The Sahara Business

Camels and Engine Noise

Hassan reaches me on his moped before I've taken five steps from the bus, ready to start my first Sahara exploration. "Ah, from Berlin! Do you want to camp, yes? Are you looking for a place to stay? Do you know about park4night?" He knows exactly what I need. "I'll show you a place where you can feel safe as a woman alone, see the sunset, and not be disturbed." It's a sophisticated system. The Berbers have turned camping into a business. They speak four, sometimes five languages – English, French, Spanish, German, Italian. Just to help us better. They bring Tajine and couscous, tea, and rolls in the morning. They organize quad and camel rides.

I've always found my own places over the years. I think I don't need Hassan – and I look at the red dragon without four-wheel drive and all the sandy holes around. "Alright, Hassan, take me there." He takes me to exactly the spot he described. At sunset, I walk up the dunes. Surrounded by quads whose engines roar and camels leaving their tracks. It's an incredibly beautiful place. The yellow Sahara landscape casts shadows, turning into magnificent red in the evening sun. Beautiful. Actually. I'm enveloped in deafening noise. It annoys me. I feel out of place – part of something I don't want to belong to.

Later I read: Many Berber families live from tourism. Camels are a means of transport, milk suppliers, livelihood. But where tourism becomes the main source of income, the animals often suffer. Big agencies and middlemen are behind it, not just local families. The guides, like Hassan and his friends, rarely receive a fair share. And the quads – as harmless as they seem – destroy vegetation, promote erosion, and scare away wildlife.

I wonder why I'm here. How much better is what I'm doing? I don't want to judge. I'm not better than those who come in groups, let themselves be guided, see the same sun, the same desert. Maybe the only difference is the pace. They travel fast; I travel slowly. But we all seek the same: the feeling of finding something real somewhere.

And perhaps that's the contradiction of these places: They attract us because they seem untouched, and yet they change because we come. It's a silent exchange – between longing and destruction, between encounter and loss. I see the sun disappear behind the dunes in the distance, and for a moment, everything goes quiet. Only the wind remains.