Even though there was nothing to be heard from us for several days, we are still alive and have even managed to arrive to Sebha.
We have been having problems with communications since our arrival to Africa. It all started with the entry to Tunisia and the temporary confiscation of my Thuraya satellite telephone, which is the only way of communicating with other countries in Libya as no Slovenian mobile phone services provider has a contract concluded with any of the Libyan providers, and what is worse, even the SMS service is not operational. I will be getting the telephone, whose use and sale has been “strictly prohibited” in Tunisia for 3 months, upon my return. At least that is what I have been told. And the sealed envelope with my last name and a bar code is giving me hope, even though it was stored in a closet full of antennae mounts, CB stations and lnbs.
Our communication silence continued with a tracking device as GPRS communication between a certain Slovenian operator and the Tunisian one is rather poor. It is actually non-functional. But the lads from Sledat fixed the problem at midnight and in a mere two hours.
The joy continues in Libya where nothing was arranged on either side, but it would seem that everything will be worked out in a couple of hours.
Communication channels are ridden with obstacles, barriers and make it very difficult to get anything through. But this is exactly why this kind of expedition is an excellent training ground for getting to know all the limitations and for developing a product beyond the borders of Eurasia.
And how are we doing? And who are we for that matter? Uros Spruk and Tomaz Ostir took to road with me, and we were greeted at the Libyan border by Mr Amer who is accompanying us with his Toyota Hilux. We were joined by Omar today in Sebha, and we will head for the dessert in the afternoon where there will, of course, be no GPRS signal and you therefore should not expect any data updates in the next couple of days starting tomorrow, even if the tracking works today.
The weather is warm and we are having a good time despite having driven 2,400 kilometres in a short period of time in a truck where one can feel even the slightest bump in the road. Tomaz and I intended to upload some photographs today, but the slow upload speed thwarted our intentions. We will do our best to do it when we return from the desert.
This website uses cookies to improve the user experience. In addition to cookies, we use cookies to ensure the functionality of the site for the needs of web analytics and social network integration.
