Well we came back from Libya safe and mostly sound. We went, we saw but we definitely did not conquer. This was the Libya Desert Challenge but for us it was the Libya Challenge as we saw little desert. It started well like all things that go terribly wrong. We crossed the border with very little hassle, and drove around 2500 km in 3 days to the proximity of rally base camp. The rally itself was satisfying especially concerning tracks, organization, and technical difficulties. The Libyans we met in the rally were very welcoming and will hopefully come to our Egyptian rallies in the near future. Our team's brief performance was excellent and from the first kms we were well ahead of the pack ensuring us first position overall. But the challenge lay not in the desert portion of this adventure. Our troubles started when our assistance car had a head-on collision with another speeding car coming in the wrong direction on an asphalt liaison. The injured assistants were rushed to the best hospital we could find (which does not say much) and all tests, x-rays and CT scans were made. Thank God there was no danger to their lives but there were a lot of stitches and healing needed. We went back to the hospital to check on our team only to find out that the other car in the accident did not want to drop the lawsuit, even though they were at fault as confirmed by the police report. We then decided to abandon the race for one day, or so we thought, until we made sure the lawsuit was dropped which took a lot of pleading, threatening, pulling strings and only 4 days! By the fifth day, our team was smuggled back to Cairo where a more thorough checkup confirmed their physical well being, the broken cars were loaded on trucks and we were ready to head home. We got back to the camp, packed our things and drove back from close to the Algerian border non stop for 2700 km until we hit Cairo. At the end, Master William tells us that All’s Well that Ends Well. We are all home and that is all that matters. As far as Libya is concerned, the dunes there are very different. I am not talking about their twisted sense of humor but technically speaking, they are very complex and very high but not as soft as our sand sea. A return visit is a must but a recovery time is needed first. In the mean time, I will be looking for some good karma to offer these Libyan sands in order for them to accept us less painfully next time.
The Sand Sea Sailors Team