Lost... in the Desert of Dread
Page 3
The end.
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Click here to find out more about sandstorms.
Sandstorms
• Sandstorms are caused by strong winds blowing over loose sand or earth. Most are small and only last a matter of minutes – but the biggest can be more than a kilometre high, hundreds of kilometres wide, and travel at 120 kilometres per hour.
• It’s very easy to become lost in a sandstorm (that’s how you ended up lost in the desert in the first place), because the whirling sand makes it impossible to see. It’s best not to move about, since it’s easy to become disoriented.
• The best thing to do is find shelter (though not by a sand dune), cover your nose and mouth with cloth, and wrap the rest of your body in whatever you have to hand to stop the sand and grit from hurting your skin. Then wait the sandstorm out.
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Walking on the sand dune is a bit like walking through treacle – your feet sink deep into the sand, and every step takes a huge effort. Despite the cold, you’re starting to sweat. The dune is enormous, and stretches away into the distance in the bright moonlight. Maybe you should find easier terrain.
If you decide to turn back, altering your course, click here.
If you decide to carry on walking on the dune, click here.
You’re almost optimistic about your situation now that you’ve got plenty of water. You’re feeling pretty fit, the moon’s bright enough to see by, and you’re not too cold as long as you keep moving.
The desert looks endless – mile after mile of scrubby, almost featureless rocky landscape. The desert’s so big, it could take a long time to find help. You remember hearing that the most efficient way to cover ground is to jog for a few paces, then walk for a few paces – this is how soldiers cover ground quickly. Maybe you should do the same.
If you decide to jog and walk, click here.
If you decide to walk click here.
Did you really think it was a good idea not to bother boiling the water? Oh dear.
You don’t realise it for a few days, but you’ve contracted amoebic dysentery from the water, which gives you bad diarrhoea, vomiting, pain and fever. The diarrhoea on its own is enough to kill you, since you’re unable to replace the lost fluids and salts, but even if you weren’t you would need medical care in order to recover.
The end.
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Click here to find out more about dysentery.
Dysentery
• There are two types of dysentery, one caused by bacteria and the other caused by amoebae, single-celled parasites that live in your intestine.
• Both types of dysentery can be passed on through poor hygiene, or by consuming contaminated food or water. In some people, amoebic dysentery can be life-threatening.
• Symptoms of amoebic dysentery include diarrhoea, stomach pain, vomiting and fever.
• Amoebic dysentery can be treated with drugs. If not, it can be fatal.
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The bite is so painful it feels as though it’s throbbing, and the scratches are sore too. You decide to take a chance by using some of your valuable water. First you take a long swig, then you use some of the water to wash the wounds. The small holes where the cat’s teeth punctured your skin are very painful to the touch, but you reason that washing them can’t possibly do any harm. You know you don’t have any soap, but you rummage around in your backpack for something that might help. To your surprise and relief, you discover a tube of antiseptic cream. You apply the cream, and wrap a spare cotton scarf around the bite and the scratches. Before long, you’re feeling much better.
Now you need to find more water to replenish the water you used to wash your wounds.
Click here.
You set off on your course, just to the left of the setting sun. The temperature’s dropping fast. Before long, you spot something that looks like a building, and hurry towards it.
As you get closer, you can see that the small adobe building’s long since abandoned – half of it’s in ruins. You investigate and discover a low circular wall with a heavy wooden cover on it. You can hardly believe your eyes – could this actually be a well? You take off the cover and peer down – the reflection of the bright moon glints at the bottom! There’s a rope with a plastic bucket to drop down. It plops into the water with a satisfying splash and you bring up some water – the bucket leaks a bit, but it works. You drink some water and fill up your bottles.
It occurs to you that you could stay here and await rescue. On the other hand, it doesn’t look as though anyone’s been here for a very long time.
If you decide to stay here and await rescue, click here.
If you decide to move on with your full water bottles, click here.
Click here to find out more about wells and water holes.
Desert Wells and Water Holes
• If you find a well or water hole in the desert, make sure you replace the cover quickly to prevent evaporation or contamination.
• You might find an animal water hole in the desert, but be careful, as the water could be contaminated with animal poo and other bacteria. One option is to dig another hole close to the water hole, so that the water filters through the sand and gravel and removes some of the impurities, then boil the water.
• The nomadic people of the Sahara know exactly where the water holes are so that they can replenish their water supplies as they move about the desert. They have to be precise – just a few kilometres in the wrong direction could spell disaster.
• If you spot flies, mosquitoes, or bees, it’s a sign that water isn’t far away.
• Birds can point the way to desert water sources: watch the direction of their flight in the evenings.
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Suddenly you hear a sound that sends a shiver down your spine – a rasping, hissing sound. You stop dead in your tracks. You look down, to where you think the noise is coming from, but at first you can’t see anything on the sandy, pebbly ground. Then you spot it. It’s a snake, making its body into S-shaped loops that it slides against one another, making the rasping sound. And you’re almost standing on it.
It’s just a small snake – it’s probably more frightened of you than you are of it. And you know that most snakes aren’t venomous. Should you just ignore it? Or should you back away and run?
If you decide to step around the snake, click here.
If you decide to run away, click here.
The rocks offer shade from the fierce sun – they’re tall, and there are enough of them that you can rest in the shade without having to move when the sun shifts across the sky. Although you’re still baking hot, you no longer feel as though you’re being roasted over a spit. You spread your blanket out on the ground and lie down, feeling better by the minute.
You’re just about to close your eyes when you notice that there’s a small, dark cave in the rocks. The entrance is big enough for you to crawl into, but not much bigger than that. It would be even cooler in there, where the sun hasn’t warmed up the sand.
If you decide to crawl into the cave, click here.
If you decide to rest where you are in the shade of the rocks, click here.
Off to your right, you spot movement: it’s a small herd of antelope, heading away from you. Maybe they’ve been drinking at a water hole?
You follow them and find that they’ve finished their drink – the moonlight glints on a small pool of water that the antelope must have just visited. Because the water hole is used by animals, you decide to be on the safe side: you dig a hole a few metres from the pool and wait for water to seep into it, that way it’s filtered by the sand. While you’re waiting, you make a fire and boil the water. It takes a while, but eventually you fill up all your bottles. At least you can be fairly sure the water isn’t going to make you sick.
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Cats have bacteria-ridden mouths, and a very nasty infection has started in your wrist where the sand cat bit you. The wound is inflamed, painful and oozing with pus. You pour some of your water on it, but by this time the infection has taken hold.
The wrist is an especially bad place to be bitten because it’s full of blood vessels and tendons, so an infection can be spread around the body to vital organs very quickly. You start to feel weak and sick, and realise you won’t be able to continue walking. Eventually, you stop by some rocks – you can see that there should be shade here in the daytime. There’s no water source nearby, but the infection kills you before you run out anyway.
The end.
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On the ground in front of you there’s a vine-like plant bearing fruit that look like small melons – roughly about the size of oranges. Melons are famous for being juicy. They would help keep you hydrated and give you some energy for walking at the same time. On the other hand, although the fruit look like melons, you’re not absolutely sure what they are – they could even be poisonous.
If you decide to eat the fruit, click here.
If you decide not to, click here.
Click here to find out about edible desert plants.
Edible Desert Plants
• The African baobab tree stores drinkable water in its trunk, and the pulp in its fruit is tasty and nutritious. The trees can be 25 metres tall and live for three thousand years. They’re known as upside-down trees because the branches look like roots.
• The fruit of the wild desert gourd that can be found here can’t be eaten, but the seeds can and the shoots can be chewed to obtain water.
• The Topnaar tribe of the Namib depend on the !Nara plant. Its tasty fruit is harvested once a year, and its seeds are dried and eaten as a delicacy.
• In the deserts of North America, cacti can be sources of food and water. The pulp of the fishhook barrel cactus can be squeezed to obtain water (although the water can taste horrible!), and its fruits and flesh are edible.
• The agave (also from North America) collects rainwater at the base of the plant, and some moisture is stored in its leaves and stalk.
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You should have removed the tick because, unfortunately, it has passed on bacteria via its bite. You don’t get any symptoms for a while, but then you start to feel feverish, with a terrible headache, and muscle and joint pain all over your body.
You have relapsing fever, which needs to be treated with antibiotics. The disease wouldn’t normally kill a healthy person, but it makes you feel so ill that you aren’t capable of finding water.
The end.
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Click here to find more about parasite-born diseases.
Parasite-borne Diseases
• Relapsing fever can be caused by ticks or lice, and both types are common in Africa. Symptoms wouldn’t usually appear for at least five days. If the disease is passed on by lice it’s worse, and you might die if you don’t take antibiotics (even if victims are treated, one in a hundred will die anyway). Epidemics of louse-borne relapsing fever sometimes happen where living conditions are poor.
• Malaria is caused by the plasmodium parasite, which gets into the blood via the bite of a female anopheles mosquito. Symptoms appear around ten days after the bite, but they can take up to a year to appear. Over a million people die from malaria every year, mostly in Africa, because they aren’t treated in time.
• Tsetse fly bites can pass on a disease known as sleeping sickness, caused by a parasite that infects the flies. There are two types of sleeping sickness – if you get the acute form, you will almost certainly die without treatment.
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You approach the cat with your hand outstretched. Its eyes widen. Suddenly it flattens its large ears to its head and hisses at you, baring its pointed teeth. You remove your hand quickly, and you’re just about to run away when the cat launches itself at you and sinks its teeth into your wrist, scratching your arms with its claws at the same time.
You manage to fling it off and the cat pelts away into the night.
If you decide to return to the well and the ruins for water to wash your wounds, click here.
If you decide to wrap a bandage around the wound and keep going, click here.
Click here to find out more about sand cats.
Sand Cats
• Sand cats are the only type of cat that live in deserts. They’re found in both stony and sandy deserts in northern Africa and southwest and central Asia.
• They are sandy coloured, sometimes with stripes on their fur, with a ringed tail with a dark tip. They can measure up to 60 centimetres long, including the tail.
• The cats are able to survive without water, getting the moisture they need from their food, though they will drink if they find water.
• Sand cats eat small mammals, such as jerboas, gerbils, lizards and insects. They sometimes dig out their prey from underground.
• They live in burrows, where they stay during the day during the hottest months, only coming out to hunt at dusk and during the night.
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As you walk on, you become aware of an uncomfortable spot on your leg. Eventually you stop and have a look at it – to your horror, you see that it’s alive!
The creature is a tick, a small parasite that feeds on the blood of mammals. This one has decided to have a snack at your expense.
You have no idea whether ticks can do any harm – after all they’re very small – but you do know that leeches will attach themselves to people and drink their blood without doing any harm at all. Maybe, like leeches, the tick will just drop off when it’s had enough. Or maybe you should try and remove it?
If you decide to ignore the tick, click here.
If you decide to remove it, click here.
The pain in your arm makes you stop and examine your wounds. The scratches aren’t deep, but the bite on your wrist looks red and angry, and your hand is beginning to swell.
Should you just keep going, or is it better to find water, wash the wound, and have a rest?
If you decide to keep going, click here.
If you decide to stop and treat the wound, click here.
You round the summit of a low hill and a wonderful sight is waiting for you on the other side: a few palm trees, clustered together. It must mean a spring or a well!
You spot a well amongst the trees. You’re heading straight for it when something alarming happens: you sink straight down into the ground!
Quicksand! Thinking fast, you throw your blanket away onto solid ground. It’s cold in the quicksand, and you’ll need it when you get out . . . if you get out. The quicksand’s up to your waist now. Should you risk trying to throw your heavy backpack to the safety of solid ground? You could lose everything if it falls in.
If you decide to keep your backpack on, click here.
If you decide to throw it to the side, click here.
There’s plenty of water for you to drink in the well, though there’s nothing for you to eat. Luckily, you have enough sachets of salt in your backpack to ensure that you don’t get hyponatraemia (see here).
You exist for weeks, sheltering from the sun during the day and exercising at night to keep warm – making sure you don’t stray too far and get lost. You’ve started talking to yourself. At first you’re tempted to try and kill a lizard or a jerboa to eat, but they’re too fast for you. After a while you stop feeling hungry anyway, and you start talking to the lizards instead. They don’t reply.
After several weeks alone in the desert, you start to feel very weak from lack of food. One day you spot a camel train heading for the well. You can hardly believe it – in fact, you assume you’re hallucinating. But it’s real. This is a regular stop for the nom
adic people on the camels, on their trading journey to replenish their water supplies. They get a big surprise when they discover you at the well.
The people help tend to your sunburn (you ran out of sun cream a while ago), offer you a small amount of food (too much would be bad for you), and take you with them to safety. You’re safe at last, but you can’t help wondering that things might have been a bit more interesting if you’d set off into the desert instead. Or would it . . .
The end.
You stumble along the sand dune, sweating even though the night is cold. You’re sure this is the right way, so you’re determined to keep going. Your boots are filled with sand, and you keep sinking into the sand as you stumble and slip down the dune. Your progress is painfully slow.
Eventually, you realise that you can’t carry on – but by this time it’s too late. You’re in the middle of a sea of undulating sand, and your water is very low. Without any means of finding more water, you die.
The end.
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Click here to find out more about sand dunes.