Sands of Redemption

29

Soon, they were back on the "road". Mohammed was driving now and Georgia couldn't help but notice how much smoother the journey was.

After a couple of hours the landscape started to become much more interesting, the barren expanse of hard-packed earth and small bushes now spotted here and there with clusters of unusual rock formations. As she looked into the distance, she thought she could see even bigger formations waiting for her up ahead.

And there were trees, rare though they were. She didn't know what they were called but they were pretty cool to look at: tall and surprisingly thick with foliage. But it was their trunks that caught her eye, twisting and looping in extraordinary, sometimes eery ways.

The whole vista itself had become easier on the eyes too. Gone were the beachy browns; now there was a nice deep blush to the sand, reminding her of Uluru back home.

She wondered if anyone lived or toured out here, her thoughts straying towards the Bedouins whom she'd always been anxious to meet ever since she'd landed in Hamrachi. They were said to still roam the desert. Georgia frowned as she gazed at the starkness of the place. It would be fascinating to meet them but it seemed unlikely.

Bang!

Georgia grabbed at her chest with a cry, for a moment thinking of a gun. Mohammed and Khalid spun around in their seats. The broken door had swung open, leaving strips of torn blue tape flapping in the wind. It hung on by one hinge, then snapped free with a second loud bang! Through the back window Georgia watched it cartwheel behind them, kicking up a spray of sand in its wake.

Snorting with laughter, Mohammed stopped the car. Flinging open his door, Khalid shouted something in Arabic as he rushed out to fetch it. Getting out of the car, Mohammed inspected the damage, muttering to himself as he ran his fingers up and down the frame's jagged edge. Giving Georgia a wry smile, he climbed onto the backseat and reached for something in the boot. Meanwhile, Khalid returned with the door, looking livid as he dragged it alongside him through the sand.

With a grunt, Mohammed slithered back out of the car gripping a roll of blue masking tape in his veiny fist. Georgia could only shake her head. Biting off strips, he began criss-crossing them across the gap. Behind her, Khalid opened the boot, and in a fit of Arabic cursing, began shoving the door inside.

'So that's going to be our door from now on?' she said wryly.

'Unless you can think of something better,' Khalid snapped, sucking at a gash on his hand.

As the sun descended, the desert started to transform once again. Creeping shadows began to coalesce into dark puddles in and around the dips and contours of the landscape, brushing in features previously hidden by the abrasive midday light.

Georgia was surprised to find that their new makeshift door did just fine. Although straining and sucking, it held up against the wind. The rest of the car, however, was another matter. A new whine had worsened into something much more menacing over the past hour, and the banging that had accompanied them since the collision with the embankment yesterday had progressed into a gut-churning clunking noise. The two men kept driving without comment.

Just before sunset they stopped for the night, picking a spot in front of a large, curving sand dune to set up camp.

After the two men had finished their sunset prayers, they all sat down to dinner. The wind was like nothing Georgia had ever experienced before. Though the dune cut off most of it and they had parked the car close enough to try and block out the rest, it still cast sand in their faces and into their food and water. The sand seemed to have wormed its way through Georgia's abaya, making her itch.