Sabaia

Sabaia is not the desert of photographs. It is high, it is cold at night for most of the year, and the sand is the colour of dried blood rather than gold. The escarpment runs north-east for forty kilometres and takes the last hour of light entirely to itself, which is the reason our house faces the way it does.

The spring at Adeem has fed the oasis below the escarpment for as long as there have been written records of the district, and it is the reason anyone has ever lived here. Eleven families still farm the palm gardens. Their dates arrive at our kitchen in October, in crates, unannounced.

The silence

Guests remark on it before anything else. There is no flight path, no road within eleven kilometres, and no generator running after ten in the evening. On a still night at Sabaia you can hear your own pulse, which some people find restful and others find alarming. We warn everyone in advance.

When to come

October to April. Daytime temperatures sit comfortably in the low twenties and nights fall to around four degrees, which is what the fires are for. We close the camp entirely from mid-June to the end of August; it would be dishonest to sell a stay in that heat.