I’m not sure what I love most about the desert; the warm days spent scrambling over golden hills or the cool evenings spent gazing at the starry skies or the hot dry air that makes the skin tingle and burn anew or the way the sand sounds like thousands of tiny whispers as it blows across the dunes and erases all trace of life, or how, in the dusty wilds of the Middle East, you’re as likely to come away smelling of shisha and spices as you are of woodfire, and that same thick layer of red earth that dirties the body also cleanses the soul.