Camera: Canon EOS 1Ds MKIII
Lens: Canon EF 16-35 mm. f/4.0L IS

When roaming around in the desolated regions of Western Sahara you will have gotten fairly used to see and experience stuff out of the ordinary, - see things you won´t find at home in Europe and certainly not in Scandinavia where I live; like very old rock-art, great saturated sun-rises and sun-sets, endless sand-dunes and ancient tombs; - but still I was not prepared to stumble over a unexploded and more than 1.5 m. long bomb in the middle of the desert, and I was genuine and greatly surprised by this encounter. I was not shocked, but as close as you will get; - after all it´s fairly common to stumble over leftover hardware from the resent war here in Western Sahara, but certainly not in this scale. It will often not be anything bigger than a used launching-device for a mortar or for a anti-panzer missile or just some big-caliber cartridges from a heavy machine gun. So this was quite spectacular.

It was around 4.30 pm. and we were quite close to the border to Mauritania, the travel-party were scattered a bit in search of a nice spot to make camp for the night. I were on my own about a half kilometer further north than the others from the group, driving slowly up a oued (wadi) enjoying myself, the view and the sunny weather. I was totally relaxed and hence I was completely taken by surprise by the unexpected view to the unexploded bomb laying in the sand only a few meters from my truck. After a short while of just sitting inside my Geländewagen staring on the lump of metal in awe, I regained my composure and contacted my travel-companions over the CB-radio; concluding that they maybe would want to see the blody thing.

They were all quite stunned by what they saw when they arrived at the site; partly because I in my state of mind had insulted the bomb and called it a granate; but mostly because it was quite a big device. As little as I´m an expert on rock-art, as little am I an weapons-expert, but a quick search revealed that the rear part of the bomb might have originated from USA as I located a reference to a inactive US Army Research Development & Engineering Command standard MIL-A-14712A (2), published on 1974-02-28.

After some curious investigation and a lot of taking photographs, we left the bomb alone in solitude in the desert. We then had the fortune to locate a nice potential camp-site-spot a few kilometers further upstream in the wadi, and made camp for the night. The day had been very eventful, not only because of the bomb-find; but also because we had located a new set of rock-art not to far from the already know location. This new collection of engravings had a particular nice piece, portraying a mother-antelope and four calves on the same lava-rock.

Little did we know, at that time, that the Western Sahara still had some unexpected events in store for us that very same evening.