As we woke up in our new 404 Peugeot Pickup trucks, I realized we had a long day ahead of us. A couple of days ago, we drove all the way from Nancy (North of France) to Spain where we stopped on the way. Finally, in Almeria, a city in Spain, we prepare ourselves to take the boat to Melilla. We were finally going to return to Africa.

At 23, my friends and I graduated engineering school together and went our separate ways. By coincidence, we all ended up teaching in Africa. When we later reunited we all decided that one day, we should return to Africa together.  

We were eight in the group: Laurence, Therese, Amelie, Fabien, Louis, Paul, Marc, and I. Our initial plan was to travel through Algeria, Niger, and end up in Togo to sell our cars to locals, as well as to discover Africa even more. We were really prepared for the trip —we had water, sleeping bags, tools to repair the car and even things to give to the Africans such as medicine, alcohol, notebooks and pens for children etc. We boarded the boat and embarked on our journey.

Few days later, after driving through Morocco and finally crossing the border between Morocco and Algeria, we arrived in Maghnia, where we decided to stay for the night. We knew that there were tensions between the government and some islamists who were bombing government building because they were in rebellion. Therefore we thought that the safest place to park was near the police station.We drove to the police station and encountered a policeman.

“Can we park in front of the police station?” asked Paul.

“Yes you can; however it is not safe. The safest place would be to park as far away possible from buildings that could possibly blow up.”

Some of the girls in the group especially, Amelie, were a little worried but everything ended up being fine.We spent two extra nights waiting for a gas station to receive petrols before we continued our journey. The guy working there told us that some Tuareg groups were stealing the petrol from trucks because they were in rebellion against Algeria, Mali and Niger. We didn't pay much attention to what he was saying, because we were all wondering when we would be able to continue our journey.

Finally arriving to the border of Niger, we realized it was closed. We were devastated. We searched the map for other routes to our destination. Without wasting our time, we went to the border of Algeria and Mali. We had some difficulties crossing the border, but after bribing the guards with two bottles of alcohol we were happily welcomed into Mali.

As the day reached its end, we saw a village and decided to stop there for the night. We entered and suddenly we saw seven teenagers with guns. They surrounded our four cars and pointed the guns towards us. One of them told us to park the cars further in the village. None of us understood what they were saying, except Louis who knew how to speak a little Tamacheque (the language of Tuareg). We listened to the Louis and parked where he said. Louis was able to get some information about why they were keeping us captured. He told us that for centuries the Tuaregs used to pass through countries because they were nomads; however, the countries suddenly started to impose taxes, which the Tuaregs couldn't afford. Therefore, they were rebelling against the countries by stealing petrol and capturing hostages. We all knew we had to stay calm; however, seeing teenagers with guns was really stressing us out because we didn't know what they were up to. Louis also learned that the village was named Tesalit. I looked on the map to see which city was closest.

“So, do you think we can escape from them and go to the closest city?” asked Therese who was panicking.

I whispered, “I don’t think it's worth it. The closest city is 600 km away from us in Mali, and 800 km away in Algeria, plus they have guns, we shouldn’t try messing around with that. We are going to have to wait for someone to rescue us.”

The first night was rough. We all barely slept because we had to keep an eye on the Tuaregs. The following morning, Louis told us that he heard villagers say that a truck containing petrol was going to come, and that there might be the Malian Army protecting it from the Tuaregs. This was great news.

For about 3 weeks we would wake up early in the morning, and get all of our cars ready to be able to escape fast with the Malian Army. Each day more desperate than the other. Some teenagers with guns would sometimes come and point the gun towards us to show they had control over us. We tried to persuade them to let us go in return for medicine and alcohol, but were not interested. We realised the day had passed by, but the truck had not. We were starting to lose hope.

One early morning, as we finished preparing our cars, we saw a petrol truck followed by some Malian Army cars. As they approached, we saw the Tuaregs hid behind some nearby building, because they realized they were outnumbered. I asked the captain of the Army if we could be escorted.

“No, we cannot escort you because our priority is to get the truck of petrol in a safe place, however you can follow us, but we will not stop to wait for you.” Explained the Captain.

We sighed in relief. It wasn’t over however. We had to get out of there before the Tuaregs returned to find us. We followed them heading towards Gao. We got stuck in the sand multiple times and had to work fast under the burning sun to catch up with them again. After finally arriving to Gao, we got to the French Consulate and we signaled our families that we were safe and everything was going to be alright. My wife was crying through the phone when I told her that we’d been captured for 3 weeks. A man working at the French Consulate told us that only 20% of the people that cross the desert make it out alive. We were thankful and happy that we were among the 20%. The journey was still not over; we had to go to Togo, but since we were out of vacation days for Fabien and I, we seperated from the group and left with one car to Segou.

We sold our car to an African family who was really happy. We later took the bus to Bamako. We bought our plane tickets with the money we got from the car. Bamako to Dakar, then Dakar to Algier, and finally Algier to Paris. We had planned out for our trip to last at most two weeks, however, it ended up being six weeks. I was stressed out because I didn't know whether I was fired from my job, but I kept telling myself over and over that it was worth it, and even though we had some obstacles throughout our journey, those obstacles made the trip special and seem like an even greater adventure.