Pasha lets air out of the tires of his off-road vehicle. He has a journey through the desert ahead, and it is safer to drive on sand with lower tire pressure. Before his eyes stretches the Rub al-Khali - the largest sand desert in the world. They call it "the empty square". There, on an area of 650,000 square kilometers (almost as large as Germany and Italy combined), there is nothing but sand.
"There is nothing else here - only sand dunes"
"There is more sand here than in the Sahara in Africa", Pasha explains to the German public media ARD and adds: "The Sahara may be the largest desert in the world, but it consists mainly of steppes and rocks. This is the largest sand desert in the world. And the dunes are growing, with the highest one being 300 meters above sea level. The sand is of different colors: white, yellow, orange, red. There is nothing else here - only sand dunes".
"The Empty Square" stretches from Saudi Arabia to Oman, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates. It is also Pasha's workplace - he guides tourists and researchers from all over the world. The Pakistani has lived in the Persian Gulf for 15 years and has learned to navigate the desert in the meantime. He feels it as his home.
"I fell in love with this vastness"
"We don't need a GPS here, I know the area like the back of my hand. We are the sand warriors of the "empty square". In my homeland, Pakistan, there are mountains and very beautiful nature, so I am not a city person. When I came to Dubai and saw the desert for the first time, I fell in love with all of it - the landscape, the nature, the sand, the vastness. I decided to learn more about this desert. I love the adventurous life," Pasha also says in the ARD report.
Pasha learned to drive in the sand - up and down the dunes. Crossing the desert on a camel, as British explorers attempted in the 1930s, is something he cannot imagine.
"It is difficult to walk in the desert. Every dune has a windward and a leeward side. While the sand on the windward side is hard, on the other side it is very soft and when you take a step, you sink up to your ankles. That is why walking in the desert is very difficult", explains Pasha.
A challenge even for camels
Mark Evans did exactly that. The British explorer lived in the Middle East for 25 years and a few years ago set out to explore the largest sandy desert in the world - on foot, only with camels. An expedition into the unknown, as he explains in the ARD report.
"The problem is that today the "empty square" is more deserted than ever. In the 1930s, it still rained a lot, so researchers could practically move from one oasis to another. Today, that's no longer possible - we had to take everything with us, all the equipment. And not every spring is drinkable. You think there's water, and then you get there and you realize that the water smells like rotten eggs. Even the camels don't want to drink it," says the researcher.
The sun is the biggest enemy
"When you travel through the sands, you have to be very careful of the sun. It's your biggest enemy," says Evans. And when the sun goes down, the coolness of the night sets and the fabulous starry sky sets in. "This golden hour just before sunset is the moment when the desert is at its most magical and incredibly beautiful", he adds.
Evans spent 49 days and nights traveling through the desert. He compiled his experiences in a book. "The magic of this place lies in the total solitude. There is hardly another place in the world where there is not a single footprint, not a single light at night, not a single plane in the sky, not to mention plastic waste. It is a huge privilege to be there,", the researcher tells ARD.
"Like on another planet"
Tourism in the "empty square" is growing. Bedouins offer tours in the desert, travel agencies advertise overnight stays under the stars. But such are organized only on the outskirts of the vast territory covered in sand. Tourists don't spend more than one night in the desert, Pasha explains.
He doesn't like the fact that once a year motorsports fans come here for a big festival. Then there's a hell of a lot of noise, the desert guide says. For him, the magic of this place is connected to something else - the silence, the tranquility, the beauty of nature. "The feeling is like being in another world - as if you're on Mars, on some other planet", says Pasha.
Author: Anna Osius (ARD)