CAIRO: Hisham Nessim, a renowned adventurer, has set a new world record, driving solo across an inhospitable stretch of the Western Desert, called the Great Sand Sea, then up North towards the Siwa oasis in a record five hours and 33 minutes. After a three-day trip with the observers and the equipment to the starting point of the north El-Gilf El-Kebir area, Nessim began his 700 km journey on March 5 accompanied by navigator Ahmed Barakat and technical assistant Ragab Ghoniem. The dangerous trek began at 6:45 am with Nessim choosing not to use the four-wheel drive mode of his Toyota FJ Cruiser for the sake of maximum speed on the first leg of his journey. After facing several obstacles in the difficult terrain, bad weather settled in the last 250 km, reducing his average speed from 140 km/h to 90 km/h. Coupled with low visibility, there was no margin of error for Nessim. "I chose the journey date for two reasons. First for the bad weather conditions making this expedition more of a challenge; as well as for it being my birthday, leaving me with no qualms of the worst happening to me, he said. After the passing the worst of the storm, the journey was completed at 12:18 pm giving Nessim two records: being the first solo driver to complete this trek and being the fastest. "This record is a first for the Middle East region, as there are no individual challenge achievements of this level, which was the main motivation for this journey, he said. Nessim has set his eye on three more records with a planned journey spanning Morocco to China he is planning in 2010 in a bid to hold the Guinness Book annual anniversary celebrations in Egypt. The achievement, to be included in the Guinness Book of Records, serves as a boost to publicize Egypt's desert tourism industry, with the Ministry of Tourism providing sponsorship to the event. Nessim's tourism company Aqua Sun, undertook many high profile expeditions in the past five years in the Western Desert, including the testing of NASA's Mars droid and the search for the lost army of Cambyses. Nessim added that the trip was well planned; advising anyone wishing to proceed in such an undertaking to be fully prepared as there is an ever present risk of problems and dangers in the desert despite modern technology. Nessim dedicated the achievement to his late father with whom he shares a history of heroic acts when he served in the Egyptian Intelligence Services during the Israeli wars and conducted prolific missions such as the 1970 bombing of the Israeli oil rig in Cote d'Ivoire.
