Let us speak of its pleasures

But against such drawbacks may be set the many unspeakable pleasures of travel in the desert.

-Wilhelm Junker, Travels in Africa in the Years 1875-1886

Those two trips on the Darb more than thirty five years ago have given me immeasurable pleasures in their remembering and recounting. Just today I emailed KhairAllah’s son Soliman to ask his father if he recalled the policeman Ahmad Diyāb as well as I did. I am certain that he does, even though Ahmad himself was one of those desert drawbacks, having treated us like a real Himār, Donkey, when we tried to get our camels past his border post.