dakar - days 5 & 6 - 28-29th december 2011

so having collected the bikes from the port, they had then been transported to the poolside party, after which we then rode them over to andres home about 30 mins away. as an industrial designer he had beautifully converted a run down old villa into a really cool home, something you would expect to find in shoreditch, london. and for a lover of bikes, the entrance was a garage, with a wooden folding door and a wondefully tiled floor where we parked our bikes against his.

menage a trois

knowing the bikes were pretty safe here, we got a taxi back to the hotel. a long day!

so the plan for wednesday was to get the bikes down to our rented villa just outside mar del plata, where the dakar rally was going to be starting from. on the map it did not look too far away, but in reality it is over 500km along a dual carriageway rather than a motorway. long story short, we returned to andres house in the morning, loaded up the bikes into a white transit (they even have them out there!) and the driver, mariano and jago headed off at lunch time, while i hung around andres house as they packed for what could be a long trip. pick-up packed we headed off late afternoon, 3-4 hours after jago.

rush hour traffic in any citry is bad, so it took an hour to cross the city (again!) before hitting the main route south to the argentine riviera! finally getting a chance to see the real country, having been in the city for the past 4 days; it was such a relief, both to be on the road with the bikes, but also to be out of the city.

i was born in london and have lived there for the past 14 years, but i spent most of my time growing up in the country and that is where i prefer to be. i'm a solitary person, good at working on my own in my own space, but enjoy sharing my experiences with those close to me. don't get me wrong, i like to party and love company, but not all of the time : )) i love buenos aires and look forward to returning, but i was really pleased to be heading to the coast and having a chance to see, feel, smell and taste the real argentina; even wafts of skunk odour - is that english???

the route was pretty much straight - and this would be a theme on most of the long liaison sections - and very flat; arable farming punctuated with vast studs. if there had been vineyards, it might well have been the western cape! unfortunately the sun set a couple of hours after departing the city, but a sense of calm permeated the pick-up, mixed with the excitement of the rally as the road cleared and the darkness enveloped us.

















andres drove the 500km or so to mar del plata with his wife and child in the back, he was so excited! i sat in the front taking in all the new sites and tried to keep drinking an eating whenever we stopped as it was so easy to lose your routine. having signed a motorbike helmet and a few t-shirts at the party the night before i was not too surprised when the garage shop owners asked for mine.....funny really.

jago, me, mariano, andres

we finally reconvened in the secure parking area next to the naval base and i was feeling pumped. this was the dakar and the whole place was packed with cars, trucks and bikes and now, spectators were growing in numbers; you couldn't help feel you were part of something special and this was only the beginning.

the bikes almost at the start : )

adres and family

way cool looking buggies!

the landlord of our villa, alex, met us at the naval base to escort us on what was a 40km ride, but not before we had a proper mc'ds - i was starving, i'd only eaten 5 times that day!

parking up outside the mc'ds caused a little stir, 2 fucking cool bikes parked up, two fit looking lads in shorts and desert rose t-shirts, hell we were the super stars ; ))

patsy, martin and john had arrived in ba that morning, taxi'd straight to the port (100km north of ba) to collect the support truck and then turned back south to mdp, more than 600km south. arriving late that night, about midnight, it was such a relief to be a team finally. we'd travelled down in shorts and t-shirts, so the journey on the bikes to the villa was a little chilly, not to mention a little hairy - they don't always stop at red lights if the think the road is clear....when in rome!! we had no real idea where we were going, just hoping we were not being led down the garden path.

waking up in the beautiful villa in it's tranquil setting was such a contrast to the noisy and busy streets city of ba. having caught up with the team, we all crashed just after midnight, but in spite of everything we were all up by about 0630-0700.....the adrenaline was beginning to kick in. it was a chilled day, packing final bits of kit, trying everything on for the first time and checking everything fitted well. i really felt calm about the whole thing; i had the best team, an awesome bike, the best kit i could muster (i even did a strip tease to camera to demonstrate the kit i was using and why - video to follow!) and here i was, prepping for the dakar in a villa with a pool next to am 18 hole golf course, this was surreal.

although d-day was 3 days away, we had scrutineering the next day and this meant the bikes would be in parc ferme from tomorrow night. so the bikes were fully prepared and loaded with spare tools and parts. my tool bag was a sight to behold.....some lucky fucker has it now, they have no idea what went into getting that right. it's only now that i have filed my insurance claim that the pain has really set in.

my room before everything got nicked

the view from my bedroom

straight to work, but what a location for it, happy days

photo opportunity on the veranda

just reflecting on this image, it is hard to believe that we were really there. jago and lucy found this place and it was spot on. well away from the chaos of mar del plata, where the intensity of the dakar would have been on you the whole time. we had space, time and calm to work in, it was so important to me in this final stage.