It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over...

Well the competition has finished, the celebrations are over (more about those later), but the drama continues...

Today brought an arduous 10 hour journey to Tangers to catch the ferry back to France after only 4 hours sleep, on top of two weeks of general sleep deprivation (anything later than a 4 am start seems quite generous these days), and arriving in one piece was more luck than judgement. The most effective method of staying awake involved counting to 20, eating a crisp, and repeating. Over. And over. And over.

Once in Tangers, Caroline managed to lose what remained of the Total convoy when she was flagged down by a nutter in a car driving alongside her. Fear gripped her when she realised he was not a nutter at all, but was telling her that he had seen someone climb into the back of her 4x4 at the traffic lights (remember that urban horror myth??). When she opened up the back - with some trepidation - the only telltale sign was a shoe poking out from among the sand plaques. The authorities were straight in and apprehended her stowaway, so her brush with exporting illegal immigrants was shortlived, and Moroccan jail narrowly but fortunately avoided.

The Gazelles (minus Donna who is resting with her husband David in Essaouira) are currently onboard the ferry, delayed by the last (lost?) Gazelles before setting sail for the 40 hour return boat journey to Sete which will probably involve some serious sleep. Inch'allah!

The arrival parade in Essaouira

Team 147: Donna and Caroline (and Bessie the 4x4) - all cleaned up for the parade!

The parade along the beach - complete with helicopter guard of honour!

Team TOTAL - awaiting the start of the parade - solidarity!

Memories...

On our way from Foum to Essaouira we composed this small list - while things were fresh in our mind and the rally had not reached the awesome climax of Saturday's arrival and parties...

Things we will miss:

• The excitement of spotting the red balise
• Fresh-made beignets and Moroccan pancakes for breakfast
• Bessie the world's best 4x4, who functioned just fine for us even without having her air filters checked once!
• Herds of camels
• Wild donkeys
• Incredible birds that followed us all day
• As much bottled water as we wanted when we wanted it
• Just getting into the car and driving...
• Erfoud - and our old friend the circle mountain
• Dunes at daybreak
• Lunar and Martian landscapes
• The oasis (M'Hamid and the other along the Draa River)
• The feeling of crawling into bed physically exhausted
• The excitement of the start line
• Rolling through the finish line with "I'm Too Sexy" blaring - and the roll bars turned into a new type of poll to dance from!
• Feeling like a celebrity with all the photographers, journalists and videographers everywhere
• The hilarious tales over the dinner table of everyone's misfortunes
• Meeting so many new people
• Not being a mobile phone addict (for two weeks!)
• Team 152 and their continuous need for our air compressor - we loved them!
• Speaking French all day long
• Dominique Serra's "Bonjour" at 4 am
• The feeling of getting navigation right - oh the joy in spotting a Hassi or a road within about 0.3km of the predicted distance!

Things we won't miss:

• Dust and sand everywhere!
• Checking and adjusting our tire pressure about twenty times a day
• "Donnez moi un stylo" "Donne!" "Donne!" "Donne!"
• Dominique Serra's "Bonjour" at 4 am
• Waking up at 4 am
• Putting away the Quechua tents
• Dirty and broken fingernails
• Sandstorms, halestorms, and mud
• The fear of darkness falling when lost in the desert
• Helmets! (oh our ears hurt!)
• The lack of time in the morning to comb our hair
• Checking our air filter, water, and oil levels - OOPS!
• Teams not playing by the rules - such as filling up on third party petrol in a village which is forbidden - and then going on to place EXTREMELY WELL and taking a prize - you know who you are and we completely disapprove...
• Speaking French all day long
• The Draa River bed... ghastly!

Marathon Leg, Take Two

On Wednesday we set off on our second 'marathon leg' or overnight stage of the rally. We started off with hgh ambitions to do all 10 flags over the two days. However the terrain went from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Flag 1 was on the roads - so far so good! Flag 2 saw us on a flat open hazy plain with no obvious landmarks to guide us, and our car was now needing serious realignment, and we had nothing
but a compass! Despite this we managed to stay in a straight line for about 25km and took the flag, unlike the Total South African team who wound up nearly in Algeria with a Moroccan military escort!

Flag 3 took us through the amazing oasis of M'hamid - we wish we could have stayed (and in fact the South Africans did!). Flag 4 caused a few problems, as it was in between dunes and an ancient river (oued) bed. We met Irina the model who struck a pose on the roof of her 4x4 to
point the direction - no wonder ESPN dropped us like hot beignets! After taking Flag 4 we decided to find the 'road' to go to Chegaga to meet up with everyone to camp for the night. And thus began our (second? third?) journey to the Oued from hell...

In true Moroccoan style, the 'road' we were on just ran out. But we found a few tire trails and thought we were safe. Instead we wound up in the bed of the Draa River. Almost immediately we realised our error. We were surrounded by river banks about 10 meters each side,
the river bed was old caked mud, and apparently this is extremely dangerous and to be avoided at all costs. As darkness descended, and we were driving up and down to find our way out, we began to feel like we were in a scene from a horror film!

Finally 'Rally Boyes' shot the car up the river bank in a cloud of dust and diesel fumes, and we were safe! However the back of the car was a disaster, crates split open, tires on top of bags, and tools everywhere. By this time night had fallen, and never have we been so relieved to see headlights of other Gazelles.

We made camp with Flo and Paula Team 135 and like all good girl guides built a massive bonfire in the desert! Donna made curry and rice for all, and we promptly collapsed into our tents.

The next morning the four of us set out for the dunes at daybreak. After a reprimand from the sheriff for travelling in convoy and a penalty for Team 135 (for following us - who wouldn't want to?) we tackled the dunes together (the sole exception to the no following rule). We found Flag 5x like a dream, there by 8 am. Flag 6x on the extreme route caused a few more problems. The benefit of travelling together in the dunes is that many hands make for lighter work when
there are problems. Within minutes of setting off for 6x, Team 135 needed a tire change, which in the Gazelle spirit of solidarity we sorted out... The favour was soon repaid - we went over the crest of a dune and wound up wedged between camel grass and the back of a dune.

After a few hairy moments - including a nearly catastrophic collission as Flo flew over the dune and almost landed on our 4x4 - we made it to 6x by noon. By this time, the dunes were HOT HOT HOT, the sand was so soft we were sliding all over the pleace, and our were had only 1/4
tank of petrol remaining - and as there were no taxis available to take us to the bivouac - and dreading what was in store, we headed due south to exit the dunes on thankfully what was our easiest drive of the day.

A serious lack of petrol (running out results in 200 penalty points) forced us to head back to the camp - a 100 km drive over tough rocky terrain, almost the whole way with our fuel warning light flashing red! On nothing but fumes we crossed the finish line!

It's Over!

Pictured: Amanda (Team 150 South Africa), Caroline (Team 147), Dalene (Team 150 South Africa), Donna (Team 147)

Marathon Leg 2 - The Memories

Celebrating success in the dunes, with Team 135 (Florence and Paula)

The road we spent a long time looking for... Can you see it? Thought so...

Last post until after the stages finish!

Quote of the day: it's better to be stupid for one day than crap every day!

We redeemed ourselves today by finding 6 flags and experiencing (for the first time all rally) no major problems. However, tomorrow is a dune day (and overnight in the dunes as well) so we fully expect to be back to the land of setbacks...

Highlights today included: lunar landscapes, the Draa Valley oasis, and managing to eat lunch ( a luxury previously unattained)!

Gotta go and have a cold shower!

Best story so far...

Have you heard the story about...

The Gazelles who were lost in the dunes, got out of their car as they saw a light in the distance and decided to walk to it to ask for help, and then lost their car? They stayed in a hotel for the night and went back into the desert in the morning, found their car, and are still in the competition!

It's hard to explain just how much seems to go wrong all the time in the desert (this tale is no one-off) but stories like these keep the spirits high.

NB: Apparently a number of readers have assumed this tale from the desert to be about Team 147. In fact, we shielded the identity of the wayward gazelles out of respect, but to clarify things a bit this was a story about one of our fellow TOTAL teams from Africa...

The day it all went wrong...

Having come 3rd in the prologue and ranking 9th amongst the first timers and rising, yesterday was the end of our great run...

Suffice it to say, we dropped a few points after finding ourselves stuck between a dune and a hard place. Talking of being dropped, we havent seen our friends from ESPN since either...

However we did find ourselves a theme song - Right Said Fred I'm Too Sexy - let's just say the helmet and big sunglasses look is definitely in fashion here in the desert!

A night under the stars

We managed to find two other Total teams after the Oued from hell (see previous blog) and had a super night under the stars.

Martine and Monique provided the jambon bread and wine, Marie and Elodie served rum aperitifs, and we served up Pot Noodle...

Having been tailed by journalists for the past few days, we spent about 30 minutes each being interviewed by ESPN.

Oh - if you want to email please do so (two more days only) to gazelles147@laposte.net - thanks for the support!

The Road Less Travelled

We have discovered that the thin black lines on the map represent roads maintained by Gazelles once a year.

Three days ago our strategy was to follow the roads. Now we know that we are the ones making them!

We did manage to find the roads and got through Oued Ziz (the biggest muddy river bed at the moment in Morocco). 4 Gazelles got stuck up to their car windows and had to be rescued. Our finding the road was a stroke of MAGIC!

The ecstasy of finding the balise!

Pictured: Caroline (Team 147), Pascale (Team 144), Marie (Team 141)

Lunar? Martian? No Moroccan...

Before it went wrong...

A brief note - we are surviving!

It has been a tiring few days. We have experienced a huge sand storm, a hailstorm caused the bivouac to turn into a mudfest, and we spent hours today digging in sand.

Highlights:

• Driving through a herd of camels
• The huge dunes today - Caroline driving Donna guiding
• The birds that hovered by our car all day yesterday
• The great team TOTAL spirit

Lowlights:

• The flat tire we had yesterday
• The early mornings...

Send us notes - Team 147 on the official rally website!

Celebrating Success on the Dunes