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More driving across the desert today - we headed for the first time into proper sandy desert for a while, although there was quite a lot of vegetation around still. There were also huge dry riverbeds and creeks we crossed - they must get a wet season at some point.

Further on we were driving back into the furnace. It must have been low 40s before midday and just kept getting hotter. We drove through an area of mountains that were basically flat ground on a 50 degree angle, but broken into bits. Bit hard to explain but it was the weirdest landscape. I guess it was the result of an earthquake or squeezing over time. We stopped in a town on the coast for lunch, where once again everything was shut for siesta but we found a pizza and burger place and even a fruit shop to feed us while the locals watched. Must have been the most exciting thing they have seen in months.

At about 6 or 7 we turned off the road to find the beach. We ended up near a tiny fishing village and all ran down to the beach went in to paddle our feet in the warm sea. A few people jumped right in and I think the locals that turned up almost straight away were a bit upset at the girls going in even though they were fully clothed. From then on we had a pack of local men hanging around the camp for the rest of the evening, and they were even back first thing in the morning. We wondered whether they had ever seen westerners before - possibly never western women anyway because they followed us around like dogs, it was kind of worrying.