Driving through sand, and then getting stuck - by Evan

The trick to driving through sand, I quickly discovered, was to obey Rule 1: DO NOT STOP under any circumstances, even when you are not entirely sure where the car is taking you. Because if you do stop, then you can’t move again. Which is a bit annoying when it’s 40 degrees and you’re several miles from anywhere, and it’s just occurred to you that you’re not a member of any African equivalent of the AA, so if you do get stuck miles from anywhere, and it’s 40 degrees, then there’s not actually that much you can do about it except sit and look at the blue sky and sigh quietly.

Luckily when this did happen a massive group of German tourists appeared from nowhere in a coach. Hurrah! They then proceeded to push our little bakkie out of the sand, and I happily coasted to a hard bit of road where Ellen and I sat and enjoyed being Not Stuck In A Desert. Unhappily, it then dawned on them that, as they’d (cleverly) stopped just behind us in the deep sand, thus disregarding Rule 1, they were now Very Stuck themselves. Which was more of a problem as they had an enormous coach.

After an hour of pushing in the sweltering heat, we finally moved them out by stealing the poles from a nearby fence and placing them under the wheels of their coach. The cows surrounding us seemed reluctant to take full advantage of their new found freedom, but they are probably doing so as I write this. The driver of the coach party later confided in us that he wasn’t entirely sure that he had enough petrol to take his tour group to their destination, and giggled maniacally when he verbally painted the picture to us of a group of middle aged Germans trundling through the desert without any water. The sun does funny things to people, I find.