Tales of a Skytrekker

Egypt: The White Desert, let it snow!

home_sweet_holmes — Wed, 1 Jan 2014 00:25:00 GMT

Just a couple of weeks before the Arab Spring, I had decided to flee the howling blizzards sweeping Europe white, and embarked on a short expedition intending to cross on foot a small part of the Egyptian Sahara called the White Desert. Upon arrival at the Charles-de-Gaulle airport in Paris, I started to feel buckets of cold sweat flowing down my spine, and my legs took on the consistency of over boiled spaghettis: limpy, shaky, squidgy…
The departure board kept blinking red “Cancelled”s, except for the Swiss International flight to Cairo, via Zurich… We left Paris howling in panic under 10cm of snow and, 4h30 later, slowly started our descent into the heavily polluted labyrinth of the frantic Egyptian capital. The next day, we will be heading South and leave the asphalt to burry our feet into the golden banks of the Great Sand Sea.
One thing about Cairo is to keep your head straight, fixed and focused… Otherwise you’ll rapidly get trapped into a whirlwind by its swarming life, your head flapping from one side to another by incessant slaps of colours and powerful smells. Apoplexy will tighten your chest, and you’ll end up tightening your teeth in response, clenching your jaw around pieces of tyres stuck between your incisors after being run over 10 times by the same buzzing car.

In this dusty anthill of 6.76 million inhabitants, Al-Qahira “The Victorious” shelters spellbinding relics of its grandiose History. They overflow all-night long, spilling their proud and welcoming population into a network of interlacing arteries, make the city breath warm with life.

24 hours later, rucksack on the back, swelteringly hot under the December sun, we are getting out of the madness of Gizeh, heading south.

At a midway point between Cairo and Assouan, a small corner of desert makes us dive into Saharian immensity. Sahara el Beyda, the White Desert, is an otherworldly landscape of creamy waves crowned by sandy foam, a prehistorical seabed that now tans its skin in an endless summer. In the East, mushrooms of limestone arch the ground, while the West wilderness whispers tales of caravan expeditions and bold adventures.

Doomed to complete destruction by the pressure of luxury tourism, the White Desert remains the only place on Earth where exploring the depths of the oceans happens on foot and under a blazing sun.

Link: http://tales-of-a-skytrekker.blogspot.co.uk/

Photos: Egypt: The White Desert: Let it Snow!

home_sweet_holmes — Tue, 31 Dec 2013 21:23:00 GMT

Expedition across a snow-covered Sahara

Iceland: Rough, Rugged and Ravishing

home_sweet_holmes — Mon, 30 Dec 2013 05:23:00 GMT

I have rarely fallen in love with anything. At best, I get a fleeting moment of obsession. It sometimes may last a couple of weeks, months… Sometimes a couple of years… Until another spark of madness sweeps this flickering interest deep inside one of the multiple drawers that make up my mind. And my attention snaps. It forgets its first focus, half-heatedly promising itself that all will be accomplished in due time, which of course never comes.
However, a constant to my bohemian ways is a persisting fascination for the Arctic, and by the wrathful, frighteningly beautiful Iceland.

From Hekla, the volcanic clock, we travel south to the psychedelic swirls of the Landmannalaugar. We can, over a ten-day trek, get ourselves a return trip to the Moon, then land back on earth among the endless glaciers of the Wild North; From there, our hike will take us back to the primordial Earth, through a desert of fumaroles, geysers and boiling mud, before reaching an impressionist delicacy where layers of blood orange, golden lemon and ripe pistachio undulate under the ozone blue.

Rough, rugged and ravishing, Iceland obsesses the bold and terrifies the sane.

http://tales-of-a-skytrekker.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/iceland-rough-rugged-and-ravishing.html

Photos: Iceland: Rough, Rugged and Ravishing

home_sweet_holmes — Mon, 30 Dec 2013 04:09:00 GMT

Photos: Tajikistan: Of Copper, Orangeade and Sugar

home_sweet_holmes — Sun, 29 Dec 2013 11:29:00 GMT

Adventure travels in Northern Tajikistan and Western Pamirs

Tajikistan: Of Copper, Orangeade and Sugar

home_sweet_holmes — Sun, 29 Dec 2013 10:34:00 GMT

After a swift border crossing from neighbouring Uzbekistan (a total of 3h, a third of which consisted of a delirious staged performance of packing/unpacking our mountains of food and cooking utensils in front of wholeheartedly beaming custom officials), we’re catching a small battered bus to Konibodom. From there, we hop onto a matchoutka to Khujand, a convenient port of call 80kms to the south.

Up at 5am for a 7 o’clock departure, the road to the Fann Mountains takes us to one of the oldest cities in Tajikistan, the 2,500 year-old Ishtaravshan. We are welcome there by a scorching midday sun that heats the derelict bus station white-hot and makes us suffocate in a haze of warm exhaust.

Struggling for air, we make our way to the old town, an amazingly well-preserved display of traditional architecture. From there, we then head for the bustling bazar, truly explosive in its Tuesday apparel. We walk in, and never walk out. We snake through an anthill maze oozing with vivid colours and spicy squalls that swamp our tongues in acrid smells. The fumes of grills, where scheshlicks (mincemeat skewers) are being roasted by tens, churn up around meat cuts hanging from dawn on at the butchers stalls, and blend with the more subtle aromas of dry fruits and spices. Everywhere, warm smiles light up wizened faces the colour of rich bronze, and words of welcome echo in the never-receding kerfuffle.

But time is running out, and the long road to the mountains still awaits us. To spice up the day, we start bargaining our way to Ayni, the starting point of our trek, with an apocalyptic price that sends us straight for a bypass. People throng around us. Low-pitch Persian-accented voices raise with indignation among the local menfolk. A feeble-looking old man with a drooping figure casts us a surprisingly sharp glance while he treads past us. In quick motion, he shows us with six fingers the local price to the mountains.

Sixty sums, thirty puzzled ebony looks, and a deal! We take the road in a prehistoric sauce-pan that coughs on the slopes and needs regular cooling. We stop several times uphill to splash cold water under the cowling and treat its mechanical tuberculosis, while large trucks wave their way down towards the south Afghan border.

The road is lumpy and shakes us hard until we reach the pass. At Pasrud, we finally reduce our production of greenhouse gases and start our walk along the Pasrud Darya valley. The landscape is brusque and austere. Bold stratas of colours across the ashy slopes bring nuances of copper, orangeade and sugar. Turquoise lakes in hidden valleys mount rare gems on the rough silver peaks.

Two weeks and some altitude-sickness later, we trek our way back to civilisation and bargain a taxi ride to the capital in Zerafshan. Shortly after leaving, seven other passengers left on the roads by a car breakage join our expedition, for the worse. Breaking European Safety rules almost comes as a must when planning expeditions, yet some breaks definitely taste more dare-devily than others! Imagine a tunnel under construction at midway between Tashent and Kabul, heavy traffic in pitch dark several meters underground, your driver busy with a passenger straddling his lap, non-stop Muslim prayers on the radio, and you’ll picture a crazy action shot quite close to the reality of Anzob!

Five long asphalt-less kilometers of unfinished tunnels stand between us and the air. On the walls raw from manual labour, seldom dusty bulbs cast their ghostly light on moving shadows drilling worm-shaped holes through the earth. The radio tape broadcasting continuous Muslim prayers since the start of the journey echoes like a perfect soundtrack for this oriental remake of Die Hard. Our 4x4 waltzes in the dark, waddling on the butchered ground to avoid the scaffoldings of dark steal and the incoming bumpy traffic of fearless potholers that chose the low roads to Dushanbe. One grips the door handle senselessly, the other blinds himself in his hands, and the third empties his stomach yet another time with each bounce.

Twenty minutes of torture and light pierces in in the distance. We stop for a few minutes on a hard shoulder to care for one of our passengers, cold with sweat and stiff in panic, before sending our car back onto the track. The road snakes and slides. The monotonous voice of the preacher tugs at the fragile stings of our shattering sanity. And others collapse… By the window or into a box, each time the seconds needle finds its bearings at midday

Another two hours to Dushanbe…