Working in coordination with one another, communicating entirely by glances and head tilts, we managed to smuggle the satellite phone, wrapped in a sleeping bag, from jeep to jeep ahead of the bandits. If the bandits took that phone from us, we would be stranded. Meanwhile, other people came and started driving our jeeps away.Īmong our possessions, there was one item we absolutely needed to hold on to: our satellite phone. They stopped us in our tracks, and over the next hour, they went from jeep to jeep, stripping us of cash, cameras, and anything else they wanted. As we drove through a narrow valley with sandy hills on either side, six men emerged from the scrub brush, their faces wrapped in scarves, and raised Kalashnikov submachine guns over their heads. But just after we’d crossed the border from Algeria into Mali on the southern flank of the Sahara Desert, our trip took a very bad turn. After months of planning and preparation, vaccinations, and obtaining visas for thirteen countries, we set out in April 1992. I joined an expedition of seventy-five people traveling by jeep and motorcycle from Portugal, in southern Europe, to the country of Angola in southern Africa, a distance of around forty-two hundred miles. Once upon a time, nearly thirty years ago, I embarked on a daring trip.
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