January 31, 2012

by Stephen Jan in Daklha, Morocco

Day 33 in Dakhla.

I was pretty convinced that I’d be back home sipping latte’s and chomping on Chipolte chicken burritos in a temperature controlled office building by the end of the week. After the mechanic told us that the UPS package didn’t solve the transmission problem, I figured I’d give Hassan Monday to formally release the ambulance us complete with a certificate and cause of death. I was certain that he wasn’t going to resolve this problem that we had been sitting on for a month by the end of Monday. The daily flight to Casablanca from Dakhla is 1110 Dirhams and a direct flight to New York from there runs for 6500 Dirham. I could fly out on Tuesday and get home by Thursday. Well, that all went out the window.

Team Last Responders Ambulance returns from the mechanic

Hassan phone us Monday evening to inform us that the ambulance was ready.  As we walked over to his shop, the ambulance unexpectedly met us on the street. Hassan opened the driver side door, hopped out and with a big grin on his face offered me to test drive the car. Skeptical,  I jumped in and took it down a stretch of road toward the beach. Now I’ve driven the stretch before, and I’m pretty sure it usually takes about 10 minutes. But with the flood of thoughts going through my mind, the drive felt like an hour.

The engine ran quieter, the drive was smoother, and the speedometer worked. Not only that, he washed the car, it’s sparkling white (check out the photo below). No longer does our ambulance look, smell, sound like it’s been through hell.  It felt and looked like a new car. We returned in total shock and awe.

The feeling of being thrown back into the journey from the brink of buying that ticket home with one click is something I can’t describe with words… I can only best describe the feeling as a strange mixture of excitement, disappointment, and confusion.

Time to clear our heads, stretch out our fingers, and get back on the saddle. Onward to Timbuktu.