Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
crew member Juan was my ruthless determination to make up time,
after reading the emails from Eric saying that the plane would be leav-
ing on the scheduled date, and not a day later.
Two days ago, I decided I would save time by running across the
desert again, rather than continuing to run on the Pan-American High-
way. By doing so, I would cut off about 40 kilometres. In my desperate
state of mind, I reckoned it was worth it. Once again, the vans could
not accompany me, because the desert sand is soft and we couldn't
risk them getting bogged. So the plan was that I would run across the
desert, accompanied only by Juan on the motor scooter carrying water,
food and fuel. The vans would travel down the highway but detour at
a number of tributary roads that cross the desert. The vehicles would
wait for me, Bernie would give me a drink of cold water and something
to eat, then meet me again at the next tributary crossing. Bernie and
I found the point on our map where the desert met up again with the
Pan-American Highway and arranged to rendezvous there finally, late
in the evening.
Things began going wrong almost immediately. Juan and I entered
the desert without our mobile phones. We simply left them in the vans
in our crazy rush to get going. We also failed to check the battery level
on our GPS satellite navigation device and didn't check the fuel gauge
on the motor scooter. The main contributor to the fiasco that ensued
was something out of our control, however. Soon after we'd parted
ways, the radiator hose on Bernie's Winnebago blew and the van broke
down. The other van took Bernie to try to find a replacement part. Of
course, this meant that when we arrived at the first tributary crossing,
Bernie wasn't there. With no phone, I couldn't call him.
I decided to press on, hoping to meet Bernie at the next crossing.
Of course, he wasn't there either. I cursed him—how could he let me
down? I continued on, in a rage. By now, Juan's motor scooter was run-
ning low on fuel. We had also depleted our water and food supplies. The
temperature was 42 degrees Celsius, all around us was empty desert,
and, on the far southern horizon, the direction in which I was running,
we could see a mountain range. What should we do? The batteries on
the GPS were dead. We were lost. With no phone, we couldn't send a
rescue call to Bernie. But we did know that south was the direction in
which we should be travelling and that sooner or later we'd reach the
Pan-American. The trouble was, with no replenishments along the way,
