We got up around 6 am but more or less naturally because of the increasing sunlight. After breakfast, we started trekking. Today we had 5 camels with us that we shared among the group members. We were supposed to walk for about 6 hours during the day, so we could take turns who had to walk and who could relax on a camel being carried along the way. Steve, Sarah and I shared one. Sarah was the first one to get on which actually proved her to be very lucky because the first part of the hike was walking for about 1,5 hours on soft sand, sometimes uphill, which was pretty tough on the legs! After the first bit we left our camels and luggage behind for a little while and went to check out another canyon, called "Closed Canyon" because it has a dead-end. This one was not easy to get through since it had some VERY narrow passages that you could only pass by squeezing yourself between two rocks, overcoming quite a few climbing obstacles as well. In the end, the effort was worth it!

After the Closed Canyon, Steve got on the camel although I was already quite tired of walking. The heat just made it horribly hard to continue (we had 40 degrees in the sun and obviously there is not much shade in the desert) and I felt my strength declining. After the next bit which led us through a wider canyon with nice dark rocks I was REALLY exhausted, felt dizzy and almost like fainting. So Vincent made sure I got on a camel. It was only around mid-day but the sun was merciless. My camel was a very young one that always had to go close to his mother, so we called it 'Baby'. The ride was about an hour before we stopped for lunch and led through a long plain terrain that would have been quite easy to walk because the ground was firm but still I was glad I could relax for a bit. Anyone who ever sat on a camel knows that you have to get used to it for a little while but the most difficult part is getting on and staying onboard while it gets up! For the rest of the ride, I really enjoyed it and finally felt like I could at least appreciate some of the beautiful landscape.

The Bedouins prepared our lunch and we sat in the shadow of a huge rock to rest for about 3 hours in order to wait for the hottest time of the day to pass. This rest was desperately needed by most of us and we 'collapsed' like fallen soldiers. Around 4 pm, we continued and had another couple of hours ahead of us. These two hours really cracked me. Sarah was back on the camel and there were no more occasions to swop, so I had to walk. But the longer we walked, the more I got tired. The group was going rather fast, we didn't stop for a break, and I was close to a heat stroke. Later on, I walked with Alyson again and we were at the very end of the group, far behind the others. That was the time I really got mad because we needed a break but couldn't stop, otherwise we would have lost them. I didn't even have the mindset to enjoy the landscape or to take any pictures, all I did was suffering from the heat and swearing like a trooper. But not only the heat was bad. Imagine you take a several-hours hike in sauna, walking on soft sand. Then add one millions flies that are all over you and get into your eyes, nose and mouth, and maybe - MAYBE - you are close to the nightmare of a desert trek. Seriously, Alyson and I couldn't decide what was worse, the heat or the flies. Although the flies probably won.

The trail was mainly on soft sand, it included some climbs, and when we approached another sand dune after 1,5 hours without resting a minute, I simply stopped, sat down on the top of the dune and refused to continue. We were 4 people at that time and just remained there for a while until the others obviously realised that we were missing. So finally Vincent came back to check on us and I just thought, if I was walking on my own and had fainted here because of the heat, I could have been dead by the time anyone would have found me! I asked Vincent how far we still had to go, simply because I wanted to know what to expect. Climbing Mt. Sinai yesterday was a different thing, I had an objective, I knew where I was going and had the ambition to succeed. Here I really didn't care, to me we were running around in the desert, I was dead exhausted, my legs hurt and I had no idea what was still ahead of me. In other words, I was pretty pissed off. Vincent managed to convince us that it wasn't far anymore and indeed, we reached our night camp site only 20 minutes further behind the next rock formation. Here, we spent the night under the stars and I went to bed so quickly, I even skipped dinner. Just to annoy me a little more, the desert becomes pretty alive during dawn and I had to move my sleeping spot twice just to escape from all the bugs who seemed to be magically attracted to me of all people...

Altogether, we spent 9 hours trekking in the desert that day and I still like to call it "hell's trail". This was definitely the worst experience of the whole trip so far and I will NEVER volunteer to do anything like that again!