Russel, Pullar and I got up before dawn and walked over the ridge to the rocks to watch and photograph the sunrise. They went on ahead & left me and I mooched around looking for something to shoot but couldn’t find any inspiration so wandered back to the truck.
We had brekkie then packed up and hit the piste.¹ The “road” was rough and hard to find at times and it was very dusty so we all wrapped our heads in our turbans & sat the long day out.
We stopped for lunch in the middle of a huge and wind-swept plain then drove on, reaching the tar-seal road at about 4:30. Even though it was a reasonably new road and it took 2 hours to travel the last 20km to Tamanrasset.
Once again our 3 passengers shouted us a meal in a restaurant where Zorba (we had nicknamed our friends Zorba, Charles and Bob) had “contacts” and it was really good, soup followed by steak and chips.
We met Skip & Chris² on the street and, of course, they had things to complain about, then we drove out to the camping ground where we found an Encounter³ truck in residence.
¹ The French word piste means “track”
² Two of the people who, being dissatisfied with the way the trip was run, had set off on their own.
³ Encounter Overland is an overland tour company which, unlike Kumuka, is still in operation today
CurseOfTheTraveller 