“The Joy of Vastness” by Achill Moser, a book review

I had been at a public bookcase again when I saw the book "The Joy of Vastness" by Achill Moser [1]. And it was even still shrink-wrapped. It's a description of deserts, or rather, travelogues, which naturally piqued my interest. At home, I removed the plastic cover [2]. Then I read in the blurb that Achill Moser is the same age as me and had studied anthropology, African studies, and Arabic, among other things. He had worked for STERN and Geo magazines. Interestingly, my friend Charles, with whom I often traveled, had also worked for STERN. He, too, was frequently sent by STERN to report on deserts, as he had always had a passion for them. However, the two of them never worked together. I noticed that the pages in the middle section were different, printed on glossy paper. There are some truly beautiful photos there. 

But then... But then I had to leaf through it and my attention was drawn to page 109, specifically the heading: From Timbuktu to the Land of the Dogon / Southern Sahara ~ Mali ~ 1980. I'm had been working on my own trip through Mali (2007), when I've written this text in German two years ago, and had already written about the trip several times. And I, too, traveled from Timbuktu to the Land of the Dogon. The first thing I saw was a quote from René Caillié [3], specifically from his trip to Timbuktu. I continued reading and was struck by the sentence: "I'll stay in Timbuktu for a week, then I'll travel down the Niger River in a dugout canoe, the traditional Malian vessel." We traveled in a similar way, except that we took a ferry from Korioumé, a small port, and then drove down the Niger River in a four-wheel-drive vehicle to Gourma-Rharous [4]. In the next paragraph, I read, “I want to go to Mopti, an important trading post on the third largest river in Africa…”. But Mopti is upstream, because that’s where we came to Timbuktu from in a pinnace. I had just been writing about time, not as a ray but as an area, and I had the image of Lake Débo in mind [5]. He was probably just mistaken about the direction 25 years after the journey; but such things need to be verified. 

Will I still be able to read the book without any worries? Certainly, if I let some time pass, and perhaps I’ll write about it again then [6]. 

Links and Annotations: 
[1] Achill Moser: The Joy of Vastness. Five Years in the Deserts of the World. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 2009. ISBN: 978-3-455-50105-3. 
[Achill Moser: Das Glück der Weite. Fünf Jahre in den Wüsten der Welt. Hoffmann Und Campe, Hamburg 2009. ISBN: 978-3-455-50105-3.]
[2] This is always an absurd undertaking, and it gets on my nerves, not only with books but also with DVD or CD covers. 
[3] We also saw the house where René Caillié lived and the one where Heinrich Barth (Abd El Karim) lived when we took a tour with Salam Ould Elhadj, a local historian. 
https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2023/11/travelogue-mali-2007-no-8-timbuktu.html  
[4] https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2023/11/travelogue-mali-2007-no-9-across-niger.html and https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2023/11/travelogue-mali-2007-no-10-gourma.html  
[5] Time // Time is like a river that divides, and where it widens, it becomes interesting because it flows more slowly. And so, one should be able to look around in time, so that time no longer appears as a simple ray but as a surface. 
[Die Zeit // Die Zeit ist wie ein Fluß, der sich aufteilt und dort, wo er sich weitet, wird er interessant, denn er fließt langsamer. Und so sollte man sich auch in der Zeit umsehen können, so daß sich die Zeit nicht mehr als einfacher Strahl sondern als eine Fläche darstellt.]
From: https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2023/12/sammelsurium-241-04122023.html and 
https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2023/11/travelogue-mali-2007-no-6-lac-debo.html 
[6] I had the book in my hands, just after I had returned from Saudi Arabia, but didn't read it yet.

This is a translation and adaption of a text, I've written two years ago in German:
Das Glück der Weite von Achill Moser, eine Buchbesprechung
https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2023/12/das-gluck-der-weite-von-achill-moser.html 

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Oasis and Palm Garden in Jubbah, Saudi Arabia

 

When the word "oasis" is whispered to me, the first thing that comes to mind is the song "Wonderwall" by the British group Oasis [1]. But let's get to the oasis itself. It's interesting what ideas we in Europe or North America have about an oasis; they're just as absurd as our ideas about a South Sea island. Oases in Saudi Arabia, for example, are large areas with palm groves. They arose because water was permanently available there. Jubbah (جبة) is one of these oases. It lies about 90 km northwest of Ha'il (حائل) [2]. Surrounding the oasis is the Nefud (النفود), an extensive desert. Jubbah has a population of about 5,500 to 6,000. Around the oasis, you'll find many circles on Google Maps, for example, because they cultivate crops like alfalfa, grass, and grain there using irrigation systems. You can also see greenhouses.

Dates:

Well:

Museum:

I remember Jubbah as a very informative visit to a date palm grove with a museum and a hand-operated well (powered by two camels). I also tried different types of dates there, including date syrup and sheep butter. I had eaten yak butter before, but never sheep butter. Why not camel butter, since camels are also milked? That question only came up later.

Links and no Annotations:
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx1Bh8ZvH84
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubbah,_Saudi_Arabia


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Mongolia – Rock Gate and Relief between Khar Nuur and Muhart River

 

I had already reported about the trip to Ulaagchiin Khar Lake (Улаагчийн Хар Нуур) [1]. And from there our trip continued just as difficult. However, this has the advantage that you don't meet many travelers there. That day we continued our arduous journey from Khar Lake to the Muhart River (Мухартын гол). In between we were crossing the sand desert, driving past Gers, where the nomads had to protect their animals from wolves, quite steeply uphill, through the rock gate, then again through sand with another another time getting stuck, through a canyon with a rock relief and finally into the sand desert, where the Muhart River originates.

Only small groups travel to this area as it isn't possible to know in advance how the route will be managed. We met a Russian couple who had driven through the rock gate in 10-15 cm of snow just two days before us. When we arrived there wasn't any snow left because the sun had melted it away. Rain can make the sand firmer, but then there is a risk of slipping on the grass slopes.

At first we made very good progress, even over the sandy stretches. Finally we passed a few gers, behind which strange sticks had been sunk into the ground on a boulder edge and some scraps of fabric were hanging from them. It was done to  keep the wolves away by the smell of humans in order to deter the wolves from tearing animals from the herds. From there the grass track went up  very steeply. Then we came to the rock gate or rock arch, which is called Senjit Khad (Сэнжит хад).

The gate is part of a larger rock formation that is altogether called Senjit Khad (Сэнжит хад) and extends over about 15x2km. You have a very good view of the desert. The gate itself measures around 6m wide and 3.5m high. This natural spectacle is not mentioned in my two travel guides [2]. Lonely Planet writes on the Internet [3]: “An impressive rock arch rises from the desert about 95km northeast of Sainshand in Altanshiree sum. If you're on the hunt for all of the Gobi's treasures, find it. Otherwise, you can skip it.” I mean, you could look at it and here are the coordinates [4]

The desert that you can see from above belongs to the Bor Khyar Desert (Бор хярын элс) or also called Bor Khyar Sand Dunes (Бор хярын элсэн манхан). The dunes extend over 200 km and satellite images have shown that this desert is expanding [5].

Then we drove down from this massive mountain again and continued over desert sand. The truck got stuck there again and while we were waiting, we saw that vehicles were constantly getting stuck in this area, as remnants of the (successful) attempts to get out of the sand could be seen. Interestingly, rhubarb, desert rhubarb, also grew there.

After this involuntary but interesting break, we drove through a canyon that offered a beautiful view of the desert. There was a relief and in front an altar-like stone table and an ovoo (Овоо). I transcribed the inscriptions and then had them translated by a program. The upper inscription means [6]: “Out of all the miracles that happen in human life, it is a wonderful thing because of my mother who raised me to be a blessing.” I thought I could get an explanation about the darker inscription, but the translation is something like [7]: “This work is to the memory of the holy spirit of our mother. R. Dugar's children, created by her grandchildren.” In any case, we can assume a Buddhist background, because the woman who lifts the child up to the sun is kneeling on a lotus base. There is also a Tibetan inscription –  ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པ་དྨེ་ཧཱུྃ – om mani padme hum.

We passed Muhart River Camp (Мухартын голын кэмп), camp being a bit of an exaggeration; at least there is a shop with supplies in the area. We drove on to a place in nature and pitched our tents there. It cooled down again at night and the sun greeted us in the morning, but that's a completely different story.

Links and Annotations:
[1] Mongolia – An Exhausting Trip from Songino to Ulaagchiin Khar Nuur
https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2024/02/mongolia-exhausting-trip-from-songino.html
[2a] Michael Walther and Peter Woeste: Mongolia. DuMont travel manual. Dumont Reiseverlag, Ostfildern 2019. ISBN: 3770181417.
[2b] Michael Kohn: Mongolia. Lonely Planet Publications Ltd, 2008. ISBN: 101741045789.
[3] https://www.lonelyplanet.com/mongolia/the-gobi/dornogov/attractions/senjit-khad/a/poi-sig/1579726/357056
[4] Senjit khad - Сэнжит хад N48.215463409173914 E96.14998245724391
[5] http://www.touristinfocenter.mn/cate1_more.aspx?ItemID=138
[6] Transcribed from the original: “хүмүүний амьлдралд тохиолдох түмэн гаихамшгийн дотроос ерөөл таөин өс гөсөн мимий эхийн ачлад юхтаи ч эүирлэмгүй гайхам”.
[7] Transcribed from the original: “Энээхүү бүтээлийг бидний хаирт ээж / дугарын цэрмаа таны гэгээн / Дурсгалд зриулан / р. Дугар агсаны үр хүүхэд, / ач зээ нараас нь хамтран бүтээв”.
 

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Iran – Lost in the Desert

I had been looking through all the old blog posts on Iran these days to add to a list and I didn't find anything about an experience in the desert. Then the idea hit me to write this story down for my blog post. I later found out that I had already mentioned the story briefly in a haibun 10-11 years ago [1]. Like in Mali, I was traveling with my friends Charles and Geneviève [2].

On this journey we found accommodation in a small town called Garmeh [3]. The place is nestled to the date palm gardens. Directly in front of the small town lies the desert without any transition at all. The owner had served in the air force and retired here with his wife to his family home. There were camels (dromedaries) in the yard and a small, lively dog. Shortly after our arrival we had organized a tour into the desert for the next day.

Clockwise: Abbas Sa'idi, one of the villages, Neshat, and I,
picture by Charles

We set off in the morning and finally came to an almost deserted oasis for a rest. I had noted the place name Arusan in my travel diary at the time, but now I'm not sure whether we just passed a mountain with the same name. The place has been largely abandoned due to uranium deposits nearby. We met two old men in town. Later a woman and a child also came to see us. They still have goats and sheep in the stables and I also saw a donkey (not me in the mirror!). We rested a bit with tea and talked to the men. Neshat, our tour guide, translated. On the windowsill was a yellowed photo of Shah Reza Pahlevi in his four-star general's uniform. We learned that the wolves harmed the sheep and goats and sometimes killed some. When describing the route, with my very limited knowledge of Farsi [4], I understood without translation that at one point we had to turn left [chap (چث)], neither to the right [raast (راست)] nor straight ahead [mostaghim (مستاقیم)]. We set off, again.

It was midday and we found a shepherds resting place. There was a well there, but we couldn't use it because we would have had to take a rope and a corresponding container with us. You could clearly see the water in the depths. But we had brought water with us. We had lunch. Then Neshat showed us markings on the rocks above our rest area, which the shepherds use to indicate wells and other water sources.

The journey continued through thorn bushes for a while, then the path opened up and there was a huge sand dune in front of us. And we went straight [mostaghim (مستاقیم)] – not to the left [chap (چث)]. Despite my and Charles' concerns, everything went well for a while ... until we got stuck in the sand. It was early afternoon and the sun was still high.

Picture by Charles

Only now we took a closer look at the car. It was a very shabby minibus that had certainly seen better days. The tires barely had any tread left, but they were properly inflated. We dug with a shovel and our bare hands and then put branches under the tires. We pushed with all our might, but we couldn't get the minibus free.

Help could be found in the village, but not the village that we passed about 12-15 km away; the two old men and the donkey could hardly have helped us. The other village was far behind the dune, but the driver's relatives lived there. The decision about where to go had been made quickly. And the decision that I had to go with them had bee made just as quickly. Charles had to take care of the frightened Geneviève [5]; any other decision would have been senseless. I geared up for a longer hike. The three of us went: the driver Abbas Sa'idi, because he had relatives in the village, as well as Neshat, because he was our  tour guide and translator, and me, perhaps as an envoy of the group and fo better conscience.

We trudged through the sand. However, it wasn't as bad as in a Hollywood movie, because the sun wasn't burning from above, but was already descending. We had to reach the tar road. At some point tire we found tracks, which quickly disappeared again. Then, about 2 km away, we came across a water tank with 1000s of liters of water; a trough was filled with fresh, clear water. Nobody was in sight. Laundry such as jeans, shirts and scarves fluttered in the gentle desert breeze. I also saw a mirror, probably for shaving. The place exuded immense peace, but we had to move on. Eventually we hit a track leading down from the dune.

It was getting darker and darker, the first stars were coming out; really, night falls quickly in the south. It was also new moon and we only had starlight. The stars and the Milky Way were so beautiful to look at. But it was even better that this light was enough to see the solid road. My two companions wondered whether we should spend the night here. I talked them out of it, even though they had a thornbush had burned down. The night would have been cold. In addition, we could now see the light of a village in the distance, and later we even heard the generator in the silence. I urged to hurry because I feared the generator would be shut down later. But Abbas Sa'idi suffered because he was diabetic.

At first the road went straight east, at some point a car came from the southeast, but it turned north and quickly disappeared. It was the only traffic we saw on the entire hike. How useful a car would have been for us. Suddenly the road turned north and we moved away from the village and dune, then headed east and southeast. Of course, the tarred road circled the dune so that it couldn't be continually covered by sand.

Then we reached a viallage, but it's dark there. It turned out that there just were the stables. You could hear the animals bleating in fright. The place with the light was still 1.5 to 2 kms away. Our hike was just over 30 km and we had been walking briskly for over 7 hours.

I drank water from a faucet on the street by the generator house. I also put water in my bottle. Abbas Sa'idi threw himself in front of the entrance to his relatives' house and groaned: "I'm dying, I'm dying!" Well, he was close, because he had an injury in his crotch and blisters on his feet (inappropriate shoes for a hike). I dad given him an NSAID as a dope on our way. The landlord opened the door and I saw the women disappear behind a door. Then the women came back with headscarves and entertained us. First there was ice water and then tea; then flatbread and cheese. As we ate and drank, plans were made. I noticed that they have a good idea where we were stuck. They also expected wolves. Water was filled into small canisters.

Now a wild ride through the night followed. We circled the sand dune and came to the minibus from the direction in which we should had been going. Some thorn bushes were lit as a source of light – a biblical atmosphere. Some air was let out of the tires. The tires were shoveled free again and then brambles were put under the tires again. With combined effort we pushed the bus and it was released.

What had happened at the minibus in the meantime? Geneviève and Charles were usually better equipped than I was, but they didn't have a lighter with them. However, they had flashlights in their backpacks. It had gotten cold and there were blankets in the bus, but they hadn't found them. I wouldn't have had any qualms about looking for them. They had already rationed water and food heavily because it could have dragged on until the next day. They would have been safe from wolves in the bus. Was there a danger? When you think of desert, you immediately think of dying of thirst. No – there was enough water within a 2-5 km radius. Charles thought they would send helicopters out from the guesthouse to search for us. This reminded me of the movie Natural Born Killers [6], in which the character Wayne Gale (played by Robert Downey Jr.) suspects that helicopters were deployed.

What followed was a not-so-wild ride through the night, first over the dune, then through a stream bed and finally on the tarred road towards Khoor. We arrived at our accommodation at 3:20 a.m., where an incredible meal had been prepared that we ate despite the late hour, just as in stories told well or badly, a shared meal at the end is always a must.

Links and Annotations:
[1] Carpe Diem Kamishibai Haibun Cathedral
https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2013/08/carpe-diem-kamishibai-haibun-cathedral.html
[2] Charles and Geneviève are introduced here: Travelogue Mali 2007 – No. 1 Planning and Arriving in Bamako
https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2023/11/travelogue-mali-2007-no-1-planning-and.html
[3] 33°31'33"N 55°02'23"E Garmeh گرمه
[4] The Very Basic Guide to Farsi (Persian)
https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-very-basic-guide-to-farsi-persian_79.html
[5] In confidence, he showed me pictures of his completely frightened wife. But these pictures are definitely not shown here.
[6] Natural Born Killers is a 1994 film, directed by Oliver Stone, story by Quentin Tarantino. No, I didn't see this movie in Iran but Kill Bill II.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_Born_Killers

PS. In German we distinguish the bleating of sheep (blöken) and goats (meckern), I actually looked it up and couldn't find English equivalents.

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Mongolia – Khonggoryn Els or the Singing Dunes

 

Khonggoryn Els or the Singing Dunes is  region  within the  Gobi Gurvansaikhan National Park [1]. Of course it is a touristic destination as you will find camels trodding through the sand dunes. The range of the sand dunes is about 100 km long and 6-12 km wide, they cover 965 square kilometres [2].

Only small parts of the world's deserts are sand deserts and this also applies to the Gobi plain. The go there you cross different levels of grasslands with lyme grass, sheepgrass or feathergrass [3], the steppes with grass, then wormwood or artemisia and then allicin dominant steppe, with less and less plants. There's nothing on the sand. At the foot of the dunes there are some plants and directly, where the dunes end, there's a little stream with lush grass and grazing animals. Within half an hour camels, cattle, horses, sheep, and goats have trodded with occasional feeding past you. And you may also watch the bird – or the tourists climbing the dunes.

The dunes or the sand sing, but only if someone plays the instrument, which might be the wind or someone walking on the dunes. The sound – a hissing or a murmur like a distand airplane – is produced be small avalanches of sand and the different layers of sand, some parts might have been baked hard by the sun.

Links and Annotations:
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khongoryn_Els 
[2] https://tourmongolia.com/portfolio/khongor-sand-dunes/ and https://www.viewmongolia.com/khongoryn-els-khongor-sanddune-mongolia.html agree on this number as Wikipedia – we might look at a common source.
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian%E2%80%93Manchurian_grassland  

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Wadi Rum and Mars

 

Half a year ago I had the opportunity to visit Jordan and of course Wadi Rum, where some movies have been shot [1]. This part of the desert is also known as the Valley of the Moon, but there are some other places also called Valley of the Moon on Terra. The barren landscape is covered in red sand, in which islands of granite cliffs are swimming. If you look at pictures from Mars, Wadi Rum comes very close.

I like the movie „The Martian“ (2015) starring Matt Damon as Mark Watney, who is left behind on Mars after an emergency mission abort because of a storm. He has to survive on Mars. As a botanist he is growing potatoes. This would work in Wadi Rum – if you have the water – , but not on Mars, because the sand there is composed of toxic minerals [2].  Nowadays there are tentlike structures resembling a base on Mars, that visitors may sense „isolation and the enormity of the landscape both in Wadi Rum and on Mars.”

I've been interested in Mars since childhood. The Italian astronomer Schiaparelli [3] published his maps on Mars according to telescopic observations after the great opposition (1877), which allowed a closer look at the surface than at other times. He saw linear structures, which he called „canali“ in Italian [4], which has been mistranslated as canals (constructed) but should actually be translated as channels (naturally created); in addition, areas without elevations like those on the moon were named seas. This initiated speculations that there could be intelligent life on Mars. This is not the case. But look at the science fiction literature that has been published since then, like „Two Planets“ by Kurd Lasswitz, „The War of the Worlds“ by H. G. Wells, or „The Sands of Mars“ by Arthur C. Clarke, just to name three.

There have been other movies like „Dune“ or „Lawrence of Arabia“, which were filmed in Wadi Rum; please look these movies up in the Wikipedia article, which I have already cited.

Let's come back to Wadi Rum, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It covers an area of 720 sqkm, which is a little less than Shenandoah National Park in Virginia (USA) or as large as Bahrain. The highest elevation is Jebel Rum (1,734 m above sea level). You can walk through the wadi, climb the rocks, stay in camps, look a petroglyphs, and much more.

I hiked westwards through the valley. The track went slightly uphill. I then saw a way to get higher on a rock and climbed up there, too. But it wasn't a good spot for watching the sunset and too dangerous for my way back. I then found a nice spot about 1.5 km away. Very nice sunset. I then walked quite quickly between the Martian camps to the road and the railroad tracks. Got a lift back to my camp.

The next morning I got up very early and took a jeep ride to a sunrise spot. I climbed onto a rock with a plateau. It was windy and cold. Very nice view. Marvelous colors. I then drove to Lawrence Cliff where I had tea [5].

Links and Annotations:
[1] https://matadornetwork.com/read/movies-filmed-wadi-rum/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadi_Rum
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_soil
[3] Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli (1835 – 1910) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Schiaparelli
[4] I've found a drawing of such maps in: Die Stadt Gottes. Illustrierte Monatsschrift für das katholische Volk. Jg. XX. Steyl Missionsdruckerei, 1897; p. 253
[5] https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2021/11/drinking-coffee-and-tea-in-jordan.html

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