The Desert and the Dibbuk Box

I have done many camel treks before but none have compared to this one, strictly in the sense of endurance.

As I said in the previous post, I was accompanied by a German girl and her mother, Catarina and Valerie. They were awesome and I was very happy with them as my fellow trekkers. My guides were Simon and Jemal and the camels were named Rocket, Charlie, Lalu, and Carlu.

I was to begin with Charlie who was the youngest camel of bunch and was recently purchased at the camel fair two months ago. He was the fastest camel in the races I was told so they had to tie two of his legs together to keep him going too fast and knocking me off. This made for a very awkward step and over time, the pounding would get the better of my legs and groin.

The first day we rode for 8 hours! 8 hours of discomfort under the pounding sun. We were crossing the Sam desert which is dominated by barren wastelands of rocks, sand and shrubs. Dispersed around the desert are patches of dunes which were of course stunning. When we were finished riding, I was having trouble walking from the soreness in my groin and hamstrings, and my feet were tingling from having fallen asleep for most of the ride. Charlie got me good! We settled in a dune patch and set us a campsite which was a fire pit, camel station, and our blankets for sleeping. No tent, just us, the dunes, and the sky. For the rest of day and night were we got to walk around in the sunset, play with giant desert beetles, and sit around a camp fire and talking and eating.

One of the things I was looking forward to the most was laying on the dunes and star gazing but there was a near full moon and the sky was completely lit up, blocking the stars. I had been so excited for this that I even downloaded a podcast titled "Mysterious Universe." It sounds like a podcast about space right? I was soooooo wrong! This show is all about supernatural and paranormal happenings with this particular episode being a Halloween special. The show was a two hour horror special about the so called "Dibbuk Box" a demon infested artifact. The podcats gave true accounts of incidences and talked with specialists and owners of the Dibbuk Box. Seriously freaky shit! So here we are, Catarina and I, listening to this crazy horror story in the middle of the desert, and now both suffering from severe paranoia! Since the story was about shadow figures, ghosts, demons, and nightmares, the desert made for a playground of eye and mind tricks. Neither of us had an easy sleep that night.

Here are the links of the story for you to listen yourself.

http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2009/10/episode-209-mysterious-universe/
http://www.dibbukbox.com/