Past Challenge

#3 East-West Traverse of the Taklimakan Desert

Participants: Mike Libecki

"I didn't know that I would die but tests were coming that would last much longer than this expedition..."

Taklimakan Desert Traverse, Year of the Snake Expeditions

By: Mike Libecki

Uygur translation of "Taklimakan"

Version 1: He who goes in does not come out

Version 2: The sea of death

In less than twenty-four hours I would be starting my walk into the desert. I could feel fear, though I would barely admit it to myself. I crave that feeling, the real feeling of fear. Not being-scared fear, but much different. Fear is one emotion that is very special. It takes something immense, something wonderful, something unknown to cause this emotion. Something intense was coming. I didn't think I would die or that something horrific would happen, but tests were coming, tests that would last much longer than this expedition, tests with no hint of how to pass. Something fantastic was about to happen, there was no doubt whatsoever.

... My partner and I were supposed to meet in the LA Airport at the Air China ticket counter. That was the plan. We had confirmed it just the night before. As soon as I arrived into LA, though, I could feel something funny, a strange, uncomfortable aloneness. I thought this feeling had come from the realization that I was leaving the country for the next sixty-five days. This unnerving feeling, I soon found out, was from something much more surreal.

As I stood in line at the ticket counter with my fifteen overstuffed bags, I expected to find my partner buzzing with excitement, ready for an ultimate adventure of a lifetime. But there was no sign of him anywhere, and our plane was scheduled to leave in less than two hours. I quickly punched my calling card number into the payphone. He was still at home, hundreds of miles away. It came to me like a slap in the face that he was not going on this adventure. This adventure I was about to embark upon, to traverse one of the largest and least explored deserts in the world by foot, just became a lot more intense; Now I was going alone. My partner had few words to say. He wished me luck as I hung up. I couldn't help it, I just laughed. That feeling of aloneness that was bothering me now made sense. I must admit I became very excited to be so suddenly on a solo expedition. I was on my way for an attempted crossing by foot, alone, from west to east, of the Taklimakan Desert in western China, the second largest mobile desert in the world.

Only a week after the September 11th tragedy my plane landed in Beijing. Having to deal alone with the Chinese officials, necessary permits, monetary negotiations, and every other uncertain detail of this expedition was a heavy burden. This desert traverse would be anywhere from 600 to 700 miles of walking. I needed to first obtain the twenty camels for which I had wired several thousand dollars to my Chinese liaison officer two months ago. The camels would carry my food, water, and supplies. I hoped to hire a few of the local Uygur people to ride and lead the camels and show me how to care of them. Then, hopefully I would walk across the desert, survive the grueling heat, take beautiful photos, make new friends with the locals, and have some fun with solitude and a new environment I knew almost nothing about-real desert wilderness. Little did I know just how much suffering and fun I was getting myself into.

The night in Beijing included an intense argument with a taxi driver, a greasy pork dumpling dinner that carried over to breakfast, and a thousand-dollar extra baggage fee. In the morning, my plane to Urumqi shook uneasily into the polluted sky. After a five hour flight we skidded hard on the rainy tarmac and docked in a gray, hazy funk that seemed to infest all the available air surrounding the airport. My liaison officer and his staff were waiting at the gate. We loaded my fifteen bags into the diesel truck, and sputtered into the depths of the city, plunging through the gray, hazy funk that now filled my tormented lungs.

My liaison officer and his staff could not understand why I arrived alone. They couldn't fathom that my partner simply did not show up. It was almost as though they thought I was lying. They seemed to be so confused about it, that it made me feel like I was lying. How could an expedition with such detailed planning have gone this way? How could one of the principals just decide not to go? Could this American mad man do this alone? I then thought of how confused I was as well, as I prepared to hand over more money than I have made in the last few years.

We discussed payment for services, permits, camels, and supplies. Everything was in order after money changed hands. From Urumqi we took a twenty-four-hour train ride westward to Kashgar. There we shopped for all necessary supplies for an expedition into the desert: shovels to dig wells for the camels, grain for the camels, meat, rice, and vegetables for the Uygur support team, water containers, rope, etc. With the diesel truck full of supplies and our two Landcruisers packed with the Chinese support team, we had an eight-hour drive from Kashgar to Marketi. Marketi is a small village just outside the western edge of the Taklimakan Desert. Here we hoped to find the local Uygurs to go with me and would begin the actual walk into the desert.

The two Landcruisers and large diesel cargo truck moved slowly over the sandy road leading to the edge of the desert. In total there were eight Chinese, four Uygurs, and me. I hired the Uygurs to ride the camels and show me how take care of them. One of them spoke both English and the Uygur language. Humongous animals came into view ahead. No doubt they were my camels, very large camels with two huge humps on their backs, each of them the size of at least two horses. They were so big and proud they did not seem from this planet but from Middle Earth or Star Wars. I was going on an adventure into a wilderness that I knew almost nothing about. And these huge creatures were going to make it possible.

We made a base camp just outside of Marketi. We looked at maps, went over route options, possible destinations along the way, villages I might encounter, rivers that were dry, etc. According to the map and the local Uygurs, the entire distance across the desert would consist of sand dunes, wind, sun, blue skies, stars, moons, and heat. No running rivers, no shade, and a lot of uncertainty. We would carry our water, and dig wells for the camels to drink. I would walk an average of 15-20 miles a day for the next 45-55 days. The moment of truth was here, time to take the first actual steps into the desert. The camels were packed with thousands of pounds of supplies, just a few last liters of water needed to be boiled for drinking and we would be off.

Between the time I left the States and this point, many strange and spicy variables materialized. For example, an email from my liaison officer two days before departure asked me to cancel the expedition saying it was just too dangerous. And I was detained in Marketi by the local Chinese Military and told that I could not go into the desert...until my money started talking. Then, literally about an hour before saying good-bye to my Chinese friends and walking into the Taklimakan, the worst variable of all was added.

The last of the drinking water was being prepared by boiling. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and two liters of boiling water spilled down on the inside of my right foot and ankle. Cringing in pain, I pulled off my boot and sock and found about a three-by-eight-inch section of my foot and ankle melted. No doubt a very painful second-degree burn. Just what I needed to start my 600+ mile walk across the desert. Of course, this changed everything. The Chinese team wanted to cancel the expedition. They thought I would be crazy to go on now. It would be impossible to walk. When they tried to get me to cancel, I made a deal with them. I would go into the desert for a few days riding one of the camels. If I came down with an infection or found the pain unbearable, I would return to Marketi and find a way home. Stubborn is what some call it. I call it logic, determination, and hunger for challenge and adventure. We rode into the desert at 2:00 p.m., the temperature a sweltering 117 degrees Fahrenheit. We did not turn around.

For the first ten days I had to ride a camel, it was not possible to walk with my injury. Three times each day I cleaned the wound with an iodine solution. These daily cleanings were the most excruciatingly painful times of my life. The burned foot pain, mixed with well over 100-degree temperatures, were just what I had asked for-a challenge. I was hating life. After ten days, a nice flexible scab as thick as Ritz crackers formed over the burn.. I made a shoe/boot with the foam from my sleeping pad and limped ahead with two trekking poles as canes. Though pain was consistent, I was determined to walk the rest of the way across the desert. I found out why I pack so much pain medicine in my expedition first aid kit.

As soon as I started to walk daily, a new variable materialized: I became intestinally very ill. I starting shitting ten times a day, and stopped urinating. Great! Just what I needed! Unbearable foot pain, intestinal terror, heat from hell, and hundreds of miles to go. Did I mention I was looking for an ultimate adventure and challenge? After three different antibiotics and five days of very painful bowel movements, the sickness finally disappeared. Good God! What next?

Things only got better. How could they not? We spent roughly two months enduring true desert wilderness. Infinite rolling sand dunes of gold dust sparkled in every direction. Perfect blue skies. Sun. Heat. Night skies filled with more stars than I could have ever imagined. Without light pollution from cities, the stars were so bright that on moonless nights you could see shadows. Everyday we were up before sunrise and walked until sunset. Fifty sunrises and fifty sunsets back to back in a row. A perfect 360-degree horizon line the entire way. Temperatures went from the hottest day of 120 degrees Fahrenheit when we started, to the low 90s near the end. It even froze the last few nights of our journey as winter neared.

A camel got himself stuck in muddy quicksand up to his neck. It took us seven and a half hours to get him out. One of our camels became ill. The head camel driver decided we needed to kill the sick camel. He said God had done this so we could have fresh meat to eat. The camel was quite tasty. Of course, after the meat started to rot and had maggots crawling all over it, I opted not to eat it. My Uygurs companions simply boiled the meat and ate it for the next ten days. Every three to five days we found places to dig wells so we could let the camels drink. It took usually four to five hours to dig a five-foot wide by six-to-nine-foot deep well. Each camel drank twenty gallons every time we dug a well. The longest the camels went without water was seven days. We came across old ancient trees, dead birds, bones of old camels, and strange iridescent nocturnal lizards. Only two sandstorms hit us.

We encountered two virgin Uygurs villages in the desert. Small settlements of shepherds and farmers in the middle of nowhere. They're called virgin because the villagers live out their entire lives without leaving. These beautiful people wear bright colors- yellow, blue, green, and red-and have smiles worthy of the sunniest toothpaste commercial. We traded our supplies for goats with the locals. One goat was enough to feed all of us at dinner.

We went through archeological sites of great interest and history, such as an old Tibetan settlement from the eighth century. We even visited the old city of Niya, where perfectly intact mummies have been recovered dating back over 4000 years. Incredible how the remains of housing, pagodas, pottery, tools, and even humans still exist there. Everyday of our journey across the desert was nonetheless the same. We woke up before sunrise, made breakfast, packed the camels for two to three hours, walked until sunset, unpacked the camels, made dinner, then went to sleep. That is how is worked. Everyday. Every, single, day.

Before I left on this trip, I heard rumors of how dangerous the Taklimakan Desert is. I also heard that it is one of the most beautiful, untouched, wilderness areas on Earth-timeless rolling sand dunes, ancient archeological sites, virgin native villages, views of the moon and stars comparable only to those in fairy tales, and vast expanses of solitude so real that any day dream was possible. These latter rumors are true. But, the pleasures were definitely cloaked, so to speak, and the beauty cost more than I was willing to offer. But I had no say in the bargaining, just the will power to endure the price. The balance that resulted was phenomenal. As sugar and salt together satisfy the palate, pleasure was leavened by pain. I fell in love with the endless time and beauty found in this desert. I felt the pain of love, the love of pain, in a way I never had. I knew very little about desert wilderness then. I definitely know a hell of a lot now, and as a matter of fact, I know enough to not want to go back for a long time, a very, long time. Pursue passion, but beware, you just may get it. Ration passion, for you just may need it.

-Mike Libecki