amer: [ speaking in arabic ] whenever there s a guest we have to honor him. show him generosity and hospitality. abdullah: usually the guy who come, he have to open the head. anthony: okay. oh, i know just where i m going for. i got it. abdullah: pull it. yeah, that is one. anthony: cheek. ahmed: yeah.
of the desert. he spent more time there, much of it alone, than just about anyone. anthony: the bedouin have been questing the empty quarter hundreds of years, thousands of years? ahmed: thousands of years. the bedouin are the kings of the desert, it s their place it s their area. they know how to live and they know how to suffer. anthony: mark evans, a polar and desert expedition leader knows firsthand how difficult the empty quarter can be. guided by amer and accompanied by colleague mohammed al zedjali he recently made the crossing, walking over 600 miles with camels in tow. mark: in the first 12 days of our journey crossing the empty quarter, we didn t touch our own food at all. and it became a competition to be more generous than the previous anthony: so you meet people out there all along the way? mark: you would, even though nobody lived there people would find you and travel.
on the edge of rub al khali, the largest sand desert in the world. once you get up into soft sand things change, everything changes, you change. this is the traditional domain of the bedouin. who, for thousands of years have moved across this harsh, dry, seemingly endless landscape, making it their home. amer al wahaibi and his family continue the tradition. ahmed al mahrouqui is a hardcore ambassador of the empty places
here, it s too hot. this is the point. anthony: good. mohammad: it s good if you ve got whiskey or brandy or [ laughter ] mark: you know, the empty quarter is emptier than it s ever been. it s almost impossible to do what the old explorers did, because they relied upon local people being in situ. bedouin have migrated to their edge of the deserts where life s easier, really. but they don t want to let go completely. amer sends his children to school, in badr, yet he wants them to live in the sand where they have the freedom and that connection to their roots.
easier, really. but they don t want to let go completely. amer sends his children to school, in badr, yet he wants them to live in the sand where they have the freedom and that connection to their roots.