|
... cont'd
Slip 'N Slide
Sahara Style
What do you do with
800 gallons of extra water in the middle
of the world's largest desert? Build a "slip
and slide." Slip-N-Slide expedition
style, is a little different than the suburban
lawn water slide Americans are familiar
with.
There were no people
within miles around who could use the water,
and there was no way to take it back with
us to Agadez. We had to make a plan.
What do you
do with 800 gallons of extra water in the
middle of the world's largest desert? Build
a water slide. In this action photo E. Love
gets airborne as Rudd Sadlier and Gabrielle
Lyon
douse the slide with water.
And so we climbed the
nearest dune, secured three tarps end-to-end,
carted as many water bidons as we could
fill to the top, and let the water flow.
Hans and Dave were amongst
the first to try it - with a sprinkle of
detergent for their send-off. The detergent
was intended to serve two purposes: clean
and lubricate.
After the first two
slides the dry detergent was exchanged for
lemon-scented liquid dishwashing detergent.
The result: more suds and more slide with
less friction.
Soon we were judging
longest run, best form, and (most exciting),
tag teams - three sliders in a row. The
main challenge for tag team members was
for all members to make it to the bottom
without crashing into each other and ruining
the slide.
We anticipate sore chests
and raw skin tomorrow.
CLICK
HERE FOR MORE PHOTOS OF
THE WATERSLIDE FUN
Looking Ahead-
We have six weeks left
in the expedition - just barely enough time
to make our way to Camp 3, and glimpse the
area around Camp 4.
Tomorrow we go to Agadez,
stopping at Camp 1 in Gadafawa on our way
to collect a few sediment samples and take
one last look at the richest area. Then,
a day unloading the big truck, a day off
on the 17th and on to Marandet
and Camp 3.
On October 15
the team departed the 110 million-year-old
beds of Camp 2 and turned their eyes southward
towards Camp 3 and the 130 million-year-old
beds that produced the plant-eater,
Jobaria and the carnivore, Afrovenator.
We will set up camp
in an area east of Marandet, a small Touareg
and Fulani town east of Agadez and explore
a long stretch of 130-million-year-old beds
along the filez ("cliff" in French).
These are the beds that in 1993 produced
the carnivore Afrovenator, and 1997
produced near-complete adult and juvenile
skeletons of Jobaria.
The area is both fossil
rich and relatively unexplored; it is both
a known quantity and an unknown one. A site
with multiple skeletons, multiple species
awaits us at Camp 3. During Paul's preliminary
trip in July he was taken to the site by
Balla Abdallah, a Touareg from the Marandet
area. We will work with Touareg guides like
Balla to jumpstart our prospecting and will
likely combine collecting and prospecting,
as we did at Camp 1.
If it takes us three
weeks to finish Camp 3, and no more, we
will be able to stay close to schedule.
But the schedule, as always, is packed.
We will have to go back to Agadez, unload,
reload, displace water north for Camp 4
in In Abangharit. It will take two days
to get there. We are planning on five days
prospecting (and we hope, collecting) and
before we know it, time to return to make
the journey to Niamey to conduct outgoing
negotiations and mount the skeleton of Jobaria
for the national museum.
To add to the urgency
of our work, we've got just under a month
to work with a full team. Allison and Chris
depart in mid-November to go to South Africa
to study Triassic animals and the support
crew will leave the last week of November,
leaving the advanced crew to finish
out the field season and close out the expedition.
Gabrielle
Lyon
Team Member, 2000 Expedition to Niger.
|
