It was only with the rising of the sun that the full magnificence of the sweeping barchan dunes was revealed.
The crescentic fields of sand, blown into aeolian form by the caress of the djinn like winds, stretch as far as the eye can see.
Even now at the dawn of a November day the sun has a fierceness.
The vastness calls siren like to the unwary traveller, beckoning them to raving death in the parched and withering haze.
This is the gateway to the Great Western desert that rises before me; stretching with the dawn it flows across ancient kingdoms, obscuring many under its terracotta embrace.
It is also the place of the nomad and the Sufi.
These wandering ascetics are drawn here by the incomparable silence of the Erg.
Here amongst the shifting sands this absence of sound is both profound and challenging to over stimulated and tired western minds.
It is, however, the root of all this beauty; an ecology woven out of silence.
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Photos courtesy of the author.