We couldn’t wait for our first taste of the real Sahara. Within an estimated twenty miles from El Golea a hand-painted sign saying Déviation vaguely pointed south-west and sent us off the road on a diversion. Not a hint of road works, land variation or other travellers gave us a clue to the reason. We paused for a toilet break. Just in case unseen eyes were watching or were to suddenly appear I opened the two doors on my side for maximum privacy while Ross went behind the car. These breaks would become rarer with our progression as mild dehydration took hold.
The faint dusty tracks of others led us over flat stony ground for two hours without any further signs, and no other vehicles to reassure us. As we drove vertical shapes shimmering from afar caught my eye and I pointed. We both peered into the hazy distance.
‘Could that be people do you think?’ I suggested.
We got closer.
‘I think they’re ostriches,’ said Ross. ‘What do you call a gathering of ostriches? A flock? A pack? It’s definitely not a flight!’
Here was a topic for conversation at last. We’d been joined at the hip for twelve days, said everything there was to say already, and without stimuli from other people or the view outside the capsule of the car long silences had grown longer.
‘A colony? A bevy? A brood?’ I suggested.
The tracks brought us nearer and hearing us the giant birds panicked and started to run in their dozens. We laughed delighted with their company. Instead of heading away from the car the ostriches kept apace for several miles keeping to a parallel line twenty yards away. Tiny heads on long skinny necks stretched forward as if to reach an imaginary finish line first and handsome wing feathers fluffed out wide, like ball gowns held up by flustered matrons. Sturdy clockwork legs eventually took them veering off into what looked like an arid pasture. I turned around to watch them still running in panic long after we’d passed.
More silent hours stretched through the sun-drenched height of the day. To our southeast we could just make out what looked like a mirage of shimmering water surrounded by swaying palms. A wakening energy stirred us out of lassitude and we kept our eyes on it deciding to go for a closer look. An escape from the hot car would be welcome, but fabled imaginary oases could play tricks and uncertainty teased us. The tracks we’d been following continued due south and we took a risk going off in search of a vision, but the closer we got the more solid the apparition became. Heaving a sigh of relief we drove into El Golea glad to have trusted our instincts to leave the tracks. We’d not seen another vehicle since taking the diversion and had travelled over a tedious 160 miles.
The oasis town is located at the gateway to the Sahara where records of all vehicles setting off on the Hoggar route are kept. Certain recommended standards had to be demonstrated before permission could be granted to cross the next dangerous part of the Sahara. Our main worry was ground-clearance.
Being hard-pushed for money half of our household effects took up much of the car space. We had sent our unbreakable belongings in a container for shipment to Zambia before our plans had changed. Assuming a gentle sea passage we had packed everything breakable or fragile into the boot and the back seat. In this way we saved on insurance and a larger container. We saw no real reason to change the arrangement before we left Edinburgh. Thus a four foot mirror, an electric sewing machine, all our glassware and crockery, a fan heater, breakable ornaments, and other such homely items travelled in the car with us. If we lost our way in the Sahara the mirror at least might come in handy to reflect the sun and draw attention to our position.
Much more important luggage joined this assemblage in London. Ross added five jerry cans; a set of tools; a first-aid box; three five-gallon plastic containers for drinking- water; a reasonable collection of car spares; maps; a small selection of tinned foods to be replenished as we travelled; and three spare wheels tied on to the roof-rack. The jerry cans would hold twenty five gallons of petrol to cover all eventualities, and the water containers when full would see us across the Sahara between towns. But the weight we carried forced the car body closer to the ground.
Arriving late in the afternoon we wasted no time and went straight to see about permission from the ‘Sous Prefecture’. We’d read the list of requirements in our AA and O.N.A.T literature and done all we could barring an improvement of the car’s ground clearance in its heavily laden state. Unnerved by the uncertainty of how strict they would be we knew there was a possibility of having to retrace our tracks. That thought was unbearable and not wanting to tempt fate had avoided discussing it.
The official walked around the car in his white shirt and long black trousers, a dapper vestige of the colonial regime, ticking boxes on the form attached to his clip-board. His hair had been plastered over to one side with haircream. The minimum ground clearance was thirteen centimetres and he took out a measure from his back pocket. We had repacked everything to redistribute the weight favourably, and left our petrol and water supplies low. He measured the distance, scratched his head and measured it again, then wrote a note on his pad. We waited. Forty minutes later after much deliberation and a thorough examination of the petrol and water capacity, the engine and wheels he wiped his hands on a rag and nodded his head. Our doubts evaporated when he announced ‘Bien,’ with a smile, and felt this to be an endorsement of the car’s suitability.
Resolution coursed back through our veins from his vote of confidence and we examined the prospect ahead. Our responsibility would be to report into the ‘Sous Prefecture’ of every town on our route, and if we failed to do so others going the same way in either direction would be looking out for us. The official would not specify how long we’d have to be missing before word would be given to other travellers, but this would be all we could hope for if we landed in trouble.
We had imagined a rather more robust safety net to be in place. In the Scottish Highlands, the largest uninhabited space in the UK, mountain rescue teams and the RAF would soon be called in for missing walkers and climbers. And yet the whole of the Highlands representing a mere blob on the map compared to the span we would be travelling just between one town and the next.
In the town we filled up the water containers with our quota of ten gallons from a public tap at the side of the road. As water gushed into the white plastic void we noticed a tight circle of teenage boys at the roadside poking something with a stick. Curious to see the victim we leaned over their crouching forms. A black scorpion about seven centimetres long (if its tail was straightened) crawled in the dirt poised for attack from the torment it was receiving. As it lashed its tail at the stick, the boys laughed, leaping up from time to time to keep their bare feet out of its reach.
Four of the thirty different varieties of scorpion in the Sahara are lethal to humans. Temporary paralysis, cardiac arrest, convulsions or respiratory failure can result from their venomous sting and in some species it’s as toxic as a cobra’s. This one was most likely an Emperor Scorpion, given its colour, and wasn’t particularly dangerous but could still give a painful sting.
Moslems believe that scorpions always return to where they were found and cannot be frightened away. Houses are very carefully cleaned, especially in corners and dark places, and in some North African countries Isawi dervishes or holy men took evening tours of the cities as the scorpions emerged from their hiding places. They would lure the creatures with fire and grab them with tongs for disposal. I thought of all the dark scorpion-friendly nooks and crannies in and under the car. We usually stopped about the same time as they’d be starting their night prowls so perhaps our vaccine might come in handy after all. I shuddered in the afternoon heat.
We didn’t hang about to test these theories, and drove off briskly to shake off any unwelcome hitch-hiking insects. After the car-inspection we had just enough time before sunset to change the back wheels to the ‘Town and Country’ tyres we thought more suitable for driving on sand. We soon had them fitted but the three spares had to be tied back onto the roof-rack in the dark.
As we fastened the ropes Thierry, a Frenchman, approached us. He was hitch-hiking to the Ivory Coast for a teaching assignment, and hoped to pay for a lift on a lorry or all-terrain vehicle like a Land Rover to take him across the desert. We didn’t qualify for the direction or the vehicle, quite apart from having no room for another passenger but we enjoyed talking to a fellow adventurer. Characters like this cropped up from time to time as we headed south. The Sahara was a huge magnet for unusual ventures by the bold, the romantic, the drop-out or the loner.
We climbed back into our ordinary saloon car and left El Golea for the usual out-of-town sleeping place with a full petrol tank, correct tyre pressures, water, and food. But the minute we’d parked Ross remembered that he’d wanted the wheel alignment to be re-checked before heading off into the wilderness. The wheels had taken so many knocks the chances were high they would need a realignment. We wanted an early getaway the next day so back-tracked to find a garage in town rather than waiting until morning
The garage owner worked slowly but got the job done, and after sorting out the bill he invited us into the garage for tea.
Ahmed was in his mid-forties and claimed to have worked all day and night, only getting four hours sleep. This explained his slow pace. Looking weary, with shadows under his eyes he shared his tea, biscuits, peanuts, and dates with us. He took great care to ensure the mint and tea-leaves were infused to perfection then crammed in some misshapen lumps of sugar and replaced the teapot lid. As we waited for the brew we admired a ‘Desert Rose,’ a rock with crystal groups forming a rose-like shape, which was being used as a paper-weight. In arid desert regions it contained trapped sand particles and hummed if it got wet, which presumably didn’t happen very often in the desert. To show us, Ahmed wet it at a tap and we all listened to the faint hum.
Ahmed showed us his identification booklet about himself, his wives and his children. Enough space had been allowed for details of four wives, plus their divorces, and fifteen children. The wives and children had no ID of their own. He had married twice, having divorced one wife, and boasted three children.
‘Who now carried the ID of the divorced wife?’ I wondered.
Perhaps it had been returned to her father.
‘This is my wife,’ he said fondly showing us a photo of wife number two, a dark-eyed beauty with a white veil draped over thick tumbling locks. ‘And this is my son, Omar.’ A third photo appeared. ‘Here are my two daughters,’ he smiled affectionately.
We admired the pictures and asked the ages of his children. When we left he gave us his card, a locally-grown orange, the ‘Desert Rose’ we now regretted admiring, and a rather severe photo of himself. We fought a losing battle trying to refuse these gifts, or give him payment for his kindness. He wouldn’t want cigarettes because he didn’t smoke (or drink). Finally he accepted an intricately decorated red tin tray which had been a wedding present, and a silver-plated teaspoon. The latter was one of a collection of spoons that Ross had won in school athletics competitions and was enamelled with the Heriot’s crest. Our motley collection of possessions carried in the boot had proved to be useful for the first time instead of a burden!
20th October
The hardest day of our short lives lay ahead and we had our suspicions from the start. Contrary to my childhood imaginings the Sahara desert is not covered in beautiful rolling sand-dunes or erg. There are also gravel plains (reg), dry valleys (wadis), and salt flats. But mostly it is made up of stony plateaux called hamadas which account for seventy per cent of the Sahara’s surface. They would provide our landscape for most of the remaining Algerian ‘soil’ we had to cross. Niger would prove a different experience.
The ‘piste’ loomed up ahead to mark the start of a truly challenging part of our journey. The metalled road ended spectacularly.
‘Travelling on laterite roads is a knack,’ the London AA man had explained. ‘They quickly become corrugated by traffic. To stop bumping up and down you have to take the car to an ideal speed of around thirty to forty miles an hour to float over the top of the corrugations and then you can travel more comfortably.’
The first section of the track we would be following rose on a stony incline that in no way matched the description we’d been given. Heavy trucks had churned the ground to get purchase on the slope, throwing up stones and deepening the furrows. Already we felt we had the wrong vehicle and wondered at being given permission to travel. Even with good ground clearance the stony rutted surface ahead would give any vehicle a challenge. Ross stopped the car and we sat silently looking at it.
‘I can’t risk taking the car up that,’ he said. ‘The lowest part of the engine is the sump and if a stone hit it badly enough all the oil would drain away. We’d be finished!’
With this sobering thought we decided to clear a reasonable path up the hundred yard hill.
‘But we can’t do that for the hundreds of miles of Sahara still to be negotiated,’ I thought to myself. Ross had applied himself to the task so I joined him, throwing stones aside and filling in gaps with others.
‘One step at a time,’ I told myself firmly, we had been given permission by the Sous Prefecture official after all.
Back in the car we tried again, but still the loose stones and corrugations made the car and everything in it judder as we ploughed onwards. In later years we travelled widely in Africa and elsewhere, but never came across corrugations like these again.
‘I can’t take this much longer, I’m going to try the floating theory so hang on to your seat!’ Ross wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand.
With the engine revving we bumped violently over the stony ridges at speed but never arrived at the ‘floating’ stage and our nerves soon gave out. We felt ill both from the shake-up and the realisation that neither we nor the car could survive much more punishment. At last we reached the top of the hill hoping for a smoother ride but still the car juddered over the corrugations. My head spun from the heat, the shaking, and from racking my brains for a solution. For the first time since leaving London I had serious doubts about what we were doing, but knew it was too late for these thoughts to be spoken and regretted the disregard I’d shown for all the warnings. A few minutes later we stopped for a rest and a rethink. Ross investigated another noise coming from beneath us and found the rear-suspension bump stop had broken loose and looked irreparable. As protection for the underside of the car, two six inch cubes of rubber are vulcanised on to a steel plate, which in turn is welded to the chassis. If the rear axle is forced upwards from driving over rough ground, it hits these rubber blocks instead of the chassis, which could rupture with the impact.
Our poor new car! He decided to stick it back on immediately with epoxy resin and hope for the best.
As he busied himself with the repair I assessed the damage inside the car. The glove compartment had flown open breaking the catch so that it could no longer be closed without turning the key in the lock. We used it to store all sorts of odds and ends including our first aid supplies. They had been rattled and shaken so much that pens dismantled and lids fell off containers. I opened the clinical thermometer casing to find the mercury had burst the glass; not only from the vibrations but from the temperature too. Our first taste of unpaved roads did not bode well for the thousands more we still had to travel.
This was the Tademait plateau, a ‘hamada’ covering the area between El-Golea and In Salah. Flat, dull, stony desert stretched forever all around us. Not a creature, building or vehicle disturbed its arid eternity. We were completely alone. A few scrubby bushes provided a scattering of growth and they would also soon disappear.
Boulders lined the side of the ‘piste’ but we could see vehicle tracks in the dust at the side of the road which suggested that others had chosen a different ride. Ross shoved three smaller boulders away from the roadside to make a passageway for the car. He cautiously steered the car onto a better surface off-road. We enjoyed a couple of miles in less discomfort but as soon as the tension in my shoulders loosened the car sank into soft ground. ‘Sand ladders’ would have been useful if we had them. We had yet to find out about these, and we didn’t even have a shovel to dig ourselves out. If it had been on the O.N.A.T list we’d have bought one, but it was futile to blame them and we were kicking ourselves for not guessing this new obstacle. Unfazed we soon found other resources. Rummaging through our belongings in the boot I pulled out two large Tupperware containers.
‘We could use these for digging couldn’t we?’ I asked.
‘I think we might have to,’ laughed Ross.
Although they could have done with being more rigid, they became our makeshift shovels throughout the Sahara crossing and would see plenty of hard use unmentioned at Tupperware parties.
After this unexpected new hazard we returned to the less comfortable safety of the piste for a while, but Ross was soon ready to risk another attempt at following the vehicle tracks. We studied the land as he drove looking for telltale signs of soft sand.
‘The soft sand seems to look paler in colour, don’t you think?’ I asked.
We peered over the black vinyl trim of the dashboard studying the desert floor as we went. Ross avoided the paler patches and we got into a rhythm of watching and weaving to make headway at a maximum speed of twenty five miles per hour until we arrived at a dry river bed.
At some time this river had been a torrent because it measured half a metre deep and thirty metres wide. When rainstorms hit they would be frightening. Sand as soft as talcum powder lined the dry bed and as I stood on it I sank up to my ankles laughing at the sensation.
‘Watch out it could be quicksand,’ shouted Ross.
I leapt on to the bank in fright, fearful of being swallowed up. There seemed to be nowhere suitable to cross. Bumping along the edge we explored the river bank by car, then on foot until we found a shallower section of the bank to drive down on to the dry bed. The texture at the edges felt more solid but a stick poked into the sand on the river bottom sank every time into softness. Bent double and walking backwards, we excavated a ramp down to the river bed with our plastic boxes. Ross walked back along the sand approaching the river bank and located the firmest patches of ground. He marked a trail through them with small stones and pieces of dried-out grass whose growth survived along the bank. He planned to accelerate for fifty metres following the track to the river’s edge and building up enough speed in the process to span the squishy barrier. Hopefully this would carry the car to the opposite bank with its own momentum.
I stood aside ready to push if needed and he started the engine. Accelerating furiously and managing to reach forty five miles an hour the car and driver shot across the ramp only to plunge straight into the sandy middle as if it was water. Pushing would only have made things worse. The household goods and clothing stored behind our seats catapulted to the front. The wheels on the roof-rack broke their bindings and went flying. The battery had been wrenched from its mountings and lay at a drunken angle beside the engine, and the car sat immersed in sand only five metres from the near bank.
There was nothing for it but to go back. I denied myself the luxury of tears. We jacked-up the back wheels one at a time and since sand seeped above the bodywork we first had to clear it away with the now ingrained Tupperware containers. The piece of wood found on the dump outside Ghardaia came in handy for supporting the jack on soft ground and we set to work. With the jack supporting the car’s weight and the wheel clear of sand we could dig below it and place what stones we could find under the first back wheel to provide a solid base. The metal strip we’d found at the same time was also placed behind the wheels and we wished we’d picked up more for our self-made mini-track.
‘Take care when you’re scraping under the car that it doesn’t fall on top of you!’ warned Ross.
We expected much from the slender pillar jack which had come with the car. It held the weight of half the vehicle on top of its fragile metal frame on a base that was none too solid.
Working underneath the car: ( said the workshop manual)
It cannot be over-emphasised that no jack on its own is adequate for supporting the car when working underneath. If you are going to work under the car some extra means of support must be provided to avoid the very real danger of death or injury. Really heavy baulks of timber or large, square blocks of hard stone may provide adequate support but piles of bricks, breeze blocks or light sections of wood are not safe.
We scoured the sand away from the wheels and as more of the weight shifted on to the jack, golden metal creaked in warning. Our heads sprang up to watch in horrified anticipation then the movement settled and our arms and heads went back under the bodywork to scrape some more. The dangerous work wasn’t finished. We repeated this procedure with the other wheel and then dug away enough of the sand behind the car to lay a small stony track. Our clothes stiffened with evaporating sweat and the silent sun deafened our brains.
An hour later with the battery secured back in place and the wheels on the roof-rack tied back down, we gulped some more water and took a deep breath. I leant my weight against the front of the car ready to push while Ross started the engine and engaged reverse gear. The wheels spun but only to force our laboriously laid stony track under the sand. Stuck fast again we realised our pathetic track was futile and we’d have to put more than stones under the wheels.
‘FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!’ yelled Ross still in the driver’s seat, banging his head on the steering wheel with each expletive.
I walked slowly to the car listening to his outburst, found the packet of Players Number Six and lit two cigarettes, handing one to him wordlessly. We flicked ash into the giant ashtray that was the Sahara, both of us desperately trying to think of a better solution.
‘We could use the spare wheels to drive across,’ suggested Ross bouncing back from his despair five minutes later and climbing out to untie the ropes on the roof rack. ‘We won’t progress very fast but at least they’ll provide a firm base.’
All over again sand had to be hollowed out beneath the back wheels and we laid the spares in the hollows. The sun never lost its ferocity. Ross reversed as far as he could using the spare wheels as a platform, but it was never more than a few extra inches before we were back in the sand’s clutches. So a little over a wheel’s diameter at a time we repeated the whole procedure until at dusk we finally succeeded in making our way back out of the river bed centimetre by tortured centimetre. In all we’d spent five hours of exhausting, dirty work in baking conditions without making any progress in our journey and we still had the river bed to negotiate the next morning. Our first day off the unpaved road had been a trial from first thing in the morning to this potentially disastrous obstacle which would continue to dog us the following day.
Sitting in the dark car that night we made plans for further attempts in the same vein. The work in prospect looked enough to keep a team of navvies busy for a day. The two of us with our Tupperware were not looking forward to tackling it. I felt catastrophe snapping at our wheels.
21st October
We rose with the sun to start work in the coolest part of the day but as we dejectedly stepped out to begin, a lorry came trundling towards us. This was the first vehicle we’d seen since leaving the paved road, and what joy!! The driver and his mate attached our rope between the front of our car and a hook at the back of their truck and in no time had towed us over the insurmountable obstacle of the river bed. Words could not express our gratitude and we left the bad memory behind as we mustered fresh determination for whatever the next challenge might be.
Conversation became barren like our surroundings. We battled with thoughts we daren’t speak, neither wanting to acknowledge our vulnerability. If we could stay positive things would be alright. But with the riverbed effectively blocking the way behind us it would be even harder to go back. Our situation became a private war, with us against adversity and tensions only came from outside our relationship. We had the same focus, goal, fears and aspirations and knew if we didn’t present a united front we’d be courting trouble. So, mutually dependent, we never risked falling out. Difficult moments could be resolved in cigarette puffing instead of bickering.
Even further from civilisation and still heading south we saw lines of tracks alongside the road as before. Ross decided to continue his strategy of alternating these with the official road when the surface looked smoother. At last his satisfactory compromise let us make some progress and our sunken spirits dared to raise a little hope. We rolled along for several hours in complete silence recovering from the lows of the day before and as we both later admitted, said a few prayers.
Through the haze gentle hills rose up to the east of us and after a few minutes the outline of a building sitting astride the topmost hill became clear. We left the road to investigate. ‘Fort Miribel’ said a battered sign.
‘This has to be worth a photo,’ I said, ‘where’s the camera?’
Ross dug out our old Brownie Instamatic bargain-basement camera with its tiny amount of remaining film. Black and white film was cheaper than colour, and budget constraints prevented us from buying more. We walked up to the nineteenth-century solid walls and tried to peer through a barricaded doorway. A tiny glimpse of an open interior with arches was enough to conjure up images of French troops fighting off marauding Tuaregs with swords and muskets. It kept our minds and conversation buoyant for a couple of hours.
The bumps got noticeably worse and another puncture forced us to stop. The routine of wheel-changing now had us mechanically stepping out, collecting the jack and the slab of wood which we’d learned to keep at the top of the boot contents, and releasing a spare wheel from the roof-rack. Along the deserted road another car approached from the south and the driver slowed to see why we’d stopped. His bull head was swathed in a turban and sturdy legs in baggy Arabian trousers leapt out as he came to greet us. A wide-eyed boy gazed out at us from the battered Citroën Dyane. A tuft of white-blond hair had escaped from his smaller turban.
‘Bonjour,’ we chorused.
‘Hello, you are English, yes?’ A strong handshake matched the rest of him.
‘Scottish,’ Ross gave his standard reply still hoping for some advantage from the Auld Alliance in a country with French connections.
Wilhelm Kahn, a German, was travelling north with his six-year old son to Ghardaia.
‘Your tyres are too coarse,’ he remarked crossing his arms and leaning back authoritatively, his desert boots firmly planted on the sand. ‘Smooth ones are much better for sand. And you should carry sand-ladders.’
‘What are they?’ We asked.
Sand ladders were ladder-like strips of metal, he explained, which could be placed in front of or behind the wheels to allow them to grip the surface of the metal and ‘climb’ out of trouble. They could straddle soft patches of sand allowing the wheels to grip something solid for a few feet. Then he described how our thick tyres would spin and dig a hole to make the car sink deeper into the sand, whereas smooth worn ones could skim the surface. Ross and I exchanged knowing looks as we remembered the antics of the day before.
During our preparations I had checked the Hillman Hunter Workshop Manual for clues to things we might need. It revealed the type of ‘winter tyres’ recommended for ‘snow, mud or soft ground,’ but no mention of tropical conditions. Ross had procured two extra wheels in London with ‘Town and Country’ tyres thinking their chunky construction would be good in sand. Wilhelm was recommending the opposite.
We leaned against the hot golden metal of the car to chat awhile and I regarded his modest vehicle. Its ground clearance looked much better than ours, an uncomplicated basic engine would allow for easy repairs, and a light load meant less likelihood of sinking into sand.
‘I vas in ze Foreign Legion during ze Algerian war, ya? Und I have come back vith my son to see how things are now. It vas hard and ve soldiers had a tough time, but I have some good memories of zose days.’
Too soon he strode back to rescue the boy from the heat of his stationary car then this breath of fresh air breezed off in a dust cloud. For miles we found no other distractions for our minds to ponder amongst the endless stones and sand. Questions we wished we’d asked the knowledgeable desert veteran crowded our thoughts. My imagination played out scenes of Legionnaires singing their hearts out to their signature slow march. Heads topped with white kepis would be gleaming in the sun, red epaulettes flamboyant against the colourless desert landscape and they would be harmonising with deep baritone voices.
Poles had been planted all along the piste similar to those we’d seen in the North of Scotland to indicate the road’s location under snow drifts. We supposed they could do the same job for drifting sand dunes. A monotonous outlook allowed Ross to concentrate fully on the land surface and aim for the least stony parts of the piste to avoid damaging the underside of the car. To relieve the boredom of a dull landscape someone had piled up boulders to look like people or animals with arms, and ears. We laughed at the joke and passed some time imagining who’d arranged the stones and what they’d been doing here. The likelihood would be French military conscripts as they laboured over constructing the road we travelled.
It was late afternoon and getting cooler when we reached a steep winding descent from the plateau. After hours of mind-numbing stony flat ground the startling mountains and crags enthralled us, and we followed a long perilous track down, wary of skidding on loose stones and the car flying over the edge. On the level again Ross steered the car into a hot dry valley. We’d entered a very different landscape, much sandier than the hamada we’d been travelling. Out of the Chichili wind which traversed southern Algeria, the temperature soared. Eeriness engulfed us in the stillness of the wadi, spreading an uneasiness which had nothing to do with the threat of becoming stuck in the sand again. Soon we passed a group of three bleached camel skeletons. We drove on.
Still hoping to reach In Salah before dark, an innocent-looking track turned into a sand dune with large jagged stones lurking under the surface. At the end of a testing day we felt like the proverbial camel with a broken back and the three skeletons came to mind. But the air had cooled and we somehow found the wherewithal to step out and tackle our next disaster.
I scraped away sand from behind the back wheels and stood back to let Ross reverse as far as he could. Then I scraped some more. It was much the same story as before and with patience the car returned to solid ground again. I fell into my car seat hot, disagreeable and tired; all I wanted to do was curl up and sleep away this nightmare. Then Ross pushed the lever under the front bumper, released the catch and raised the bonnet. I lost sight of him.
‘Come and look at this,’ he groaned.
I dragged myself back out of the car, not wanting to know. He was looking with disbelief into the engine compartment.
Horrors!
Sand had penetrated every corner, the battery had been wrenched from its mounting again and the water bag for the windscreen spray had disappeared. Ross bent over the engine examining various parts.
‘If sand gets into the air intake,’ he shook his head helplessly, ‘or into the oil,’ more head shaking, ‘or into the engine…’ he paused and looked up at me. ‘We’d be finished,’ he ended quietly.
His near whisper frightened me far more than the noisy ranting he’d shouted earlier. My head swam.
‘We only have one spare air filter and this could happen twenty more times.’ He went on. ‘I don’t know what to do.’
We did the best we could to sweep off the sand; Ross checked connections and leads and then moved the car to stonier ground for the night. Neither of us dared speak while the brief flamboyant sunset failed to work its usual magic. We hadn’t seen a living soul for hours.
22nd October
A grim prospect awaited us for a second morning. We changed the wheels back to those with less chunky tyres, following Wilhelm’s advice. Then Ross mustered up the courage to re-examine the engine in the cooler morning temperature and with a cooler head. The battery mountings could no longer do their job so he decided to relocate the battery to a safer place inside the car between my feet. This involved disconnecting the wires, chipping a hole through from the engine to the foot-well of the car, and reconnecting the wires to the battery. This act felt like vandalism on a car not yet four months old, and my comfort would be compromised even more.
I found our solitary air filter in the boot and Ross replaced the dirty one. He took the cover off the old one, brushed out the inside, tapped the filter to knock out the dust, blew into it, reassembled it and set it aside in case we were forced to use it again. With the benefit of a good night’s sleep he then had the brainwave of covering the air-intake with a tissue secured by an elastic band in order to keep the air-filter in reasonable condition. The additional budget filter could be renewed twice daily until we got out of the desert and did not seem to affect the cooling system adversely. In addition to this new rigmarole he swapped the filters and repeated the brushing, knocking and blowing procedure every few days to minimise the possibility of engine damage from sand particles.
The problem was serious. Some twelve years later Mark Thatcher, later to be knighted, failed to finish the Paris to Dakar rally. Newspapers reported one of his problems to be a lack of compression in his car engine. His air filter had allegedly been destroyed by sand which subsequently got into the engine and ground the cylinders and valves beyond use.
At the approach to In Salah a smooth bitumen road took us into the town. The name In Salah means ‘good well,’ although the water is known for its rather unpleasant, salty taste. It had been a trading town in the past dealing in slaves, ivory and gold from the south in exchange for European goods from the north. Arriving at eight o’clock we sought out a petrol supply before doing anything else. Our tank didn’t yet register empty but we felt we should maximise our capacity for safety’s sake.
Only ‘essence’ was on offer and up until then we’d always used ‘super,’ a higher octane so we hoped for the best when we asked for a full tank and a top-up for the jerry cans.
Next we found a public water supply and again topped up our containers to their fullest capacity. If the local water did not taste too good we wouldn’t notice because the water-purifying tablets which we’d been using made it taste horrible anyway.
After three days away from civilisation we enjoyed the comforting reassurance of the small town. Looking for a shovel and sand-ladders we made enquiries. My translation for the latter was inadequate, and my pocket dictionary no help because I couldn’t make myself understood. We could borrow a shovel and had several offers, but none was for sale. We gave up our search as the smell from a bakery drew us in. We treated ourselves to delicious oven-hot bread and a bottle of lemonade from a nearby stall, and then headed to the Sous Prefecture to report we were still alive and not lost.
The smooth ‘graded’ road of the town ended and by ten o’clock we were back on corrugated ‘piste’. Our first problem came quickly since Tamanrasset wasn’t sign-posted. We hadn’t really expected a sign but we’d arrived at a fork in the road. The better option seemed to be the one pointing due south. Five miles along the track a flimsy wooden notice told us it was the right one.
‘Perhaps today would be kinder to us,’ I hoped silently, but soon we came to more sand in the road like the night before. We sat and looked at it wondering what to do, and then opted for a risky off-track detour to try branching round it. Crossing fingers didn’t help and we slowly stopped in soft sand. The sun’s rays were rising to grill-heat, and all our efforts to get out were in vain.
An hour later we were sitting overheated, tired and ratty in our car seats when a lorry drew up beside us. With a nod for a greeting and without any explanation or requests on our part, the two men set about the task of towing us out and we were soon freed from the sand’s clutches. They suggested we try the road again before they left us and it came as no surprise when the sand sucked all the motion out of our wheels again. They gave us another tow out.
‘Yesterday we did the same for a German car and an English vehicle,’ remarked the Arab driver in French.
‘We met a German,’ said Ross ‘but didn’t see the English, I wonder what happened to them?’
I translated.
‘Perhaps they followed some tracks far from the road,’ he ventured with a shrug and a gaze out into wilderness.
A picture of some poor Brits alone and stranded flashed into my mind. Leaving the track was a risk we had avoided taking for fear of getting lost. We’d also lose the chance to meet other travellers who could help us out of difficulties. Even when not in trouble it was reassuring and good to share experiences as any information could be useful.
We thanked them and carried on but two hundred metres further on the car sank again into sand and by this time it was midday with our saviours having disappeared out of sight through a shimmer of heat. Resigned to the inevitable we took out our Tupperware to clear a path out. Before we’d finished another Algerian truck passed going in our direction and they soon completed our escape from the sandy predicament. They advised us to leave the road and make a wide detour around it which we’d been scared to do after our last mishap. They offered to lead us, and knowing that we could follow them and indicate if we ran into trouble we accepted with gratitude. The ground proved to be much firmer and we followed the lorry until we couldn’t take the strain any more. Following fifty yards behind them meant ‘eat my dust,’ and with our windows open to catch the breeze for coolness we could hardly breathe, our eyes smarted and our nostrils clogged up. Closing the windows with the fan on full pelt felt like being baked alive, so we backed up a bit without losing sight of them, washed away the dust with swigs of water and enjoyed a cleaner air-intake. When the piste became clear of windswept sand for a good distance ahead, Ross overtook them and we waved to our saviours in gratitude.
The heat of the day could be measured by the frequency of the engine overheating in spite of the extra water-cooler in our export-edition car. At its worst midday ferocity it forced us to stop every half-hour. A cool swim or a long chilled drink would have been heaven. Hours passed by in a haze of dehydration making me fuzzy-headed. Clarity came with enforced drinking of warm treated water, but never did we crave that stuff.
Leaving the windows open had been the best way to get some impression of coolness into the car. Off the surfaced roads this brought an influx of fine sand making hair stiff, getting into every corner of our possessions, and becoming ingrained in the recently pristine car interior. The dashboard would never look the same. We stopped at dusk because driving in the dark made it difficult to judge the land surface and we didn’t like the sound of clonks and clanks coming from below. The other side of the rear axle stopper had become loose.
23rd October
In the cool of the morning Ross spent two hours repairing the car with me standing by as assistant. I held the Workshop Manual and read aloud: -
Bonnet Rattles: These may be due to free play at the front catch.
‘Is that all it says?’ said Ross.
The bonnet had loosened and some of the rivets holding the hinges had sheared. Ours was obviously not a common problem with normal use. We’d been doing something more akin to stock-car racing.
The wheels had moved on the roof-rack rubbing another hole in the paintwork. I checked the little blue book of ‘Owners Instructions’.
If a roof rack is fitted the total weight carried must
never exceed 100lb (45kg).
‘We’re carrying less then that,’ said Ross. ‘The wheels will weigh about eighty to ninety pounds altogether. But it doesn’t allow for ‘shock loading’ from all the corrugations and jolts. That makes the equivalent load far greater, which is why there’s rubbing. You can’t really measure ‘shock loading’ but we’ve certainly suffered enough bumps and jolts!’
I abandoned the books which didn’t seem to hold much relevance to our situation. Ross had fixed one rear-suspension bump stop a few days earlier and now the other one was loose from constant pounding by the back axle. He pulled it off then fixed it back in place with epoxy resin. At eight o’clock he’d finished and we started on our way, hopeful that Ross had already discovered all the things which could go wrong. At least the bonnet didn’t rattle quite as much as before.
We managed to stir ourselves into a few renders of ‘It’s a long and a dusty road,’ and drove until midday. The temperature gauge indicated an overheated engine and we were forced to stop. A rare small tree just over a metre high became our next stopping point. We made best use of the little shade it offered and hung the blanket over the open bonnet in the hope of shading the engine from relentless sun rays. Waiting for the heat to dissipate left us with no escape because at midday the car could offer no shadow. Inside it was like an oven, and underneath it would be worse, albeit in shadow. My pale complexion had not been tested beyond the summer temperatures of northern Europe and I made a makeshift head-covering with a tee shirt but left my arms bare. In the cooling breeze I was fooled into complacency as we watched lizards darting around the rocks. After half an hour the engine had hardly cooled at all but we set off regardless. That evening my skin burned where it had been exposed at midday and I slept restlessly in the cold night. Two days later a cluster of bubbling blisters covered my upper arms, hardening to thick dry itchy crusts.
We drove on for an hour and stopped again but this time Ross parked the car into a stiff breeze. No accommodating shadows could be found in the barren stony landscape which still stretched forever without interruption. The breeze made little difference and just seemed to bring more heat all the quicker. Like a hairdryer on top heat it created the opposite of the wind-chill factor. Ross went back to tracking lizards, while I covered my head again with a tee shirt and sat on the ground just trying to breathe. Finding the energy to even think was a challenge and conversation between us had virtually stopped, we were both sapped.
The climax of heat waned as it always did. At about three o’clock we made a move, and ten miles further on a gazelle leapt past us in the opposite direction.
‘Where on earth did that come from?’ I laughed, pleasantly surprised by this apparition.
It considerably raised our spirits and gave us a safe subject for conversation which wouldn’t drag our lagging morale further down than it was already. We wondered what the creature could eat to sustain itself in the wilderness and maintain such beauty.
Later we passed a tiny village, the first since leaving In Salah. The inhabitants looked the most poverty-stricken people we’d ever seen. They sat listlessly in long, coarse, raggedy, brown clothes and survived in grass-houses in the heart of the desert with the help of a few goats and camels. We guessed they were nomads. Like the gazelle they scraped an existence from nothing, and their children bright-eyed, tangle-haired and mischievous chased one another round in the dust on tough bare feet. Their fine brown hair stuck up in unkempt tufts as if it had never seen a comb. The village offered nothing for us so we kept on going.
An hour later in complete wilderness we spotted a figure running towards us. His tattered clothes flapped around him in the wind. The old man waved his arms as he ran and everything about him spoke urgency. Ross applied the brakes.
‘Avez-vous de l’eau s’il vous plait?’ He asked us, panting from his exertions. He wanted water for himself and his sons who were watching the animals. With a tall staff in his hand he appeared as I’d imagined John the Baptist to look with a long straggly beard, matted hair and a wild desperate look in his eyes. It would be unthinkable to refuse him and reserve our dwindling supplies in case of emergency, so we filled his container and also gave him some bread. A stilted conversation followed but little information exchanged, his French being virtually incomprehensible to my ears. Manic eyes shifted to left and right as he nodded in thanks and watched us drive away slowly trying not to cover him in a dust cloud. He waved as though we were old friends.
This left us little water to get to Tamanrasset but according to one solitary sign-post we only had sixty miles to go. We trusted the rogue sign without question. Nearly two hours of good day-light remained and we congratulated ourselves on our progress. The fierce heat of the day receded. This and the memory of people surviving in dire poverty had cured our self-pity and inertia. But two and a half hours later after travelling at a steady sixty miles per hour Tamanrasset had not materialised. Darkness was falling, we’d run out of water and to make things worse we got a puncture with a large dent appearing on one of the rear wheel rims. Ross became silent, obviously battling with demons.
By this time I knew the ropes when it came to punctures, so I got out of the car to fix this one, giving Ross the break he desperately needed. Under normal conditions the noise from a bump or rut severe enough to dent the wheel rim would have made him stop the car immediately to look for wheel damage. But here the constant pelting from stones and rocks had become the norm, and damage to the car an inescapable fact. For someone who had revelled in an unblemished new car only a few weeks ago, it must have been torture.