Escape INSIDE GETAWAY

The Navara began its climb, slowly. It’s an adept machine and a great 4x4 but its driver hadn’t applied ‘Full speed’ and, halfway up, it ground to a halt, wheels churning a shallow grave of shame. Jakkals was back on the radio, ‘Ja nee, Navara. Ek’t gesê “Full speed” hoor.’ Trust: when Jakkals says ‘Full speed’ you go full speed. Jakkals is the kind of person who means what he says and there’s no time for half-arsing in the desert. Reverse engaged, the Navara slunk back to the foot of the dune, where its driver could safely re-evaluate his faith. Next up was the Toyota Hilux – Legend edition. ‘Toyota, kom.’ And boy did that Toyota come. You didn’t need to be in the vehicle to know that the pedal was being pressed so far into the floor, if the driver had applied any more force it would have turned into a scene from The Flintstones. It cruised over the Navara’s grave site like a hovercraft. And then it happened: the most magnificent thing I’ve ever seen in a desert. That bloody Legend crested the top of the dune with such pace that it took off. It was beautiful, and seminal, like watching an athlete shatter a world record or the Curiosity Rover land on Mars. There, suspended in the air in a two-ton bakkie with blue sky beneath its wheels, was all of humankind’s potential, our desire to reach for the sky, and a driver who stood on that precipice of impossible, hit the gas and really and truly flew. The next lesson we all learnt from Jakkals was how to stop.