NASkeet
Samba Member
Joined: April 29, 2006
Posts: 2958
Location: South Benfleet, Essex, UK
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 Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 7:59 am Post subject: Long-distance overland & off-road expeditions |
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As some of you might be aware, I have recently been collating information, about Arthur Barraclough's much modified, 1970 VW "1600" Type 2, hightop Devon campervan, in which he and his wife, travelled nearly ¼ million miles, visiting 57 countries, over a period of nearly 25 years:
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=196043
In addition to Simon Holloway's brief review: Simon Holloway, "Van of the Year: BWR 4H – Arthur Barraclough", Transporter Talk, Issue 18, August 1995, pp17~20.
http://www.vwt2oc.org
followed by:
http://www.vwt2oc.org/1995/voy/index.asp
the Volkswagen Type 2 Owners' Club, also published excerpts from Arthur's wife's journal, about their travels in Africa, as follows:
Arthur Barraclough, "Excerpts from Africa, Part 1", Transporter Talk, Issue 23, June 1996, pp13~16.
Arthur Barraclough, "Excerpts from Africa, Part 2", Transporter Talk, Issue 24, August 1996, pp14~19.
So far, these don't appear to have been appended to the Volkswagen Type 2 Owners' Club, Internet website, so for your edification, I shall transcribe them herein, so that you might learn about some of the delights and perils, of overland and off-road travel, in a 1968~79 VW Type 2, from one who has experienced them first hand.
As with my earlier posting, I shall discuss and comment upon, this journal, as and when time permits. Later, I shall draw your attention to the travels of some other intrepid adventurers and their vehicles, including omissions in their preparations of self and vehicle, for these excursions into the unknown. You might recall the teachers' & examiners' maxim, "Failure to prepare, is preparation to fail!"
In the meantime, happy reading.
Regards.
Nigel A. Skeet
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Arthur Barraclough, "Excerpts from Africa, Part 1", Transporter Talk, Issue 23, June 1996, pp13~16.
I have just enjoyed reading 'A Year with Heidi'. During our travels with 'Rosie' (she has a Yorkshire rose painted on her side) my wife kept detailed records of our journeys. It was our third overland trip to india and we decided to return via Africa, after wandering around India for 5 months, we sailed from Bombay ot the Seychelles and thence to Mombasa. After wandering around Africa for some months, there came the dificult job of getting back home. Here are some excerpts of that journey, giving a description of one of the difficult parts.
..... I have no recollection of exactly how many times we dug ourselves out that day; it is a brurred succession in my mind of heaving sand mats about, jacking up, pushing, digging, and sometimes even cursing Rosie for choosing to give in with her back wheels right up against a thorn bush which would thrust its mini rapiers into our backsides as we worked. The heat was cruel and inescapable, the sky a burning inverted bowl, trapping us. After two minutes work our throats were congealed and we would stagger to the van door and water bottle, that hot, faintly chrorine water. If in eagerness you take a good gulp, at first it makes you cough and splutter – gently, gently, a mouthful for a start, let it trickle down, then a real swig. Back to work for another few minutes.
Had the surface been flat it would have in many ways been easier, but there were the wide dry wadis full of soft sand which had to be rushed and bang, bang, goes the suspension as you crash down into them and leap out again. Many were the times, of course, when we didn't leap out of them. once a Turgi in his dark blue robes, leading a string of camels helped me with the pushing, solemnly refusing sweets, biscuits or anything else afterwards, but sinking two mugs of water, as though pouring them down an open drain. Otherwise it was our own panting toil that set us off once more.
Always the land was rising, very gradually, but rising, and we could see ahead of us, endless as though it encompassed the whole world and scrub-dotted, not in the least what we expected the desert to be. When the day was at its hottest, we stuck yet again on a steeper incline than usual, went to survey and with one accord, slumped back into our seats, too tired, too dispirited to do anything about it for a while. With our good roof insulation and all doors wide open, it was cooler in there, but even so, immobile as we were, sweat ran into our eyes, down our backs, down our chests.
We dozed uneasily until suddenly, from nowhere, there were two young men and four girls round us, all dressed in similar dark blue, long garments. They surveyed us jovially, chattered amongst themselves and indicated that they were eager to push. Without hope, we cleared a way for the back wheels, Arthur climbed back into the van and the rest of us pushed amidst much giggling from the girls. To my astonishment, away went Rosie up the slope, only stopping when she reached firm sand, for me to catch up.
(I should have put in here, something to the effect that, back in Nairobi, we had been told that we should need sand mats in the Sahara, and we had envisaged something that would roll up when not in use and stow away neatly. It was a good thing that we were disillisioned before we left there, when it was stressed that nothing less flimsy than steel would be any use and accordingly, Arthur had some made, ridged for strength, about 5 feet by 2 feet. We met the pukka jobs on the sides of old high trucks in the desert, much later, and they have lipped holes spaced out, which not only may give a bit of extra grip, but also lessens the weight.)
This was a great boost to our morale for some reason, which lasted for an incredible eighteen miles, before we went into the old routine again – and again – and again, until long after dark and axle deep in sand, we abandoned the struggle for the night, ate corned beef and sardines, straight from the tins, and as I said, laid on the sand beside the van, a half moon high above us and hot wind blowing; too hot, too tired to go to bed.
I had turned off the little fridge; it seemed pointless to use gas to keep things down ot 100 ºF. Where were those bitter cold nights of the desert? Would I ever be able to wash off this stucco of sweat and sand? I thought about it all in a detached way, unable to arouse myself from the contentment of just lying there in the darkness; no sun, no digging, no pushing.
We had at least gained a good deal of experience in the art of getting out of trouble; sometimes a one woman push was sufficient, or a fig out in front of the back wheels; deeper in and we needed the sand mats to shove beneath them, but deeper still and we needed the full treatment of the two jacks out to lift the wheels entirely, and much digging to make a bed for the sand mats to go beneath them. Usually this worked first time, but occasionally when Arthur started up, Rosie would contemptuously flick one or both of those steel mats backwards from beneath her and as I stood there ready to push, I had some narrow escapes as I nimbly leapt sideways to avoid having my feet sliced off. It mad me quite nervous and I began to stand well aside and leave her to get on with it one her own.
Tomorrow at first light we should have to start all over again. It was perhaps a couple of hours later, when the utter silence was disturbed by a far off murmur of sound. "Engines! I can hear engines!" I said to Arthur and sure enough in the the distance the beams of two sets of headlights were swinging wildly up and down and sideways. We were near to the piste and in five minutes two ancient high sided trucks stopped alongside us and a score of men were dropping from them.
They assessed our situation with experienced eyes, dug out the sunken wheels, brought enormously long sand mats from the trucks and tilting the van bodily, first one side the the other, placed them under the wheels and then twenty chaps pushing away as she went, until on firm ground again.
They gathered around Arthur and clearly wished him well, then filed past me, shaking my hand in turn and I felt like a queen. The engine roared into life again, the men gathere up their flowing robes, and grabbing ropes and any handholds they could find, swarmed up the sides of the trucks, the last ones still on the upward climb as they lurched into the night.
At dawn we started rolling again and in two minutes flat we stopped. In the first three hours we made two miles and then me met a Turgi and his string of camels, who told us, with many signs that we would be better on the other side of the piste. It was not an easy feat. I began to feel most peculiar, with burning hot flesh in a shivering skin and feebly I sat pretty wel uncaring whilst Arthur made two bridges of sand across the shallow ditch and only when he had finished could I rouse myself to take the sand mats over, to lay across them. Life was still not easy on the other side, but easier than it had been.
The thorn scrub gradually disappeared and on the wastes of smoothness we soon discovered that the faintly greyish sand was firm and Arthur would make huge circuits to keep on it, losing sight of the piste for long stretches in doing so.
Well into the afternoon we met a lorry coming south whose driver stopped with a cheerful 'Ca va?' and gave us news that the piste was good all the way to Agadez from here. Piste. We breathed it like a prayer and lurched onto it. Only a driver of a dirty great lorry, of enormous ground clearance, could have described it as good, but it was usable and we felt wonferfully safe on it, for if we were stuck, at least we weren't lost.
Before sunset we stopped to put petrol in, heard an engine behind us and saw in the distance a high vehicle wobbling in the haze which shrank as it came towards us until it became a Land Rover, the one we had met at the Mission in Maiduguri, to our great delight. We exchanged expeiences in the way that travellers do, I pouring out our recent troubles. 'Not to worry Madame', said Giuliano airily. 'Iss no problem. You have rope? We go together; iss no problem. Our guardian angels must have sent him, this short, wiry Italian with the sensitive face.
We had never got around to introductions the last time we had met but did so then whilst Giuliano's wife was busy in the Land Rover. 'Mona' we said, and 'Bona' repeated Giuliano which was odd because Michael the Greek in Congo had said the same. It sounded like a dog biscuit. After three attempts he got it right but never asked me again, thereafter always calling me Madam. Then Arthur, which proved to be completely unpronouncable, try as he might.
His wife, when she came, was introduced as Giovanna. She was plump and motherly with beautiful black hair which was tied at the nape of her neck from where it fell in soft, thick waves. 'And your name?' she asked Arthur. Giuliano shook his head slowly as if to say, you can ask but it won't do you any good when he tells you. 'Iss very difficult, he said sadly. 'Arthur' we said. her face lit up. 'Arturo', she cried with arms outstretched, and clasped him to her bosom.
Giuliano asked if we had plenty of salt tablets and was quite shocked when we confessed that we had none at all, bringing some from the Land Rover for us immediately. It was understandable that we needed them, for when dry, our shirts were encrusted with white salt that we had sweated out and I soon discovered the next day that if I felt peculiar, a couple of tablets worked miracles in a few minutes. We certainly didn't seem to be putting any strain on our kidneys which had appanently just about stopped bothering to function.
After a while, we all took off again on the track, for our part, in a wonderfully lighthearted frame of mind, and we even stopped now and then of our own volition, to take a photograph or give a drink to passing Turgi with horses or strings of camels, knowing that we were nearing Agadez and water. They would bring the veil down to just below the lower lip, sink the water, raise the veil again and solemnly incline the head in thanks. They all, every one of them, carried a sword.
It was almost dark when Agadez came into sight, low mud buildings with flat roofs rising straight out of the dust and sand. We were, in polite terms, weary, but before anything else we had to report to the police. There was some delay whilst a closely swathed woman had many papers to sign with fingerprints and we wandered out into the courtyard where water was bubbling up in a stone basin. Water! We cupped our hands in it, we splashed it on our faces and necks, we laughed like children at the pleasure of it. And to compound our joy, we had beers at the 'hotel' when our form-fiiling was completed and the Police had finished with us.
We must often have sounded insufferable in the past, when saying smugly to our friends, that even on a long trip, the van never looks as though we were bound for anywhere further than, say, Southport. We were glad that none of them could see us then, for inside, poor Rosie was a shambles. Sand mats, petrol cans, shovels, jacks, all were thrown in anyhow.
With the terrible hammering she had taken, the fridge had left its moorings, a shelf which supported petrol cans had collapsed and the bottom had fallen out of the top cupboard, along with all its contents. If Arthur hadn't been such a great one for having everything anchored as firm as never was, the entire inside would have disintegrated.
We pushed things aside and went to bed amidst it all and after another night of snatches of sleep and constant drinking, we set about it just after dawn. It was lunch time when we cast off into the desert again, but this time tagging along behind that comforting Land Rover, with 570 miles to go to Tamenrasset and the next petrol.
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Arthur Barraclough, "Excerpts from Africa, Part 2", Transporter Talk, Issue 24, August 1996, pp14~19.
On corrugations, with not a lot of sand, we drove to an oasis which Giuliano thought would be a good place to stay for the night. At several places in the last three days, we had seen wells, not oasies, just wells. There was no possibility of using them, for in each case they were surrounded by hundreds of camels, beasts and goats, all waiting their turn to be watered. They were extremely deep wells as we could judge when we saw camels trekking way out into the desert, with rope that pulled up the water vessel; what we could not imagine, was how all these beasts were fed.
Ours was a classic oasis, at the foot of a small hill, with clusters of palms and buildings, huddled close to the ground. There were two wells, and from where we parked under the palms, we could watch the comings and goings, around this source of life. Giovanna and I, took a bucket each, which the women filled for us. It was deep brown. "By morning it will have settled", we told each other, but by morning it was still exactly the same, and I at any rate, felt almost guilty at having a good wash on two consecutive days.
There had certainly been a track into the village, but I could not find one out of it, but after going around uncertainly for a while, we found what looked like the army representative, and asked him. He waved his arm in an expansive sweep, out towards the great emptiness, unsullied by tracks of any kind, and said the equivalent of 'That-a-way'. After a few uncertain miles, the piste appeared, only to disappear again, almost immediately, at the edge of a wide, sandy watercourse, where we stuck in the fine sand, half way across.
And so began a long succession, of what was to become, a slick operation on the part of Giovanna and me, as we leapt out of the vans – or crawled out, according to the time of day, hooking the ropes between them and then trudging after them, the sand burning our feet through thick soles, and unhitching them again. Occasionally, even the Land Rover needed our sand mats, which in a twisted way pleased us in so much as we could offer some help to Giuliano. And then of course, we had the sand mats to lug along too. Where the sand was firm, we could go at a fair old lick, on the smooth surface, but the direction was very uncertain, as there was no definite piste, just faint wheel marks swanning about in many ways.
And then the markers appeared, showing the way, every kilometre out. As about three quarters of them were lying down, they could easily be missed. Along the way, we had seen the shells of vans or cars, grim reminders of what could happen, if one breaks down; it needs but a small, undetectable electrical fault, to bring journeys to an end and once abandoned, a vehicle is quickly stripped and canibalised by others, down to bare bones.
Before mid-day, we saw another old VW van, beside a small cluster of shelters, made out of thin mats, a couple of hundred yards, from the line we were taking, but this was no shell. It had gear all around it and running towards us, came a bearded Frenchman, the colour of an old saddle, who told us that he had been there for two months and ten days, waiting for a replacement engine. If we saw a wagon going south, he wanted us to ask the driver, to stop near him and take a note about it, to his wife whom he had sent on to Agadez.
We all know about the optical illusions of the desert, but they are none the less extraordinary when one sees them. A pair of camels and their riders on the horizon, will look immensely tall and seem to be levitated way above the surface of the desert. Vast lakes appear edged with tall trees and you think – well, I know the lake isn't there, but at least we can have lunch under the trees; and as you get nearer, you watch them shrink and shrink until they are odd tufts of dry, prickly grass, about a foot high. Sometimes, when the Land Rover was well ahead of us, it took on the proportions of a very tall, thin furniture van and would drive straight into the lake ahead of us and float along its surface.
Failing trees, Giuliano stretched a canvas between the two vehicles that mid-day andwe cowered beneath it, in the blistering heat and Arthur played tapes of opera for the two Gs. For over thirty six hours, after we left the few shelters, near to the Frenchman, we saw no sign of life in the desert, human or animal. In fact, it was a mystery to me, how the very few people we had seen, could sustain life at all. But now, whichever way we looked, thre was simply nothing; sizzling nothing.
Before sunset, we came upon another VW, quite old, owned by a French couple. Paul had a magnificent beard, a bush hat which he wore turned up at the side and the figure of a trapeeze artist, but he only just topped five feet tall, which gave Arthur great pleasure, to find someone he could look down upon, and referred to him as "The little French chap". He and his wife, were experienced desert travellers, working in their home town of Paris for six months of the year, saving hard and spending the winter on the west coast of Africa, Mali being their favourite place. So then we were a party of three, as we stopped for the night, when we could no longer see any markers at all. What a great thing it is, not to have to look for a place to camp; just switch off the engine and there you are.
About every other day, we had met a truck going south, usually early or late, for with their intimate knowledge of the country, the drivers preferred to move at night, when the sand was firmer and the heat less punishing. Long after dark, we saw the lights of one of them, coming from the north. Our drivers switched on the headlights, to signal him to stop and in her excellent French, Giovanna gave him the message from the poor stranded chap behind us.
All day, we had been gaining height gradually, and now at last, we felt the benefit, for the night was blessedly cooler and we even needed our thin blanket, when we layed down, and at daybreak, our jerseys. Changing the oil in the air filter, was a daily job for Arthur and that morning, he mended a shock absorber too, whilst Giuliano investigated a strange noise in the Land Rover. Strange noises, there, are the case of deepest anxiety.
Morning that day was an exact repetition, on the day before accepting that at 4000 feet, it was not nearly so hot. There were long fast runs on firm, darker sand and patches of yellow, through which we sailed or in which we stuck. Business as before, in fact.
The Niger exit border was a tiny mud fort, with high castellated walls, into which all our passports were taken, but we were not allowed. A spring of brownish water bubbled up lazily from a depression in the sand – and disappeared into it again and whilst we laboriously filled our empty containers, with it by the cupfuls. Although we had been so miserly with our water, we had been drinking an average of five gallons every two days, since leaving Kano.
The Algerian border was some 30 kilometres on and Arthur and I set off towards it first, about three minutes before the guard tells Giuliano not to follow the markers, because the sand was very bad there, but to take a line, fifty yards to the right of them. It took a long time to get out of that lot, but eventually we were all having something to eat beneath three real trees outside the barbed wire entanglements, surrounding the Algerian Police post fort. And after that – marvellous, hateful, sandy or corrugationed piste. What a love-hate relationship one has with it. We shook and bounced along it towards Tamenrasset.
Immediately after the border, the scene began to change to rocky hills, making a treat for the eyes, after the everlasting flatness. In the afternoon, a Volkswagen Beetle with aroll of wire netting on the roof, came down the track from Tamenrasset, followed at some distance by an oldish van. The Beetle driver stopped to talk and his Australian wife came to sit in the van with me. "What's it like up there?", I asked her. "Oh, it's rough but not too bad". "Piste?" "Yes, all the way to El Golea." My heart lifted, for El Golea, was where the paved road began.
Then it was her turn. "What's it like down there?" I don't like to be discouraging. "Hot", I said. "Oh, I like it hot, I enjoy it", sh said happily. We've heard this phrase many times, but not, I think, by anyone who has experienced real heat, where every effort is magnified by ten and your body craves moisture so that as soon as you screw the cap on the water bottle, you have an inward fight not to screw it off again. "You have enough water?, I asked. "Oh yes, we have nearly twenty litres". "Don't wash yourselves until you reach Agadez safely, will you", I said. "You'll drink more than that in two days".
She looked at me as though I were a little touched. "We shall have plenty, I'm sure. We don't drink much. We'd rather have oranges and I bought some in In Salah." Oranges! I couldn't begin to explain what it would be like. All I could do was plead, "Please, don't wash or wash up. Don't do anything with your water but drink it, until you reach another source." I'm sure she would get back into the car, saying to her husband, "There's a right peculiar old girl in that van ....." I feared too, that if the roll of netting was to use as a sand mat, it would be a disappointment to them.
Less than a mile to the west of us, as we stopped for the night, was a most spectacular mountain, like an upright bundle of massive rock rods of assorted sizes. The sun set behind us, in a most theatrical manner, whilst to the east, a high full moon rose, cool and creamy, from the edge of the hot coloured sand. As we sat having dinner, close to the stars, I saw a little animal, pale as a wraith, pass across the shaft of light from the van door. I think Arthur thought I was dreaming, until it bounded back again in short leaps. He pronounced it to be a kangaroo rat, which, with that long, thick tail, powerful hindquarters and bounding gait, sounded as though it might be just about right.
Dinner had certainly been fairly frugal, but even so, I couldn't finish it. "I think my stomach is shrinking", I said. To which arthur replied with feeling, "I should hope so". During the last few weeks, he had fined down wonderfully and I felt to be all spidery arms and legs. Thighs which I had liked to think of as classically proportioned (and Arthur referred to as 'gurt'), were by then no such thing and no longer with any justification, could be remarked to friends, that I had "a rump like a shire mare".
We had 125 miles to go to Tamenrasset, when we set off the following morning abd it was piste, fair to not so fair, all the way. Not long before noon, a shadow flapped across the land in front of us. A bird! In the early afternoon, three camels ran across our path, and in another twenty miles, we saw a man. We were back with the obviously living. The landscape had become increasingly mountainous; mountains made of smooth boulders, mountains of solid rock, as rounded as a piece of sculpture, and amongst them, pink sands and drifts of pale blue stones. We wound round the stony and tortuous way amongst them, until just before Tamenrasset, when the drew away, leaving a space for the town to sit in.
The customs was the first building we came to, and being confronted suddenly with an influx of six people, it took them a long time to deal with us., not being helped by the ridiculous number of forms, we each had to fill in. With no Algerian visa, Arthur and I, were working on the theory, that no-one would have the heart to turn us back at this stage, and to our relief, the young man in charge, mentioned it not.
Most of the buildings in the town, were a dull, subdued red, the doorways and round the windows of the prefecture. Gendarmerie and other administrative places, being painted white, very smartly. "The little French chap" had been here before. "There is a campsite", he told us. "You can have a shower at the hotel". Hooray! Even Arthur was eager. From the outside, the hotel was a long series of red arches, lurking behind palms. From the inside, it was much the same, red mud and cavernous with not a soul to be found and no sign of of anything even remotely connected with a hotel.
We always share a shower on these occasions, so that we can scrub each other's back, but it was a tricky job in this one, when we found it. There was a whitish bowl to stand in, but the walks were the same as the outside ones and the floor was frankly mud, squelch mud with what looked like the side of an orange box to stand on. It was also very tiny and the water was like ice, which would have been appreciated at any other time in the last month, but not so much now, in the cool of Tamenrasset evening. We put in some very fine balancing work, to keep out of the full flow of water and out of the mud. Stimulated, we scurried back to the shelter of the van.
At the camp site, we were hailed by a tall, well-made blond fellow, in his early thirties, who in a gutteral accent, told us he was Australian. His wife was blond too, with hair in curlers and a thick layer of white face cream, round her mouth. They had come down from the north, in a VW van and were completely shattered by the experience, standing there shaking up and down, to demonstrate to us, what dreadful corrugations are like. And the sand .....! Oh yes, they'd been stuck in the sand too. They had intended to go south, but not now. Not now. Their sole aim was to find a truck, on which they could load their van and high-tail it back north.
I hardly slept that night, worrying about a route that had so demoralised that lusty young German couple, and about two and a half shock absorbers.
At about 8 o'Clock that evening, there was a knock outside our open door. The customs man was returning some forms. It was his birthday, he said; would we go and have a drink with him. We pleaded tiredness, a long dys' journey and so on. He quite understood. He would bring a beer to the van for us. We wished heartily that he'd picked on someone else, but felt we'd better keep on the right side of this representative of Customs, who still had our passports.
Ten minutes later, to our dismay, he was back with a crate of beer and three glasses, all set to stay untill midnight, which was apperently the moment of his birth. Conversation, of which there was an unending flow, was a great strain to us, being in French and at 11 pm, worn out, we made moves to get rid of him. He wanted to sleep in the van with us and by this time was quite unable to understand, why we should refuse him. At 11.30, we finally got him out and shut the door, whereupon he went to wake up Giuliano, was repulsed and came back to us.
Through closed door, we offered to take him home, but he would not trouble Arthur in that way and went off to waken Paul, then the Germans, back to Giuliano and so on. Very soon, the four vans on that compound, contained enough explosive fury, to blow the place apart. It was 1.30 am when he tried us for the last time. We feigned death. There were two different chaps at the office the next morning, when we went to pick our passports up. Our Birthday Boy, must have been sleeping it off.
I told Giuliano of my worries, about the route ahead of us. "No Madame, not to worry", said Giuliano in his comforting way. "It's no problem". "When you see the route, you will laugh", said Paul, throwing back his head, beard sticking out and giving great mock guffaws. I was duly reassured and slept peacefully that night, out in the desert, where we three vans had gone away from that fly ridden compound.
It was with great regret, that we parted from Giuliano and Giovanna, the next morning. They were going on a circuit of the mountains, amongst spectacular scenery and outstanding prehistoric rock paintings, but we dare not go with them. Rosie's suspension was going so very well, to last the 550 miles to the tarmac, at El Golea. With Paul and mauricette, we headed north. We rattled along the piste, as I waited for those dreadful corrugations to come up. We came to the sandy part where the Germans must have been stuck and Arthur simply sailed round it and we were able to leave for mile after mile, when the sand was hard beside it, but always, it was there if needed.
Mid-morning, we rounded a bend, between hills of shaly stone and came upon a dead VW van. It was the same year as Paul's, which by then had no brakes at all, although it was no great detriment in the desert, where the main object is not to stop. We all got out and prowled round it. It had been cannibalised to a certain extent, but it was not yet a shell. Paul detached the petrol gauge and roof lining. Arthur found some fuses, but was disappointed that the back bumper was not the right size for Rosie, to replace the one that had been bent, on the ferry in the Congo. Then with a great heave, we turned it on its side, and lo, brake cylinder and track rods for Paul!
I spared a moment of sorrow for the van and its owners, thinking how easily in the last 900 miles, even a small fault could have left Rosie in a similar state. But no; Arthur is made of sterner stuff than that. After sending me off with some truck-driving Arab and alot of instructions, he would have stuck beside her, like the Frenchman, faithful unto – well, faithful unto the point where it was going to be better for life and limb to leave her.
We stopped at sunset, amongst the stony hills, a record 227 miles to the good, which proved that my German-induced fears had been groundless.
We said goodbye to Paul and Mauricette, over a cold beer or two, at In Salah, in the early afternoon. They were taking, what they hoped, would be an easier route to the west, on account of their brakes. We almost decided to go along with them, but the thought of possible mail at Ghardaia, stopped us. We had a great re-union later, in Paris, as we did with Giuliano and Giovanna, in Milan.
At several points that day, people had come to the side of the piste, waving empty goatskins at us, or making drinking motions as we approached. To these latter, we had given water, several mugfulls each, but neither we, nor Paul who was following, could fill goatskins, though having by now some faint idea, of what it is like to be without water, it was a terrible thing to have to pass them by. The goatskins in the desert, are different from those we have seen elsewhere, in that the hair is left on them and instead of looking like a long leather bag, they look like a headless goat, suspended by its legs. They hang from the sides of camels and horses, they hang from the sides of trucks and when you put a hand beneath them, they feel cool; oh so cool.
From In Salah, we drove towards a distant escarpment, with odd conical mountains to either side of us, as we drew nearer. It was no great height, as things go. It took only half an hour, perhaps, to negotiate the hairpins to the top, but they were steep and with a surface of big, loose stones. Down a ravine, in one of the S-bends, I could see the tip of a vehicle of some sort, which is always a sobering sight. It was like going upstairs to the next floor, for when we rounded the next bend, there, in front of us, was spread the Plateau of Tademail, flatter than the earth, reaching out to infinity, black desolation. It was though, in these thousands of square miles, the Lord had created something, which had pleased him not and in his anger, he had wiped it out and blasted it into everlasting sterility.
The piste shot straight out across it, determined to get to El Golea, by the shortest possible route, but the piste was not nice and tracks fanned out in all directions at first, before developing into four or five separate ones, all roughly parallel to the first, from which one could take one's pick. There was probably a mile and ahalf between the outer ones, but it was easy enough to change pistes, as fancy took you, because that black, stony waste, was, if nothing else, firm. Not that it is always so, by the look of things; there were truck tyres which had sunk a foot or more, into what appeared to be yellow, cloying clay, beneath the surface, but it was baked hard then. Sometimes, there must be rain up there, yet nothing grows, nothing lives. At sunset, flamboyant swishes of orange and crimson, against the turquoise of the evening sky, were made more dramatic, by the unearthly landscape.
A thing came crashing into the van, through the open door that evening, as we were having a quiet game of crib. We went tumbling out. It was like a thin frog and it must have flown from El Golea or even Tamenrasset, it was powerful enough, and I could not see that there would be enough sustenance for it on the plateau. With great difficulty, we got it out twice, but it promptly went crashing back in again. It sat on my seat and from a safe distance, Arthur sprayed it. It looked affronted, but whilst it was thinking it over, we acted smartly and whisked it out onto the gravel; we shot in and flung the net down behind us.
At bedtime, a truck went slowly past us, along one of the pistes. It seemed to have avehicle on board. Was it, we wondered, the German Australians? They had been told, they would have to wait at least three weeks for a truck. Perhaps they had been able to offer substantial inducements.
The plateau went on and on, the following morning, as grim as ever. It lasted in all, about 120 miles, though it seemed much longer and then all the tracks converged again and gradually we were back on the old, familiar sand and a landscape which rose and fell. At one point, it rose and swept up before, the walls and arched double doorway, of an old, deserted, Foreign Legion fort. I looked inside, to a courtyard with low arched cloisters and tiny, windowless cells of rooms. What a life it must have been. But no doubt, there, the Legionaires would get their past 'troubles' into perspective.
Not very long after that, we saw the first signpost to El Golea. 120 kms. We had been told that the tarmac started 65 kms south of the town. Only 55 kms away. I began to feel quite excited. 45 kms. "Come on Rosie old girl, we're nearly there". 35 kms. A young boy at the side of the track wants a drink. He brings out a small cloth bag, full of bits of stone and empties them into my hand. Two of them I keep, fossils of shells, about the size of a cockle. 25 kms. We must make it now. After nearly five thousand miles of rough, only twelve to go. 15 kms. And then, before we expect it – black-topped road. We stopped short of it and glowed at the sight. Arthur walked onto it and kissed it.
"What we could do with now", I said, as we skimmed along like a Rolls, "is a limpid pool –". "Full of cold beer", said Arthur. "– fringed with palms". "So that we could swin in it and sup at the same time".
***** End of Excerpt ******
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Whew, that was a long excerpt to transcribe!
I hope some of you found it interesting and informative. One of the things which should now be apparent, is how easy it would be to break down in the desert, through simply running out of petrol (i.e. gasoline, in USA parlance), suspension failure or otherwise, causing many to simply abandon their vehicles to the automotive scavengers. Death comes all too easily, to the unprepared!
Regards.
Nigel A. Skeet
Last edited by NASkeet on Fri Nov 17, 2006 9:17 am; edited 17 times in total |
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