You can fight the battle without ever firing a shot. It's the greatest video game in the world. As the bus completes a turn just inside the gate, the driver bottoms out on a roadside gully, the bus lodging onto the sand like a beached whale. We are stranded inside of a restricted area. As we leave the bus, the security guard, clearly unaccustomed to dealing with disoriented tourists, radios for help.
Hours pass before a military truck arrives.
We watch a tarantula walk across the gravel. Tom Vanderbilt is a contributing editor of I.D., ArtByte, and The Baffler.