We did it in late 2001, like most travel experiences like that, was actually quite good after the event. Spent a day going on mass from office to office filling out the same paperwork in triplicate, timed out, had to go back in morning supposedly in rush as convey would leave at 9am but true to form, sat in convoy for whole day. Finally went off in evening but as per previous accounts that we had read, no one saw who started it, local vehicles just started off.
Then became good because it was wacky races. All the local vehicles that had lead off were ridiculously overloaded so you could see all the vehicles fanning out three across then you would get a ripple effect coming down the line as another vehicle was coming the other way. That got us back up to the main road to then head south to the fort at which point it temporarily dropped back to single file until we took to the desert. Had this massive private french overland truck with retired couple in it and he really knew how to drive so he came rallying after us with a few other vehicles parrallel to the main road. We were one of the early ones to get to the fort but was still dark and then vehicles kept coming in for following few hours.
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