Final Bushcamp in Western Sahara
Last night was a bit wild. As I reported in my last blog, I left the flysheet off the tent so I could attach some guy ropes to the poles to prevent them being broken by the very strong wind. It was bordering on a gale. The wind blew through the mesh of the inner tent and woke me up several occasions. I was quite warm in my sleeping bag and indeed I overheated at times.
Up this morning as 5:45 to unpitch my tent and have breakfast at 6:30. We left at 7:00 for a long truck day to get us to our bush camp very near the Mauritanian border. We had to cover 500 km or so. Fortunately the roads were pretty good so we got there fairly early. We stopped about an hour on a beautiful deserted beach and some of the guys went in for the dip. Because I’m not a strong swimmer, I decided not to go in because I wasn’t sure about the currents or the depth of the water. Instead, I had to walk along the beach and looked at the rock pools and chatted to a few people.
(Please click on any thumbnail above to enlarge the whole gallery for full sliding photos)
We arrived at our bush camp at about 5:00 and the usual flurry of activity to set up the field kitchen and get the evening meal prepared. We also pitched our tents. It was similar to last night with a strong wind and no traction for our pegs. I didn’t want to put huge rocks in my tent again because I think one of the rocks caused a little bit of damage to the wall of the tent. It’s hardly noticeable and I can easily patch it but I don’t want to worsen it. Instead, I found a load of very long steel pegs in the truck and used these instead. They were just perfect, about twice the length of my own pegs and extremely strong so I could hammered them in very hard into the rock beneath which fractured slightly and allowed the pegs to penetrate. My tent now feels quite secure. I did use due guy ropes to support the poles facing the prevailing wind just in case. This time I stuck on the fly sheet as I don’t want to be as cold as I was last night with the wild wind blowing through.
It’s amazing how tired you can get sitting on arse and doing nothing. I’m trying to watch my weight a bit so I’m not snacking outside meals normally having a single portion and avoiding the seconds, most of the time. So all I did today was snooze, talk look at the scenery and snooze again. Yet, I’m wrecked now. I know it’s not only me -everybody reports the same. We’re coming up to the end of the second week on the road and although the overall experience is one of immense enjoyment and meaning, it’s also quite exhausting.
To bed now, to sleep, perchance to dream….
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