Horse day. We started along the beach, slow walk, the horse swaying gently underneath me. The sea was rocking a few metres to the left, long low swells coming in and pulling back. Calm. Everything around us was soft. The sand, the coastline curving away ahead, the low dunes with their scrubby grass. Rounded shapes. My fiancée was riding next to me and neither of us said much. It was warm and calm and the horse was happy to walk.
Then we turned inland.
The softness stopped almost immediately. Ahead of us, maybe a kilometre away, a wall. Jagged, sharp-edged, towering above us. Brown and rusty and enormous. The ground under the horse changed from sand to gravel to hard flat stone. Everything seemed to shout “stay away!”, “death ahead”.
And there it was. Death. The first skeleton was off to the right. A camel, half-buried in the sand, ribs curving up like the fingers of a hand that had flung itself open and stayed locked in a final spasm.
Another one. This one had some dried skin still stretched over the bones, a hollow where something had been eating. The third one was more recent. I am not sure whether I smelled it or imagined it. I think I could spot some flesh still on it.
Everything about this place said “do not go”.
So we started galloping into the canyon. The ground was rocky, and the horse in front kicked up stones that came at your face and chest. Not pebbles. Actual stones, some of them big enough to sting through a jacket. You leaned down and squinted and hoped nothing hit your eyes. My fiancée was ahead of me, moving well, moving fast, and then we passed under a thorny tree and the branches caught her across the face. She came out the other side bleeding from a scratch across her chin. Everything, even the faintest bit of life, tried to kill you. The sun from above, the dusty wind from all sides, the sharp rocks on the ground.
And then we arrived at the oasis.
Palm trees, green grass, plants growing in thick, heavy bunches, the kind of green that looks almost artificial after hours of sandy brown. It was shaded and cool and quiet. The horses drank. We sat down. My fiancée wiped the blood off her cheek with her sleeve. The guide poured tea. “Halal whisky” he called it. It was well-deserved.
We had survived.
I almost forgot about the halal whisky 😃