18 January – Kayes

KAYES - OUR ONLY STOP IN MALI

On the flight into Mali, as we got closer to the ground, below the hazy cloud, I saw things I haven’t seen for a long while. A river. I had to ask someone if it was indeed water, not something else. Trees. Proper tall trees, not the scrub bushes we’ve been seeing. Livestock. Fields. Not green fields, but fields anyway, ploughed and planted. Houses with pitched roofs. Not all of them, but a few.

Here at Kayes, there are also termite mounds. Which means 2 things… 1, there is wood…. 2, be careful where you pitch your tent!

There is also a toilet in the “terminal” building (€3 – and a bargain after not going for 2 days.) I shall investigate later, when – or if – the coffee has its effect.

Alessandro from Eurosport has just appeared. In clean clothes… Alessandro, are you clean?? Yes! Apparently, as well as the €3 toilets, which he investigated almost as we were still taxiing in, there are €3 showers! Double bubble… I shall have myself €6 of luxury in just a moment… Breakfast can wait!!!!!!!

AND MY MOBILE PHONE WORKS, TOO!

Now happy again, having almost forgotten the lovely 2CV which I missed out on yesterday.

Almost.

AAAAHHHHHHHHHH Bliss…. A large room, not exactly clean, with basin, toilet and shower. Water from a proper shower head, tepid, but enough to wash more than just face, pits and bits. Clean body, clean clothes. Out into the hgot dusty wind, with ash from what is obviously either e campaign to burn scrub close to the runway or just a bush-fire. Either way, my clean, white t-shirt wasn’t clean or white by the time I put it on. And my tan has completely gone, dowh the drain. I am now pasty and white once more…

But we’re all cleaner and smiling like loons.

Breakfast is over, it’s 11.45am and I am about to start work.

WHERE WE SIT ALL DAY LONG

Just to answer a question or two - the programme I do here is the 26-minute World Feed... basically, the pictures which come out of Dakar for the day, with commentary by yours truly...

Of the many broadcasters who take the feed, some use it as it is, with my voice (Versus in the USA, for example - they used to be OLN) and some use it, cut up, in news/sports programmes etc.

This year, Eurosport is using the pictures as part of a longer programme, with live interviews from the bivouac, every night. Carlton Kirby is voicing the taped parts and linking the live elements for the English audience (and I imagine that it's his voice that people are finding streamed on the web) and all over Europe, 19 others are doing exactly the same in their own languages...

WHERE I VOICE THE PROGRAMME - I SIT ON THE LEFT

So, there you go... Now you know as much about TV as me - but not quite as much as the average 12-year-old!

The runway and hard standing here are surrounded by small bushes and grass and someone has taken it uopn themselves to burn a lot of this quite recently. The trees are still standing, as is the grass, since surviving fire is obviously a way of life for them, but the end result is that instead of fesh fesh settling on anything, every time a plane or helicopter moves (and that seems to be VERY frequently today) a thin layer of ash covers everything. Which is nice…

Today’s stage is quite a short one and the bikes arrive around 1.45, with the first of the car drivers coming in at 3. Yet, there seems to be very little in the way of footage. Manu, the car editor is complaining that he has nothing to get started with and Jean-Philippe (Jonphi for short) also bemoans a sparsity of pictures. All fo which means that the programme will be very late coming together.

HOW WE SEND THE PICTURES TO YOU
The one thing which is shaping up, is a feature on family links. There’s a Danish businessman and his 20-year-old son, who are both racing in Bowler Wildcats – and still going well – and then there’s a French guy, with wild white hair, who looks like Pinocchio’s father, Guipetto! He must be 65 and his daughter, who is 19, is also on the Dakar.

Turns out she wanted to do something exciting on bikes, so he suggested that since the Dakar is the toughest event, she should start with that! He got a matching bike and came with her! He must have done some of this before, because she was saying in the piece about how she normally rides in front, except in the dunes, where he has more experience. He really looks like some mad professor / nutty grandfather…

With the mobile working, had a chat with Leah and Sam, who got so wet walking to playgroup, with his friend Molly and her mum, that Leah had to take him a change of clothes! Very bizarre to be in a t-shirt, in what feels like a hot summer’s day, yet back home it’s properly wet, cold and windy…

By the time the programme came to be voiced, very little was what you’d call ready. But we managed to get it up on the satellite on time, courtesy of some severe effort at the coal-face by the guys in the Hercules. It was certainly a rush for them though.

Afterwards, to mark the fact that tonight is our last in a tent (or the fact that it was Wednesday – or whatever day it actually was) there were drinks at the catering plane. Beer and nibbles and a call home to chat to Morgan, in the balmy warmth of an African winter’s night. Bliss.

Then off to the bivouac for dinner – chicken and chips, a French staple – and a quick barter with the stall-holders, who were selling beads, carvings etc. In fact, it was Adrian, the editor for Versus, who was bartering but he ended up buying nothing. I’ll wait until daylight in Dakar, I think…

Back to the tent for a relatively early night, as we’re on early-to-rise-late-to-bed regime again today…

17 January – Ayoun

ME, LOOKING GOOD !

MMMMMMM Nice. Ayoun is another militray airfield, only this time, as were much farther South than when we entered the country, it looks a little different…

There’s a little more vegetation (though all of it pretty bleached by the sun, even in mid-winter) with the odd tree and clump of grass dotted around and there’s not sand, more like brown dust. We have left the Sahara behind us and the earth reflects that. Instead of being 100% sand, there’s a distinct reddy-brown-ness to it.

Which doesn’t mean that it stays on the ground. Oh no… it is very dry and just as fine as the desert fesh fesah, sailing up into big clouds at the slightest provocation (an Antonov on full thrust, say, or a car or turck trundling past) and then filters down to cover everything in a nice even coating.

I have to dust my screen and keyboard literally every 5 minutes, or it feels like you’re typing on sand! The poor Mac is gooing to need a trip through the washing machine, or something, when I get home, just to clean it out…

Today is the final day of bidding on the groovy (or poo, depending on whether you’re me or Leah, Morgan and – the little traitor, I thought at least HE would be on my side on this one - Sam back home in England) 2CV that I spotted on eBay. It’s matt black and flames.

When I started bidding it was £200, now it’s rocketed up to over £400. Our budget is fixed at £777, so I have some leeway.

A PRIVATEER'S TRUNK - MESSAGES FROM HOME

Today, with no competitive stage, the editors had a different challenge. Not telling the story of the rally, with top 5 or 10 times etc etc etc but they decided that today’s programme would basically be 26 minutes behind the scenes. Looking at the differences between pro rider and totally unsupported amateur… the view on the stages from a rider’s helmet-cam… alll kinds of stories from behind the lead battle. In other words, the real Dakar for the majority of the field, who are not in the chase for the podium.

It promised to be tough work. Naturally, there’s miles of footage for the top runners, but they’re going to be digging much deeper for this show and that always means time… I have to confess, I was slightly worried that it’d be a nightmare…

Chatted to my honey on MSN (more technology conquered) but couldn’t get the Skype to work. Have just enough for one more 5-minute call, which I’m keeping just in case there’s no coverage for the mobile in Mali or Senegal. Later on, Oscar was online too. He was at his friend Tom’s house, on his PSP, as their broadband had gone down at home.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU NEED TO BACK A PLANE UP...

16 January – Still in Nema

WAKEY WAKEY - THE SUN HAS GOT HIS HAT ON

What a nice change, not to be woken by the Hercules at 5.45. Woke at 6 anyway, then rolled over and went back to sleep until 7. Then again till 7.30, at which time I thought a pee and a coffee would be nice.

Dressed, packed everything up and headed off for breakfast.

As seems to be the habit with the regulars from ASO, there had been a party in full swing when I returned from dinner the previous night. They take any opportunity, when they don’t have to get up and move the next morning. This time, I don’t think there were any Evel Kneivel-type mini-moto stunts involving atbles and benches, but who knows? I’d left them to it and crashed out, so they could have been dancing all night on the top of the Hercules, for all I know…

Now, two days later, I am struggling to think what happened in Nema. Not much different from normal, I seem to think…

Day spent following the race, as the competitors completed a (relatively) short stage out from Nema and back. The first bikes were in at about 1pm and so there was more time for programme-making than has been the case for the bulk of the past week.

Chatted to a few riders and got their thoughts on the stage, which is always useful. Most saw it as a little disappointing, especially as the two stages out to Timbuctu and back had been quite long and totally different from the Nema loop in nature.

WAITING TO WASH - AND STUFF

A day to just hold station for the front-runners, then, which always allows someone else a chance to shine. So we had a different winner in the bikes, for a change (although the Ltvian winner of the previous day’s stage was a first-time winner) and in the cars a first-time winner.

With just a short liaison to cover tomorrow, everyone was pretty relaxed, and I think that was somehow reflected in the Hercules. Everything ran pretty smoothly and we were all ready for the transmission, in time and sorted out. Couple of small technical glitches but no major worries.

Not sure whether we’re just getting more into the swing of it all a lot better but I’m not feeling QUITE so much pressure at the moment.

Again, wandered down to the extremely dusty bivouac for dinner, with an English guy called Adrian, who is working as the editor for the US network Versus, who are covering the rally. They are showing my programme every night in the States and there’s a 6-strong crew here shooting extra stuff for 4 documentary programmes that they’ll air later.

They’re really nice guys and great fun to have in our little tent, along with the guys from Micron, who are doing the on-board cameras on Robby Gordon’s Hummer. They have been up-loading films every night to YouTube and have so far managed to rack up something like 15,000 dollars-worth of internet use. Because it’s all done over a satellite connection, it costs a fortune but they still have a week to go, so the bill is going to climb, even if they upload less then they have been…

There’s a really good-natured banter going on all the time, which makes for a good working atmosphere and the guys in the plane are getting more used to having Sebastian and I about now, and are happy to run us through what they’ve got, even when they’re getting really busy – all of which makes out jobs more possible and more relaxed.

Tomorrow we leave, for Ayoun, our last port of call in Mauritania. Turning in early, as usual…

FATHER (65) AND DAUGHTER (19) - BOTH FIRST-TIME BIKERS... FRENCH, OF COURSE!

15 January - Nema – Day 1

TYPICAL MAURITANIAN SCENERY
We’re here in Nema, another military airfield, for two days. Everyone is making themselves at home, becuse not having to move in the morning makes day 2 a little easier – we get a lie-in, waking when we want, instead of at 5.45 when the Hercules starts its ground-power engine.

As usual this morning, we were woken by the four-engined alarm clock and by Thierry May, the ASO logistics manager, shaking everyone’s tents, telling them to hurry up, because they wanted to start the Hercules’ engines.

In a bit of a panic, as – like everyone else - I had camped on the down-wind side of the Herc, I dragged some clothes on and hurriedly packed my ruck-sack, rolling up my sleeping mat and jamming my sleeping bag etc into it as fast as I could.

Outside it was not windy, so getting my tent in its bag was no drama and I hiked off to the plane we move in.

As we waited about, loading the plane, the Herc and the 5 Antonovs (2 jet and 3 turbo-prop jobs) all taxied past, turned and then sped past to take off, each time covering us in a thick cloud of fesh fesh. By the time we boarded the plane (not our normal one but a smiliar one with a German crew) we were all coughing and nicely dusted with a brown crust.

The flight from Tichit to Nema was just an hour and we bumped down with no great dramas.

As usual, pulled bags off the plane and went to the Herc and catering plane to help with the unloading.

SEBASTIAN FROM EUROSPORT - YES, HE ALWAYS LOOKS LIKE THIS

Pitched tent in a concrete base for an oil tank, which lay alongide and showed no signs of ever being fitted to the base. It was level and had a low wall, so I thought it would be ideal. However,as we sat having breakfast, some locals sat on the wall watching us and I realised how vulnerable my stuff would be out there.

So I picked up my tent and moved across the airfield to where a load of other guys had camped, to set up home.

After setting up, I grabbed my towel and wash things and made the 15-minute hike to the showers and loos. The showers were again wooden cubicles in a row on a concrete footing, with a door, a mirror and a tray. But no roof. It was already quite hot, so the cool water and refreshing breeze were very nice…

Noticed that a lot of people seemed to becoming down in dirty clothes, showering and dressing in clean gear, leaving their old clothes in a big bag. So, later in the evening, when I went down to dinner, I stopped off to use the loo and dropped a big pile of my old t-shirts, pants and socks there as well. Hopefully, they will be of some use to someone.

After a load of technical problems the night before, things seemed to be a little more straight-forward in the Herc today and the programme was ready, almost glitch-free, with few dramas.

Three or four days ago was our worst in terms of getting the scripts done in time but now we’re working much better and everyone seemed happy.

Sad to say, Nema isn’t very Dakar. It’s just another airfield with loads of fine dust in the air – and we’re all-but out of the desert as well. When we head to our next port of call, on the border with Mali, we’ll have left the dunes behind and be heading into Senegal, with savannahs, trees, red-brown mud and the rush to Dakar. The classic Sahara-ness will have gone.

Someone asked me today whether I was feeling home-sick. I have to say that I will be very glad to get home and see everyone. And wash. And sleep in a bed. Past 5.45am. But I am getting into the swing of things now, it’s not a total headless-chicken nightmare (well, not EVERY day) and I’m enjoying myself. So, I don’t actively want to leave but I’ll be glad to get home.

Not sure whether or not that’s a yes or a no. But there you go.

Dinner was enlivened last night by the presence of one of my rallying heroes, Ari Vatanen. I was sitting with Sebastian and he wandered over with his tray and asked if we’d mind if he sat down in a space on the rugs next to us.

Of course not! He was very chatty and as nice as I’ve found him to be, on previous occasions when I’ve met him. When we were chatting he noticed a bunch of lads nearby, with Bowler logos on their clothes.

Excuse my ignorance, he said to them, but what’s a Bowler? They told him all about the cars and, as they were rally Brits, obviously knew all about his exploits in the UK and abroad. He stayed and chatted with us for a good hour, got the coffees in and was generally very good company.

His car had been totally destroyed in a fire the night before, so what now, I asked. Stay with the team to Dakar? No, he said, I’ll go home and go to Strasbourg (where he’s an MEP) on Monday…

It certainly made for a good night for all of us and Ari seemed glad to have a chat and some good-natured banter about some of his better-known exploits (crashes.) Top stuff.
AMATEUR BIKERS WORKING OUT OF ONE TINY TRUNK

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