Suivez la piste

We were intruders in a colossal area of sand and gravel and unbroken horizons in every direction. In the silver light of the Sahara, images could be distorted, way markers missed and distances miscalculated. The windswept desert that stretched out before us seemed as though it was painted by the hand of an artist who had hidden the masterpiece and would only reveal its beauty to those who were prepared to sacrifice their comfort and security. We drove on towards the center of the African continent, unaware of the hazards, with thousands of kilometers ahead of us and no guide books: only our carte Michelin, the desert voyager’s bible, that when unfolded was as big as a bedsheet. Its symbols charted valuable information as to where we could expect to find potable water and its depth, where petrol was available, and if the track was exceptionally dangerous.

It was nineteen-seventy three. My friend and former Peace Corps colleague Dan Richard, his younger brother Randy and my girlfriend Kersti (who became my wife) set out on a 3,500 kilometer motorcycle odyssey through the heart of the Sahara Desert that perhaps only a few people before us had ever undertaken. One of the prerogatives of youth I suppose is to see possibilities where others see obstacles. It didn’t occur to us that our trip might be difficult or that it could be dangerous. There weren’t any satellite phones to call for help or backup crews to rescue us if we were injured or in trouble, but what we lacked in logistic support we made up for with an abundance of naive enthusiasm and luck. Dan said, tongue in cheek that “we were the last of the rugged individualists.”  Maybe, or perhaps, we were just young desert pilgrims on a journey to take stock of our lives, discover some things about ourselves and “take the road less travelled by.”

The Sahara is a place of clear skies and wide stretched horizons. It covers an area that is equal to the continental United States, and for the most part, is unpopulated. We rode for long stretches without meeting another vehicle. If we ran into trouble, we were more or less on our own. Portable satellite phones were still twenty-five years distant and if we got lost or had an accident, we couldn’t expect anyone to send out a tow truck or a rescue party. At In Sahlah, the last oasis before the trail became even more difficult; we filled out the mandatory permission forms before we were allowed to continue on through the Hogar region to Tamanrasset. We detailed our route and destination to the desert police, who having fulfilled their bureaucratic obligations, placed the forms among piles of other forgotten, yellowed documents. Would they really have known, or have been concerned if we didn’t show up at the next check point within the specified time? We doubted it.

The skeletons of the abandoned vehicles that we saw along the way, stood as sand blasted monuments to travelers who were ill prepared for the harsh conditions and challenges of some of the world’s most dangerous trails. Without a doubt, the most sensible way to travel in the desert was in sturdy, all-wheel drive vehicles in a convoy with experienced desert hands who understood its shifting moods, or in camel caravans like the Touareg Nomads had done through the ages. Our overloaded motorcycles weren’t an ideal choice of transport for the arduous trip across the Sahara, but in many respects crossing the desert on a motorcycle was a rite of passage. It was an initiation and turning point in our lives that wasn’t as dramatic as that of the young Masai tribesmen who went off into the bush armed with only a spear to kill a lion, but our desert quest gave us an opportunity for introspection and a chance to prove to ourselves that we were capable of more than we imagined.

“Suivez la piste” and “bon courage” were short simple messages that implied: be cautious, stay on the trail, have faith. Good advice for anyone traversing the desert, in as much as there were no real roads through the Sahara, just sporadically maintained sand and dirt tracks. After we crossed the Eastern Atlas mountains south of Algiers, the tarmac ended abruptly outside of the oasis town of El Golea. 

From then on, we fish-tailed our way through sandy, rutted paths or bounced over uneven makeshift trails, that on our Michelin map of northern Africa were depicted as improved roads. On the map, the long, solitary, yellow line marking our route through that vast wilderness of sand was broken only by the pinpricks that represented the oasis where over the centuries travelers stopped to replenish their supplies, and where it was also essential for us to rest and bunker up on water, food and petrol. The names of those refuges etched themselves into my memory: Blida, Lahouat, Gharhadia, El-Golea, In Sahlah, Tamanrasset, In Guezzamn, Agadez, Tanout, Zinder.

We followed the ancient trade route from Algiers in Algeria, through Niger and into Northern Nigeria on the trails of drifted sand, hard sand, bottomless sand, or on punishing, bumpy tracks with corrugations that shook us to the marrow. Our heads and jaws ached from our teeth banging together on those unending washboards worn into the terrain by heavily loaded lorries, our nostrils were crusted with dust and often the back wheels of our motorcycles, looking for something solid to grip, bogged down to the exhaust pipes, forcing us to climb off, unload our gear, and help one another lift them out. When storms howled, we had to cover our machines carefully so that the fine grained sand that whipped us at gale force didn’t clog the filters or blow back through the mufflers and into the engine. The four weeks that it took to cross the desert was a test not only of our stamina and driving skills, but also the reliability of our bikes.

In nineteen seventy-three, the Trans Saharan Highway was just a dream with a grand name. One day it would be an asphalt link between North and Central Africa, slicing through the heart of the desert from Algiers in Algeria, through the deep and at times unnavigable sands of Niger, onward to the Sahel in Northern Nigeria. The unpaved piste when we travelled it was marked out by stones, and at intervals punctuated by those grave warnings not to stray from it. Sometimes after a day of doing hand to hand combat with it, we gobbled our rice and sardines and crawled into our sleeping bags, too tired to undress and pitch our tents.  

We rode for days through an unchanging terrain. In the hammering rays of the North African sun, one sand dune resembled the other, and in the shimmering light you understood what a mirage was. Follow the track, was advice that you took seriously. It was a matter of survival.  It wasn’t a just a catchy expression you used when taking leave or greeting other travelers whom you met in the desert. It was an admonishment and a stern warning, a rule and not a recommendation. If you were foolhardy and strayed too far from the markers that designated the trail in search of firmer sand or a short cut, it could cost you your life. If you were careless and wandered off the track and lost sight of the half meter high stones that pointed you in the right direction, and then reckoned that you could follow your tire tracks and intercept it again, the wind could have already swept them away. If you were lost and didn’t have shelter, the sun would follow you like a sharp toothed predator stalking its prey.

Gradually the changing geography signaled that we were entering the Sahel, the Sub Saharan scrublands that stretched like a band across the continent. We had successfully completed our 3,500 kilometer crossing, and realized our days in the desert were coming to an end. We sat in the evenings listening to the quiet whisperings of the landscape, speaking with awe at its beauty and with respect for its piste. We had accomplished what we set out to do weeks earlier, and I felt melancholy mixed with relief because it was over. There was comfort in knowing that we had only followed the first path to its end. While we gazed up into the African night under a canopy of stars that shone so brightly and seemed so close that we could touch them, we wondered what new adventures awaited us.