Wednesday, 18 November 2009

West Sahara Desert –Nouahibou…Atar Wed 11th / Thurs 12th

Didn’t quite go to plan for everyone. Many suffered problems. One support vehicle rolled over, but all was ok. We nearly suffered the same fate when Richard failed to warn me of a danger spot on route which resulted in us driving straight into a massive hole by the railway line. This was because he was too busy waving at a local who was trying to warn us about the danger. Fortunately, no one was hurt from the oversight.

Desert driving is just how you imagine it. Sand as far as you can see, high sand dunes, odd camel in parts near the railway lines. At railway checkpoints, families live and are paid to keep the train checkpoints free of sand. Other than these families, we saw nobody for 2 days other than our co drivers. We travelled in a team of three. On the first day we did a 12 hours of flat out dune dodging and jumping and made it 50km further than any other team. Others got stuck a lot, broke suspension from bad dune landings etc. When changing a tyre on the track we spotted a large neon coloured scorpion very near to where we were kneeling. We camped near the railway and had the pleasure of seeing the world longest train pass us by night. From a very quiet desert it was spooky but magnificent to see the train slowly come. It could be heard and seen approaching at least one hour before it arrived. Camp fire was built and we made are own bread in the sand, this was reasonably successful and eaten for breakfast. With no night pollution the sky was lit with stars.

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