nothing.

When our guide lit a cigarette, I was thankful. That smell of smoke curling around my nose was a welcomed departure from the nothing I had smelled for hours before- it had substance to it, I knew it was there.

In all the romanticism of the desert-- the dunes stretching into the distance and the camel trains flashing colors against a backdrop of red sand-- nothing could have prepared me for what was really out there. Nothing. No smells, no plants. The contours of the sand carved out by a scentless, thin breeze, the lonely scarab beetle making its way across the sand. The ever-changing landscape rendering maps useless and the camel trails erased daily by the shifting sands. No paths, no signs, no reliable landmarks, no passers-by, no shiny oases, no birds, no sounds. Nothing.

As a city girl I found the silence and the stars unsettling, sleep took its time finding me. It's an odd experience, a disorienting mix of vacancies that I doubt you'd find elsewhere. A vacation for my senses.