SURVIVING IN THE DESERT: The incredible story of Mauro Prosperi
SURVIVING IN THE DESERT: The incredible story of Mauro Prosperi
by Kyt Lyn Walken
There are stories you can’t believe because they have something incredible in them. Stories of raw survival, we could define them.
Ordinary people who perform extraordinary acts, to the limit of the imagination and even of the previous preparation that we could attribute to them. We are not talking about soldiers trained in the best special departments, nor of Survivalists who – finally – can test their skills in a real situation, of what Americans love to call the “worst case scenario”.
Heroes? Maybe. Yet such people do not prefer this definition.
They did what they had to do.
They even rated suicide before fighting for life.
Like Mauro Prosperi.
1994.
The famous Marathon des Sables is held in Morocco. Prosperi is thirty-nine years old, he is a police officer with a passion for endurance racing. Just like that race: 240 km to face in the Moroccan part of the Sahara, to be played for a total of one week “in total food self-sufficiency”. That is to say: participants can count on a refreshment point every 10 km, where they can stock up on the daily ration of water (9 liters). On Wikipedia I find little other information that can describe, even in a synthetic way, how harsh and tough this competition is.
However, our “Survivor” is not just anyone. In fact, he was a Gold Medalist at the 84 Olympics in Los Angeles in the modern pentathlon team, he is tenacious and stubborn and the challenges are truly his driving force.
In 1994 Mario Prosperi is there, ready to test the months of preparation and his own limits.
For the first three days, everything is fine.
The fourth happens the unexpected: a sandstorm takes over making each reference hazy.
I can only imagine the sky and the horizon of that day: compact, inaccessible, a blanket of wind and sand as thick as a blanket. Prosperi loses orientation, has no point of reference. He loses sight of the other athletes, finds himself swallowed up in a summit that apparently decrees his solitude. And maybe end.
But Prosperi is moving forward. Only in the wrong direction.
I can imagine his toned and light body wiggling like a subtle dash in a rough picture. An internal day passes. Advances, but towards Algeria. It travels miles and miles. It sees no end, but an intermediate stage, represented by an Arab sanctuary in an evident state of abandonment. It is a goal in its own way. Do you understand that someone could pass by, following ancient Saharan routes? Maybe.
Dehydrated, devoid of anything but the clothes he wears, he finds the strength to drink his own urine and to feed on bats that live in the ruins, decapitating them, drinking the blood and not leaving the entrails.
Immobile in his makeshift shelter, in the following hours he is not spotted neither by an airplane nor by a helicopter flying over the area.
The darkest bewilderment makes its way into him, taking possession of that desire to fight that had always distinguished him: he tries to cut his veins, but the blood, due to dehydration, is thick, it is molasses that coagulates on his now bony arms.
It has to move, it has to get out of there. The Tuareg’s recommendation “head for the first morning clouds” comes to mind. And so it does. He crosses the desert for nine days, feeding on what he finds: mice, cacti, snakes. Then the meeting that saves his life, the one with nomadic shepherds who take him to a military camp in Algeria. His odyssey ends in a hospital, with a total of 15 kg lost and an amount of 299 km in the legs.
It will then be collected in an autobiographical book, “10 days beyond life“.
One could say everything and the opposite of everything. Of such an experience, and alone, often negative speculations crowd in the minds of the unbelievers.
It is certainly not for me to show you the key, but only to tell you a story of survival.
Bivo has always been careful to read the experiences – even the most terrible stories – of the past to draw the lessons to face the present in a suitable way. The courage also lies in proposing an innovative product capable of being by your side in any emergency.
AFTERFACE: Bivo, in the continuous search to make improvements to the products offered, does not forget the lessons of the past, but treasures them to provide for the creation of a nutritious and light product at the same time, easy to always carry with you.
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