Before a trip, I invariably read up a little on my proposed destination – it’s a practice I heartily recommend. I truly believe that arming yourself with a few facts beforehand can significantly enhance your peregrinations. But a word of warning: Don’t read too much, especially if you are planning to venture into the Sahara Desert. And here’s for why:-

Before heading east into the sandy nothingness with our guide, Youssef, I desired to know a little more about this fascinating place. Previously, I had learned little apart from that gleaned during my school years. Before digging deeper I knew only that deserts weren’t among the most hospitable places on earth. ‘Grannies’ and ‘Eggs’ springs to mind when I say that desert is without doubt one of the most harsh and demanding environments on the planet. This much is clear.

I now know, however, that – as deserts go – the Sahara Desert is in a league of its own. For one, the Sahara is the largest desert on earth. Covering an area of 3 and a half million square miles, or 8% of the planet, this sprawling mass of nothingness manages to comfortably divide Africa into two regions – North Africa (or at least what’s left of it) and Sub-Saharan Africa. It’s vast. To put it bluntly, if you were to get rid of Alaska (now I’m not suggesting anything here), you could happily fit the remainder of USA into the Sahara Desert without it even touching the sides. As I say, the Sahara Desert is a big ol’ place – but that’s only half the story.

I recently learnt that to be classed as a desert an area must receive less than 10 inches of rainfall a year. Now, with most of the Sahara region receiving no more than a third of this amount, this particular daddy of a desert manages to come in way under the bar. Combine this with its sheer size and you have one magnificently lethal place. It’s a wonder how anything survives at all. Curiously, however, some things do.

Despite this lack of precipitation (and I firmly maintain that most of the Sahara Desert’s share of rain falls instead on the UK) numerous underground rivers run from the Atlas and other mountains – some of which occasionally find their way close to the surface to form naturally irrigated oases. Now, although these partially fertile oases account for only 80,000 square miles of the Sahara Desert – or just 2% of the land mass as a whole – life in these areas is good, or, more accurately, barely sustainable (fact: 15 of the 16 countries with the highest level of hunger are located in the Sahara and Sub-Saharan regions of Africa).

As for the other 98% of the Sahara Desert, well, let’s just say that the area that isn’t quite the land of plenty described above. If you were to parachute in before lunch, I dare say you wouldn’t return to civilisation in time for mint tea and tagines that evening. In fact, unless you either knew what you were doing or bumped into folk that knew what they were doing, you wouldn’t return at all.

So, in short, the Sahara Desert is big, dry and deadly. Should you happen to get lost or stranded in the Sahara – and should you happen to have the desert survival skills of, say, Nathan Richards – you die. It’s a concept unsettling in its simplicity, and one that engenders a modicum of disquiet. Especially if you happen to be Nathan Richards.

As I touched upon earlier, a little boffing up on the facts can be beneficial – knowledge is, after all, a good thing – but too much information may not be. Once armed with these alarming facts you could be forgiven for asking yourself what on earth were you thinking when you chose to sign up for such high adventure. Right now, I thought, ignorance would have been bliss – for it was into this incalculably vast, desiccated wasteland that we were imminently to depart. Anxious? Not even close, mate…and that’s without the scorpions and horned vipers.

I have an awakening of sorts, and I find myself in a place like no other. I look north through a most peculiar, shimmering haze and, in an instant, my eye is drawn to a single, verdant strip of irrigation – no wider than a soccer pitch – stretching out into the distance as far as I care to follow. This narrow lifeline appears to be more than a vehicle for survival, though, as it also adopts the arguably less important role of dividing range. It’s the demarcation between 2 completely different yet equally harsh and unforgiving landscapes. And, as I currently stand upon this modest thread of land, it now physically separates all that lay before me and that which I currently shun. I am, literally, standing between a rock and hardest place of all.

Behind me, to the west, I see a barren, windswept wasteland awash with dust and gravel. The vehement, arid wind remains for the most part unchecked, and carries with her anything she finds strength to dislodge. This searing current whips across the desiccated plain with unequalled vigour. Here and there numerous swirling cones of the finest ochre sand begin to dance, but these ethereal desert ghosts do not to approve of my gaze and – as if almost mocking me – vanish as abruptly as they appear. As a child I had been known to use a hair dryer, and on occasion, after my hair had been satisfactorily moulded, I would turn the drier toward my face. With eyes shut tightly and mouth agape I would rhythmically bob my head from side to side and savour the sensation of the hot air as it rushed past my face. This sensation I feel again today, albeit with my mouth firmly closed.

The forbidding, open expanse continues to the horizon; a clear home run but for infrequent interruption. Dotted throughout these badlands I spot the occasional cubic structure – each identical and looking as though it were borne from the earth itself. I conjure up images of immense clay boxes forcefully pushing their way up from the flattened desert plain – for a moment there is nothing, but then after significant terrestrial rumbling, creaking and groaning, another cube rises with a defiant and bold impertinence – it’s like watching motion capture footage from a mushroom farm. These rudimentary single story dwellings – each barely the square footage of a large western bedroom – squat stoically under a fierce Sahara sun. But despite their meagre stature, here they are sky scrapers – for around them is little else. Here, in this landscape so consistently void of feature, even a mud hut stands like a giant. My eyes are all but starved of attraction, yet are feasting upon this vision of nullity. I stand for a moment, wholly paralysed by the sheer scale of it all.To the east it’s a different story. I stand scarcely 200 yards from my final destination; the culmination of a 2 day, 260 mile journey is now within reach. I no longer cower from the dust laden sirocco – as a new and infinitely more powerful sensation urges me to raise my head. As my chin lifts away from my chest I gain instant reassurance – I know at once that the journey has been worthwhile. Looking ahead, I feel the vista being etched into my subconscious. The vista, of course, is the western edge of Erg Chebbi, the formidable network of sand dunes stretching from here to the Algerian Border.

Rarely, I thought, can a person get this close to something so staggeringly beautiful yet exquisitely deadly and still live to tell the tale. But who’s to say that I would survive? Without question, if I were here alone and not in the company of Berber Nomads – the very people whom have forged a sustainable way of life in this area for centuries – I would perish in an instant, and no amount of Dirhams, laptops or fancy walking boots could save me. Over the coming days I would grow to appreciate a completely different set of values, I would learn much from the people that held my fate in their hands. I would soon understand that here, in the Sahara, materialistic principals have no place, and that knowledge and mastery of the land is king.

From Fes we took a short 2 hour hop southeast to our second Imperial City, Meknes. To be quite honest, I expected a tad more from a city dubbed the Moroccan Versailles. Quite what I had expected I don’t know, but, from first impressions, it didn’t strike me as a bright, shining star of Moroccan urbanity.

Maybe I needed to spend more time unearthing its delights; maybe the gems were just too well hidden – exceedingly well hidden, in fact, as there seemed little to impress. Undeniably, the main plaza was as pleasant as the Ancient City’s Gateway was impressive, but beyond this it came across as being a touch mediocre. I’m not afraid to admit that I felt a little let down as, for the most part, the place seemed a little deflated and void of spirit. Mind you, we would all do well to remember that this is coming from a chap who, when looking out onto the Grand Canyon for the first time, remarked “Oh. I thought it would have been…well…a little bigger, that’s all…”

As far as interest value goes, the unremarkable, diet coke-like character of the present day city seems a far cry from its historical splendour. If we are to believe anything from the colourful and fascinating accounts of bygone times in this former Capital of Morocco, then we could assume that it must have been an extremely exciting place to be – especially during one particular period around the 1700s. But if these captivating narratives really are unvarnished and verifiable, then it’s highly likely that Meknes wouldn’t have appeared top of the list entitled “Places I’d like to live”. At a guess, it would have been just below ‘Anywhere in Djibouti’, and just above ‘Inside Johnny Wilkinson’s jockstrap’. And for that there is good reason, namely Mulai Ismail, the Sultan of Morocco in that particular era.

All things considered, the Moulay Ismail – or Ismail the bloodthirsty as he was sometimes referred to – was not the most kind and caring of individuals. He stood as much chance of being likened to Mother Theresa as Gordon Brown does of being the next Playmate of the Year. He really didn’t seem like the kind of fella that you would particularly want to be around. Ever. In short, the Sultan was as cruel as he was unpredictable.

One account in particular – taken from A Journey to Mequinez, by John Windus – reveals much about Mulai Ismail’’s volatile disposition.

“About 8 or 9 his trembling court assemble, which consists of his great officers, the alcaydes, blacks, whites, tawnies and his favourite Jews, all barefooted; if he is in good humour, which is well known by his very looks and motions; and sometimes the colour of the habit that he wears, yellow being observed to be his killing colour; from all of which they calculate whether they may hope to live twenty-four hours longer.”

Just imagine being a member of his entourage. Imagine the interminable uncertainty, the perpetual and well-founded fear that each day may be your last, and imagine having to remember to put the key under the mat – every day. What a Job. It almost rivals being Victoria Beckham’s coffee partner.

A little later on, the author goes on to describe the Moulay Ismail’s trips out of town, and with it comes yet another illustration of just how iniquitous the Ruler could be.

“…sometimes when he goes out of town, which is not above once in two or three months, he will be attended by fifteen or twenty thousand blacks on horseback, with whom he now and then diverts himself at the lance.” He continues “…His other travelling utensils are two or three guns, a sword or two, and two lances, because one broke once while he was murdering; his boys carry short Brazil sticks, knotted cords for whipping, a change of clothes to shift when bloody, and a hatchet, two of which he took in a Portuguese ship, and the first time they were bought to him, killed a man without any provocation, to try if they were good.”

Just imagine testing one like that in Home Depot. “…Bing Bong – Call for a member of staff with mop and bucket to aisle 6, please…”

Despite this account being so unthinkably macabre, I couldn’t put the book down. I think the one singular characteristic that softened the blow (excuse the pun) was possibly the fact that, because it was so incredibly gruesome, it gave the impression of being a work of pure fiction. And to think this really happened, and in a time not so distant from the present day, and so relatively close to home, well, it’s almost beyond belief.

I could continue. In fact, I shall. There are numerous other accounts describing the Moulay’s bloodthirsty ways, including how one day he ordered his soldiers to throw some Christians from the high wall on which they were working at the time, thus breaking their arms and legs, simply because they did not maintain synchronicity in their strokes as he passed (now there’s a tough boss). Yet rarely did he murder his closest carers – his tawny nurses – he would simply beat them “in the cruellest manner imaginable, to try if they were hard” – 40 to 50 at a time, no less. What a charitable kind of guy. But it wasn’t all flowers and rainbows for the nurses, as one account tells how he did murdered two such carers for “hiding pieces of bread”. Well, I guess they had it coming then, didn’t they?

It all seemed a crazy, crazy world back then, that’s for sure. But back to the present day. I still feel like we must be missing a trick somewhere along the line, for many people, many Moroccans in fact, hold the Imperial City of Meknes in somewhat high regard. Over the coming days I shall explore more and, of course, read more about this city – maybe that way, even if we can’t find the delights by foot, a deeper delve into its history might put us on the money. And, as ever, I’ll keep you posted.