The Sahara... our journey

[smlobx]

A note about the vehicles. On this expedition we have 2, 100 Series Land Cruisers, a Nissan Patrol, a Defender, our Troopy and one other vehicle that escaped me at the moment. All have been modified for extended desert travel with suspension and tire upgrades as well as additional capacity. Each vehicle can carry well in excess of 50 gallons of fuel and a couple are close to 70 gallons all with onboard tanks. Each vehicle also carries between 20 and. 30 gallons of water which we'll need to conserve going forward.

As diverse as our vehicles are so are our nationalities. We have 4 French, 1 Swiss, 1 Austrian, 1 Check and 2 Americans. Two of our team are also physicians.

 

[smlobx]

WOW!

We are in a hotel in Djanet to resupply and do laundry etc.
I tried to log in a week or so ago and was denied... not sure by whom but I'm here.

I'm pretty tired after the last week out in the desert and I will post more as I can while here but suffice it to say this is unlike any country I've ever been too.

The government is civilian but the country is run by the he military, and they run it with an iron fist. The amount of paperwork and hoops we've had to jump through is amazing. They are however very friendly, it's just that everything has to be approved by them. More later on that.

Going to the market is an amazing experience once you find what you're looking for and the fruits and vegetables that we've found were of very good quality. The only digestive issues our team had was staying at a state hotel in In Salah which almost took our ER doc out but he had recovered and is back in full swing.

The weather has Ben much hotter on the first two weeks of our trip with highs over 50C! That coupled with some of the toughest dune driving we've ever done made for a rough 2 weeks. More later on that as well.

Here's a few pictures if they load to show a bit of this beautiful country...






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[sg1]

WOW!

We are in a hotel in Djanet to resupply and do laundry etc.
I tried to log in a week or so ago and was denied... not sure by whom but I'm here.

I'm pretty tired after the last week out in the desert and I will post more as I can while here but suffice it to say this is unlike any country I've ever been too.

The government is civilian but the country is run by the he military, and they run it with an iron fist. The amount of paperwork and hoops we've had to jump through is amazing. They are however very friendly, it's just that everything has to be approved by them. More later on that.

Going to the market is an amazing experience once you find what you're looking for and the fruits and vegetables that we've found were of very good quality. The only digestive issues our team had was staying at a state hotel in In Salah which almost took our ER doc out but he had recovered and is back in full swing.

The weather has Ben much hotter on the first two weeks of our trip with highs over 50C! That coupled with some of the toughest dune driving we've ever done made for a rough 2 weeks. More later on that as well.

Here's a few pictures if they load to show a bit of this beautiful country...
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I did the trip to Djanet twice in the 1990s when there still wasn't any bureaucracy. I wonder which route you took. Back then it was challenging but fun.

 

[smlobx]

We are going in a roughly counterclockwise direction following some ancient trade routes.

In our first day of travel in Algeria leaving Algiers we encountered six military checkpoints! Each of these required presentation of our passports and various paperwork that our Tuareg guides had obtained ahead of time. Each stop was between 30 and 45 minutes in duration which really affected our progress that day but such is life on the road. One funny thing that happened at our longest stop was that they had never seen the newer US Passports, which I had just received prior to leaving, so they had to show it to everyone at the base and many pictures were taken of it.

More on the trip when I get to the next town in about 8-9 days as we are heading out shortly.


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[smlobx]

Hey guys. Just a quick update. We have successfully finished our trip and are enjoying a few days in Switzerland before heading back to the States.

I will do a more complete write up including pictures but I can say this was perhaps the hardest expedition I've ever been on. We've had multiple mechanical breakdowns (fortunately not our 78 Series) which required "field repairs" and eventually required the G Wagon being towed almost 50km to a paved road where it was loaded on a flatbed and through multiple shippers eventually loaded on the ferry and is now in Genoa awaiting Mercedes to render their opinion...
In all we drove about 5000 miles in Algeria and Tunisia.
More to come in a few days..


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[smlobx]

Some pictures

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[smlobx]

Our trip...

 

[the deputy]

What an epic adventure, looking forward to more pictures and final report.

 

[wickychicky]

In case it's helpful, here's one of my tracks, which led into some remote dunes and areas a long way from any road - beautiful country!

Hey Alan,
Do you actually have the tracks for this route you want to share?
We are heading to Tunisia today and Algeria in 3 weeks.
Tx!

 

[alanymarce]

Hey Alan,
Do you actually have the tracks for this route you want to share?
We are heading to Tunisia today and Algeria in 3 weeks.
Tx!

Unfortunately nothing of much use - the GPS unit was an early one and so it captured waypoints but I don't have a GPX file. We took the tarred road from In Amenas to Zarzaitine; just before the latter there's a junction south to Edjeleh, and you then keep going southwards. The road becomes a track and the dunes are bigger. When you see two palm trees you are actually in Libya for a while (!).

Head southwest (the track disappears some of the time, and you reach a low plain, with the main erg on the north side, with huge dunes. If you now head west (no tracks at all, just following the compass across the desert eventually you'll reach the main N2 highway from Illizi to In Amenas.