DRIVE!

A wise man once told me “Drives Define Nations”. That might have been an overstatement, but the Tifariti drive to the celebrations of February 27th was of the calibre that deserves an account of its own.

Departure was scheduled at 07.15. Needless to say, we were delayed. Three hours and fifteen minutes later, we were off the road, where most of the journey (as with most Sahrawi travel) would take place. After one hour, one car suffered significant health problems. During Sahrawi Land Cruiser first aid, the rest of us had tea in the beautiful desert. The car was beyond repair, and the three remaining jeeps carried 25 persons onwards to Tifariti.

We met another convoy, and the sight of 40 hardcore jeeps speeding through the desert astonished us. Our driver was of the competitive type, whose mindset was “if you are not first, you lose”. After exiting Algeria (and a few kilometres of Mauretania), we entered the territory of Western Sahara. The Algerian military escort stepped aside, and the open desert was an invitation to Sahrawi road race. A few intense minutes later, all the other cars were eating our dust in the horizon. Never mind our leaking fuel tank.
Now, when you have a driver who races ahead of everyone (and believes he is the Schumacher/Bjarte Morten of Western Sahara), you expect him to know the way. This was not so.

After hours of speeding through rocky desert, we found ourselves in dark mountain ranges. Our enthusiasm faded proportionally with the realization that the driver had no idea of Tifariti’s location. He asked shepherds for directions, who were so imprecise that they could just as well have addressed us in Greek. For them there is no need for precise directions, whereas for two Norwegians and seven Germans bound for a national celebration, it would have been useful.
Nevertheless, as we were driving into the beautiful sunset like a poor and lonesome cowboy, we knew we were lost in the Sahara Desert. The complete darkness proved that we were nowhere near any electric light, never mind Tifariti. The small roads kept disappearing and reappearing. At the most memorable instance, we were driving through bushes when out of the darkness a small wall appeared. The car came to a screeching halt, and the second when we all thought we had found the Moroccan military wall left us flabbergasted. I quote: “That was fun – let’s never do it again!”

After three hours of random roaming the Sahara, things were literally looking dark. As we prepared ourselves mentally for spending the night out, we spotted several vehicles on the horizon. Our search party signalled us, and eventually we entered Tifariti after 11 hours of driving. It turns out we had been several miles (two and a half mountain range) north. On the journey home we didn’t see any mountains at all.

The journey fits perfectly into the Sahrawi culture: Do not worry, you will get there eventually. It does not matter if you are late, nobody expected you on time anyways. It was indeed a memorable journey; it’s not every day you are properly lost in the Sahara Desert.