14 January - Tichit

TICHIT - WIDE OPEN AND WINDY

Woken earlier than normal this morning, as we were camped under the wings of the Hercules and they started their on-board power at 5.30, waking everybody up. Then we had to quickly pack up our tents, so they wouldn't get blown away when they started the propellers...

Jammed everything in bags and stumbled over to the plane we fly in, feeling tired and smelly. The flight to Tichit was about an hour, and we flew over loads of dunes on our way in... There is no concrete or tarmac here, just hard-packed sand in a flat plateau... the planes raise tons of dust as they land, take-off and taxi.

Tichit is a former penal colony for political prisoners - with miles of desert in any direction, it's better than Alcatraz - you don't need guards or fences... off you go lads, run away... good luck... one less for breakfast, then...

It also has the oldest library in Africa, apparently, where they're restoring a 600-year-old copy of the Koran. Which is hard to conceive of here, almost totally cut off from the outside by the desert, and as wind-swept and desolate as you can imagine.

This is the most "Dakar" place we've been to so far. Palm trees and sand dunes visible through the heat haze. Not a military airfield, packed with soldiers and Kalazhnikovs.

FOR THE FIRST TIME IT'S HOT AND SUNNY

After the hectic pace of yesterday's "Rest Day", today is actually a much quieter day for us. There's no pictures of yesteday to be edited, so it's now 3.30 and we're still waiting for pictures to arrive, as the drivers and riders toil through almost 400 miles of burning sand dunes. The editors are sleeping in the shade of the planes and I've been wandering about filming little clips on my camera. to send home...

I'll try and post some more on YouTube...

The competitors have had a very long day, the first riders not arriving until well after 3, and only 8 cars had finished by the time our programme went on air. Footage arrived very late, so there was a very high degree of free-styling in both the commentary and the editing. Crashing a bare shot-list out took another 25 minutes or so and there were a few glitches in the broadcast. The inflatable tent in which we transmit started to collapse. Silently. So they turned on a generator to power a pump to blow it up - IN THE TENT !

I told them to turn it off. No, you can talk. No, I can't!

It got turned off. Most of the walky-talkies were off too. But not all. And the guys controlling the uplink keep talking to the Hercules on a talk-back device, which I can hear all the time through my headphones - so it must be going out with the transmission as well...

However, the good news is that I have found an excellent 2CV on eBay and hope that John will manage to get over and tie up the deal before the sale ends... Just in case, I have started bidding already, wirelessly, from the heart of nowhere, 200 miles from anywhere at all, in Mauritanian desert. The world is indeed a bizarre place.

This thing will need to be seen to be believed - it's just SO perfect for Marolw-Monaco, I couldn't believe it when I saw it... Just look at this baby.... MMMMMMMMMM