Choum's 13 seater Landcruisers

Now the fun really started, here we were at 5am,in the cold. We had quite a few vehicles come out from Choum (in the distance) to meet the train, they drove us back to Choum, a dusty little place, if you've never been here, you've not missed much!

Then we started negioations to get a seat to Atar in a taxi. There was a Land Cruiser being loaded up with luggage etc, I helped out along with Gianni to get everything in place ready to go. We got a place each organised, then climbed. Taller than both Gianni & Julian at 5'10, I found it difficult being seated in the boot of a Land Cruiser with 5 men sharing the space with me, there were 3 women and a child across the back seat and a couple sharing the front passenger seat. Space was an issue and my knees were already starting to give me hell and my head was trying to dent the ceiling with each bump we went over.

The driver was trying to be the next Schumacher in his Land Cruiser, so overloaded with people with cargo and luggage on the roof, there were a few scary moments in between our breakdowns every 3km. Having completed no more than 25km in 2.5hrs we were suddenly exposed in the desert with nothing nearby and not a vehicle in sight of course. A pick up suddenly came into view and helped our driver with the mechanics .. we did another 2km when the driver had had enough and asked the pick up driver to take us all to Atar. So, with 10 already on the pick up with twice as much cargo as we had, we became 22 on a pick up with luggage and cargo, including a plastic bucket filled with fish someone had brought from NBD! I sat at the back on top of my pack fighting with the bar that was jerking into my ribs with every bump. After an incredulous 6hr drive (normally 3hrs) we finally saw Atar!