Climbed a dune barefoot at 4am. The sand still held the day's warmth. The sky was so dense with stars it had actual texture — the Milky Way as a physical thing rather than a metaphor. No ambient light for 200km in every direction.
By 5am a thin band of orange appeared over the Algerian border. By 6am the dunes were all fire and shadow. By 7am the heat had already started. The desert is a place of extremes, including temporal ones.