Many people hate deserts.
I used to hate deserts until I went to one. Then I discovered they are indefinable places of immense stillness, vast silences which spread and fill the air with a million noises, places where the stars are bigger, the moon brighter, the colours more intense and the light cleaner. They are also bloody hot, freezing cold, uncomfortable, dirty, dangerous places filled with scorpions, adders, vipers and cobras, the thorns on the plants would rip your heart out in a second and, in most African deserts, bandit warlords control your destiny. I have been in many deserts in Africa. The Ogaden and Danakil Deserts of Ethiopia, the Namib, Kaokoveld, Damaraland, the Kalahari, the Northern Frontier District of Kenya and its Kaisut, Dida Galgallu and Chalbi Deserts.