Mike Hettwer Photography - Documentary, Archaeology and Dinosaur

Expeditions - The Real Deal

The Real Deal is a collection of photos that shows an interesting and sometimes not so pretty, behind the scenes view of dinosaur and archaeology expeditions.

All Dinosaur Expedition Photos (c) 2008 Mike Hettwer Photography

The average temperature in the Sahara Desert is about 120 degrees every day with peaks as high as 132 degrees.
  
Grad student, Allison Beck, cut her foot but fortunately did not need stitches. There have been many cuts, sprains, and various sicknesses and infections on the expeditions.
   
The doctor examines a team member's eyeball scratched from the constant blowing sand.
     
  
Over a three-month expedition, the Land Rovers got stuck 300 times in the soft Saharan sand. There were also at least fifty flat tires and once a wheel vibrated off while the car was being driven.
   
The African Night Viper was found about fifty feet from camp, and its bite would kill a person in four hours. Unfortunately, the nearest clinic was a ten-hour ride across the Sahara.
   
One of the Niger army guards shows the bullets used in his rifle.
     
  
Paul Sereno fights an 80 mile per hour sandstorm that eventually tore apart the team's tents. It was not uncommon for a team member to wake up with a quarter inch of sand on his or her face.
  
The leftovers were supposed to be for lunch, but without refrigeration the vegetables turned into a sticky glop overnight.
  
Hans Larsen's T-shirt was so coated with salt from sweat, after not showering for 21 days, that it stood upright on the truck.
     
  
Luke Mahler had a temperature of 104 degrees from Malaria and had to drive ten hours back to Agadez for treatment. He probably got it two weeks before in the capital Niamey. He eventually recovered.
   
The team has enjoyed goat, sheep, snake, chicken heads, chicken feet, cold sliced fatty camel, animal organs, entrails, and other delicacies.
  
Nels Petersen wakes up with a hundred locusts on him - they were also with infested small blood sucking mites. The locusts swept across Africa during the drought and were drawn to water in the camp.
     
  
...is a shovel, a roll of tiolet paper, and a quarter mile walk.
  
The camp was being closed and the leftover water was brought to the top of a 100-foot dune. It worked out great until the second round when the sand on people's chests took off large chunks of skin.
  
Which water would you want to drink? The brown water comes from camel wells near the expedition and was drunk with iodine when the clear water ran out. The team drinks 6 to 10 liters of water per day.
     
  
In fact, they brought more beer than water. About five nights each week were spent toasting with the various Chinese dignitaries and military that visited.
  
At the end of a very long, hot expedition, renowned dinosaur hunter, Paul Sereno, jumps into a waterfall-fed pond in the Air mountains. Timia has huge undergound water reserves and grows some of the best fruits and vegetables in the middle of the Sahara Desert.