Detailed planning

The information gathering trip to Jordan had confirmed that we wanted to attempt a desert crossing.

The areas to research had been divided up between us at our post-graduation planning meeting.

We now each found ourselves with six months to prepare for arrival in Mauritania and what we would do on Day 1.

This section recounts the day by day updates as we scrambled to find out as much as we could. As the months went by we learned more and more and the trip gradually took shape.

There was a mountain to climb. I personally knew so little about camels I had no idea where to begin.

10th July

I have had a few replies on traveller forums. Apparently we will be welcomed in any villages along our route and will provide excellent entertainment for the locals.

We have a few leads for more information too. The book Impossible Journey details the first crossing of the Sahara from west to east with camels by a Westerner and its author, Michael Asher, is one of the great authorities on camel expeditions.

We should also read The Fearful Void by Geoffrey Moorhouse. He tried a similar journey to ours in 1972, solo. Apparently he failed and nearly died three times.

12th July

Len said there is now a tarmac road from Nouakchott to Atar so maybe we should start our trip in Atar, or nearby in Chinguetti?

He also suggested living there for a while, to give us the chance to do some short practice trips before setting off. He read in Impossible Journey that this is what Michael Asher did before starting his crossing of the Sahara.

16th July

I think we may have to employ a local guide to help us choose camels as otherwise I’m sure we’ll be conned in the camel market.

I have found another useful book – a US Army Survival Field Guide. It includes all sorts of wilderness first aid, including how to amputate limbs.

17th July

Bill has conceded that navigating with a sextant would be impractical and accepts taking a GPS, as long as it is a simple one that just shows latitude and longitude. Everything else can be done with the maps and compass.

He has found another potentially useful book about a couple of “first time jokers like ourselves” who took camels across Libya.

23rd July

The cheapest flight Len has found so far is nearly £1000 one-way, which isn’t really an option. He said we may want to investigate alternative means of transport.

Apparently Asher has produced a document summarising what to look for when buying camels. He has also heard of a book listing the GPS coordinates of wells in Mauritania, although tracking down a copy seems to be a little harder.

The best maps available are 1:200,000 scale, which is not very detailed. They’re also all either out of print or only being sold in Mauritania now. For water purification, iodine seems suitable and we’ll just have to put up with the taste.

Visas for Mauritania look straightforward, but for Mali it will be more difficult. There is no Malian embassy in London, so Len is going to write to His Excellency Monsieur Ahmed Mohamed A G Hamani in Brussels.

24th July

I read The Skeleton Coast by Benedict Allen today. He took charge of three camels by himself before setting off across the Namib Desert. He spent three weeks working with his camels beforehand, getting to know their idiosyncrasies and building up a relationship with them, earning their trust. He also had to treat septic sores on his camels and ensure that the pads on their feet didn’t get worn away on stony ground.

Bill responded to Len about transport and suggested we go to Mauritania as stowaways on a container ship.

27th July

The Rough Guide to West Africa states that Tidjikja and Tichit, the two settlements along our route, are substantial population centres so resupplying shouldn’t be a problem.

It also says that local authorities prevent tourists leaving east from Tichit without a guide. We will of course be trying to do exactly that. For Atar to Tidjikja it cautions “don’t even think of heading off without local knowledge”.

As far as diet goes, I have found a few calorie calculators which suggest how much to eat, but still need to assess our minimum fat and protein requirements so we know what to eat.

31st July

I’ve found out that camels can cover good ground, up to 50km a day, and carry large loads, but this is dependent on buying good ones in the first place.

Unfortunately, I haven’t found out how to identify a good camel or where to buy one.

For nutrition, we should try to supplement our rice and pasta diet with sardines, nuts and dried fruit. We’ll be dependent on what is available locally though and I still haven’t found out what Mauritanians eat.

August

No planning happened in August as we were all on holiday in the Far East.

4th September

Len has found much cheaper flights, travelling via Morocco or the Canary Islands. The container ship idea turned out to be almost impossible.

Maps for Mali are proving hard to find, it seems the Malian government restricts the 1:200,000 ones. There is a German outfitter who might have some, but Len doesn’t speak German so wasn’t able to understand anything the guy said. Russian maps are a possibility and are supposed to be more accurate, but they’d take six months to arrive and all the writing would be in Cyrillic.

9th September

Bill has made great progress and produced a comprehensive document detailing all the health risks we might encounter and how to avoid them. It covers things like overheating, dehydration, scorpions, sandstorms, flash floods and more. He thinks the risk from most of these will be minimal; the biggest risk to our safety is becoming separated or lost.

The document also covers water. We’ll have a variety of methods at our disposal if we fail to find a well, including collecting rain, dew and ground water, and eating certain plants. We can conserve water by not talking or eating. Drinking the blood of an animal is never a good idea as it’s too salty and requires water to be digested. Good to clear that one up.

14th September

Len had a useful conversation with Justin Marozzi (author of South from Barbary) today about his camel trek in Libya. They drank about five litres of water a day each and fell ill when they didn’t purify it.

He recommended warm clothing for the nights and said that before 8:30am it was too cold for their camels to walk. They killed a lamb so that they could eat meat for a change, but it made them all ill. They nearly lost their camels one night and were lucky to find them again. This seems to happen to everyone who does a desert trip.

Len has booked our flights. We will fly to Atar via Paris. The 4th January was the soonest date available after New Year. We wanted to go in winter to avoid the unbearable summer heat but also thought it would be nice to enjoy one last Christmas and New Year at home with our families.

19th September

Bill and Len went to see the famous explorer Sir Wilfred Thesiger at his retirement home today. Len just phoned him up and arranged it.

They brought him a bottle of wine but he turned it down and told them to think of him when they drank it. He gave them a lot of inspiration with his stories of old, but did also caution that our route was quite ambitious for a first trip and suggested that we take more people.

He said we’d need six men to be camel handlers and a committed local to lead them. He also added that we didn’t seem to know a lot about what we were doing.

24th September

Bill has found a number of possible first aid courses for us. There’s talk of saline drips, camel bites, desert survival skills. It all sounds good, this is exactly what we need to know.

He also reminded us to organise immunisations, reiterating that it’s our choice whether we go for the expensive Rabies and Hepatitis B jabs.

26th September

Lenny has established that we will need 15 of the 1:200,000 maps. They date from the 1950s, 60s and 70s and he has only managed to find three originals. These are in Germany. The rest will have to be black and white photocopies as the maps themselves have been out of print for years and the publisher won’t sell us any originals.

We haven’t found any maps or well coordinates for Mali. The Malian people speak Tamachek, a different Arabic dialect to the Mauritanians, and we haven’t been able to find out anything about it. There is also talk of bandit activity there.

Based on this, Bill and Len are leaning towards containing the trip in Mauritania. Instead of heading east over the border to Mali we could turn south and aim to finish in a town called Nema, which has a road and possibly an airport. It’s probably a wise decision, but it’s disappointing. I was looking forward to seeing the legendary Timbuktu.

4th October

Michael Asher replied to our list of questions. He thinks Atar is the best place to find camels and recommended we buy geldings, as males can be dangerous. Apparently the local word for gelding is zuzal and we should buy camels already trained to eat grain. He said we should be able to cover 40-50km a day and urged us to learn the local tongue, something which I think we are unlikely to manage.

13th October

Bill is now worried about the success of the trip. He emailed a list of key concerns today and said we shouldn’t be above postponing the trip if we’re not ready in time. His concerns included:

• An anti-western uprising after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre.
• Language. It is possible that a guide who knows our route well will not speak French, and we are struggling to learn Arabic.
• Camels. We currently have no camels handling skills and this will be essential if we ever intend to go without a guide. He’s considering applying to London Zoo for camel work experience.

15th October

Len received another reply from Asher. He provided the name of the guide he used (although he did caution us to watch his navigation skills) and directions to a potential landlord’s house in Chinguetti, “about the furthest house on the northern side of the oasis”.

He said our route will only demand one camel each and is excellent since for much of it we will be following the Batene – a high cliff that was once the shore of a vast prehistoric lake. Finally, he mentioned one axiom of the desert: never pass a well without filling up with water, even if you don’t really need it. It can save your life.

Lenny has received the maps. Apparently one map, the corner of which we may brush, is nothing but sand.

19th October

We are still debating whether to purchase a satellite phone or not. In an emergency, would there be anyone to call for help? Lenny and I believe that a call to the nearest town could bring a car to our aid; Bill is not so convinced.

27th October

Bill directed us to a website today where a desert motor biker tells the sobering story of getting lost trying to find a well in Mauritania.

He ran out of water and became reliant on finding the Tinigart well. He followed his GPS to the exact coordinates but couldn’t find it among all the rocky outcrops. In the end he lost all hope, gave up and lay down, resigning himself to die.

He didn’t actually die, he was rescued by nomads shortly after he lay down. That wasn’t the end of it though. The nomads confiscated his possessions and demanded increasing prices for his safe delivery to the nearest town.

Our route will require us to find Tinigart.

1st November

We received a document about camels from the Royal Geographical Society today. It’s written by Asher and is both interesting and useful.

The text concludes with a final piece of advice. The most important preparation for a trip like this is to learn the local language. Without this knowledge you will always be open to being conned and can’t expect to appreciate the local culture. Geoffrey Moorhouse, the author of The Fearful Void who nearly died, was an Arabic speaker as well.

Len and Bill are cramming Arabic but it will be sketchy at best come January.

2nd November

Len spoke to the Mauritanian ambassador’s secretary this morning. She said that French and Arabic would both be widely understood, and that Hassaniya was closely related to Arabic.

She seemed delighted with our plans to buy camels and go walking and said we should have no trouble finding a guide. This is a positive change after all the warnings and cautions.

Bill has booked the first aid course and now agrees we should take a satellite phone. It’s mainly to keep our families informed of our progress though as it seems unlikely there will be anyone to call in an emergency.

13th November

Len asked me if we’d be taking vitamin tablets. Apparently they’re a useful placebo to give to any locals who feign illness and then ask for Western medicines.

He also reiterated that we should try to learn about camel illnesses and injuries before we go. Unfortunately, I am struggling to find much information about them. My one hope was an ex-Cambridge vet but it turned out that she specialised in alpacas.

22nd November

Our baggage allowance for the flight from Paris to Atar will be just 13kg. We’ll have to weigh all our kit in England before we leave. That is still some way off though because we haven’t worked out what to take yet.

27th November

Cyril and Sylvie, authors of Mauritania au GPS, the book listing the GPS coordinates of wells in Mauritania, were in the country recently. I wrote to them with some questions and they replied immediately. They agreed that there would be no one to call on our satellite phone in an emergency. They didn’t know about the costs of camels or guides but did say that temperatures could fall to 0°C at night.

7th December

Another list of answers from Asher and now things are really getting cleared up.

• We won’t need a shelter for the cold nights or for the hot midday sun.
• Local clothing seems to be the best, which is what we thought.
• He says that although he doesn’t, we might want to purify well water. Five litres a day should be enough for us.

Slightly worrying, he thinks that the maps we have ordered are the best available, but are not always accurate where wells are concerned.

9th December

There is still a lot to sort out.

• We are unsure whether we will be allowed to bring a satellite phone into the country. Apparently some Arab countries do not allow it.
• We don’t know what currency is best to take.
• We still haven’t sent off our visa applications, and yellow fever vaccines need to be taken three weeks before departure (leaving just five days to organise this).
• We also haven’t organised travel insurance yet.

At least Bill’s passport has arrived now.

11th December

Bill has received a list of all the medicines we should need for the trip. It’s baffling but he assures us his dentist can get it all.

14th December

After two months in France, I’m now back in England until our departure. The first aid course starts tomorrow, in the Lake District.

Bill was able to borrow his father’s Skoda to drive us up. We only managed to leave his house at 8pm and it was a long drive from London. We eventually arrived at 3am and, failing to find the campsite in the dark, opted for the local train station.

Len is sleeping on the platform while Bill and I are sharing the Skoda’s boot.

15th – 19th December

We learned a lot during the course. Burns, severe bleeding, heart attacks, insect bites, collapsed lungs. The organiser (who had desert experience himself) believed it was almost certain that one of us would be bitten by a camel. A camel’s jaw could crush a forearm.

From what he taught us, any serious injury to the thigh, abdomen, or chest would mean an evacuation and an end to the trip. There seem to be a multitude of incidents that would force us to end the trip. Simply falling off a camel and landing on a rock could have serious consequences.

I don’t like to think what it would be like to be slung across the back of a camel, incapacitated and possibly dying, while we march as fast as possible to the nearest source of help (which could be days away). It wouldn’t be comfortable.

26th December – Boxing Day

Christmas is always good fun and this year was no exception, a chance to spend some relaxed time with the family.

This year’s Christmas seemed more like a passing event than usual though. A little blip on the countdown to our departure. A couple of days rest before it was back to business. I think my parents felt this too. The air of expectation and uncertainty was everywhere. The tense calm before our storm.

I want to find out if poste restante exists in Mauritania. It would be novel to receive a letter in the desert.

Bill emailed saying that we now have our visas and if we want to take malaria tablets we should start them in a couple of days.

28th December

Still a few last minute preparations. Len has to buy another GPS unit so that we have a spare in case a camel steps on the other one.

I have to buy at least 50 metres of rope for hauling water out of the deeper wells.

29th December

We seem to be missing some maps – hopefully Bill has them. He hasn’t ordered his foreign currency yet. We do, however, now have travel insurance, although to what lengths the cover would go in an emergency I don’t know.

2nd January

Living in Cornwall, I needed to allow a day to travel to Len’s house. Packing was finished long ago so I said goodbye to my parents and boarded the train, with about US$6000 in my pockets.

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Where to go next:

• Planning summary
• Pre-departure
• Expedition map