10:04am Tuesday 16th January 2007
By Clara Story
An ambulance technician and two friends who are driving a Tolworth ambulance to Senegal for charity have nearly crossed the Sahara.
Mark Whitfield, who works at Tolworth ambulance station, is on the charity journey with his girlfriend Viv and friend Julian to deliver the badly-needed vehicle to Senegal's capital Dakar.
The city currently only has one ambulance for a million people.
After the three-week journey which began on December 22, Mark, 30, will spend a week training staff how to use the equipment on board.
The team spent Christmas in the Pyrenees and New Year's Day in Marrakech.
Over the weekend they drove south through the Sahara on the west African coast, and expected to cross the border into Mauritania early this week.
Mark, from Morden, said the desert journey was desolate, very windy and sandy.
He added: "The mornings and evenings are very cold. It's averaging five degrees and that is freezing to do the washing up and basic personal hygiene in. I would love a hot shower, to wash my hair, a wide bed and a warm duvet."
The days are hot and the team is sleeping in turns on the ambulance stretcher. The ambulance is making the journey as part of the Plymouth to Banjul banger car rally, and is crossing the desert region in convoy with some of the other vehicles.
Mark said: "You don't really want to just stop by the roadside, it's a bit outlaw-ish around here... We had a bunch of kids throwing rocks on the ambulance."
Mark and his friends bought the old training ambulance from the London Ambulance Service, and expected to pay £3,500 including insurance and petrol costs to get to Africa. Other expenses will raise the total cost to £4,500.
The three travellers are funding the trip themselves but hope to recoup some money from sponsorship. They are living on dried noodles and local bread.
Mark said on Friday: "We're so strapped for cash, as the ambulance is guzzling petrol like an alcoholic downs White Lightning, and we're not sure we actually have enough money for fuel to get us all the way to Dakar."
To make a donation or to read the group's blog of their progress, see ambulance antics.spaces.live.com.
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