As the shadows of the afternoon lengthen over the desert floor, Qatar – one of our Bedouin guides – starts to sing. His tenor voice booms into the silence, interrupting himself with guttural shouts of “heh!” and “huh!” when he spies a camel going off route. I spur my camel on to stay within earshot. We ride through a wind-scoured wasteland of rock and gravel, then on through sensual waves of sand. Atop a camel, I am seduced by the romance of desert travel, surrounded by thrilling emptiness; the hypnotic pad of my camel's feet; the vast dutch blue sky.

On the map, the Bayuda Desert curls into a giant 600km bend in the Nile like a giant camel's ear. At its southern-most tip lie the Meroe pyramids, marking the southern half of Nubia – the cradle of one of the world’s first civilisations. It is also home to several Bedouin tribes. Our route follows their 280km ancient trade route and for ten days we belong to an older, slower world.Description text goes here