8th October

Motorstorm!!!

They have Motorstorm out here in the desert! It actually exists! Well, kind of.

Big, beastly, mega-horsepower buggies fill the air with fumes and three figure decibels as they churn up the desert sand. The reason; just as with the fictional Motorstorm, purely for your entertainment. In this game though, nobody dies, or at least not any more. In years gone by these buggies were practically unregulated and anyone could run a service out into the desert with little or no experience. Consequently, some people did indeed lose their lives. Nowadays, it is a much more professional affair and safety is just as it should be, so have no fear.

The buggies now have a huge roll cage (Rollcage!!!) to protect you in case the vehicle rolls (and some of these inclines have you thinking that it actually will). They also have three point harnesses to keep you in the vehicle at all times, so you’re pretty safe. The driver too seemed very experienced; slowing up whenever he couldn’t see what was beyond the next ridge to avoid any potential collisions. These guys have their act together now.

So off we went, into the desert, screaming up and down these mammoth sand dunes, kicking up a dust trail behind us. A real roller coaster ride as we crested each ridge and bottomed each trough. It was, as you’d expect, a lot of fun. But speeding around the desert wasn’t the only fun to be had, as while we were there, we also engaged in sand boarding down these heady dunes.

For a moment, I was 10 again, back on a skate board, speeding down the car park at Sainsbury’s on a Sunday morning (before Sunday was a shopping day). Only this time we were lying on the sand boards face down, hurtling towards the bottom of the dunes while trying not to get a face full of the beige stuff. This was superb, being 10 again, and loving it. On one occasion I don’t think people at the bottom who had already taken their turn had taken my mass into account when positioning themselves “out of the way”. I had somehow managed to accumulate a lot more velocity than anyone else on that run and they just weren’t prepared. It was like ten pin bowling. I didn’t hit anyone, but I certainly made them scatter.

Watching the sun set over the dunes made this small sojourn complete. It wasn’t quite Mancora, but it was pretty bloody close.

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Part of trip: South America 2009 - Ecuador, Peru & Bolivia

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