SAHARA ADVENTURE

After roaming both Africa and the sea floor, Philippe Diole has returned to voyage across a sea of sand, in search of an experience complementary to The Undersea Adventure. Here again the spirit is the touchstone, the encounter with an ""instant of eternity"" the reward for the receptive soul. Walking behind his laden camel with a petit bourgeois of the desert, masked as a noble Targui, for a guide, and a young lad for a helper, our Saharan seeker faced the Tassili of Ajjir and Fezzan, where he sought out the cliff art of ancient Africa, and mused on unknown existences mutely evidenced by rock portraits. He found them at Djanet d, a night gift, at the Wadi Mathendous. Turning to the seacoast, he saw Bebrata and Tripoli, where he ended his quest in the desert, which altered space and time and brought the ""indifferent equilibrium"" which he had known before. A wanderer who is open to wonder and expansion, Philippe Diole follows the mystical path that has appealed to other true adventurers, St. Exupery among them. His meditation will have meaning for a minority.