The wind has been blowing for days…Camels closed their nostrils…Yet almost inch by inch man is conquering the Sahara.
-Desert Caravans, Charles Joy, 1960
So much for the Age of Saharan Optimism. Twenty five years after this book was published, while on the Darb I saw that the Sahara wasn’t blooming, the wind still blowing hard, drying and desertifying. KhairAllah was worried where to graze the Dabouka. Up ahead, would there be Qashsh, Grass, or no Qashsh?