Flying Blind - Trusting the Wind

It’s 4am in the Atacama Desert, and my mate Pat and I are sitting in the back of a jeep belonging to the Carabineros, the police force of Chile. The emptiest black of night engulfs us from all sides, except for a high ridge in front which is illuminated by the headlights of the jeep. An uneven, loose, unbelievably steep path of dirt and rocks snakes up it, The two Carabineros in front unfortunately don't share my anxiety that attempting Satan's driveway is suicide and in a sudden burst of acceleration we hurtle forward, forcing me to clasp the seat beneath me and inhale my testies. Despite almost losing momentum a couple of death defying times, the beastly jeep bounces all the way to the top, and I ponder how in the world I am in this ridiculous situation.

About 14 hours earlier our own jeep had driven past the same slope in our quest to find a meteor crater out in the desert. That was an hour before we got stuck. Stuck hours from any civilisation, with little water between the six backpackers that made up our party; we were horrendously underprepared and naive. My memory of getting stuck is a little hazy, but I remember the feeling of dread and fear and adrenaline all mixed together in an overpowering cocktail that bubbled under the desert heat. With only a couple of hours of sunlight left, and our relentless panicky efforts to free the jeep yielding no results, the decision was made, Pat and I would hike out of the desert to find help.

Night descended before we came across a dirt road, which we followed in the general direction of some lights in the distance. A gruelling, visually scarce hike followed, a test of endurance unlike anything I've done before. We forced every step down our dirt treadmill for hours, the saviour lights never appearing to come closer. The lights belonged to a salt refinery, and when we finally did arrive and the three staff members present began to help us we collapsed onto the pile of salt yelling swear words of victory into the night. SIx hours and 40km we walked non-stop so having stopped every muscle and joint had seized up and salt found its way into the multiple cuts and grazes on my exposed body. Immobilized and stinging we waited three hours for the Carabineros to arrive and guided them in the dark to our friends, the sun rising as we gathered some hidden reserve of energy to help them tow the jeep out.

And as it is with the karma that follows stupidity, our first meal after the ordeal was comprehensively shit.