There are highlights to riding…a great view almost twelve feet above the ground, and at night you can close our eyes, hold tight to the saddle, and imagine yourself anywhere.
-Letter from Daoud to Yousef, written mid-journey in March 1984, posted from Cairo some weeks later
It may seem odd for years to imagine yourself in the Sahara, and when finally you are, riding at midnight with drovers pushing the herd north under a starry firework, then to imagine yourself in altogether another place. As Cavafy warned from Egypt, Don’t hope for things elsewhere: there’s no ship for you, there’s no road.