We are back in Germany – green, rainy, well-organised, toilet paper deprived Germany – oh how we missed you, or did we?! I`ll admit it dealing with the thought that we might not be able to get back was pretty unpleasant, but I can`t say that I felt particularly homesick over the last two weeks and I hope neither did the other fieldtrippers. Letting go of the excursion routine, the great outdoors and the people that surrounded you non-stop is easier said than done. So, to make our transition back into our everyday lifes a bit smoother and to say goodbye to our readers, I am writing one last blog.

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Driving off-road is a crucial part of this fieldtrip. We get the Land Cruisers for a reason and the people who drive have the chance to try out a number of different terrains, starting with basic dirt roads, ending with loose sand or gravel. For some of the drivers it`s the first time to leave the safe haven of asphalt and also the first time to handle a 2 ton four-wheel-drive. The fact that there have never been any major driving incidents shows that the off-roading is actually easily learned. Still, there are some tracks that are somewhat tricky.

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Imagine a wadi. A dry river bed, filled with gravel, at the foot of a tower-shaped mountain. A few trees and shrubs grow between the rubble. Night has already fallen, the mountain stands black before the night sky. The full moon is bright enough to see every pebble and every thorny twig. In this wadi there sits a camp right beside a rudimentary dirt road. The camp has a large white truck, a row of cars, some tables, a circle of camping chairs around a campfire and a few scattered tents. The fire is burning, an interrupted card game lays on a boulder and from the boiling pots in the truck`s kitchen comes a smell of roasted chicken, but nobody is there.

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Today we spend the whole day on a terrace. I know what kind of image this sentence probably triggers: armchairs, cold cobblers, homemade lemonade, sunglasses and general relaxation. Forget that! The terrace we are talking about is a marine terrace, so a staircase-shaped coastal landform that is formed through a combination of sea-level variations and land uplift.

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