In 2002 Impala ran an adventure to Libya to cross the vast “Sea of Sand” that is some five hundred miles from north to south. Most travellers pass along a tarmac route to the east to get to Ghat and Ghadames but we were travelling straight through the dunes. We needed 1000 miles of range to enter the desert with tanks and jerry cans brimmed. The last possible fuelling stop is the Tuareg town of Derj that sits just north of the beginning of the route into the yellow sea ahead.

The Impala group arrived in the town at midday so that we could refuel our cars and then head off some twenty miles into the desert to spend the night at a wild camp.

All was going well at the fuel station until the diesel tanks ran dry with only half of our cars full to the brim. There was no way that we could risk heading off into the desert, the consequences of a car running dry are severe here. I asked the garage when they were expecting fuel “We do not know” he replied, “but I will ring the garage at the town one hundred miles to the north to try and get some delivered” This he duly did and one tanker load would be with us by tomorrow night. I decided to set up camp just outside the town to settle down and wait for the tanker, so that we could walk into the town to explore.

Luckily for us we had arrived at Derj during the annual Marriage Festival so we enjoyed watching the spectacle. The eligible young men resplendent on the backs of groomed camels paraded around in front of beautiful girls hoping to catch the eye of the one that they would like to marry them. The riders have to impress, because it is the girls who will decide!! If they like one of the riders then they will offer the man a pendant and then who knows!

The riders in this picture are shaping up to gallop their camels in front of the girls. The Tuareg on the white camel fell off during his gallop and I have never seen anyone as angry as he was.