EPIC, continued

...and so we set off at 6:30am! It was just me and Toad driving the 100 km back to where the car had been abandoned.

Now let me add a little more context to this day. In just 5 hours, we had to back in the heart of Dubai as I was hosting the Dubai WWFM (World Wide Flash Mob) event at noon. And since it only lasts 15 minutes, I really needed to be on time! Now we had to drive 100 km out into nowhere land, thats about an hour, and we would still need to drive back and hopefully make it home in time to have a shower and get ready.

Ever the optimist, this was the plan of action. As we were driving we saw that there was a cache nearby that wasn't normally accessible due to the number of muggles around this busy location. Being really early we figured it would be worth our while to stop by quickly and see if we could pick this one up, as an added incentive for getting up so darn early. We got to the general vicinity of the cache, parked, and looked around... and under, and over, and... well, twenty minutes later, we still hadn't found it. Toad made the call to hit the road, as we were just wasting time now. And all together we did end up wasting a precious 30 minutes.

The road to where the car was buried is a long road. Most remarkably, on the drive out last night we saw dozens of cars parked by the road side with people gathered around little fires, on dune tops... basically everywhere. The first thing that seems odd is having a picnic beside the highway is "fun", and I literally mean beside the highway (10 meters or so)? The second is only apparent the next day, as we noticed on our drive back. Apparently, they all bring all their garbage from home, collect some from the neighbors, go to the local supermarket and collect theirs, then pack a picnic with beer and other bottled beverages and go have a get together by the side of the road. Then when they are done, they make sure to unload all the garbage, distribute it about a bit, just so only a little bit of sand can be seen, and go home.

It is just appalling! I have lived in many different countries. and seeing my fair share of third world countries, but I have never seen anything like this! I realize I keep ranting about this, but I just don't understand. I mean, if you want to have a picnic in this area on a Saturday morning, you can forget finding a clean, litter free spot to stand on, never mind the gazillions flies that would pester you. How is this not obviously recognized as a major problem? I suppose being a desert climate and not having a lot of living environment to destroy it really doesn't have any impact, but do you really want to live in a country that looks like a garbage dump?

Anyway, yet another rant out of the way! Onwards to where the car was buried. Of course, I did mark the exact location of my car, so it took no time getting to the actual location.
And there she is... buried in the sand! A picture tends to say a thousand words, so herewith some pictures showing how very stuck I was (keep in mind these are after digging for a couple of hours)!
As you can see, not a pretty site. In case you are wondering, those tires were found lying not to far from the car, and we figured, if we could jack the car up and use these to fill the holes, at the very least we would get some traction! After trying a number of things, digging some more, rocking the car, etc. our luck began to turn.

The geocaching fairy was clearly waking up and happily sprinkling her geodust all over us! ... a bulldozer drove by! ToadNet was frantically waving and ran up to the bulldozer, and had a quick chat with the driver. Amazingly, .... the driver didn't speak a word of English, but we kind of got the idea there was an office down the road, and we needed to go there. We wasted no time in deciding that maybe asking for some help was not going to be a bad thing! So Toad jumped in the car and sped off in the general direction that the bulldozer driver was pointing in.

It wasn't 10 minutes later when I heard the crackle of the walkie-talkie, and Toad announcing victory and that he was bringing help! Excellent. By now it was about 9:30 am, and we were no closer to getting the car out of the sand. Stress was beginning to mount, and I had flashes of having to leave my car here yet again to go and do the WWFM event and then come back, maybe with some help from those attending the event! As Toad pulled up, another 4x4 pulled up next to him, and a gentleman (along with his "foreman" I would guess) climbed out and climbed down the dune to come and investigate.

He walked around the car, nodding in appreciation, and actually took a moment to compliment me on my superior skills in getting so stuck! (I swear, I'm not making this up, I got a thumbs up and a "well done"!). He sized up the situation and reckoned he had a pickup truck that he would send that would pull me out no problem. So he disappeared and 20 minutes later a pickup arrived with some helpers to dig in the back.

Help arrives.

After a lot of digging, setting up the pickup, hooking up the tow rope, and giving it a good pull, absolutely nothing happened. I didn't even feel a tug in my car... and this was not looking promising. They only really tried once or twice, very briefly, and somehow and alternate arrangement was made shortly after the first attempt. They decided they were going to call in the big guns now. A road roller.

Now, you may, as I did, wonder what on earth that is, and how exactly that is going to work, being in the middle of the desert and all. Well, we waited for a while... and then waited some more. And then in the distance a shadow materialized!

Ten minutes past and the shadow got slightly larger... another 10 minutes and you could almost identify a shape... must have been well over 30 minutes for the leviathan to travel the 4 km to come to the rescue!

What a monster! It also has the added benefit of creating a nicely flattened and compacted stretch of desert in its wake. The road roller was pulled in parked in front of my car, and hitched up by means of tow ropes.

A little more digging... and then we were all set for the main event!! At this moment in time I was having day-mares seeing my bumper tear off the front of my car and being launch into outer space!

I must say that the crew that was helping out was extremely friendly and most helpful. They went about it like it was just another task, although I suspect they were relieved by a break from the monotony of flattening a 4 km stretch of road!

And we were off... the road roller pulled my car forward like it was nothing... 50 cm is all it took, and my car was parked on the sand (not under it).

It was starting to look like the road roller was in trouble, as the round flattening thingy on the front was sliding off to the right and down hill. Then you gotta ask yourself: "Ok, so they got a Caterpillar road roller to pull me out... what do you get to pull a road roller out??"

Yeeehaaa, after the guys filled in the massive craters left by my wheels I reversed all the way up onto the little dune... and since my tires were now well deflated, I cruised around some of the dunes with great joy and relief before driving up onto the gravel road and parking next to Toad.

We wasted little time, hurriedly inflating tires, stopping by the construction office thanking everyone for their help, and then hitting the road. It was around 10:45 am and we still had an hour drive ahead of us. A shower and change of clothes was out of the question now, and the best we could hope for was to make it back to Madinat for the WWFM event.

That officially ended the epic 17 hour cache hunt for Hand-me-down. We went for the cache at around 5:30pm and ended up leaving the cache site at around 10:30am the next day.

Needless to say, we did make it to the event, and it was wonderful. Not really much of a flash mob, more like a casual gathering, but it was fun all the same! We had a total head count of 12 (including partners and all), which is a small contribution to the total 4337 cachers that attended globally, but ours was still the best!

We did our duties according to the event agenda, and then all met up afterwards for some lunch at Trader Vics some 100 meters from the cache gathering location. Many wonderful stories shared, a great meal had, and lots of laughs heard! Great to see everyone once again, and nice to GeoCRAt, org and Lucky Stars join us at this event.

After the lunch, I raced home to collapse! Man, I was exhausted and needed a whole bunch of rest!

Lessons learned today:

• Always deflate the tires when going into the desert
• Make sure to pack a Caterpillar road roller in case you get stuck
• Have good friends on speed dial
• Oh and... deflate the bleeding tires!