The year 2020 was a rollercoaster for many people, but no one more Dubai-based explorer Max Calderan. In February he became the first person to cross Saudi Arabia’s fabled Empty Quarter desert on foot. The next month, Calderan was joining the world in Covid-19 lockdown. After the freedom of the vast desert, the shift felt “like a prison sentence.”  Calderan had dreamed of undertaking the expedition since reading about the desert in an encyclopedia when