And ye, that on the sands with printless foot...*

Welcome once again, scattered readers and hark ye well, for I have received news and beg a tale to tell. The convoy that entered the desert grew to 7 vehicles: our familiar pair, a Renault R19 (Camel Tow), a Peugeot 405 (Def.Intrepid), a Beetle (Getcha Motor Running) and Fiats Uno (Engineered to Destruction) and Croma (2Porsche2Push), ably guided by local lad Dahia. Already experiencing unfamiliar conditions - geography not my strong point but even I know rain, wind and cloud cover are not normal utterences for Africa's Wincy Willises - things proceeded to get steadily worse, with the wind whipping up the dunes into a sandstorm the likes of which our guide professed to never have beholden before. (That sentence begs a Long John Silver style 'Aaarrrr Haaaarrrr!' at the end, so treat yourself to one even though it's a long time till International Talk Like A Pirate Day). With visibility severly reduced and airborne sand ingressing into places not kindly disposed theretowards, the first casualty of day one in the desert was the 405. Repairs are now out of the question - no life-saving Morrocan 3 to call on - so the 405 was abandoned and its occupants distributed amongst the remaining vehicles. The campsite was reached that evening, when the guide became ill and the assembled throng dined on camel: whether these two event are connected was not disclosed to your reporter. A Bedouin style tent was erected for the nights repose, which of course fell over in the middle of the night, forcing the camel-fed intrepids to finish their slumber in the vehicles.

The next day (Friday) dawned with no abatement of the sandstorm in evidence and the combination of gruelling roads and windblown abrasive tolled the death knell for another vehicle; the Croma. Again, repairs, however valiantly attempted, were futile and the occupants were redistributed: suddenly, the value of having a large van in one's convoy, even if dressed as an ambulance, became evident to many of the participants. Nightfall saw a beach camp established.

The value of the ambulance moved from invaluable to priceless in one fell swoop today, the final day of the desert saga, when the conditions defeated the Renault. The convoy now had to distribute 14 people amongst the four remaining (alreadily heavily laden) vehicles: one doesn't need a Phd in Resource Management to fathom a wager on which vehicle is bearing the brunt. In fact - and here's the first real victim of the merciless sand - all the medical hardware collected by Alex for the Gambian hospitals has had to be jettisoned to make room for the shipwrecked deserteers. Although slightly tempered by Dahia's promise to return to salvage it from the dunes and pass it amongst the equally needy local medical facilities, this has taken a little of the gloss off the fundraising effort. For the greater good though: Team IceCold are now genuine PBC heroes. As well as the meatwagon's omnibusian efforts, the Suzuki Jeep continues to perform faultlessly, even pulling fellow convoyers out of the drifting sands from time to time: not bad for a little 1300 beantin. Think my next car might be Japanese...

The convoy pulled into the campsite cum hostel in Noukachott late this afternoon (Sat 13 Jan), again in wordless agog at the sight of hot running water, to recover their strength for the push to Senegal tomorrow. Some of the genuine Paris-Dakar Rally runners and followers are bunking with them so no doubt tales of derring do are being swapped over campfires and cold ones as we speak. Despite the trials and tribulations, they're still bang on target. The next section apparently has the worst 'roads' of the whole trip, and given the slightly worrying reports that the Transit and Ambulance sections of the meatwagon are slowly parting company, this is not good news. Still, all good character-forming stuff. Four days to go till the auction in Gambia.

I think that's it: I've wrung the last narrative jices from the wisps of information I hastily scratched down when Joe rang, so I'll leave you there. The convoy passes back into radio silence now for a day or so: more news when I get it. Until next time, cheers - Phil.

PS. I went to both Tesco's and the opticians today, but I think you've had enough excitement for this instalment, so I'll tell you about that another time.

*The Tempest a5 s1 1.33.