Two nutty friends from Aachen, Germany, and their killer ride on a mission from God: To master the Plymouth-Banjul Challenge 2007. Read about their impossible mission here ...

 
Made in Aachen
 

Saturday, January 6, 2007

Getting Stuck

We leave Laayoune to head for Dakhla, where we hope to meet up with the group 2 to cross the Sahara together. I judiciously choose the very first available opportunity to get the car stuck in Sahara sand: I pull off the side of the road because Mario wants watch some birds with his binoculars. I slowly drive onto the sand, and straight away the steering becomes mushy. I haven't prepared myself for this and I instinctively slow the car down. Bad choice. Now we are definitely sinking.

In panic I and try to veer the car back onto the paved road by making a sharp turn. Bad choice again. The wheels just dig deeper into the sand. To finish off the series of bad choices I step on the gas once it is too late to let the front wheel spin several times until the car is totally dug in. The veedub's belly is now resting flat on the sand, and the wheels are fully covered. Good work!

The PBC road book states that it was not necessary to take sand ladders, because plain old pushing is more effective. This is true if you are in a group, but we find out that one man pushing is a joke when the car is stuck like this. We start some more amateur rescue efforts including digging, shoveling, putting small rocks under the tires, using our floormats for traction, and again plain pushing. This doesn't get us anywhere at all.

Remember I said that there are not many people out there? I begin to wonder how we will get out of this. We are in luck and after some time a French couple passes by. They have mercy on us and pull us out with their van. Looks like driving on sand will separate the men from the mice.

We finally catch up with group 2 at he camp site in Dakhla in the very South of West-Sahara. About fourty teams are here, and we split up into groups of five cars each crossing the desert together. For safety reasons at least one of each five-car group is 4-wheel drive truck equipped with a two-way radio, so some for of communication is possible within the group.

A lot of the Volkswagen Golfs suffer from low back suspension, and other teams have gone to a local mechanic to get the suspension raised for the arduous ride through the desert. We have the same problem, but are running out of time to fix anything. We'll just have to pray.

We stack up on food and water, as Dakhla is the last town we will see in a long while. We will be in the desert for three days, and need another day to reach Nouakchott, the capital of Mauretania, where we can refill supplies. For safety reasons it is good to take double the amount of food, water and gas that you expect to use, so the car is filled up with our supplies.

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2 Comments:

Blogger Andre said...

Hey buddy, I hope you're fine! Third day without a message. Hope you haven't got mugged!

January 10, 2007 at 12:04 AM  
Blogger Torsten Friebe said...

Goedenmorgen! Many greetings from the wonderful EPO. Hope your are fine and your car is still running like a young camel. Don't forget to drink water.

January 10, 2007 at 12:18 PM  

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