"Look,
I have to go with my camper for a month to Africa. Can you give me some
suggestions on how to maintain tire pressure?" This is my question to
the Roman tire dealer who had been serving me for years.
"To
decrease the friction you have to keep them inflated well to the maximum
... this reduces the contact surface. However, I recommend that you
bring two spare tires, many times ..."
The appointment for the
African tour participants was in Algeciras (Spain) where we were
supposed to take the ferry to Ceuta, the last Spanish outpost on
Moroccan soil. (from Rome 2700 km).
For months 2C magazine had
been bringing the latest updates to this demanding African tour that was
supposed to go as far as Tamaranset after crossing the desert and then
returning to Tunisia and from there embarking for Sicily. For a total of
9700 kilometers for those departing from Rome.
None of the 15 participants in the demanding African program could boast experiences of consistent desert crossings.
Almost
everyone, including your editor, had traveled to Europe, Egypt, the
Middle East. But no real desert for hundreds of kilometers.
Going
to Africa in August was like putting your head into an oven, but what
you wanted to do considering that in Italy the holidays are concentrated
precisely between July and August to allow large companies, starting
with Fiat, to be able to do inventories.
When we arrived in
Ceuta we encountered the sad local reality: it took us 18 hours to cross
the border and enter Morocco. But it was only the first 'welcome' to
the singular reality of North Africa.
As
for the vehicles, we went from self-built ones using some elderly vans
to the latest motorhomes that even had air conditioning. A grandiose
luxury in those years. We were satisfied with our Freccia 2 big camper,
an Ark sub-brand, the first Italian company in the sector. Excellent
Ford Transit mechanics and high wheels.
We crossed Morocco with
an itinerary that in addition to including stops such as Marrakech and
Fez, included a detailed excursion on the Atlas range where we could
admire the Neolithic graffiti and buy, after lively negotiations,
multi-glittering geodes.
Stable temperature around 45 in the shade. ________________________________________________
We
were at the gates of Marrakech when my Freccia 2 Big ran aground on the
left after a roar such as to make you believe it had stepped on an
anti-tank mine. The front tire had completely exploded.
The long line of campers got stuck thanks to the Citizens band radio (the 'cabin') each camper was equipped with.
I
mounted one of the two spare tires and then I was pointed out by some
of the many guys who cackled around us asking for candy, money,
biscuits, where a tire dealer was.
Luckily for me he wasn't very
far away and when I managed to take him to the crash site the first
thing he did was to get on his knees and check the pressure of the other
tires with an instrument.
"But are you crazy to travel with
wheels in these conditions?", He said to me in French, adding: "You are
traveling with maximum pressure; that's why the tire has burst and thank
whoever you want if the others are still healthy. ... "he concluded.
I
tried to tell him that his Italian colleague had instructed me to keep
the blood pressure high to reduce the contact surface with asphalt or
sand and thus avoid overheating, according to him.
The Moroccan
tire dealer let out a laugh and at the end explained to me that the
tires of the cars in those parts must instead be inflated a little
because both the friction and the great heat inevitably increases the
pressure inside the inner tube. .
Even though we left every
morning at five o'clock to avoid being in the heat of the sun, the
bursting of our tire was only the first of a series of other episodes
that affected many of the participants in the African trip.
But it wasn't over. We were now on the track towards Tamaransett when I had to stop due to the burst of another front tire.
I
had run out of spare tires and the caravan leader, the legendary Fausto
Pepe, after having ordered the other campers to continue towards the
next desert oasis, decided to ask one of the colleagues to go back for a
few tens of kilometers to the village that we had just left. He, on the
other hand, would have gone on to look for a couple of tires in the
next town to replace the sheared ones of my camper.
The radio
contact at one point faded away with the distance. Being alone on a
desert track is a very strong experience especially when traveling with a
wife and two teenage children and a German Shepherd.
Eight
hours after the start, the two crews re-emerged, the first of which, the
one who had come back, had not found tires of the same size as mine.
Similar situation for Fausto who, being a type of wide experience and
positivity, however, bought two tires smaller than the original Ford
Transit ones.
Once assembled, the camper had assumed a singular
set-up but the important thing was to continue finishing the desert
stage and reaching an intermediate safety location.
Our reader
may wonder why we were risking so much in a difficult environment from
both a climate and a security point of view due to the political
instability of the nations we crossed. It remains to say that we were
young, full of interest and energy, motivated by the adventure, sure
however that the organization promoted by the magazine could have
guaranteed safety margins. Without taking into account the inscrutable
charm of the desert.
We
embarked with us a literature professor who spoke a decent Italian and
among the many things he told us during some long stages of transfer,
speaking in general of the sexual habits of Arab males towards the four
wives guaranteed by their religion, he said her husband's commitment
each night stood at six performances.
This fact, which was then
reported in an evening collegiate meeting in a campsite, sparked many
ironic reactions from kind brides towards their husbands exhausted by
the commitment in driving the camper in uncomfortable conditions.
"Fausto,
Fausto the water temperature is rising, it has almost reached its
maximum ... Here we risk everything exploding and I stop again ..."
Fausto's
camper reached us and verified that the instrument was now reaching its
maximum, however, since the engine continued to work, he decided to
look for a mechanic who could fix it in the next village.
When
we reached him it was two o'clock on a terrifying afternoon in the heat
and in the end we found the mechanic who was a movie character, tall,
hieratic and also a little annoyed because we had clearly interrupted
his siesta.
Taking a look at the engine of my vehicle, speaking
in good French, he said that the pressure gauge had to be taken into
account. To which my answer was: "Okay the manometer ... And now what do
we do? Where do we find it?"
But the guy in the mood for humor
said that by saying gauge he meant the hand. Or: "Touch the engine with
your hand. If it burns too much, it's better to stay still ..." And this
too was a very special experience.
Crossing the border between
Morocco and Algeria was terrible. For hours our caravan was blocked.
There are many reasons for this excruciating customs blockade. It seems
due to the ongoing war between Morocco and the forces of the Polisario
Front, an independence movement supported by Algeria.
Some of the
participants had been seized by serious bouts of dysentery, either
because the majority of campers had embarked dozens and dozens of
bottles of low-mineral water while what was needed was salt (the stokers
of the steamers who still ran on the local railway large tablets of
pure salt).
You want it because under the scorching sun instead
of taking shelter as the residents did, mini clothes were exhibited that
favored subcutaneous exudation and you noticed it by seeing the salt
stains that appeared on the skin. (Before leaving Franca had been
instructed by a Roman doctor specialized in tropical diseases how to
prepare a potion made of citrus fruits, salt and sugar that allowed us
to better overcome the problems deriving from dehydration).
And
so it was that we decided to transport four of the most seriously ill,
two women and two teenagers, to a hospital in a location that was close
to the former French nuclear polygon where numerous underground
experiments had been carried out whose radioactive sand had also reached
in some places in Sicily.
We
loaded the sick into three campers and left the caravan we ventured on a
track that we traveled at night arriving in a village where the
hospital was made up of some tents.
The doctor on duty, a Pakistani, gave orders that the tent that housed some local women be released to welcome our sick.
"They
have to be given a drip immediately ..." The Pakistani doctor ordered
and it was like that for at least two days. "Do you have plastic trays?
For your women, we don't have any here and then I want to avoid any
contagion ..." We gave him dish racks and plastic trays that we had in
the kitchen corner of the campers. The Pakistani doctor was happy to be
able to talk to Europeans.
"Why here, in this remote place,
doctor?" obligatory question before the exchange of hugs. He smiles,
lowers his eyes and replies: "I had to stay here for two years. Five
years have passed by now. Often they forget to pay my salary. We have
few resources, but people love me and not only because I have the same
dark skin."
Before leaving, we asked him to book by telephone
for our patients as many stops for the administration of the infusions
in the hospitals of the towns that we would meet in the following
stages.
And
we returned to the border reaching the rest of the caravan who didn't
give a damn about the sick and many had decided to interrupt the journey
inside Algeria instead taking the coast road to return to Italy as soon
as possible. We, on the other hand, continued with the sick who were
rekindled by the powerful saline infusions that had been practiced on
them. _________________________________________________________
One
of the stops in Algeria was a visit to a source that was said to give
fertility to women who could not have children. It may be a coincidence
but two young ladies of the group, sterile for years, finally returned
to their cities declared that the water had had an effect. ________________________________________________
Some
readers might ask me why I dwelt on the negative aspects of this
distant journey (1985) that took us 30 days before returning to our
offices and to work. A more than logical question.
It remains to
say that it would have been impossible to describe on this blog all the
touristic details of the long tour that rarely differed from those
widely tested by specialized guides and magazines.
You may like
it or not, but in this distant experience there is also the pleasure of
facing the adventure, of giving adolescent children the way to come into
contact with realities that are profoundly different from those
experienced in Italy, to see with their own eyes and judging a
'far-neighbor-different' by skin color, religion, customs.
A
'neighbor' made up of almost always smiling children, because poverty in
any corner of the globe always has this eternal expression of joy
compared to those who are constantly damned to keep their wealth without
a smile.
No comments:
Post a Comment