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Sand Dance: By Camel Across Arabia's Great Southern Desert by: Bruce Kirkby List Price: CDN$ 24.99 City Travel Guides Price: CDN$ 15.74 You Save: CDN$9.25 (37%)Prices subject to change. |
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Binding: Paperback Dewey Decimal Number: 910 EAN: 9780771095658 ISBN: 0771095651 Label: McClelland & Stewart Manufacturer: McClelland & Stewart Number Of Pages: 232 Publication Date: February 01, 2001 Publisher: McClelland & Stewart Release Date: February 01, 2001 Studio: McClelland & Stewart Sales Rank: 83059 Related Items: Related Items:  see moreBrowse for similar items by category:
Editorial Review: Amazon.ca: What's an adventurer to do after kayaking the British Columbia coast, poking around in the Arctic, and climbing Mount Everest? For Calgary-based writer and explorer Bruce Kirkby, the answer was obvious: climb aboard a camel and wander through one of the world's most forbidding deserts. Kirkby arrived at that conclusion by chance, after leafing through Wilfred Thesiger's classic book of adventure travel, Arabian Sands. After recruiting fellow explorers Jamie and Leigh Clarke and conferring with the legendary Thesiger himself, who expressed grave doubts about their likelihood of success, Kirkby made his way to Oman. In the company of some memorable Bedu guides, he embarked on a journey that would take him into the feared Empty Quarter of Saudi Arabia, where "ancient winds, blowing for millennia, have sculpted the sand into mountainous dunes" and where temperatures regularly climb above 50 degrees Celsius. Atop a doubtful camel named Crazy Dancer, with whom he came to develop a curious friendship, Kirkby negotiated his way across precipitous mountain trails and over rocky plains and dunes. He visited little-seen oases and learning much about Bedu ways of life--which have changed much since Thesiger's day, for, as he writes, "None of the Bedu we encountered would have traded in their pickup or cellphone for a return to the old ways and an uncertain life in the desert." Kirkby, the Clarkes, and the Bedu beat the odds, arriving in Abu Dhabi after a 40-day journey, and readers who come to his pages will sometimes wonder that they pulled it off. His account is a fine example of latter-day adventure writing, thoughtful, well written, and charged with the excitement and pleasure of the unknown. --Gregory McNamee Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
 Rating: - Fantastic VoyageThis book is a really interesting account of the three Canadians' journey across the Empty Quarter on the Arabian Peninsula. I followed the news reports of their journey back when it was under way, so it was really interesting to read this personal account and get more of a close-up view. I felt like the book basically had three focusses: the desert environment, the camels, and the Bait Kathir Bedouin. The book describes all three in personal detail, and you get a sense for how these three elements all interact. I found the observations of the Bedouin culture very interesting. I also liked having the bits of Arabic dialogue because I study Arabic but I was unfamiliar with this dialect. All around it's a very interesting book. Rating: - desert experienceI was fascinated by the experiences of the three adventurers. I particularly enjoyed the photographs included in the book. I returned to them quite often to get more of a feel of what they were experiencing. I regret that, as a woman in these countries, I would be unable to come close to anything like this. The camels were delightful and I take back all those horrible things people say about them. |
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