Conquer Your Inner ‘Nope’: How to Find Some Extraordinary.
Or... I rode camels in the Sahara Desert!
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Heroine’s Adventure LIVE begins on March 9th, and the cart closes tonight! This is the only time I will be holding the course live.
You know when you face a difficult challenge and think, "Nope. I'm not doing that. It won't be worth it." But then it always is?
Imagine standing atop a scorching dune, no one in sight, your camels wandering far below, and you hear nothing but the silence of the desert and the occasional shuffle of your Berber guide as he makes your mint tea.
The sand of The Sahara Desert isn’t like Bahamian sand, which is pale white with specks of soft pink. Saharan sand is a mix of rich golden brown and black. And it’s so fine. When you close your hand over a handful of Saharan sand and then lift and let it sift through your fingers, it feels like liquid gold.
I sit in this sand, the heat seeping through my linen trousers and activating a hot flash that I don't particularly care about because who could care about a hot flash when they are perched high on a Saharan dune that they climbed (yes... climbed). Where I'm sitting, the sand of the dune is untouched except for scarab beetle tracks that end up looking like a human spine (except this human has some extreme scoliosis because the tracks curve and wind like the scarab beetle was a little drunk. This drunken state would be impossible because there is no alcohol in the Saharan Desert - not even in a luxury Berber Camp. Believe me - we asked for wine the night before.)
You wouldn't expect grass in the desert, but there are clumps of green that have caused our camels to wander off in search of. On the side of the dune in front of me, scrappy bushes are clinging precariously to the slope of sand. They have fresh green on top, but the roots are the majority of the plant, straw-like and desperate.
I was vibrating with anticipation for this camel trek. I imagined a slow, swaying journey across the desert in the comfort of my camel seat until we were alone in the silence of the Saharan sand, drinking mint tea and enjoying the spectacular view. This vision ends up being partially true, with one massive challenge in the middle.
That morning, we enjoyed a gorgeous Moroccan breakfast in the comfort of the dining tent. The highlight of every breakfast in Morocco was the eggs. Soft, steamed yolks on a bed of rich, umami tomatoes stewed slowly in the tagine. We had just returned to the tent when our guide knocked lightly on our canvas. The camels are ready.
We crossed the small dune separating our camp from the workers, and there they were. Mark and I are lucky enough to be the only guests in the camp today, so we get to trek alone. I love camels. I love their tall, bandy legs that look like they could never carry their heft. I love their long, horselike noses and slow, munching mouths. These camels are gorgeous, and our guide tells me their names, but the Arabic proves too tricky for me to remember (as has often been the case on this trip - I'm telling you, I suck at languages.)
Our camel guide is named Brahim. He's a tiny Berber teenager. He has a mass of tangled black curls filled with sand and blown by the wind, but right now, his hair is hidden under a winding sand turban. Brahim nuzzles the camels against him as though they are cats, kissing and stroking their long noses and whispering Berber secrets into their hairy King Charles ears. Even after we start riding, Brahim walks before us, and the camels try to rest their heavy loping heads on his shoulder, nearly knocking the small boy down.
We set off, and Brahim lights a cigarette as soon as he starts walking. He doesn't speak any English, but I get his attention and mime smoking, then I strangle myself, sticking out my tongue and crossing my eyes. The boy laughs but doesn't put out his cigarette.
The ride is perfection. I'm 8 feet above the ground, and the giants are plodding along this movie set of a view. I'm Indiana Jones, or Lawrence of Arabia. Sometimes, the swaying is slightly more active than expected, so I hold tight. I'm sure I would crush poor Brahim if I fell off, and he had to move to catch me.
After about half an hour, a massive dune appears from the sandy waves and rises before us. It must be 500 feet high. Atop this dune are two tiny people about the size of scarab beetles. I watch them cross the top of the dune. We've climbed a few mini dunes over the past 24 hours, and I'm telling you, it's tough going. They are hella steep, and the sand slips from under your feet, making it challenging to keep your balance. The guide mentioned that we would have the experience of standing at the top of the highest dune in this part of the desert. This must be that dune—a sandy Everest. Atop my rocking camel, watching those specks of people, I feel very smug knowing they had to make an impossible climb to the top of that massive dune, but, lucky us, we have the camels.
Not so lucky.
When we finally arrive at the base of the dune, Brahim stops and gently whispers to Mark's camel. The massive animal kneels as Mark topples like a Weeble, trying to keep his balance on the hump until he can safely slide to the ground. I'm next, and after my inelegant dismount, I gaze at the top of the dune before me with distress. Surely he doesn't expect me to climb that? I fidget with nerves while Brahim folds the blankets from the camel’s humps and puts them on the ground. He unhooks his bag from the largest camel and, with a nod in our direction to follow, takes off up the dune at a pace (and I mean the pace of a teenager who lives in the desert and climbs dunes for a living). After about 30 seconds, I am frantically out of breath, and I grip Brahim's sleeve and ask him how old he is. He tells me in Arabic, then tries Berber before he stops and writes "15" in the sand.
After about 60 seconds more, it becomes painfully evident that we can’t keep up. Mark laughs as we stagger and pant, chasing Brahim like we'll be lost if he gets ahead. He stops the guide, writes "15" in the sand again, points to the boy, then points to himself and writes "67" (Meaning, please slow down. You might kill us). Brahim nods and laughs but doesn’t slow down.
The journey before me looks impossible. It is impossible.
"I'm not doing this," I say to Mark. "It can't be worth it."
"You can do it." He says. "Just take your time."
We watch Brahim dart ahead while we slog through the dune’s sandy clutches. Mark is fitter than I am (He plays football four times a week. I write fiction with my bum in a chair). The two lone walkers are still at the top, and I imagine them looking down and scoffing at my prior smugness. What kind of idiot thinks a camel climbs a dune this steep? Do they? I still don't know.
My legs are killing me. I am using thigh muscles I didn't even know existed. I am so out of breath that several times, I stop, hands on my knees, and consider giving up and just reclining in the warm sand to wait for my husband's return. It's nearly noon now, and the desert sun is beating on my head. I've wrapped my scarf around my shoulders to protect myself from a sunburn. But trying to keep a scarf on while climbing a dune the height of the Empire State Building? Let's just say it doesn't work. I will never make it.
But I do.
I get to the top, well behind Mark and even further behind Brahim, who has already removed his turban and made a small fire for our tea. Triumph courses through me like a desert breeze as I bask in my victory. I am on top of the world... king of the castle atop a scorching dune. I peer into the distance and see only our camels wandering far, far below, and I hear nothing but the silence of the desert and the occasional shuffle of Brahim as he makes our mint tea. There is nothing but pristine golden sand for miles and miles. The only proof of life we can see are the lone two walkers heading back to wherever they hiked in from and the camels, who, even though their legs were tied loosely together so they couldn't run off, have still managed to walk off to greener pastures (i.e., another patch of straw-colored shrubs).
After I get gobsmacked by the view and Mark wanders off to take photos, I sit with Brahim and watch him tending his small fire, which he feeds with clusters of straw collected on our journey. A small silver teapot emerges from his bag, and he fills it with bottled water before loading in handfuls of tea leaves pulled from his bag with camel-smothered dirty hands. He holds up a chunk of sugar the size of my thumb and raises his eyebrows in question. I laugh and nod and “plop”. It goes into the pot. He digs in his bag for mint and tears off chunks of leaves to stir into the now boiling water.
After we share the mint tea (most of which I pour surreptitiously into the sand. I am notorious for getting the travel tummy, and dirty camel hands are sure to set me off), Brahim heads back down to fetch his camels who have wandered quite far in the hour it's taken us to climb and enjoy the dune. By the time I get up to follow, Brahim is out of sight, in the trough of one of the wave-like sand piles. Mark decides to take a longer way back to the camel blankets, but I follow Brahim’s sandy footprints down the same ridge we ascended. During the arduous uphill climb, I'd taken off my shoes and socks. But now, the sun is high in the sky, and the sand has sucked up the heat like a thirsty elephant and is frying the soles of my feet.
I thump down into the sand at the top of the final ridge to put my shoes on. When I look up, everyone is gone; Brahim, the camels, and Mark are all hidden in the dune valleys. There are miles of sand around me, but I'm the only one here. The buzzing of the flies is the only noise, and when they stop, I feel a tiny edge of panic at the sound of the silence. It’s a slight high-pitched buzz. I'm either listening to the inner workings of my brain, or it's just my brain manufacturing the buzz because it can't possibly be this quiet.
Below me are the blankets from the camel’s saddles, waiting for Brahim’s return. Before me is a pristine dune, untouched by footprints, hare prints, fox prints, or whatever the small non-scarab prints are scattered around. The top of the dune opposite me is as sharp and straight as a knife’s edge, so when Mark emerges and begins to walk across it, I'm convinced he's about to fall. He doesn’t, and just after he comes into view, Brahim also appears, leading our camels. I get up and trek down the final ridge. We convene in the middle and climb back onto our charges to plod back to the camp under the sweltering sun.
I didn't want to climb that dune. I couldn't imagine it could be worth what would be a pretty hellish experience. But that's the thing...
Doing hard things often brings unforgettable rewards. Even when conditions are challenging or uncomfortable, persevering leads to an experience of awe, gratitude, or achievement.
Research on “self-regulation through challenge” showed that participants who set “doable-but-demanding” tasks reported higher levels of intrinsic motivation and personal development than those who stayed in a pure comfort zone condition.1
The lesson? Don’t stay in your comfort zone!
It turns out that the dune was a Threshold Guardian. It stood before a door that opened into a wonder I had never experienced. As a result, I've vowed to try to pick one ‘hard’ or out-of-comfort-zone action to do every week from now on—like waking early to watch a sunrise or tackling a physical challenge. These challenges will become mini-quests.
I won't be climbing a dune any time soon, though. My inner thighs felt like fire for a week!
JOURNAL PROMPT
What’s one physical or mental ‘dune’ you’ve been avoiding? Write about how you’d feel if you conquered it and how you might reward yourself at the top.
Sansone, C., Weir, C., Harpster, L., & Morgan, C. (1992). Once a boring task always a boring task? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63(3), 379–390.
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Love reading about your adventure! Thank you for the kind shoutout!