Did Breytenbach visit the Middle East?

"In this way one comes down into the desert. It is grey all around the eye, grey and barren and dry as if from some ancient and unlifted curse. Scattered about dimly observed in the myopia are darker objects. One is not certain whether they are alive or living only in the black stultifying flame of death. The curse is a flame. These perceptions may well be cacti or cactaceous rocks, all clarity damped off, daubed with a minute immobility now and dark with the colour of damson. Dark with the colour of damnation? One is not sure. Yet one senses the heterosis, the hybrid vigour of things unpleasant to the imagination because the eye is too shy to concentrate."