"To enter the Medina at Fez seemed to me to be whirled right out of the 20th century. Like Alice and the White Rabbit, we tumbled down and round into an extraordinary medieval world." Author William Shawcross sets off down the old Sahara Salt Road to find the camel caravans that still draw pillars of salt out of the fiery depths of the Tenere desert. His journey brings him in contact with a sultan, some dinosaur hunters and an ancient nation struggling to survive. By the remote salt pans of Bilma he finds Afarnou, a descendant of the fearsome Tuareg - once lords of the desert - and joins him as he hauls salt across one of the harshest trade routes in the world.