Getting Stuck In The Sahara Desert ~ Radio and Travel Inspired Ramblings

June 26, 2020 -

Getting Stuck In The Sahara Desert

When I was in the US Navy stationed in Spain in the early 70's, I made 5 trips to Morocco with a friend, we were both Amateur Radio operators and thus intrigued by foreign countries and cultures. We spent most of our 30 days annual leave from the Navy traveling around Morocco two years in a row, 1973 and 1974, although in '74 we also went to Gibraltar for a week to operate ham radio there.

The travel guide "Spain And Morocco On $5 And $10 a Day" was our bible. We were usually in Morocco other than the peak tourist season and we could haggle with hotel clerks for a cheap rate for a few nights. The guide book told us which ones to try. I remember it said that tourists should never go into the souk in Marrakesh, Casablanca or Tangiers after dark. So of course we had to do it, late at night, in all of them :-)

The other idiot thing we did in 1974 was drive the car out to the desert from Marrakesh, instead of taking a Sahara tour in one of the big 6WD buses. The tours all left at 4AM so they would be back before the heat of the day, but we left at 8AM. We drove east across the Atlas Mountains and into the desert as far as the hard packed sand track went. Got to the end where sand dunes started and saw camels wandering around. Turned around and started back, late in the morning. It was getting hot. We had a Sony shortwave radio installed in the car, I was tuning the bands. On the FM broadcast band the entire dial was packed with BBC and German stations, coming in like we were next door to them! It was May and they were coming in via Sporadic E skip propagation on VHF from northern Europe to Morocco, it was awesome! My roommate Paul (then WA3IJR) was driving, he looked down at the radio in amazement and drove off the hard packed track. The VW Fastback sedan was stuck in the sand. We had a 1 gallon jug with only a cup of water in it, and an old British Army poncho we draped across the windshield for shade, all our luggage was back in the hotel in Marrakesh.

We took turns digging out the sand in front of the back wheels, then pushing and driving the car a few feet, then resting and doing it again. Hours went by doing this, at mid-day, at the edge of the Sahara Desert. We figured we would be stuck until the next morning when the tourist buses came back. Around 3PM we saw an old wizened Moroccan man pushing a bicycle across the desert at right angles to the "road", we waved to him and he came over to us. He didn't speak Spanish or French or English. He had a water bottle with burlap tightly sewn around it, he opened the bottle, flicked it just right and a tiny bit of water came out and got the burlap wet, cooling the water in the bottle. He offered us both a bit, cold water in the middle of nowhere! Then he went to the track and started pulling up weeds growing along the edges. We couldn't figure out what the heck he was doing until he came back to the car and started laying them in front of the wheels and kicking them into the sand, under the tires with his bare toed sandals. We got the idea, ran up and pulled all the weeds we could find, making a track ahead of the car. With two of us pushing and one driving, the VW used the weeds for traction and easily drove out and up to the hard packed track. The old Moroccan wouldn't take any money for thanks, he just left pushing his bicycle off across the sand.

We were still really thirsty and the first thing we came to on the way back was a mud brick hut along the sandy track. They were selling warm bottles of Coca-Cola, it was better than nothing! Coca-Cola never tasted so good :-) I had thought to fill a paper grocery bag in the trunk with sand from the desert while we were stuck and I still have 4 Coke and Pepsi bottles, with Arabic writing on them, full of Sahara Desert sand :-)

It was 10PM by the time we were driving over the Atlas Mountains back to Marrakesh (and the hotel with our belongings) and encountered very dense, solid fog. We could only see the narrow road by my leaning out the passenger window and shining a flashlight on the road edge, creeping along. We were exhausted when we finally got back to the hotel.

We had fun exploring the Roman ruins in Morocco on our trips, the best being in Volubilis with the many mosaic tiled floors and walls (2000 years old!!).