Just like the ice pack, the desert led me on a profound inner journey. All is emptiness and nothingness, yet everything is there. The horizon remains out of reach, receding as I advance. Powerful, enigmatic … it sparked a great longing within me to know it better.
Expedition
The world’s largest desert, the Sahara. Its endless dunes are part of everyone’s imagination. Bernard, so passionate about the cold, wanted to experience the opposite: the tremendous heat of the desert and its people, the Tuareg, the Blue Men of the Sahara. Barely returned from an Arctic expedition, he flew to Adrar, in Algeria, and then to Timimoune, the jumping-off point for the trek. Between the Arctic and the Sahara, a 100° Celsius difference. As he crossed the Great Western Erg, he discovered many similarities between ice and sand. The wind makes its presence felt in violent gusts, hardening one side of the dune and softening the other, carving little waves into the sand, etc. This trek gave him the opportunity for a true voyage inside himself, in these endless vistas. The Sahara was an important step in Bernard’s progression as an explorer.
