• Dune driving in Libya

September 12, 2004

Braving the Libyan dunes

Libya. Not exactly on top of the list in the tourist map. A country with 90 percent desert, Libya offers the adventurous a taste of one of the most hostile environments on earth - the Sahara. Erg or Sea of Sand is an apt name for the deserts here.

Although Libya enjoys a Mediterranean climate along its coastline, it has an extremely dry desert interior. With a barren terrain of flat to undulating plains, plateaus and depressions, part of the Libyan desert is unfit for human habitation. The desert centre, a place of extreme aridity, goes through long periods with no rain, sometimes lasting as long as 30 years. The only thing to look forward to is a great open void of sand, with no roads or tracks.

The PETRONAS Adventure Team has had experience in deserts before; the team has driven in the Baluchistan Desert in Pakistan, the highest desert along the Karakoram, the Taklamakan in China, the Gobi Desert in Mongolia, the Kalahari in Botswana and, last but not least, the highest dunes in the world at the Namib Desert in Namibia. Gaining experience over the years the team is still learning as different sand, different angles in the dunes all make desert driving an art that takes years to master.

Today we got our first taste of some dunes. Although for most of the drivers, the lessons they learnt over the years come flooding back, the few new drivers are finding the learning curve a little steep. With Sandro, Roberto, Marta and Abdullah giving instructions and tips, we did fairly well today.

However, Halim Rahman, Expedition Leader, is a still a little worried, "We are pushing our cars to the limit here," he says. "The cars are loaded to the max, the suspensions, tyres, even the engine is under a lot of strain. We have to make sure we don't break the cars, our mechanics are already working overtime."

According to Stiven Sim, Mechanics Coordinator, the mechanics have to look into even the tiniest problems. "Just a loose nut somewhere can create major problems," he says. "It is the Sahara after all, it's not like we have a workshop or spare parts distributor around the corner!"

Mohd Arif, one of the team’s mechanics, is a whiz at repairing the cars on the go. A veteran of several PAT expeditions, Arif feels an expedition like this is not a job for just any mechanic. "We make repairs on the go," he says. "Sometimes, something that would normally take a couple of days in Kuala Lumpur, we do it in two hours!"

He also adds that they have to work in extreme conditions, but the teamwork has been really good. While they were working, some of the team members cooked for them. "Just now I even saw Joyce inflating my tyres while I was working on Botak's car," Arif recalls. Lok Chun Mean agrees, "We are family, we do our part, the rest do theirs."