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.