In November 2000 the Dublin Simon Community organised a “Hike For The Homeless” of 100km across the Sahara desert. Nearly a hundred people signed up for this incredible experience and most of them, or rather most of us met for the first time in Dublin airport on the day of departure:

DAY 1:
At check-in I meet Nap and Kevin. We introduce ourselves, shake hands, a little embarrassed – exchange stories about our fund-raising (“I really must get round to that!” – Nap) and form an orderly queue at the desk. After we've checked in, we hum and haw for a minute before deciding to hit the bar - I'm going to like these guys. In the bar we are joined by Tony, Andy, John, Louise, Rosemary, Mairead and Therese. We all click immediately and are having great crack, finding it funny that having spent the previous day being particularly abstemious in preparation for the long journey ahead, we arrive in Dublin airport and go on the piss.

The flight to Morocco is in three stages – Dublin to Heathrow; Heathrow to Casablanca and Casablanca to Quarzazate. Along the way our group starts to expand further and we are joined by Angie, Pam and Joe. Also on route a strange controversy emerges and I am roped into it by a question from Kevin. "Hey Mick did you bring your boggle?”. - "What?" "Your boggle did you bring it?" - --- "What?" "Oh God, it doesn't look like Mick brought one either?" - "What's a boggle?" - "Hey guys - did any-one bring their boggles?" - "What's a boggle" - "Shit Nap, no-one brought a boggle" - "Shit Kevin looks like we're boggled all right." Only Nap and Kevin seem to know what a boggle actually is. They refuse to tell any-one, reasoning that if we don't know what it is then we obviously don't have one and so are of no use to them. We resign ourselves to not knowing and decide to adopt "boggle" as the word of the week.

Our first night in Quarzazate (the nearest town to our starting point) is spent in the hotel Belere. We arrive at 11:30 and as we've all been up since 6:00 a.m. with an early start the next day - we go the bar. With the additions of Susan and Lorraine our group is now fully formed but we don't actually know that yet. The resident's bar finally closes at 1:00 but the management kindly tell us we can bring our drinks out to the foyer - we promptly order another round and do as we're told and continue to do so until 2:30.

DAY 2:
We get coaches from the hotel to take us for three hours as far as the roads will go where we will then go across the rough ground on "Local transport". The coach journey is amazing - the scenery is just breath-taking as is the speed at which the driver takes the very sharp bends! At a few points over the mountains I spot a couple of burnt out cars and my first instinct is to think joy-riders until I realise where we are and realise - these are accidents.

The coaches reach their destination and we get our first glimpse of the "local transport" - two cattle trucks! All eighty of us cram into the back of these trucks and journey for two hours over rough desert with no visible means of support - "For you Tommy ze war is over!!" - The journey is sheer unadulterated hell - we are bashed around from sides to side and from each other's side to side - the bruises later that night are hugely impressive and impressively huge. Finally we reach the camp-site where we book our beds and grab our food.

The hike is structured and the route laid out by the company “Across The Divide” who specialise in tours like this around the world from the Arctic to – well the Sahara. Jason the head of the “Across The Divide” team gives us a briefing for the next day. We are going to split into four teams of fifteen which it is up to us to form that night or next morning. The teams will be staggered out (they certainly will) every twenty minutes rather than all leave en masse and mess up the landscape entirely. We all have to be up and ready at 6:30 for breakfast with the first team leaving at 8:00. Each team will be lead by one of the Divide Guides plus a local Berber guide.

The bar opens. - This consists of the "Across the Divide" tent with a table in front where they sell cans of beer and bottles of wine. We don't have to pay for it now it will be put on a tab which we will settle on the coach back to the hotel. However as they want to save most of the drink for the last night in the desert (Party night) supplies are limited and we get only a few cans each. It doesn't matter we're having such fun sitting around the fire that when the beer runs out we just stock up on water and stay where we are singing, laughing, joking and boggling. At least 15 of us do – our team - unofficially (and unintentionally) started in Dublin airport and we finally go to bed about 1:00.

DAY 3:
This is the day I've been dreading - the first day of actual hiking. I'm still terrified I'm not going to be able to do this. Our team is the last to leave today. We are -Andy; Angie; John; Joe; Kevin; Lorraine; Louise; Mairead; Nap; Pam; Rosemary; Susan; Therese; Tony and me. We are joined by local Berber guides Ibrahim and Hussein, Hugo from Across the Divide and Clare from Dublin Simon. We start off with some exercises and stretches for half an hour - which leaves me pretty exhausted and we haven't even left camp yet.

We stock up on water - all of us have these half litre platypus bags which go into our rucksacks with a long pipe extending out from which we are supposed to take regular sips, even when we're not thirsty. Nap asks me how to get it working, he's having terrible problems getting the stopper off the pipe. I tell him what I did was bit it off and threw it away to leave a hole the size of the end of toothpaste tube to suck from – I assume blowing back into the tube stops the water flow. - I am wrong. It turns out that the “stopper” has a tiny slit which only opens when you suck on it and closes back when you stop - this is what stops the water flow! Nap and I discover this when I am filling my bag and Angie asks me "Where's your suckie thing?!" - Just in time to prevent Nap from abandoning his at the camp-site - but too late for me and I have terrible problems over the next few days trying to stop my pipe leaking - if you see what I mean.

Anyway we set off, it's still early in the morning and so the temperatures are quite cool. Along the way Angie is the first to get a nickname, - "Princess of the Desert". Rosemary soon becomes the next when we find out that she is a doctor and so becomes "Doctor Ruth". I myself get the moniker "Mighty Mick" for reasons that can only be either ironic or alliterative.

We stumble on to lunch at a lovely spot - with lots of lovely shade - all four groups meeting up together. A couple of people from the other groups come up to tell me I'm very red around the forehead - which of course puts the fear of God into me. I can't understand it, I'm wearing a sun hat and plastered with factor 30 million - but I put some more on anyway. (It is a couple of days before I realise that the very redness of my forehead is caused by the very tightness of my sun-hat!) The second half of the day's hike passes by fairly uneventfully but it is still a great relief when we finally hit camp. We do our warm down exercises that are just as exhausting as the warm-ups but now we all appreciate how absolutely necessary they are. At the end Pam introduces one of her own. She asks us all to stand around in a circle; turn to our left and then pat the person in front on their backs. Sappy, sentimental and an absolutely perfect way to end the day. Of course I nearly ruin it by turning to the right and almost boxing John in the face.

DAY 4:
My big worry before (and indeed during) the hike has been my feet. I've always had problems with my feet and so when preparing for the hike I splashed out on the most expensive boots and socks I could - well afford. And it's paying off. My feet have never had it so good, no blisters, no cuts and even minimal sweat. Some of the others are not so lucky - the blister problem is becoming an epidemic and the Christmas bonuses at Scholl and Compeed are now assured. In our group Susan is suffering the most, today particularly. Her bandages have come loose and every step is increasingly painful and she just desperately needs to get back to camp. Unfortunately today there is a plan to make a diversion and take in a small village along the way, adding at least another hour to our hike. Hugo stops the group and asks who wants to skip the village and go straight back to camp - only myself and Susan do. - I'm having a great time but I'm feeling manky dirty and I need a "Shower". (The camp showers consist of a hole in the ground and a basin of cold water). Hugo tells us to stay where we are - the other group is coming up behind and they are all going back to camp so we can join up with them.

Before the rest of our team set off Susan and I are ordered to secure a tent as soon as we get back. The tents on the site are either eight man(woman) or five man(woman) - our team has decided to grab an eight man(woman), and then a load of mattresses from the others to squeeze us all together into the one tent - we've become very close. When they've gone Susan and I sit down and just gaze around at the complete vast emptiness of the desert. It is absolutely incredible and so wonderfully quiet. It’s like having the planet to yourself. We are both pretty overwhelmed by it all and for about the eighteenth time this trip it hits me just where we are. Susan turns to me and says - "You know what I would absolutely love right now?" - "An Ice-cream?" - "Actually no, - I would just love a packet of Tayto crisps" and then she laughs at the sheer ludicrousness of the idea. I laugh too for a few minutes before I reach into my rucksack and hand her a packet of Tayto crisps. She is stunned - and I'm a little shocked myself.

Back at the camp we quickly grab a tent and I mind it while Susan goes off to have a shower. (Am I ever going to get clean again?!) The others soon arrive and start looking for us. Kevin spots me standing at our tent - easily done giving that I'm jumping up and down and shouting "Over here!" - "Hey look Mick's got us a tent!" - Rosemary confirms this by shouting at the top of her voice - "It's all right, Mick's got a big one!" - The good people of Quarzazate, some eighty miles away join in the laughter. Around the campfire at the end of the night - Vinnie an archaeologist on the hike gives us a lecture on the history of the desert and the amazing amount of fossils to be found out here. Tomorrow we are going to be walking through a major source of them and any we find are to be brought to him for identification. Later as we are all singing around the fire someone for no apparent reason launches into “Brown Girl In The Ring” – immediately everyone else around the fire for no apparent reason enthusiastically joins in. Soon the Sahara air is filled with cries of “Tra - La La La La La ”. Suddenly we are joined by the Berbers armed with drums that look like bodhrans singing their own song. Incredibly two completely different songs from two completely different cultures from two completely different parts of the world – gel together in absolutely perfect harmony – it is an incredible experience. Everyone leaps up and joins the Berbers in a dance around the fire and indeed the whole site. I am really beginning to enjoy myself now - this is a wonderful time.

DAY 5:
I wake up and I am buzzing. I am on such a high that when I hear today is going to be the toughest day's hiking I am delighted - I am really looking forward to it now. Today as well we are joined by Joyce from Dublin Simon, which is great except for the fact that it means we have to lose Clare who has to join up with another team. She doesn't endear herself too well with these by calling out to us as we head off (second team to leave today) that she'll miss us terribly - can't we please take her with us?! We're going to miss Clare. Today's hike is anything but tough. Admittedly it starts off with a sheer climb up a mountain but it's worth it because on the other side is a sheer drop down a sand dune. Sand dunes are a bugger to climb up but like so much in life they are a joy going down. It's like skiing, every step down takes you about a yard further than you'd expect and the air is filled with screams and laughs and oh shits.

About three hundred yards from the camp we come across - a bar. No I'm not hallucinating - a bar. Of course this is a Berber bar - basically a small stone building serving only Coke, coffee and Fanta. But having drank nothing but iodine flavoured water all day it is a god-send. We troupe inside and it is just bliss. Dark, dingy and dusty - but cold and sheer heaven. There are some locals inside armed with some local version of a guitar. They start to play and sing and the girls all dance around and everyone cheers and joins in the singing picking up the words "Way-ay-ahh, wah-ay-ah etc." with remarkable ease. I've run out of colour film so all the photos here are in Black and white - but that's probably going to be appropriate.

DAY 6:
This is our last day hiking and now I don't want it to end. Last night despite all the effort expended getting a tent most of my team elected to spend the night sleeping out in the open. - I was not one of them, I plan to do it tonight when I don't have to worry about how fit I am the next day. Oh I'm becoming damned sensible. Everyone crams back into the tent to start packing - the mood is a little sad because this is the last day our team "The A-Team" (so-named by Ibrahim, so it's not that naff) will be on our own. Kevin sums it up by saying - "Hey guys - when we go back to Ireland, can we all live together?"

We are the first team to leave today which has the wonderful bonus of meaning we will be the first to finish the whole hike. The first half is a long stretch of 18 kilometres, but luckily it's across flat ground and it proves to be a doddle. I mention this to Hugo when we stop for lunch -and he warns that the second half is a lot shorter (9 Kilometres) but a lot tougher. For the second day running lunch consists of a lovely cold salad served in a massive carpeted tent sheltering us from the intense 42 degree heat. - I really hope it's pissing down at home.

The second half IS tough. We start by climbing up a major sand-dune. Sand-dunes are very tough to climb, a major balancing act is required with every step and every three of those steps takes you the equivalent distance of one. When we finally get to the top everyone goes "Whoah!" - twice. First time for the sheer beauty of the line of sand-dunes ahead - and second for the sheer horror that we're going have to climb these buggers. The next hour or so is a constant up and down of "Aaagh!" and "Whayy!" We stop frequently. At one of these stops Hugo learns from his walkie talkie that all the other teams have decided to bypass the dunes and walk along the plains. We are at first delighted with this as this means we're the only team to be able for them and everyone else is a wuss (and this despite the fact that our team was last to bed every night) - a great sense of pride fills the group and Ibrahim and Hussein tell us they are honoured to lead us, we are the best team they've ever had, we are now fully trained - and tomorrow we will take Algeria.

We are all loving this until it suddenly dawns on us that if the other teams are taking the easy way - one of them will be first back at the camp! We start to leg it through the dunes despite Hugo reminding us all the time this is not a race, this is not a race, we're all in this together. Yeah fine, all in it together and we'll be sure to say that to all the other teams when they come through the finish line that we have christened! Even Joyce (who is of course completely neutral) gets into the spirit. We manage to maintain our lead and so are more than happy to re-embrace the philosophy of it not being a race (as long as we win it) and hike along calmly across the plains that follow the dunes. Hugo informs everyone that he, Ibrahim and Hussein had decided to take the toughest route across the dunes after "hearing from Mick that you all found this morning a doddle". Blame is deferred from me by Kevin correcting him and saying the morning was in fact a boggle.

Shortly before we hit camp Hugo asks us all to stop and sit down for a minute - he has something to say. He wants us all to sit around, or lie down, whatever makes us comfortable and to do so in silence for two minutes while we reflect on what we've achieved, who helped us get here and why we are doing it in the first place. I lie back on my rucksack and the silence (and the perfect blue sky) is wonderful - sadly all I can reflect on is the fact that it's almost all over (that and the desperate effort I am making to suppress a sudden unexpected fart). Finally we stand up, give ourselves a big cheer and set off for the last mile. The very last stretch is of course down a sand-dune. Just ahead is the finish line. Terry, Clare, and Jason are waiting there cheering us on. We all grab hands and in a line leg it down the dune cheering ourselves and race past the finish line - cheering some more. Terry and Clare present us all with medals and Andy grabs a bottle of champagne, shakes it thoroughly and sprays the entire team with it. We've done it.

When we've secured our tent again for the night, this last night in the desert - we go out-side and an amazing sight greets us: a sunset covering the entire sky, all around us are brilliant colours of red, yellow and blue - everyone is just dazzled including all the Berbers who come out to gaze on it in wonder - they tell us a sight like this hasn't been seen in these parts in decades. It’s an incredibly emotional moment in a week of incredibly emotional moments and it’s the most perfect end anyone could have wished for. - Best, there is none.

Afterword:
(1) - All hikers were required to raise a minimum of IR£1,950 each to participate in the hike but obviously many raised more than that – so much so that the final amount of funds gathered for Dublin Simon’s projects to aid the homeless was IR£120,000 on this hike alone. The charity organises various other fund-raising events – further details can be found at www.dubsimon.ie.
(2) – In one of the E-mails sent to hikers a list of necessities required for the hike included a “Bogger Roll”. Nap and Kevin were the only ones to spot this and when they discussed the issue – at some length – in Dublin airport that Saturday morning, they eventually abbreviated it down to ‘Boggle’. – In case you were wondering.