Desert traverse

A desert is a place where the sun sets the timetable. The work happens at dawn and dusk, the middle of the day belongs to shade and sleep, and the night is the reward: temperatures that fall twenty degrees, and a sky with no light for a hundred kilometres. The places in this adventure run from the sandstone towers of Wadi Rum to the salt of Uyuni and the white dunes of Brazil where the lagoons appear.

What it asks of the body

Heat tolerance and discipline about water more than fitness. The dune climb at Sossusvlei is ninety minutes of soft sand; the rest is walking and riding at a pace the sun allows. The Climate Simulator shows why the month matters more than the destination: the same dune is a pleasure in May and a punishment in January.

What it asks of the calendar

Four months in every desert, and they are different months: spring and autumn in Jordan, winter in the southern hemisphere, the northern winter in the Danakil. Outside them the days are lost to heat and the camps empty.

What it costs

Deserts are cheap to be in and expensive to reach. Bedouin camps and Bolivian refuges sit in the low band; the Namibian lodges inside the park gate are the mid to high band and buy the extra hour of dawn.