In 1986, Michael Asher and his wife Mariantonietta Peru set out to cross the Sahara from west to east, by camel and on foot. Their 4,500 mile (7,200 km) journey is the longest trek ever made by Westerners in the Sahara, and the first recorded crossing from west to east by non-mechanical means. 

I read Asher’s book about this trip — Impossible Journey — more than twenty years ago, and it’s been in my travel literature top ten ever since.

We spoke about traveling by camel, Saharan cultures, and what it was like to see the Nile after nine desert months.

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