The Marathon des Sables is considered the world's toughest marathon.
The six-day, 250-kilometre race from Morocco is one of the harshest parts of the Sahara Desert and attracts marathon runners from around the world every year.
Mauro Prosperi, a 67-year-old Italian who is a regular visitor to the event, comes here every year, even when not competing, to visit and suggest improvements.
All because this is Prosperi's "place of rebirth".
As one of the earliest participants, Prosperi originally came to run a marathon, but it turned into a big challenge for survival:
He unfortunately got lost in the depths of the desert, cut off water and food, survived by eating bats and drinking urine, and became a classic case of desert survival...
The Sahara Desert Marathon was founded in France in 1986 with a lack of attention and few participants.
Today, there are thousands of people, and the grandeur of the contestants lining up in the desert was unimaginable back then.
In 1994, 39-year-old former Olympic marathon runner Mauro Prosperi was so excited to hear about the event that he decided to sign up.
He runs 40 kilometers a day and reduces his water intake just to get a good place in the desert.
Who thought of the competition site only to find that there were only 80 players who signed up, some of whom did not come at all, and some of whom came to make up the numbers, ready to go into the desert to take a few souvenir photos and leave.
Speaking of an international competition, Prosperi and a few others came to the competition.
Of course, Prosperi didn't care, and released cruel words at that time:
I heard that this event is hard, and I came to challenge the high difficulty!
The 250-kilometer desert marathon set off with no mobile phones or positioning equipment, and the runners set off with only maps and a small amount of supplies.
Participation map
Before the competition, the organizer gave only one hint:
If you encounter a sandstorm on the road, take shelter in their pre-set shelter.
But Prosperi didn't expect that the event would be far tougher than he had imagined...
Prosperi was excited to see the desert on the first day, but he soon discovered that the so-called shelter was far less than the organizers had said, and he couldn't touch one after walking a long way.
The first stretch of the road, with small undulating dunes and no other runners in sight, felt like he was alone in the desert for a long time.
After walking some distance, Prosperi clearly felt that the wind and sand had become stronger, and the frequency was becoming more and more frequent, and several times it was impossible to open people's eyes.
Prosperi had to find a place to hide, and every sandstorm buried Prosperi in the sand.
At that time, Prosperi was still worried about the event and worried that the sandstorm would delay his trip, so after each short pause in the sandstorm, he climbed up and hurried forward against the scorching sun.
On the fourth day, the more he ran, the more he felt that something was wrong, because during this day, he walked a long distance, not only could not see other competitors, but also could not see any checkpoints and shelters, he had not been supplied for a long time, and his whole body was tired and thirsty.
Prosperi stood on a large sand dune and looked around and found yellow sand as far as the eye could see...
At this time, he suddenly realized:
Things are not good, you may be lost!
At first, Prosperi wasn't very panicked.
Because he heard the roar of the helicopter from a distance, it seems that after Prosperi went missing, the organizers sent a helicopter to search for it.
Prosperi ran lifelessly towards the helicopter, shouting and waving the Italian flag ...
Unfortunately, the sight in the desert was so poor, coupled with the huge roar of the helicopter, the pilot flew the plane around for a week, and he was stunned not to notice Prosperi who was desperately chasing on the ground.
Prosperi watched the helicopter go away and slumped to the ground.
After a long time, Prosperi regained his spirits and dug a hole in the ground to shelter from the wind and sand.
Then he jumped into the hole and counted everything on his body:
A plastic sleeping bag, a canvas bag, a lighter, and a knife.
Prosperi came up with the idea again, lighting his sleeping bag and canvas bag, and raising huge smoke for the searching helicopter to spot.
However, after a few attempts, Prosperi gave up again, because no matter how many times it was lit, it would be mercilessly blown out by the wind and sand.
At this moment, Prosperi began to feel ominous:
Not to mention finishing the race, whether you can get out of the desert alive is a big question!
Now, the only tool he had in his hand was the knife, and Prosperi lay in the hole, exhausted by a thought:
A knife can cut the wrist, and perhaps the last tool is used to commit suicide...
Just as he was almost desperately considering suicide, a strange buzzing sound suddenly sounded in his ears, like the chirping of a bird.
Through the dim light, he saw a large fog appear in the air, and a large group of living creatures were flying around.
Is that...... Bat!!
At this time, Prosperi was struggling on the edge of dehydration, and when he saw such a large group of living animals, his first reaction was to rush to capture them.
The bats were not agile and were quickly caught by Prosperi.
After Prosperi catches the bat, he drags it in his hand, cuts off its head with a knife, and squeezes the bat's blood from the broken neck to drink...
At that moment, for Prosperi, who had not ingested a drop of water for a long time, bat blood simply quenched his thirst more than a mountain spring.
After sucking the blood of a bat, Prosperi grabbed the next one in time, cut the head again, and sucked blood...
Sahara Desert bats
In this way, Prosperi caught 20 bats in a row, sucked their blood dry, and then stuffed them into his mouth to eat raw meat, and finally eased up.
He later recalled:
"This replenishes water and food at the same time, although it is very fishy..."
Prosperi fell into a deep sleep, dreaming that he was dead, but when he woke up early the next morning, he rekindled his desire to survive.
Because he knew that the tournament organizers were looking for him, he had to live to wait for rescue.
But how long he will live, Prosperi himself is not sure.
With the experience of catching bats, Prosperi turned on the extreme survival mode, he found a small bowl in the sand, spilled urine in the bowl, and drank it, using this little water to continue his life.
He also found a tree on foot and hid under it to ambush it, because where there were trees, there might be animals.
Sure enough, crouching until midnight, he caught a snake and a mouse, and as he did before, he used a knife to cut their bodies, drink blood and eat flesh.
In this way, Prosperi tried everything he could to stay alive, eating any animal he could catch and drinking every drop of liquid he could squeeze out.
As long as he can keep him alive, he will do whatever it takes...
In just a few days, the instinct to survive completely overwhelmed the fear of death, and he dragged heavy steps forward in the desert, like a walking corpse, but inside like a beast, eager to kill everything he could see to feed himself.
Eating bloody bat meat and drinking urine that is difficult to breathe, Prosperi continues to rely on such extreme operations, struggling to get through each day in hunger and thirst, and he has only one thought:
Only by living can we get out of the desert and look forward to rescue...
Day after day, day after day...
In the blink of an eye, nine days had passed since his departure, and Prosperi felt that his whole person was almost at his limit, his lips were chapped and his throat was like a fire, his legs were moving mechanically in the yellow sand, and his body looked like he was about to fall down at any time, and he could no longer get up.
Finally, on this day, Prosperi saw some "little things" approaching from a distance, and his whole person was in a trance, thinking that he had hallucinated: Is it a dromedary?
As the group of "little things" got closer, he was surprised to find that that... It turned out to be a herd of goats!
Then a shepherd girl meets Prosperi's eyes, and Prospri is ecstatic: he has finally come out of the desert!
The shepherd girl brought Prosperi to the house and fed him some goat's milk, and the long dehydration and hunger made Prosperi's stomach unable to bear so much food, and he vomited on the spot.
After the shepherd girl's family called the police, the police sent Prosperi to a nearby hospital, and when he arrived at the hospital, Prosperi found out:
He set out from Morocco, got lost in the Sahara, and by the time he got out of the desert, he had already entered the territory of neighboring Algeria...
After recovering in hospital, Prosperi returned to Italy.
His story caused a sensation in the Western media at the time, and the Sahara Desert Marathon received a lot of attention.
Since then, enthusiasm has increased, with more and more runners flocking to the hellish race of the Sahara Marathon.
Today's Sahara Desert Marathon, because of the large number of participants, the increase in checkpoints and shelters, it is not so easy to get lost in the desert.
In any case, Prosperi, who survived the disaster, still can't forget the desert escape experience.
In the years since, he has returned to the Sahara Desert Marathon from time to time to experience it or help the organizing committee with some advice.
In 2017, Prosperi took on the challenge again, and this time, he finally successfully completed the competition, which is a long-awaited wish.
Since then, Prosperi has run the Sahara Desert Marathon almost every year.
In Prosperi's words, everyone has their own mission, and for him, the mission is to constantly conquer the Sahara.
This mission will continue...