Friday 19 March 2004
Introductory meeting in the Jeepclub.be-club house. This first evening is a way of getting to know all participants, and a great way of exchanging information and preparation tips for the upcoming journey. The Jeep masters and the Tunisia guide give technical advice, and a small check-up is done of the vehicles. Copies of all official documents are collected, and we all learn why we would need lots of little plastic bags (1), why you should never burn a scorpion (2), and why we should all bring a small wooden board (3) ...
Friday 02 April 2004
Pre-meeting for most of the participants in a Campanile hotel in Vitrolles, France, near to the Marseille harbor. We need to be in the check-in early in the morning, and most people choose to sleep in the neighborhood of the ferry terminal. We have a pleasant evening and dinner, and leave around 07.00 AM for the ferry.
Saturday 03 April 2004
Rendezvous in the Marseille harbor. Every Jeep gets "stickered", and receives a special VIP ticket. Nice. We get to board as a group, and while French customs and police take all the time to lunch, and we accumulate a delay of about 5 hours, all Jeepers swarm out on the ship's sundecks and bars, in preparation of the dinner we will have together. The day ends with talks in the bar about all the nice things that are awaiting us in Tunisia.
Sunday 04 April 2004
Thanks to the captain's decision of navigating straight to Tunisia at top speed, we arrive with only a small delay in Tunis harbor. We all prepare our documents, put up our best and most friendly smile, and get past customs and police. Even the Jeepers who left their original and official vehicle documents at home get into the country ... phew.
We have a rather quick connection route to go to Kerouan for a meal, and then it's off to Gabes, where we stay in hotel Oasis. After supper, the parking lot is transformed into a Jeep workplace, and while radios and tents are dispatched, jerry cans are installed and secured, along with sand plates and the necessary wiring. Everybody goes to sleep early as we all want to get as much sleep as possible for the next days (and also because there is no bar).
Monday 05 April 2004
We leave Gabes for a visit to the underground houses near Matmata, and have a pick nick in the magnificent ghost town Zeraoua. We then continue our trip through the ever changing scenery towards Douz, where we literally stay in a hotel next to the entrance of the desert.
Tuesday 06 April 2004
Navigation will be easy to coming days: 180 ° south ... We are off into the desert, first on semi maintained and used off road tracks, but soon also "in the wild". Every Jeep has to search its own path through the sand and the dunes. After an exciting morning, that only makes us hungry for more, we have a great Berber-meal, freshly prepared in the open by our guides. The afternoon brings us the first GPS-navigation exercise, and the Jeeps are split up into smaller groups. This facilitates navigation, and assures that we can all rely on each other for winching, navigating and mental support.
When the sun finally starts to set, we pick out a plain near a series of giant dunes, and little tents start to appear soon, next to the randomly scattered Jeeps in the landscape. It is a magnificent and unbelievable sight, to see the camping places from the top of the nearest dune. While our local Berber guides start preparing the dinner for the evening, and while they set up their giant Berber tents, an improvised workshop is set up for repairing the first "casualty": a TJ with a broken shock absorber. The evening ends with a party in the desert, Jeep style ... No electricity, so we all sing; no lights, so everyone turns on its "headlamp". At night, there is a lot of snoring and dromedaries passing by.
Wednesday 07 April 2004
180° south, once again, and we continue ... Moving from waypoint to waypoint, overcoming all dunes, rocks, and high speed plains through teamwork and our Jeeps, we slowly move through the scenery that will forever be a part of our memories. We pass groups of wild dromedaries, rest at wells or bir's, and have to drink a lot, and eat salty stuff in the 40 degree heat ... At night, we sleep in our tents once again, or in the open, close to one of the wells for refreshment.
Thursday 08 April 2004
90 ° east, we change direction, and are off to the Ksar Ghilane fort. However, a GPS tracking exercise in the morning changes our plans ... We need to cross a big sand sea in two stages, and the second stage turns out to be treacherous and much more difficult than expected. In temperatures of 44 degrees and more, different groups of Jeeps have to plough for up to 5 hours through the sand hills, with constant winching and digging. A giant team effort of everyone in the group, and a near to search-and-rescue operation to retrieve the last group, is the ultimate challenge that unifies our group, and is the talk of the day, when we arrive in the oasis of Ain Sbat. Ain Sbat is a magnificent treasure in the desert, a compound composed of two buildings (a restaurant and shower facility), super-de-luxe sleeping infrastructure in the form of Berber tents with beds, and an open air swimming pool, filled with hot water from failed oil drillings. Belgacem, master of the compound, has prepared a feast, to celebrate the ending of the successful days we had in the desert.
Friday 09 April 2004
We leave the dunes behind us, and drive east again, through a rocky desert, towards TATAOUINE. The Hotel Sangho awaits us, with an inviting garden and swimming pool, and with the almost forgotten excessive Western comfort facilities. We wonder what we would have preferred: the silence and beauty of the desert, or the crowdy and luxurious hotel ...
Saturday 10 April 2004
As all stories must come to an end, we prepare to leave for Gabes, once again, but now to return our expedition materials to our guides. We visit the local soukh market (with a police escort for parking places!) and have a fisherman's meal in a local restaurant in the harbor. We finally arrive in Tunis, in the hotel of Tunisian national football team, and all start thinking of our return home.
Sunday 10 April 2204
Meeting spot of the day is the Tunis harbor, to board our ship that will take us home. All around us are numerous other 4x4's, some more damaged than others, and we really enjoy the bargaining with our last dinars with the local vendors. As today is Easter, we have the pleasant surprise of first-class meals on the boat, and we all start to exchange addresses and e-mail for our pictures afterwards. We thank our guide for the impressive and magnificent tour we had, and we all agree: this was an experience never to forget, this was a week that formed and bonded us into a group, and we all know that we will, some day, see the desert again ...