Road Trip

Back in ‘82 I was working in Kuwait and one week in Spring my buddy A and I decide to rent a 4X4 and head on up to the marshes by the Iraq border to try and spot some migrating birds and camp out under the stars for a night.

So come Thursday morning (start day of our weekend) we head out and rent a GMC Jimmy (large vehicle for us UK dudes) which comes complete with “I love Texas” bumper sticker. We need the off road capability as there are no metaled roads where we are heading, load up with food, drinks and BBQ kit and head off into the desert like native bedouin.

Once we get off the black stuff things start to go wrong, we get lost and end up passing an Iraq border post (small hut in the middle of nowhere) heading back into Kuwait. Bored guard points us in the right direction in exchange for some smokes.

We cannot find the marshes and end up parking by a beach where the tide is out and so we trudge out for 2 miles to see the sea. On our return to the beach we encounter 2 arabic guys in a small Toyota, they demand to see some ID and ask us what we are doing and as they have 2 AK47s parked either side of the hand brake we oblige.

For some reason they thought we were Americans (remember the bumper sticker) but on discovering that we were British they instantly lose all interest in us “crazy Brits” or something very similar. So we head off to find a suitable camp site - somewhere flat not on the side of a dune - and get the BBQ on the go.

Just as we are finishing eating with the sun low on the horizon and I notice that a small yellow scorpion has come out of its hole to join us for dinner. We have probably never moved as fast in our lives and end up sitting on the bonnet watching our new “friend” investigate the changes to his/her normal environment. When it disappears down another hole we retrieve our gear and retreat to the safety of the inside - so much for sleeping under the stars.

The stars what night were awesome and after a couple of hours star gazing we crash out. Around 02:00 we are awoken by the rumble of trucks in the distance, this convoy took over an hour to pass by (war supplies heading from Saudi up to Iraq - the Iran Iraq war had been ongoing for almost two years at that time). Took ages to get back to sleep.

The next morning we waved goodbye to our new “friend” and headed off in the direction of the truck sounds from the night before and after not much more than 10 mins driving we were back on the black stuff and heading South.

Birds seen - zero marshes - likewise but we both enjoyed our mini adventure and it made a pleasant change from our normal weekend routine of drinking home made beer and wine in our “rabbit hutch” one room flats.