Traveling in the camel tracks of the tragic Major Alexander Laing a Saharan explorer.

As we crested a rise in the highway we caught our last glimpse of the sun before it slid out of view and into the Atlantic Ocean.

Through a pinky red haze, the wind floated sand across the tarmac to join the sand dune forming on the other side.

Sand flew off the crest of the dune, and so it went on…

"So Fergus where are you off to next?" enquired Vyas as we sipped a cold beer after a hard week at work. "

Vyas", I said, "Glasgow to Kathmandu by motorbike is a hard act to follow." "I compare it to the follow up album or the elusive second novel; it has to be something special."

"Well I know a guy who is organizing a four-wheel-drive charity rally from London to Timbuktu," replied Vyas. Raising money for research into Fragile X, the main gene that causes Autism, the rally would start in London continue down to Spain, across the Straits of Gibraltar, over to Morocco and through Western Sahara, Mauritania, Senegal and finishing in Mali.

My interest was aroused: a trip down south across the Sahara visiting the mystical cities of Casablanca, Marrakech, Dakar, and of course Timbuktu. Childhood memories of Humphrey Bogart and, more interestingly, some of my Scottish Victorian heroes were beginning to stir.

As a young schoolboy in Glasgow I would wait all week for history. I had been captivated by tales of adventure, of daring and of courage - and I was not alone, the whole class was on the edge of their seats; enthralled. In the 19th Century intrepid Scotsmen went out into the world to find the sources of rivers, to open up new trade routes, and lead expeditions into uncharted expanses of the globe.

We learned about Dr David Livingstone and his travels into the heart of the Dark Continent, and how he met a chap called Stanley. And about Mungo Park who made several hazardous and unsuccessful attempts to find the source of the Niger River.

But my favourite was the tragic story of Major Alexander Laing. In 1826 Edinburgh-born Laing was the first European to travel south through the Sahara desert and reach Timbuktu in nearly 300 years.

Like other Victorian explorers Laing had a fascination in finding the source of

Rivers, and he too went in search of the origin of the Niger River. He did not have it easy: along the way he was robbed, attacked, had his right hand cut off, and worse, shortly after leaving Timbuktu he was murdered.

Like Livingstone and Mungo Park he was never to return to the country of his birth; and to cap it all he failed to find the source of the Niger River. So it was with a certain sense of excitement, tinged with foreboding that I signed up to join the rally.

Since Major Laing's day not much has changed. Large parts of Mali are not safe enough to travel through due to the threat of kidnapping by Al Qaeda or attack by Tuareg rebels; and Mauritania and the Western Sahara are also a bit edgy.

"Fergus what does a skull and cross bones mean on a map? asked Liz, her eyes wide. We had a table covered with maps, charts, kit lists, guidebooks, and insurance policies. We studied the map more closely and just below the skull and cross bones saw two words which turned our knees weak: Danger Minefield. As one we turned and looked at each other in crazed panic.

Our three-man team would comprise two good friends, Nick and Elizabeth, and myself. Taking it in turns over two weeks in January we were going to drive the 4075 miles from London to Timbuktu in a 1991 cherry-red Toyota Hilux with a wooden steering wheel - we promptly christened her "Cherry". The rest of the team was made up of one other woman and 15 men travelling in six additional cars. None of the cars was to cost more than £1,000, just to make the challenge a bit more, well, um, challenging.

Three days into the journey I found myself not behind the wheel of Cherry but in the back of a large white Mercedes, the type usually reserved for presidents and high-ranking diplomats, and had time to reflect on the last 72 hours and the people we had met along the way: walking for what seemed like hours around hulking freight containers and huge gantry cranes in search of a cup of coffee upon arrival in the port of Algeciras in southern Spain, the only light that of the full moon above; and the two young Moroccan immigrants, one with no hands, who came running up to me, also in search of coffee before the ferry departed.

With only one boarding gate cars surged forward, all jockeying for position and desperate to get on first. We were soon to find out that they take that mentality onto the open road too.

Through the seemingly endless hours on the road we kept up our spirits and entertained ourselves with word games. It was good fun, and helped pass time, but I'm sure Liz never really saw an Aardvark!

Day three, and just as we arrived in Rabat, our first vehicular setback occurred. Cherry blew a hose and a cloud of steam and scalding water gushed out from under her bonnet…and this is how I came to be in the Mercedes taxi racing to reach the Mauritanian Embassy before it closed.

I made it with seconds to spare.

To be continued…