• Searching for fuel in the desert

September 14, 2004

The PAT members waiting at the campsite	Waw en Namus

It's 5 am. Sandro and myself get ourselves ready quietly. Everyone is asleep. We drive off in the direction of Waw el Kebir, an army outpost in the Rebiana Sand Sea in the Libyan Desert.

The rest of the team will just have to wait at the campsite. With enough water and food it should be no problem for the team. Only the heat. As soon as the sun rises, the temperature goes from a comfortable 20 degrees Celsius to a scorching 42 degrees Celsius.

Fly sheets come in handy and the team busy themselves with car maintenance and repairs.

Sandro and I make it to Waw en Namus just as the sun breaks the horizon. It is definitely a sight I will never forget. As we drive in the black sand, Sandro tells me to watch the hill right in front of us. Suddenly he steps on the brakes. We are at the edge of a 12 kilometer wide crater. Seven lakes dot the inside of the crater, filled with date trees and reeds. This is what I have in mind when one mentions oasis, not Tazerbu!

We stop for espresso and enjoy the spectacular sunrise. It is awe inspiring to see mother nature's work, how an explosive volcano eruption can create such beauty. For me, this has been worth all the effort - border crossings, permits, slow barges, the heat, no showers. I forget all of this in an instant until Sandro taps me on the back saying, “We’ve got to go." I'm pulled back to earth. We've got to get to Waw el Kebir for fuel.

We drive for another 100 kilometers to Waw el Kebir, a military outpost. No photography is allowed. We drive in, asked around for "nafta" (diesel in Arabic) and managed to find a guy repairing a generator with several tanks of diesel at the back.

For a price, he'll give us some diesel for our jerry cans. Little did he know we wanted 30 jerry cans filled! So after two hours of sucking on rubber hoses to get the diesel out, we managed to fill all the jerry cans and a 200 liter drum for extra measure. We headed to the officers mess for a well-earned cold drink and ten minutes later we were back on the road to the campsite.

Three cars filled with diesel, speeding to an undisclosed location in the Sahara Desert. If you saw how fast we were driving, you'd think we were definitely up to no good. We didn't stop at the crater on the way back. Using our satellite phones, we informed the team of our estimated time of arrival and everyone sprang into action, packing and preparing a refueling station at the camp.

At 3 pm we finally arrived at the camp. Now I know what a Paris-Dakar driver must feel like after a day at work. We get a rousing welcome from the team and everyone starts filling from the jerry cans immediately.

The fuel was shared among all the cars. We have enough to make it to Waw el Kebir where we will refuel again. By 4.30 pm we're back on the sand again. We head straight for Waw en Namus (Oasis of Mosquitos). After a beautiful sunset at the crater, the team headed for their campsite in another crater several kilometers away. This one doesn't have any lakes in it so the team is safe from mosquitoes and other bugs. So what is it like to sleep in a prehistoric crater? Read the next report to find out.