It’s a slightly emotive title, I know, and I apologise, but a recent trip to the Bayuda Desert, in Northern Sudan, resulted in my briefly returning to the ancient Nubian city of Meroe, where I had last been aged 12, a boy with his very first proper camera – a Pentax K1000, to be precise.
The picture I took that day, of three girls, crouched and sheltering from the sand, has followed me from school, through college and onto the walls of my adult life. It means a great deal to me – possibly because it is all I have of the two years my family spent in what was then Sudan. (My father’s work for the UN World Food Programme meant we tended to move around a lot).
At any rate, to return to the very spot I took the photograph, some 28 years later, was both moving and somewhat extraordinary. And to do so in the hands of a fine guide, and by camel, in a style commensurate with the traditions and pace of the Bedouin, felt right and proper.
My own childhood notwithstanding, I was back to discover whether the Bayuda might be the sort of place from which we could, in good conscience, design itineraries for clients after the most frontier-like of experiences. Because, as you probably know, The Bayuda Desert is extremely remote: it’s relatively inaccessible, difficult to cross and, like all deserts, experiences extreme temperatures. It is, in short, a most inhospitable place.
