Our group consisted of 8 cars with 2 people in each, mostly South African farmers. There was one Landrover Defender in the convoy which was immediately regarded as bad luck. Apparently, these cars struggle in the dunes as they are heavy, not well balanced and not speedy. Again I was glad I only came as a co-pilot and not in my Landrover. Then there were 2 guides, each in a Landcruiser. One of them has been doing the tour for five years and it was amazing to see what he can do with the car. First we had to fill in an indemnity form, basically saying that your car may get stuck irrecoverable and that yourself may die on the trip as there is no medical help in reach. However, we were still looking forward to the tour. After a few km on tarred road we turned off into the desert which is a nature park and only few permits are issued for people to enter the area. We stopped to let air off the tyres, down to 0.8-1bar. They looked scarily flat. On the first day we still saw a lot of dune grass and Oryx feeding on it. We visited a deserted bulldozer which was used by a diamond searching company until 1954. This was about the only sign of civilization we saw that day after leaving the road. No, the second one was the drop toilet at camp, consisting of an open metal barrel with a toilet seat and lid, four wooden poles and some fabric around it on three sides with free view into the dunes on the fourth side. I never had better views during big business than on this trip.
To my surprise, the driving did not get boring. We stopped for breaks and to take photos and even the driving itself was quite exciting. At 5pm we reached camp and after a nap I went for a walk in the dunes. When the camp disappeared behind a dune one could think one is alone on the world, so wide and empty was the landscape. I enjoyed the experience not to hear any background sound of civilization.
