over the D70 !!!! Here's his D70, a sight that not many people will be privileged to see in real life ....