Thursday, November 01, 2007

Every day is a new experience......

Before heading over here I bought a good guide book on North Africa. I like to know where it is I'm going and be able to find it on the map. One of the interesting things that I read was that it only really rains about once every twenty years in the Sahara Desert. Now imagine my surprise when I walked out of my room to go to breakfast this morning and it was raining. It wasn't a torrential downpour but it was a steady rain. My shirt was wet by the time I made it across the compound to the cafeteria. The sky directly above me had one very small cloud that was thin enough to see the stars through and there weren't anymore clouds directly above the compound. Although when I asked a few people that are on regular rotation here they said to tell the author of the guide book he is mistaken that during certain parts of the year it frequently rains like this here. The horizon did have some very black large clouds and there was a fair amount of lightning. It was a pretty cool sight. It rained on and off all morning.



What I find amazing is that in July the night temperature can get as cold as -10C and the heat of the day can get as high as 55 degrees C. That is a low temperature of 14 degrees F to a high of 131 degrees F. Talk about a temperature swing! Right now the weather is perfect, it is like being in Phoenix in February.

This evening after work I was running a little late but still wanted to hike the dune so I went accepting that I'd be coming down in the dark. It all went ok. Here are a few pictures.









1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wow,that's pretty cool! Great pics. You are pretty adventuresome, my boy, but I'm relieved to hear you're in a fairly secure place. Love the pictures of the barn, too. I can hardly wait to see it. Love, Jane