A 1,6OO km odyssey through the Sahara desert

Driven to get a glimpse of an ancient way of life before it disappeared from the planet forever, author Michael Benanav embarked on a 1600 kilometer odyssey by foot and by camel, through a swath of the Sahara Desert so deadly it’s called ‘The Land of Terror’ by the nomads who cross it. Joining up with the caravan of white gold – one of the last working camel caravans in the world – Benanav followed an age-old trade route, transporting gleaming slabs of solid rock salt from mines deep in the desert to the market in Timbuktu. Once literally worth its weight in gold, which gives the caravan its name, the salt today is worth just pennies a pound, but men still risk their lives to haul it and sell it.

Benanav lived for weeks among the camel drivers as they traveled eighteen hours a day for nearly six weeks, through sandstorms and searing heat. Along the way, he learned how to care for and ride camels, became a medic to injured salt miners, encountered an Islamic culture in which men – not women – veil their faces, and grappled with the dilemmas of cultural extinction created by the ever-spreading impact of globalization.