For Bear

July, 2008

I had just arrived in Alexandria, Egypt on behalf of the Summer 2008 "Semester at Sea" Voyage. Standing before the Great Pyramids of Giza had been a childhood dream of mine (which I accomplished during my three-day stay), but this story is not about that. This story is about sandboarding in the Sahara desert, and nearly not making it out alive.

We were instructed to never venture far from the ship’s port during the last day in each country. Despite the warnings (which made perfect sense to most sensible people), my friends and I booked a sandboarding trip with the Sahara Adventure Company. An old, leathery-skinned guy picked us up at 8am from our ship, and we began a four-hour caravan into the desert. Our ride was a beat-up 1990 Land Cruiser that had seen better days. Hours of travel took us through small, shanty-villages as well as an active Egyptian military base. Finally, we arrived at our destination: a series of three giant sand dunes in the middle of nowhere.

Our leathery adventure guide, Mike, stopped the car and prepared the equipment: a cooler filled with water bottles, three custom-made wooden sandboards, bars of wax, and one custom-made trike that, despite its simplicity of design, would simply take too long to describe with my allotted space. We waxed up the boards and headed to the top of dune #1.

Reaching the top of the 80-foot dune was both exhausting and enthralling. Never had I seen sky so blue, sharply contrasted by the horizon of golden sand. I anticipated success before my first sandboarding attempt. Years of surfing and snowboarding had to give me some kind of advantage, right?

Wrong. I went down on my face instantly. You might think falling in the sand is not so bad.

Wrong. Feels more like falling on pavement.

The fall served as a big-time motivator for not falling again (you learn pretty quickly when severe pain is the consequence). My group had enough energy for about ten runs total. It was the experience of a lifetime, and we were exhausted.

On the way back to civilization, we discovered exactly why such trips should never be planned for the last day in port. Our Land Cruiser was stuck in the sand, and did not appear to be getting out. Only a few hours remained before our ship was schedule to depart for Dubrovnik, with our without us. At that moment, a thought even worse than missing the ship came to me – what if we were stranded in the Sahara Desert?

Sure, I’d seen my share of Man vs. Wild episodes before that moment, but nothing could prepare me for being stranded in the Sahara. After an hour of forcing the car free with every muscle in our bodies, we were back on track. The MV Explorer was just moments away from leaving without us. Miraculously, I made it back to my cabin for a continued voyage to Croatia. The adventure continued…