The evening routine was to be repeated every late afternoon.

Set up the tent, showers for the girls, and the hardy ones sat on fold up tables with a glass of wine already. 

‘Ben, do you want?’ Ernesto asked often. ‘Mille Grazie, but not yet. There is still some sunlight I can picture.’

By the time I finished my sentence, I was already gone.

I had my own evening routine with German efficiency.

I set up the tent quickly and either took my camera or flew Rick through outstanding sunsets.

Who knows when I get into the Sahara Desert ever again?

I would have liked to have more time to capture any amazing camp spot.

After the fun, comes the run. I had to transfer all daily photos and videos onto my hard drive.

If I had just used the drone, I would start my video flow with Rick.

Otherwise, the OM-D camera was first.

I hope the Spritz is ready by then. Gin Tonic was the alternative change every odd night.

Claudio had already started preparations for pasta, Carbonara for tonight. Only the finest pork cheek is used for this dish. Italians love good pasta no matter where they are. Admittedly, it was a treat.

Lore of Arabia was helping one way or another every night. Without hesitation. Fasta Pasta.

Loredana and I spent hours together on sand dunes with the camera in hand.

We chilled in the sun and watched the show whilst waiting for yet another occurrence in the desert.

What’s all the stress about? Look around you. True wisdom is just common sense.

I really thought that I had more time to support Claudio with everting tasks, but I underestimated my workload too.

Pulling hundreds of videos and photos onto my hard drive, meant that they were save(r). But it took time. I would have preferred to help Claudio or to chat with the group. But if I don’t do this first, then I would run out of sim cards very quickly. This may be the case after all if I wasn’t able to charge the batteries on the drone, computer, and iPad.

I actually hated it. Sitting on the computer surrounded by a sea of sand? I would have shaken my head in disbelief to anyone else.

But that is just the flip side of taking amazing photos and drone videos.

I miss out on many interactions, being the director and producer behind the camera. Maybe I get paid for it one day, I just lose a lot of precious my-time.

I got the feeling that the group may have thought, that I was avoiding them.

That wasn’t the case directly, but I also needed a bit of time to myself.

On our third-night camp way up in the high dunes, I did my nightly routine. It was a fabulous location, I made the most of living daylight. I ate whilst downloading and Claudio even chased me with the Spritz. ‘Ben, come sit down.’ Nothing more I wanted to do, but a busy day on camera and drone meant a busy evening on the computer. I decided to sit in the sand by the magical bonfire, which we lid hours ago. Bliss, no one else was sitting by the fire, which I couldn’t understand. The gin tonic added to my taste buds, as I tried to recover from another action-packed day. Us Australians call an open fire in the outback ‘Bush TV’. It’s mesmerizing flickering always draws me in. New flittering stories every time and Arabian Nights was the theme tonight.  A Jägermeister tipped off my comfortable numbness, it was time for bed. I was really just ready to sleep and opted not to say goodnight tonight.

Claudio was a little apprehensive as I returned from my early morning drone exercises. This morning I yelled out ‘Drone in the air’ so that no one gets paranoid about a drone flying over shitholes. It became a funny ‘thingy’ during this trip. And quite amusing.

‘Ben, are you okay? We were wondering why you disappeared last night without sitting by the table’. ‘Claudio’ I said, ‘there are 17 people and 16 chairs. Shall I sit on your lap?’ He looked a little confused, but not as much as myself, when I heard him say. ‘But, Ernesto has 4 extra chairs!’ Not one, but four??? Well, isn’t that some important social information???

We just smiled and waved. To be fair, he has a lot on his plate and I didn’t take it personally.

This was the last time I sat alone by the fire too.