Explorer retraces desert odyssey 85 years on
Briton on course to be first Westerner to replicate expedition across one of world’s hardest terrains
IT IS one of the hottest, driest and most inhospitable places on earth – a wilderness that hadn’t seen rainfall in seven years, where the only signs of life are the occasional bird, or a camel carcase.
But as Mark Evans set out to become the first Westerner to repeat a famous expedition 85 years ago which crossed the Arabian Peninsula’s so-called Empty Quarter – the largest sand desert on the planet – the heavens opened.
“You can’t escape the British weather,” Evans said via satellite phone from the heart of Empty Quarter, and now 560 miles into his arduous 800-mile journey. “It hasn’t rained here for seven years but we’ve had two nights where we’ve been sleeping outside and it’s rained quite a substantial amount.”
Evans, 54, and his two Omani guides, are following in the footsteps of Bertram Thomas – the famous Bristol-born explorer who became the first European to cross the Empty Quarter, in 1930.
The particularly challenging route of that expedition has never since been completed by another Westerner, largely because it is so dangerous the countries through which explorers will pass – Oman, Saudi Arabia and Qatar – have talked would-be travellers out of making the trip.
Thomas’s route did also, briefly, pass into Yemen, but Evans was advised not to cross over that border due to the conflict there. He was only able to undertake his expedition, which like Thomas’s began in the Omani town of Al Husn, with permission from Saudi Arabia’s King Salman.
Seen off by Omani government officials and up to 300 local well-wishers on December 10 – exactly 85 years to the day after Thomas – Evans’s team are doing their best to replicate their predecessors’ journey accurately. They stop where Thomas did, sleep under the stars as Thomas did and, where possible, eat exactly the same food.
But just as the times have changed, so too have the camels. One of the biggest issues Evans has faced is the fact modern camels are far less hardy than their ancestors, so his team is subject to the whims of less predictable animals. “We started with four camels but we had to get rid of one,” Evans said, a desert wind howling through the phone as he walks and talks in the 37C heat of the Arabian midday.
“You do get very attached to them but I had no idea they were quite so jittery and nervous. Any sudden noise, the rain and thunder for example, they will be dancing round in circles at the end of the rope and trembling.”
While the rhythm of Evans’s day continues to be dictated by the moods of his camels, he has some advantages over Thomas’s expedition. Thomas, who described the stretch of Saudi desert Evans has just passed through as an “abode of death”, was uncontactable for 40 of his 60 days in the Empty Quarter. But Evans updates a blog in which he gives readers detailed, day-to-day descriptions of events. One observation by the team is that many of the water wells the original expedition depended on are abandoned and filled with sand.
As they venture deeper into the Empty Quarter – known locally as Rub Al Khali and covering an area larger than France, Germany and Spain combined – the team is living off rice and bread. “We prepared food for 60 days before we went...[but] we are all getting hungrier. We’ve all lost a lot of weight,” Evans said. Christmas dinner was a bowl of baked beans – not because rations were low but because that’s what Thomas had eaten on Christmas Day, 1930.
While Evans is walking in a now-battered pair of boots, his companions, Mohammed Al-Zadjali, 32, and Amour Al-Wahaibi, 38, wear specially made Bedouin socks – double-layered on the bottom to protect against both hot and cold sand and “hairy” on the top to ward off scorpions.
The trio hope to complete their journey on Friday, after 43 days. “It’ll be six full days before we reach the Qatari capital Doha and we’re trying to finish at exactly the same place – an old mud brick fort which is now surrounded by high-rise buildings,” Evans said.
He hopes they will be met by the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, just as Thomas was greeted by the then Emir back in 1930.