title description pubDate Tgenerator url Technorati logo link webMaster docs 1 <![CDATA[ Being on the reserve army list he operates as his own military escort]]> 2010-09-22 Being on the reserve army list, he operates as his own military escort. While almost never fatal, it produces debilitating though short-lived symptoms. So did the danger.Everyone is safety-conscious in the desert, and none more so than the Egyptian desert explorer Colonel Ahmed Mestakawi He takes people to the Gilf several times a year More importantly, he brings them back. Others had been there before, but not a huge number: the threshold of exclusivity remained. We know this because of the abundance of stone tools, rock paintings and engravings its ancient inhabitants left behind. In photographs it looks like a 1950s idea of Mars: all different shades of red; strange, conical hills; a kind of haze in the distance; deep, waterless canyons; the planet's surface covered in frost-cracked fragments of rock.Thousands of years earlier, it was not so dry. Nor are there any for several hundred kilometres in each direction from the plateau's edge.

It is the driest place on earth: not by measured rainfall (because there is so little rain that it is hard to measure accurately), but by density of wells and water sources In an area the size of Switzerland, there are none. Then, what it does have hits you with the full intensity of revelation. The Gilf Kebir ("big plateau"), tucked into the western corner of the Egyptian Sahara, is a good place to start. The real motivation is the desert itself, a place where lack of noise, clutter and useless information offers much-needed therapy in a world full of those things The best desert is the one with the least in it. Those who love it invent all sorts of reasons for continually returning: geology, wildlife, finding stone tools, or in my case, looking for rock art But all that is just an alibi, and rather a flimsy one. You either love the desert or you hate it. Passengers enjoy extra entertainment and a free bar as they spend 11 days sailing around the Isle of Wight.* February 2005: Carnival admits that the Aurora fiasco has cost the company $48m.* May 2005: More than 1,000 cruise passengers have to abandon their holiday because toilets on board the Thomson Celebration fail to flush.* May 2005: Some 200 passengers on board P&O's Oceana contract the norovirus.. Passengers are refused the right to disembark by the authorities in Greece.* January 2005: P&O forced to abandon 103-day world cruise after engine trouble on board the Aurora.

In addition, Carnival was forced to provide a full refund to its 1,700 passengers, as well as a 25 per cent discount on the price of the next cruise.Cruises all at sea* November 2003: More than 500 passengers on board the Aurora contract the norovirus. Engineering problems meant the ship was out of action for longer than had initially been feared. The chances of catching it on land are one in 12 compared to one in 4,000 on a cruise.Carnival Corporation, which owns P&O, revealed the financial damage caused by the Aurora debacle. The five-year-old ship was in Portugal on the first stop of the cruise and is now carrying on with its planned itinerary, stopping at Dubrovnik next, and taking in Palma, Sardinia, Naples, Rome, Corfu and Malaga before returning to Southampton on 5 June.A spokeswoman for P&O said that research had shown up to 1.5 million Britons contract the norovirus each year. Within the opulent confines of the ship, holidaymakers had been looking forward to evenings of cabaret entertainment and fine dining. This meant checking dishwashers and cleaning handrails, slot machines and gym equipment.The sick were given bottled water to prevent dehydration and everyone on board was given an advisory leaflet describing the symptoms and what they should do if they have them.The Oceana was playing host to 2,015 passengers, some of whom had paid up to £5,000 for the 17-day cruise around the Mediterranean.

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