Sands of Time

Lunch is somewhat forlorn. Dead wood exists in plenty and so we have no difficulty brewing tea and warming our bread, but there’s no shelter from the cruel sun. Even the usual post-meal flies are absent. Raad and Jason sprawl on the rocks, their faces covered by the kouffieh, and doze in uncomfortable heat. I can’t sleep and so I lie on my back listening to a sad Tom Waits song, watching animal shapes drift by in the clouds. Like the images hidden in the convoluted rock formations of the desert, the shapes that you see in clouds are entirely personal. It’s a download of the subconscious and mine is presenting me with the enormous gaping mouths of celestial carnivores.

When our nap is finished and the camels have rested, Raad disappears around the corner for his noontime prayers. He returns by a different route, from the mountain above us, clutching green sprigs of sage and thyme.

“For the tea,” he says. “It grows high on the mountain. Very expensive in the markets of Amman.”

The herbs lend an exotic, almost medicinal flavor to our “whiskey Bedouin.” They raise our spirits and put a small dent in the otherworldly gloom of the valley.

We spend the rest of the day riding out of that desolate place. The soft pad of the camel’s feet on sand, water sloshing in my saddlebags and the tap of my stick are the only sounds that impose upon the silence. The air clings like wool blankets. My blood turns to red wine; it throbs in my veins and lightens my head.

We ride through bizarre rock formations that look like cutaway models of an anthill, or of some antediluvian beast—they’re shorn off smooth and the cavities and bubbles of strange inner organs are clearly visible. Other formations are jagged and mountainous and they radiate impassive strength. Still others are Dali-esque, as though God had squeezed an enormous hunk of wax and plunked it down roughly to melt and runnel under the relentless Arabian sun. I expect to stumble across an oracle that speaks in ragged whispers. It’s that kind of place.

By day’s end a broad loop has taken us back to the more hospitable Wadi Rum region, where Mbarak awaits us at our camp near the southern tip of Burdah Mountain. The evening is silent and pensive. It feels like we’ve ridden back from the land of the dead.

The next day’s route takes us into a rocky gorge where a winding path drops steep to the canyon floor. We have to dismount and lead our camels gingerly down a path of sliding stones with a sheer drop on our right. Camels fear heights and can’t be led through such places by force. They simply dig in their heels and snap the rope.

I take hold of Azaran’s lead close beneath his chin, place a comforting hand on the back of his strong neck, and guide him patiently as he slips and slides on the edge of panic, using kind words of encouragement in place of the stick.

Raad acknowledges my increasing skill with the animals by continuing on ahead, leaving me to deal with the problem at hand. When I reach the canyon floor he’s sitting beside a green bush on which Sainan is munching with evident satisfaction. I sit down beside him and couch Azaran by voice alone, tapping my stick on the ground and uttering the low verbal command. It’s the first time that Raad looks impressed.

We make camp that night in a steep-sided canyon. We’re at the point of highest elevation in the Wadi Rum area and the evening is cold. We huddle near the stick fire, gathering over the communal plate, tearing off hunks of pita bread and digging in with our fingers.

If I cover one eye and block out the Land Rover the scene could very well be taking place 50 or a hundred years in the past. We’ve somehow managed to tap into cyclical time, to enter into that Bedouin worldview. For days I’ve been amusing myself with the ridiculous idea of taking it to extremes, of going fully native—but in the style of the past. It’s the only thing we haven’t done yet.

I choke back a grin and propose my idea to the others.

“Listen, Mbarak,” I say. “Now that we’ve been out here for a while and we’re getting pretty good with the camels, I want to go raiding.”

He looks confused.

“You know, old-school Bedouin style. Cut some telegraph wires. Tear up the tracks of the Hejaz Railway. Maybe raid a tourist camp or two. We can raid the Germans. They have lots of money.”

He smiles and shakes his head. “And then onward to Aqaba? That doesn’t happen anymore, Lawrence.”

“What’s that, then?”

I point to a water catchment basin that had been built to collect precious runoff from the rock formation across the way. Two narrow gauge rails have been cemented into its base.

“Someone must have bought those,” he mumbles, but he doesn’t sound entirely convinced.

From Burdah we ride back into the areas of Wadi Rum that are frequented by tourists. As we enter Burrah Canyon our return to civilization is announced by the unfortunate voice of a donkey, whose hee-haws echo off of flutes and columns and reverberate down the siq.

The morning is cool and gusts of wind chill my bare feet to the bone. I tuck them in close against the camel’s dusty fur and wrap the kouffieh tighter around my neck. Up ahead Raad does the same.

We ride past a herd of goats and climb to the base of an enormous red dune that towers over the surrounding desert. We hobble the camels at the bottom and force our way up sand as fine as powdered bone, thighs burning and lungs dredging up long forgotten sludge. At the top I walk off to a distant slope while Jason photographs Raad in all his Bedouin glory.

The desert is the ideal place to be alone, to sit and think. It’s simple and clean, and the landscape matches the silence. The people who live in it are rugged and resourceful survivors. Life is shorn of superfluities, boiled down to the things you need and nothing else. The emptiness of the land and the colossal hunks of rock dwarf you; they put things back into perspective. In a place like that the outside world has no bearing. There’s no internet or mortgages, no office politics or freeway commute, no furniture stores or tiresome bar scene. There’s only life and the absence of it, and one flows into the other.

There’s only one thing to do in such a place. I climb something high and gaze off into the distance. I stare at my handprint in the side of a dune and I see the entire world and my life in it in a grain of sand.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 24th, 2007 at 2:32 pm and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site. Add to del.icio.us.