Where on earth is Skye?

WEDNESDAY 4 NOVEMBER – Happy birthday G’Al

I had such a great day and would go so far as to say that it happened to be one of the best days of my life.

Woke up in our two man (women!) tent and Judy got up and had a ciggie. I tried to roll over and go back to sleep – it was a non event. That was about quarter past 6 so bright and early because we want to seize the day. Wandered in to the valley to find a private spot to do my business.

Then we had a baby wipe bath, put on fresh t-shirt and undies and then packed up all our stuff. Had a cup of traditional tea that the Tuareg guys made for us and then we had stale bread, I didn’t have it toasted but Judy did, with butter and jam.

We all swapped around cars this morning after Adrian and Brian complained of the dust – they moved in to the front car (Sullimans) with Yvonne while I stayed in the second car (my friend, Abdelkader’s car) and Judy, Paul and Kate joined me. The chicks (Lisa, Elaine, Judith and Lee) all moved to Upsad’s car at the back while Ryan was invited to join the cook and Mohammed in the ute. The ute had rules of its own. In fact, Mohammed and the cook had rules of their own and were rarely without a join between their fingers – generally the guys were “oklok” (stoned) all day.

After packing up the cars we drove out of our valley with the sun coming up (actually it was up at 6am but let’s not get facts in the way of a good story) into this amazing area where the rocks looked like mushrooms and in the shape of animals – they were big granite rocks and they were surrounded by sand dunes.

We saw some rock carvings of elephants (and a cow on an elephant but not doing the elephant, just carved over the top of the elephant) and giraffes.

And another nondescript animal a bit further on.

And then we drove on some more – drove on and on and on.

We stopped for lunch early after driving through some amazing scenery and amazing desert – under the shade of an acacia tree we ate salad of lettuce, tomotoe, cucumber and onion as well as cheesy cauliflower which was still warm. It was delicious. And then had a snooze under the acacia tree which dropped ants all over us. Then Abdel pulled out his game of dominoes - we watched the Tuareg guys playing for a while and then Judy and I joined in, then Kate too. It was very heated and very funny.

We had a lot of fun playing dominoes with the local guys but I must admit it got very heated and our driver, Abdel, was saying that the other driver, who’s name is Upsaad, was calling him names (rubbish and donkey). You are in a team with the person sitting opposite you who, in my case, was Abdel who kept thanking me every time I put down a dominoe – we won most games so I must have been doing something right!

Us girls didn’t really know what we were doing but I had help from the cook, Habib, who keeps to himself but he’s a very good cook. We love his food. Best food we’ve had all trip. Here's Habib looking very gruff!

Soon the dominoes were packed up along with the rest of a stuff and we took off again. I was sitting in the front and we were playing some really fun Tuareg songs and because I’ve been in the car with Abdel for a couple of days I know a couple of the songs now so I sing along with him and we clap and bang on the car and, you know, its all fun and games. Most of the day Abdel chews on this piece of wood and cleans his teeth with it - I asked if we could have some and he sawed off a piece each for the four of us against the steering wheel with his machete and then whittled a bit of bark off the end as we were driving along the bumpy, sandy oued (riverbed). I held the steering wheel a bit while he whittled away at these sticks and we spent the rest of the day chewing away on our toothbrushes. My teeth had never felt cleaner!

The oued had a few acacia trees and these funny little plants that were sort of like a pea but smelt like rocket when you drove over them which was quite gorgeous and there were tons of butterflies. We didn’t see any animals but loads of droppings – we saw camels – of course, we saw heaps of camels. Camels coming out of our ears!

I think the highlight of Abdels day is when he puts on Celine Dion and we all do Celine karaoke. It was made evident early on in the desert safari that Abdels favourite tune is My Heart Will Go On and, hmmm, I’ve heard it every day now for the last three days of this safari so I’m beginning to actually learn the words and (whispering), don’t tell anyone, but quite enjoy it! Shhhh, don’t tell anyone. Abdel really was quite astounded by our spectacularly dulcet tones and dramatic actions (arms thrown out wide when hitting the high notes) which just got better and better with each rendition!

Then I asked Abdel if I could have a drive and a little bit further on, when we got to an flat river bed I had a bit of a drive – not a very long one but it was a lot of fun. He put his Tuareg scarf on me when I was driving so now I’m an honorary Tuareg. And he actually said, “Skye Tuareg, Kate no” and Kate said, “Skye rubbish” and he said “No Skye rubbish, you rubbish, Skye good” and he got his whip out pointed it at Kate saying “I do this to you Kate if you say Skye rubbish”!

And all the while the tunes are going and we’re clapping and singing along having a wonderful time and the scenery just got more and more gorgeous – dunes and clear skies, it was a lovely hot sunny day. It was probably around 30 degrees and it was really quite beautiful.

As we were nearing camp I helped Abdel collect fire wood – Acacia tree wood was prolific but Abdel said it was “rubbish” and we had to collect another specific wood which was hard to find and generally dig it out of the sand.

Then we pulled in to our camp at Tin Agoula and hopped and skipped out of the car because we were so excited, put up our tent, chucked our mattresses and blankets in our tent and then we baby wiped all over again. The desert dust just gets in to everything - our bodies, packs, clothes, etc are all a shade of reddy brown. And the air is so dry - our skin is shrivelled and tight, our hair is like straw and one big knotty dreadlock and my feet are all cracked and hard. They are quite revolting.

Then Ryan and I went for a walk – we walked up to the top of a sand dune and the sun was setting a little bit, well, it was going down so it created these gorgeous patterns on the dune.

We walked along the tip of the dune and then we walked over the valley.

Climbed to the top of a, we were discussing whether it was a grassy knoll but it couldn’t be a grassy knoll if there is no grass so maybe it was a sandy knoll…. Anyway, it was a bit of a hill and we walked to the top of that thinking we’d get a great sunset. The sunset was lovely but wasn’t spectacular but it was gorgeous being up there and we met Kate and Paul up there and sat and watched it together.

Apologies for the quality of this video (it was windy) but it gives you a general idea of where we were, etc

We wandered back to camp and had, what did we have? Coffee and biscuits - or a hot chocolate. And then it was dinner time.

So there was soup – it was a bit of a broth and I think it had chopped up spaghetti so it was like noodles in chicken noodle soup. So that was a bit of a starter and then for the main the cook had put together had cooked pasta with a tomato, cheese and onion sauce in his pressure cooker. Accompanied, of course, by stale bread again. And all the while the Tuareg guys were making tea around the fire and cooking their semolina bread under the hot sand. I left the group a bit and sat with the Tuaregs and had alot of fun with them, laughing and drinking tea while eating my pasta. And then Jud came over and Ryan came over and then the guys got their bread and rubbed a bit of the sand off it, scraped it down, gave everyone who wanted to try a little piece of bread a piece and then broke up the loaf and made it almost like a cous cous. The broth with meat and added fat has been bubbling away on the fire and added to the broken up semolina bread. They were all sitting around the bowl preparing to tuck in when they asked me if I would like to eat with them. I was like “yeah, yeah, yeah, of course I want to eat with you!” Anyway, I don’t need to go into detail about the yeah, yeah, yeahs do I…. so I went over and a space was made for me in the sand around the communal bowl. I was handed a teaspoon (they used their hands but I wondered if they gave me a spoon to use because I hadn't washed my hands or because they thought it would be easier for me) and Abdelkader, who was the meat delegator, pushed one of the tastiest morsels of mutton in my direction. It was one of those pinch me moments - the romance of the situation, setting and company made the food seem way more delicious than it probably was. The Tuareg guys were chatting in their melodious way and I was in heaven silently smiling to myself taking in the moment. After I'd had my fill I said I was ‘ske’ which, as I understood it, is the Tuareg word for “full” and "tanoomert" (thank you) then we all sat around slurping on our mint tea looking up at the amazing, amazing stars and a ton of satellites winging their way above us before the full moon rose.

Ryan played his guitar - it wasn’t the sing-a-long that we’ve had over the past nights but it was a nice chilled out chatty sort of night.

After the full moon rose I went for a walk through the desert in bare feet without a head torch - there was no need for a head torch, the moon turned night into day and you could see everything very clearly. I felt like I could have walked for miles and miles.

Then Jud and I tucked ourselves up and fell asleep in our two women tent with the moon shadow dancing on the canvas.

THURSDAY 5 NOVEMBER

We woke up to another beautiful day and packed up camp.

Poor Judith’s eye had been aggravated by the dust so "the girls" (Judith, Lee, Elaine and Lisa) moved in to the front car again and Brian, Adrian and Yvonne went in the back car with Upsaad. We were again treated to amazing landscape.

One of the cars broke down quite soon after leaving camp (not an unusual occurrence – we always have to jump start one of the cars each morning and there are frequent stops for repairs and maintenance throughout the day). When Abdel realized that they weren’t behind us we stopped and had a wander while waiting for them to catch up. There were incredible rocks in the area (they were pure white which we hadn’t seen anywhere else) and Abdel and I made a rock cairn with support from Paul, Kate and Jud – his was quite flash and even had a bit of greenery which we christened the ‘rockery’.

Mid morning we came across a girl herding a small herd of baby goats.

She was part of a small Tuareg nomad community who lived 14kms away from the nearest well. Our drivers always carried extra water in case we came across any of the nomadic Tuaregs and she rushed to get containers made from goat skins to fill up. We were quickly surrounded by a small group of women and young boys with skins to be filled.

They also had homemade handicrafts to sell. The women had babies and children dripping off them and, once again, it was worth buying something you didn’t need to put money straight into their pockets and have the chance to take photos without being too intrusive.

I love this photo - isn't she beautiful?

One of the girls was speaking with the drivers, concerned about an old lady back at the settlement who was ill. Being a nurse, Kate got involved and walked off hand in hand with the girl across the oued. We followed in the cars and Abdel gave a lift to a young mother and her tiny baby. She and I were sitting in the back and I offered her a dried fig - she took the whole bag. Fair enough too. The camp was about a th their camels – somkilometre away and their shelter was literally a tarp without walls held up by sticks. It was very primitive and a truly desperate place utilizing the only shade for miles. There were very few men or boys over 10 at the camp so I assume they were out tending their goats (which were the only animal they had that I could see but the men could very well have been out with their camels – something tells me they were too poor to be camel owners though).

Paul, Kate and Jud inspected the old lady while we all hung back and waited. Turns out the poor old dear has cataracts which could be easily treated with a quick operation (think Fred Hollows) but it was unlikely that she would be able to have that operation. In fact I’m not quite sure even where she could go to see a doctor so it was likely that she would be blind in the not too distant future. It was a bit of a “Doctors without Borders” moment and great that Paul, Kate and Jud could do something to help alleviate her suffering. The nomads were grateful and waved us on our way.

Moving on we stopped at Youfihakit (say that quickly) for a lunch of rice salad, green salad and the usual stale bread which most people are passing on these days.

Here's the ever calm Habib after dishing up another delicious meal - isn't he regal

I took myself off for a walk to the top of a nearby hill and was surprised by the incredible view – about 5 different valleys converging in to one. I spent some time up there singing out loud to myself before Ryan joined me and we threw stones at distant targets before rejoining the group as they were having siesta under the shade of the acacia tree.

We spent the afternoon driving along a dry river bed which was as dusty as ever - here's a photo of Ryan looking particularly clean.
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Further along the oued we passed the first “houses” we’d seen for nearly a week, round straw huts on the side of the dry river bank, the occasional well and groups of kids stopped playing to wave at us as we drove by leaving them in clouds of dust. The vegetation was slowly changing too – more acacia trees and, in places, grasses.

We arrived at Guelta (natural spring) of Tamekrest by mid afternoon. You wouldn’t have known it was there unless you knew it was there, if you know what I mean?! The spring was at the end of a dry river bed valley and well concealed behind big granite boulders which we scrambled over to get to the waterfall. It was a lovely site and welcome relief after spending so much time in the parched desert. A few of us put our heads under the water (and most of our bodies too) – it wasn’t a full wash but it was pretty bloody good. My hair had been so dry that it had turned into one big knot which I couldn’t pull my fingers through for fear of it snapping – needless to say, it loved that water.

I hadn’t realized that we were setting up camp there so it was nice to have a couple of hours to chill, set up camp slowly and work out where we were going to go to watch the sunset. While I was having a coffee, Abdel came up to me and asked me to go with him. Three young nomad Tuareg boys had come into camp earlier (I assume they were from the straw hut settlement a few kilometers away that we’d passed on the way into the valley) and he took me to them. The eldest boy had sores on his legs that were infected. I made each of the boys a mug of hot chocolate (never before have I seen a liquid disappear so quickly except for Friday night after work drinks) and then I grabbed our medics in residence who set to work on the kid. Paul seemed to think they were mozzie bites that he’d itched and had then covered in animal dung in his attempt to help cure the sores. He had, of course, never taken medication before and we used Abdelkader as our translator to convincing him to take tablets – and then further education on how and when he needed to take them. The younger boys were filthy urchins and very suspect on the whole thing but the eldest boy knew we were trying to help and was very open and thankful in own way for Paul, Kate and Jud’s efforts.

It was getting on a bit by then and Ryan and I had to hot foot it to catch the sunset. We decided to climb the rock face directly behind the camp – I hadn’t realized how steep, slippery and slatey those rocks were until I was well into the journey and it was too late to turn back (and as if I’d turn back on a hike with Ryan – he would have laughed me out of town). Anyway it was tough going and when we got to what we thought was the top we quickly realized that we were only a quarter of the way to where we really needed to go. Ryan was wearing his Havianas which weren’t the ideal footwear for the terrain we were traversing and he cut his big toe badly. Let out a big whoop (which was clearly heard at camp) when we eventually scrambled to the top of these huge boulders. The view was stunning, as was sunset.

Sliding back down to camp was even less fun but Habib’s dinner made up for it! I noticed that Habib was having trouble with his head torch which is not ideal when cooking in the dark. I did a swap with him and gave him my Kathmandu head torch which takes normal batteries and he gave me his torch which only takes lithium batteries (not easy to find). I laughed when I put his head torch on as he had to wear it over his Taguelmoust (turban) so it had stretched to billyo. Mine, on the other hand, would have made him feel like his brains were coming out his ears!

I shared dinner with the Tuareg guys again tonight and we had a sing around the campfire sad that it was our last night in the sand desert – tomorrow we are heading into the lunar world of the Hoggar Mountains.