Khoroor, Sudan - Monday 12 February 2007 - Rescued by SPLA

Yesterday we wrote: Arrested by... Today it is; Rescued by... The boundaries of good and evil are minimal, but to be fair; Its unfair to talk about evil, we were in house arrest for less than a minute, but as my boss Georges told me, "Its the title that sell the page"...

On Saturday night we faced another obstacle that prevented us from driving across a wet land area. Beside the once so convenient bridge, the soldiers have made a temporary solution for military vehicles, but after a closer look, we found it unsafe for Betsy. We found another spot that could be possible for us, but tricky enough.

I waded through the ditch and also found this passage impossible, but we had no choice, we had to try. The wet area was too long to try the slow approach, so we decided on "full speed". Low gear, diff and full speed in 4th. If my driving skills were a fraction better, it might have worked. As I drove through, I sank deeper and deeper, but with the speed I almost reached the bank on the other "safe" side. A gear shift would have helped, but so fast that Lucky Luke would have been proud of my speediness. BUT, I sank in....deep, wet and totally stuck.

We needed to go on, so our SPLA friends talked to the district commander and after some negotiations (US Dollar wise) he planted 50 soldiers in front of Betsy, they grabbed the winch wire and pulled. I looked so easy, I was a bit shamed by my own pessimistic comments before they started, but everything is forgotten now. We made it through thanks to SPLA and their men.

We are now camped 50 kilometre west of Wat on our way to Kondor and Bor which will be our goal for Monday.