Day 13
Thur 12th
Remainder of the 566km to take us to Atar
Sleeping Campsite
Mileage 69158
Car - In need of repair! - Bent rear arm, no fuel gage (nether a real problem) broken starter motor - loss of power when lights are turned on!
So we paced up camp as soon as it was light and set off for another long day, the sand was softer today. We began running low on fuel supplies as did all of the teams so we arranged (through the organisation) to buy some off the black market (a little more expensive but we had to get out of the desert, day 1 was ok but we had enough by day 2 - this really was hardcore!) we gave 2 of our jerry cans to a local in his 4x4 and hoped he would return! Which he did! Unfortunately the English and Dutch teams we were travelling with went ahead so we were ‘adopted’ by 3 Belgian teams (who we had travelled with a couple of times before) (Bekke and Koen, Joris and Kristof and Peter and Tanya) They are a great group and although the day was hard they all kept in good spirit! We had a good laugh and worked together to get all 4 cars through. We began having problems starting the car fo from about 2pm til we arrived at camp at about 8pm we could not turn the engine off! Because the light was fast fading a local (who got the fuel in his 4x4)) offered to lead us through a ‘short cut’ so we could make up some time and although the Sahara was a great experience none of us were sad to leave the desert behind! In addition to not being able to start the engine with out a push we discovered that if we turned the light on we would loose some power to the engine. So the last part of our off road journey today was completed by driving between the Belgian cars using their light and holding a torch out of the window! … the Sahara adventure truly did not stop til we reached camp!! It was a lovely camp site this evening owned by a Dutch man who was really welcoming, we had dinner (sheep) which we ate at a table with proper plates and knifes and forks! (ahh the little things!) Then we worked on the car. The problem , we revealed, was the starter motor, which after stripping down and cleaning the bushes we had it working again and had solved the problem. I also repaired our many punctured inner tubes this evening! So we were ready to fight another day!