Just a tip from someone that managed to grab all the energy out of Valencia. You'd want to explore the desert in three days or less. Reason being that there's a very helpful item that's given by a quest from Martha Kiyen who's chilling in the entrance before Sand Grain Bazaar. The compass only lasts 3 days before it expires but it'll be very helpful in locating all the stupid node managers that are miles away from their nodes. It lets you actually see what the terrain looks like in your mini-map so that you can compare it to a map like http://www.somethinglovely.net/bdo/ and you can use your map feature again. I managed to do all this as well as complete both Valencia questline so it should be manageable.

As always, bring lots of purified water and try to explore during the day so you can actually see what's ahead. You'll find yourself shoving your face against cliffs trying to climb mountains a lot of the time. Most of the mobs are easy to handle which is a good thing if you are not that geared.