dakar - day 1& 2 - 24-25th december 2011

had one hell of a run up to leaving for argentina with our office move and build project for the london team; 4,500 sq ft of empty space to become the new home of healthcare international .a 10 week project to be completed in 4 was an onerous task and a challenge to fit in the final stages of my dakar training; winding down the physical training and fattening up for the onslaught ; ) fortunately the bike and half my kit was already on its way across the ocean, so that was one less thing to think about.

however, i was allowed to leave the office 3 days before flying out, which enabled me to get myself together. on 23rd i drove down to patsy's from london to pick up jago's acu licence/ start permission and our v5 docs for scrutineering, as well as our new race and rab jackets. what should have been a 3hr sprint turned into a 7hr chore due to christmas traffic and the closure of the hammersmith flyover - great timing! meant i had to ask my brother max to collect a few shirts (that i would never actually get to wear!!) that i had ordered weeks before but had only just turned up. finally arrived home at about 7pm and started to pack. for weeks my spare room had become a small warehouse for bike kit, but now it was time to finally decide what i would actually be taking. i had to refer to the list of kit i had already sent ahead to avoid doubling up; always tempting, but i was in fact always trying to keep the amount of 'stuff' to think about to a minimum, i had so much going on in my head already, i did not want anything in the periphery.

as i had left the office early(ish) on the wednesday  i had not had a chance to say goodbye to anyone and due to the long drive on the friday i missed the office drinks too, so met up with dad, naomi, barney, lucy, max and claudio at the brassierie for a late (last?!) supper, which was really lovely. after picking up a ipod nano from dad's i was home again by 1am, so fnished packing, loaded the nano with all my tracks, just as the taxi arrived at 340am to take me to t5 heathrow. still had to run to get to my gate in time even though i arrived early check-in did not open until 1 hr before departure so after all the security checks there was little time spare; i was panting having run up 3 tall escalators, goodness knows how those behind me faired, did they survive let alone make the gate in time??!!

iberia is a shit arirline and the short haul flight to madrid was just the begining, fortunately i had loaded the ipad with movies and i had my new earplugs so could shut out the world for the next 15 hrs or so. arrived in buenos aires at about 9pm that night (4hrs behind gmt), but had to wait for 40 minutes for a taxi to take me on a 45 minute drive to hotel nunez in the nunez district of ba, central, residential area close to my newly aquainted and fellow dakar riding friend mariano lorenzetti (rider 171). no sooner had i arrived, checked in and openened my bedroom window, the quiet christmas eve streets errupted in christmas celebration! fireworks whizzed and banged, carols were sung and guitars strummed all night long; welcome to argentina : )) ear plugs worked a treat, plus the fact i had been up for nearly 40 hours......sound familiar!!??....so slept well.

i headed out for a wander on this beautiful cool, sunny and very quiet christmas morning.

all the roads lined with trees providing shade and colour to this very urban part of town....

no barriers, just remember your green cross code!

mariano and his girlfriend valeria picked me up at lunchtime in shorts and flip-flops and we headed out for christmas lunch with all his family! in spite of what you may read in the papers about the political tensions between britain and argentina, the 4 generations of mariano's family welcomed me with open arms, kissed on both cheeks by all and seated and treated as a member of their own. squeezed around the kitchen table, eating traditional foods i had not seen before - could not begin to tell you what was in half the dishes, but it was very good.

mariano (no hair!) and his cousins - just need a red indian head-dress and a policeman's hat and we'd be sorted!!

having swapped valeria for mariano's ma before lunch, we swapped her back in the afternoon and headed out with a few of their friends for supper and had pizza and few beers to end a perfect day.

aparently buenos aires sits on a river, not an ocean.....hmmmm.....

my journey to dakar - made it! well, lima in matter of fact....

if you did not already know, i made it to lima on january 15th, in daylight and i was in fact the first competitor onto the podium, finally not at the back of the pack ; )

this signified the end of the 8,500km odyssey which started 15 days earlier and the end to 3 years and 8 months planning and preparation.

there was no overwhelming emotion or happiness, sadness, not even relief, i was numb, going through the motions; i was chuffed for patsy though, i knew how much she had put into this and it went back a lot further than when i first met her and the desert rose team back in feb 2010.

it was a surreal moment. before i left for the rally people would ask "are you excited, nervous, scared even?", i felt none of those emotions, i was just focused on getting on with it and here i was having finished, achieving one of my life dreams and i was numb.

i was really happy for my mum and dad who were there, first time they had been together for over 30 years, that was wonderful.....funny how life is.

going back to my school biology lessons, we are programmed to fight or flight when facing life threatening situations, the mind and body takes over. but i put myself here, (not without help of course), it was my decision to take part and i could have left at any point before or during the race....i had to tell my body to fight, but i can promise you that 'gollum' was trying to find excuses to abandon the rally....

it didn't take long to realise that dakar is a mind game, always teasing, testing, from pages of amendments to the roadbook the night before to leading you into the special with 30-40km of fast flowing terrain before hitting you with some soft sand, an insanely steep climb or decent, constantly challenging, pushing you out of your comfort zone before pulling back, then biting again just as you had started to receover from the previous frightening encounter. it never stopped, it was a joke that would not end.everyday, close to the end, tantelizingly close, you could even taste the day's victory,  that was when the nightmare would begin, the door at the end of the corridor would keep moving away into the distance....

time and distance did not matter, faith, pure blind faith did! calculating time based on speed and distance was a waste of time, you just had to think that this pain would come to an end at some point in the day or night, but it would end if you held it together, that is what got me through. the distances involved and the technical riding meant high average speeds were required, but my level of riding at 60-80% meant each day was going to be long. i did not mind, as i had mentally prepared for 12-16 hour days in the saddle right from the start of this journey. however, nothing can prepare you for the whole dakar experience except for being there and doing it; 4-5 hours sleep, 4am starts, 52c heat, kit being stolen, mountains of sand, bone rattling tracks and the softest fesh fesh.....whilst higher speeds brought their own risks, i knew i would be at the back, fighting with the passing quads, cars and trucks!

here is the dakar story from the underated amateur, dakar virgin and privateer.

rider 187.....prince of darkness!