While it was certainly tempting for me to alter my route to avoid prolonged periods of walking through the Sahara Desert, I decided against such a course in the spirit of my namesake and my mission. Plus, it would help me dry out after swimming to Morocco from Gibraltar!
Although, as a bear, walking thousands of miles through temperatures that often exceed 40 degrees Celsius, with sand temperatures of closer to 72 degrees (and remember how close to the ground I am!) would certainly be unpleasant, I was determined to see it through.
The Sahara Desert is truly vast, and when you’re a tiny bear standing on the edge in Morocco, it certainly feels it. It is the largest hot desert in the world (Antarctica and the Arctic being larger, but colder), and covers an area of 9.2 million square kilometres, equivalent to the area of the United States, covering 31% of Africa. The image we know of flat land covered by sand (ergs) are only a small proportion of the desert, the majority being made up of hamada, large rocky plateaus. The word ‘Sahara’ is derived from the Arabic word for desert, Sahra.
One of the first things I learnt as I spoke with an inhabitant of the desert – who I was lucky to find as only 2.5m people who live within the desert region, less than one person per square mile! – was that the area was a savannah many years ago. Every 41,000 years or so it changes from desert to savannah and is due to become a savannah again by the year 17,000; unfortunately I couldn’t wait that long so I bade my new friend farewell and set off into the dunes.
Imagine my surprise when, after a couple of days of OVPA-powered trekking, I saw a white antelope trot onto the sand in front of me. I thought I was hallucinating, but later research revealed this to be an addax, which can live without drinking water for a year.
I was fortunate to be walking through the sandy area of the desert rather than the rocky area (the desert is only 30% sand) which spared me encounters with cheetahs and ostriches, but I did have to be wary of sand vipers and the ominous deathstalker scorpions. Fortunately, bears have very thick fur and skin, and most knew to stay out of my way.
The most surprising creature encounter occurred one morning as I made my way down from a particularly challenging dune (one foot forwards, two feet backwards!). I slid as I trotted down the other side and fell through the sand at the bottom. Imagine my shock to find myself in a burrow with a crocodile! It turns out desert crocodiles move to the desert following the wet season to lie dormant in caves. Thankfully, dormant was the key word here, and I was able to sneak out before I was noticed.
It was a long trek from Rabat, in Morocco, to Dakar in Senegal, made longer by the many dunes, the deep, warm sand and the shimmering air as the sun beat down on me every day. I took to walking only early in the morning and in the evening, which is common practice in the Sahara. On occasion I met a camel train, and (when they deigned to speak to me, as camels are notoriously unfriendly), one dromedary or other would invariably point out I had a long way to go.
As I made my way further south, I met the people of the Sahel, who live in the border regions of the desert. The Sahara is expanding, they told me; a combination of natural climate cycles and
man-made climate change – the latter accounting for a third of the expansion. This is disastrous news for Sahel, who rely on agriculture. Summers are getting warmer and warmer in Africa, causing severe stress.
I can see the coast o
n the horizon at last! Hoping this isn’t an illusion, I’ll now put my pen down and trek my final few miles of desert climate. What will the west coast of Africa bring…?