What would Bear Grylls do?

To most people the French Foreign Legion conjures up images of men with rifles trudging up sand dunes looking generally quite knackered. It  was with some surprise then that we found ourselves sat in their barracks drinking cold beer whilst having our clothes washed and ironed.  Just a few hours earlier we were well and truly in the camel poo.

Two days ago we had found the oasis at Erg Chigaga, more by luck than judgement. We were thankful for the shade, water, and somewhere to rest up until mid-afternoon when the temperature would be bearable enough for us to ride without being microwaved.  

In the camp it was too hot to sleep and it’s not like you can talk about the weather, so passing the time was a slow process.  We eventually settled in to a dazed silence, only permeated by the rustling of the palm leaves in the desert wind, and the croaking of the frogs. There was a moment when we thought we might be hallucinating but we all heard it.

If there was one thing none of us was expecting to hear in the desert it was the sound of frogs. The camp had a small water channel about six inches across running right through it, and leaping around in it were little frogs. Out here weirdness comes as standard.

Our plan was to navigate towards the Draa valley where there would be settlements and therefore people, water, and food.  If we set off early evening the berbers estimated that it would take a further two days if we rode for 8 hours a day, sheltering during the midday hours.

Each of us filled our camelbaks and we strapped another twelve litres of water on to Charlies’ bike in the space where the pannier containing all his clothes used to be. We can only apologise to the person who found it and the fossilised remnants of Charlie's undercrackers.

Unfortunately the berbers only had enough food to sustain themselves while they tended the camp so there was none spare. All we had was biscuits, some stale bread and some jam.  Of more immediate concern however was Greg’s health. Over the last couple of days he had become more and more withdrawn. Whenever we stopped to take photos he would just sit on the bike with his head on the handlebars and while in camp he had barely said a word and had started to look pale (which is quite an achievement with sunburn).

At first we had ignored it deciding that Greg was just having a tougher time than the rest of us but he then admitted that he’d been puking earlier and was having dizzy spells, and since this could not be attributed to 10 pints and a kebab, we realised he was ill. In the circumstances we didn’t have a lot of options except to get out of the desert.

Finally, around 4.30pm we set up off heading west, following the setting sun. We had about two hours of daylight and although it wasn’t much, psychologically we all wanted to leave the camp and feel as though we were heading somewhere.

As it happened that ride was one of the most spectacular. We descended on to a flat plateau flanked by rocky hills behind which the sun was disappearing in a fiery orange glow. We were in an ancient dry lake bed. For us it was a moment to savour. A vast area of billiard smooth sand which was sun-baked so that it rode more like smooth tarmac. Even though time was of the essence we couldn’t resist riding in massive circular loops round and round. For that moment we were in our own personal playground and all our troubles were forgotten.

The next day was quite simply, horrendous.

We set off at first light as planned, riding for hours across dusty barren plains and stopping wherever we could find shade. By mid-afternoon the terrain began to get rocky again which meant we were gradually leaving the desert behind and getting closer to the Draa valley.  The rocks made the going tough. The bikes didn’t have enough suspension travel to soak them up so we ended getting bounced all over the place. There were a couple of lonely looking trees up ahead so we decided to stop and make the most of the shade.

Greg was some way back in the distance but still making progress. As we stretched our legs Charlie crouched down and put his head in his hands. The empty space on his bike which was where his pannier full of clothes used to be, and which we’d filled with all the spare water was now an empty space again.

As we stood contemplating what this meant, Greg had stopped two hundred metres away, got off his bike and appeared to be looking at his feet. “He’s found the bag of water!” we thought. But curiously Greg just stayed in the same position staring at his feet. This went on for about five minutes so Charlie walked back to check on him.

It turned out Greg had not found the water. His bike had cut out and he had exhausted himself trying to get it started. We put Greg in the shade, Oz stayed with him while Charlie and Kaspars headed back the way we had come to look for the water. Two hours later they returned. With nothing.

This was bad news in any circumstance but Greg was already at a low point and simply wasn’t in the right frame of mind to deal with it. Within minutes he was hyperventilating and approaching a state of panic. We tried to keep him calm, sat him down and lied that we weren't far away from help. Then he started dry retching.

We considered our options. The light was fading and it was near impossible to ride in those conditions without risking an accident. We'd been drinking from our Camelbaks all day thinking that we would just top up from the spare water, of which we now had none. Five litres between four of us, and it had to last all night and as long as it took us to find more water the next day...day after? We decided the best option was to pitch tent and sleep, the theory being that if we were asleep we wouldn't drink anything. There hasn't been a shitter theory since Harold Camping said the world would end in May 2011...oh no wait October 2011.

Lying in our tents with a mouth like a ricecake all we could think about was water, and ice creams, and fresh orange juice. Suddenly the desert felt oppressive and claustrophobic.

"What would Bear Grylls do?"

"Drink his own piss probably"

"Huh"

Not appealing. In any case most of us hadn't passed more than a dribble in two days. Is was a long, uncomfortable night. During the day when drinking from our Camelbaks we'd been spitting out the first mouthful because where the water sits in the tube it heats up to hot tub temperature. Now we would have done anything to have those scraps of water back.

As soon as first light came we were up and gone. Almost. As we prepped the bikes Charlie found the pivot bolt for his front suspension hanging out. It was a miracle it hadn't come out completely. To everyone's amazement Oz had packed a spare nut that fitted exactly, by pure fluke obviously. Fixed. We were gone.

We were now all down to about half a litre of water but the early start gave us a good 6 hours until the midday sun would come back to haunt us. Greg again began to drop behind and for some reason was riding with both feet on the floor as if he was trying to stop the bike falling over. On closer inspection we found him riding on a completely flat rear tyre. He knew it was flat but in his confused state he demanded to continue and began shouting at us that we had to get out of the desert.

We had to physically lift him off the bike as it was impossible to talk any sense into him. If he wrecked the rear wheel we were going nowhere. Spare inner tubes we had, spares wheels we didn't. Another forty five minutes lost. It was now 10am and the temperature was really kicking in, and everyone was getting edgy, apart from Greg who was now so out of it he wasn't really there any more, just his outer shell. 

It was hard to make out at first, and we weren't entirely sure if it was real, but as we got closer you could definitely make out the shape of what looked like a fort, until eventually when we got close enough to realise it was a fort. Home to none other than the French Foreign Legion. And they had water. Cold, cold water. That was without doubt the best tasting drink ever to pass our lips (and that includes Thatcher's Gold).

And it got better. They had showers, wine, beer and food. Sitting there feasting on food that wasn't a dry biscuit and liquid that wasn't like the contents of a hot water bottle was unimaginably good. Not even the moment when Greg caught his own vomit in his hands only to then throw up through his nose could take that luxury away from us.