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

Suddenly, in the middle of the desert and quite far from the main piste, - out of nowhere it seemed, a young Moroccan male approached us. Although several of us in the travel-party speak some basic french; we were unable to communicate by other means than sign-language. The universal default fallback when everything else fails.

It appeared that he had some kind of problem with a vehicle, might be a bad wheel or a puncture; and he asked for our assistance. In these desolated regions we all help each other, no matter which language we speak or what religion we have, if even being a religions person. So we tucked him inside a truck and onto the passenger seat and we all then took off to participate in the roadside assistance. When we after some off-piste driving reached the main gravel-piste, given directions from the local Moroccan, we saw a lovely old TOYOTA 70-series Landcruiser truck; with indeed a flat tire. Another young male and an older woman was at the spot, waiting in the shade from the truck. It appeared the two young men were brothers, and the woman would be their mother; they were headed into town for the marked.

In these regions of Morocco you must be somewhat richer than the average person to own a truck, - and also to be able to afford fuel for it. Still the tires were a badly worn with nearly no tread left on a few of them. All tires had tubing, and apparently they had failed in fixing the leakage with a pad. Paul, our guide, brings a kit with everything thinkable in his 80-series Landcruiser. And with some jointed effort the tube was repaired and inflated. The poor guys had only a bicycle pump at their disposal, so some compressed air from the LC´s electrical driven pump was appreciated.

While we were at it, the locals also asked for assistance for another puncture. But when the wheel was taken apart it was obvious that the tubing was worn beyond repair. We then greeted each other farewell - and "bon route", - we then took off in separate directions, the locals heading on towards town on the gravel-piste, us back to the scheduled route for the day, meaning some off-piste for starters. Note: a day in the North-West African desert never goes acording to plan.