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Thursday, April 29, 2010

"A walk through death in the desert where the time never moves"

The continue the story from where I left yesterday...

The first date that we put up was in the end of April, but that was postponed until first week of June, but that was also postponed until the first week of July and to be more exact the 4 of July. We decided to take the local bus down to the town/oasis of Matmata that is positioned in the lower end of the desert mountain called the Matmata mountain. The funny thing about this place is that the first of the Starwars movies was filmed here and we actually spend the night in the place where LUKE SKYWALKER was staying in his home planet of Tatooine. So as a well beaten StarWars fan a one note was check off in the BUCKET LIST!!!!

The evening the 4th of July in Matmata we where planning the last details of the expedition and we soon became the biggest happening since 1976 when GEORGE LUCAS was filming in the area. With Camels language skills we could finally get some scorpion anti-serum, from a local doctor who was driving around for a couple of hours before he could fix it, freeze it into a brick of ice so we could keep the temperature down of the serum. We only got 100ml but it was said to be enough. We also got the locals to point out the positions where there was permanent Bedouins positioned and where we for sure would get some cover of the sun during the hottest hours.

To get back to preparation and a couple of months before, I started to skis on what was needed on the way and what was going to be the approximately time frame we had to work from. I planned everything for a 36 hours expedition with 5km/h marching rate and with 5min breaks every hour and a bigger stop for the night. That plan of course went out the drain quick, but I will get back to that later...

The backpack had to be as light as possible, and the focus had to be WATER and ENERGY food, glucose, some extra clothing's, medical gear, survival kit, good boots, good sunglasses, a big sombrero and a GPS. As a white guy the Saharan sun will be hard on my skin so we found some 50+ special sunblock, that now can be market Sahara tested...

The focus on training was a lot of cardio 6 times a week and I felt quiet prepared for the mission before the day come! We went the last week on a training walk in the summer heat between the areas of Sousse to the small town of Hergla, approximately 24 km. And of course it was only around 25% of the real walk but it was more or less to get a picture of clothings and the weight of the back and our equipment.

Back to Matmata and the evening came after fixing the last details we weighed in the backpacks at 25kilos each and included in this was 12 litres of water each.

When the sun started to set on the 4 of July the wind changed and the hot south wind from the depths of the desert started to burn in our face, me and Camel looked at each other but did not say anything and keep drinking our mint tea in the local cafeteria and watched the sun set over the surrounding yellow mountain tops. We both now when this wind comes up at the coast it normally stays for 3 days and the temperature raises up to over 40 degrees.
At this moment I started to think what we really where doing and understood the dangers with it. I took up my phone and started to call the friends and family, just to hear their voice for a little bit, and it gave some comfort...

Sorry but now I am to tired to continue again, so I will say ones again...

TO BE CONTINUED...

2 comments:

  1. I dont like this "to be continued! I WANT TO READ MORE!! :D

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  2. bra kul å läsa Björn. Tror framförallt din familj uppskattar å läsa om dina äventyr=) fortsätter följa med spänning...kram

    ReplyDelete