January 7 - Goodbye Portugal

Having arrived in Faro, on the Algarve after 11pm, after a long, very foggy coach trip, I joined the 40-strong check-in queue and headed to my room.

Apparently there was still somewhere open to eat – I flopped, too tired to care!

Immediately, of course, the alarm rang and it was breakfast time, before our 7.30 getaway – again on the coach, for Portimao, an hour or so away…

This time it was clear and sunny and the yummy mummy golfers were already up and about, so we were not alone. I imagine they’ll still be tucked up at 5.15 when we check out tomorrow.

Today’s venue was a municipal sports hall, half for the “meeja”, half for the telly. That half, behind a partition, had food at lunchtime! I opted for a spot on a table right beside a patio-heater, as it was again freezing.

By lunchtime, we were in shirt-sleeves (in my XL t-shirts that look like a Medium on me…) but now it’s 7pm and the fleeces and jackets are back on.

Today’s manic rush towards the 6.15pm deadline was a fraction more organised (on my side – the editors were in control all along, as before) and this time the uplink van was literally on the doorstep, so no panics in traffic jams.

Everything went on the bird (as we broadcasting pros say) as it should have and I only made a couple of factual errors and stumbled over a few words. Better than yesterday, itself better than the first day.

By the end of this I might actually sound OK !!!

Little else to relate, othe than an American competitor, Ronn Bailey from Las Vegas, crashed his Le Mans Corvette-engined buggy on the motorway near the Spanish border, swerving to avoid a very slow-moving local, who changed lanes without looking. Eye-witness reports from a petrol station, beside which it happened, reckon the buggy rolled 5 times.

These things are phenomally strong – Ronn told me that 47 days before the start, he’d crashed the cart over a 70-foot cliff, it had caught fire on the way down and basically destryoed the bodywork in the fire. His team rebuilt the car around the same frame, fitted all new engine, transmission, suspension etcetera and came to the Dakar.

This is what it looked like on Thursday, with a Phoenix logo proudly applied by the mechanics. The Phoenix, of course, famously rises from the ashes, stronger than before. His real problem now isn’t that the car won’t be drivable but that the only bodywork they have has been largely destroyed. Latest news is that after 2 hours working on the machine, he and his co-driver (both thankfully unharmed, as was the dullard who triggered the whole accident) have headed off for Malaga, to take the boat for Morocco.

Such is the Dakar.

As Ari Vatanen also found, drowning out his VW in a river! Almost out of the Dakar because of something they won’t encounter again – water!

We’re all trying to clear out now and get an early night, as we fly to Africa at 6am.

I have managed to post all my photos so far… here’s the link: http://photobucket.com/
Username: dakar2007
Password: dakar2007

Enjoy!