There was a huge explosion, and rocks and dirt landed everywhere, but no one had been hurt.
A T the dirt landing strip, we were met by Faisal Ahmed Abdulle, 32, a translator from the Shamo Hotel.
There will, though, be someone demanding a $25 or $50 "customs fee" -- the representative of whatever warlord controls the dirt landing strip.
For the last two weeks, alliance forces have been constructing a dirt landing strip in the town of Golbahar, 20 miles north of the front line.
The fish are flown in prop planes from a dirt landing strip to Anchorage, and then by jet to Seattle and Chicago, kept packed in ice during the ride.
The dirt landed properly, and instruments showed that a vibrator on the screen designed to help shake soil into the chamber was working.
After 45 minutes, the Cessna touched down on a dirt landing strip with no airport, just sand dunes and a horizon stretching above the Bering Sea.
Few of the Okavango's more than 60 safari camps are connected by road, and access is provided by a handful of small Cessna airlines, which shuttle visitors from camp to camp, bumping down on grass or dirt landing strips and tarrying only long enough to drop one load of guests and pick up another.
A decade ago a visitor might have found homebuilt prop planes buzzing around two primitive dirt landing strips; portly survivalists with guns 'n' ammo waiting for the apocalypse; motorcycles and dune buggies doing wheelies in the sand dunes; artists fashioning Gaudilike accretions of tile and concrete; tinkerers building sinks, showers, goldfish pools and other spring-fed amenities.
When questioned as to how the dirt landed on her husband's back, Antoine-Pierre explained, "it must have bounced off the ground".
Try to avoid allowing the scraped-off dried mud and dirt to land on the chain.
