Starting a trek worthy of Indiana Jones, Michael Benanav begins his adventure in Timbuktu joining the Caravan of White Gold so called because the salt was once literally worth its weight in gold. His goal was to follow a camel caravan to the desert salt quarries of Taoudenni and back. They traveled eighteen hours a day for nearly a thousand miles without a map or landmark in sight through sandstorms and searing heat.

The western Sahara is a baking hot and desolate place, home only to nomads and their camels, and to locusts, snails and thorny scrub--and its barren and ever-changing coastline has baffled sailors for centuries. In August 1815, the US brig Commerce was dashed against Cape Bojador and lost, although through bravery and quick thinking the ship's captain, James Riley, managed to lead all of his crew to safety. What followed was an extraordinary and desperate...