M4

I'm walking in the middle of the desert with a bunch of smelly camels. I have joined a Bedouin caravan crossing the Rub Al Khali Desert. We have animal supplies that we traded for with a clan of nomad herders. Our bags are full of goat and sheep hair, we have also brought some live animals trade for other supplies. After walking for two weeks our water is running out, we expected to find more oases than we did. A couple miles after we lost our first goat we see a patch of green on the horizon, when we get closer we see that it is a oasis, we drink our fill and fill our water skins and set out again.

On the next day it started to get very windy, every once and a while a dust devil would pop up and blow us all over. Around midday a giant dust cloud formed directly in our path, we increase our pace to try and make more progress before we hit the sandstorm. Even before we get to the storm the strong winds are buffeting us side to side, pulling at our close and burying us knee deep in sand. We wrap clothes around our head to protect us from inhaling any sand, just leaving our eyes visible. Continuing to struggle against the wind, we entered into the main body of the sandstorm.

It was horrible, one minute you would be walking into the wind, in the next minute the wind direction would change trowing you onto the ground then burying you in a foot of sand. Soon I was out of water still stumbling along in the general direction that I started, hopefully. After what seemed like hours the winds slowed and the storm moved on, and I was left there panting on the ground, not strong enough to pick myself up and keep walking, slowly closed my eyes to the harsh desert sun.

  I woke up to the friendly sight of the face's on the other members of the caravan. While I was unconscious they had been dripping water into mouth so when I moved I got the precious liquid all over my face. They told me that that had been a especially fierce storm and that we were all lucky to be alive. It took a couple of hours to gather all of our camels, many of which were laying in the shadow of a sand dune, but we got them upright once more, and we were off again.

Our destination, the city of Makkah loomed on the horizon. I made it, through a sandstorm, and almost died of dehydration but I made it. I felt stronger after the journey, mentally and physically because I had accomplished an almost impossible goal.