Rallye Aicha des Gazelles 2013 - Part 2

This is the second and final part of my blog about the Rallye Aicha des Gazelles du Maroc 2013. Please read the first part first before the second. Remember we are not allowed GPS, only compass and old black and white maps.

The morning after the marathon, we had to pack our tent again as we were heading South West to M’hamid. The first CP was 14kms away but somehow we started slowly. Jamila told me I was cranky and too nervous, I can’t remember what I thought but obviously we were both very tired. We reached the check point having done 20km which seemed excessive.  Our mood however improved and the rest of the day was relatively easy. 

Sorting the maps

We helped another Moroccan team which had a puncture. It’s amazing how small a lot of the jacks are for the types of cars that have to be lifted. You see the gazelles struggling to lift their cars in order to change a tyre. Ours is massive and could lift a small truck.

big stones

determining the course

 We arrived in M’hamid early around 5pm and the camp wasn’t yet ready. For once the wind was down. Because the camp is so big including the mechanics area, the refueling area, the food tent, the press tent, the medic tent and us, it’s always on a plain which tends to be very windy and dusty. So in M’Hamid, it was lovely coming out of the shower with clean hair and keeping your hair and skin clean for a few hours ( provided of course there was no Gazelles or truck driving by and raising an awful lot of dust).

Benoit, our trainer and Hassan our friend from Hamada du Draa came to say hello at the camp. We were pleased to see them but also very nervous. With the check points still not closed, we were not too sure talking to them was actually allowed ( remember they have phones and GPS).

SECOND MARATHON : ERG CHEGAGA

The first day of the marathon was not actually in the big dunes yet. There was a mixture of terrain including small dunes. We woke up and the wind had picked up during the night. The visibility was appalling. It was going to be a car compass day and Jamila was deeply unhappy with the car compass. I must say it seemed to refuse to show us the East for example. Nevertheless and to our amazement we were first at CP1, having overtaken the Volkswagen Amarok which tended to be first. Jamila was elated. The wind which had abated a bit picked up again. This was turning into a sand storm. It felt lonely out there. We decided that the cars of Naima and Carolyne and us would stick together. We were in sand by then and allowed to follow each other. Somehow we found CP2  without wasting time.

SEARCH FOR CP3

The search for  CP3, 30kms from CP2 was going to be tough, There was very little visibility. In beautiful weather you could have found your way by looking at the mountains behind you but they were lost in dust. We decided to follow the sort of tracks in the Oued that may be made by cars but also by the wind and headed West, trying to follow the map. We were also desperately trying to avoid having to cross the “Herbes a chameaux” . I have never been stuck on one of those packs of hard sand and grass but lots of gazelles have and it’s a lot harder to get out than in the dunes.

Eventually we got to a desertic land full of pebbles and out of nowhere, like in the movie ‘lawrence of Arabia”, came 2 bedouins walking alongside their camels. As we were feeling somewhat lost, you can’t imagine how delighted we were to see them. Off went Jamila and Naima to meet up with them. They couldn’t read the map but managed to explain where we were. Great news. We were still about oh maybe 12kms away. Maybe.

It looked like we needed to head further West. At last we hit a beautiful track and according to our calculations, we should have followed it for 4 kms and then turned, left or right, that was a bit of a mystery.

We were joined on the road by another car, a team driving for Total. We were pleased as the Gazelles who drive for brands like Volkswagen or Total tend to have a thorough training and can be reliable. However Celine (the driver) and Sophie ( the navigator) were not having much luck and certainly no fun. They were at loggerheads and the tension between them was palpable. The short of it is that none of us really knew exactly where we were. The wind and the dust had completely disorientated us. We were extremely lucky to arrive at a  small camp where a lovely young man who spoke good French was able to explain to us our relative position. Jamila was struggling to believe him as we were somewhat more to the West than we had thought but he lived there so eventually we had to trust him!

We spent a relatively pleasant hour by his lodgings in the shade of a big tree. He needed air in one of his tyre and I was happy to oblige (I’ve got two motors in the car to pump tyres up). He gave us mint tea and told us to cross the dunes behind his home and we’d get on the right track.

We crossed some small dunes and headed towards a red flag. It was not our CP but that didn’t matter. We were able to position ourselves exactly on the map and headed to our own CP without delay. We were at CP3 by 1.30pm, the second car only in our group.

The next CP, CP4X ( no “Y” in Chegaga, only “X “and E for easy) was at the foot of the big dunes of Erg Chegaga. There were intense discussions between all 3 navigators ; Jamila, Carolyne and Sophie. Us the drivers decided to deflate our tyres. There was no more rough terrain, it was all sand from now on. The less air in the tyres, the less risk of getting bogged down. Although there’s a risk of the tyre getting off the rim( “dejanter” in French) altogether.

There were 3 ways to get to CP4X : straight there by going over a few biggish dunes, or go round to the right or to the left of the dunes. As our aim was to be in the top 20 but not top 5, we could afford to take the slightly longer route.

In the event, Jamila decided to go left. Celine then forged ahead at great speed going way beyond where Jamila and Carolyne wanted too. She wouldn’t stop and we were faced with a dilemma : we had agreed the 3 cars would do the dunes together to help each over and to camp together. Shall we dump them or follow them and hope they’d stop soon enough? We decided to follow them and caught up with them. Sophie was so fed up with her driver she asked us to take the lead. 

Thanks to jamila’s amazing navigational skills, we arrived at CP4X by 3.30, the second car only and just behind the buggies, followed by Naima and Celine.

THE END OF THE RACE FOR US

Full of joy, we decided to carry on towards CP5X. There were the tracks left by the buggies and we’d followed them in Merzouga with great success. The buggies tend to go straight to the flag. However the wind was again blowing strongly and those tracks were disappearing fast. No time to lose. This wind blowing from the West also meant that the dunes were turned in such a way as to present walls rather than smooth ways up.  Chegaga is different from Erg Chegui (Merzouga) : it has smooth rolling hills and when a wall seemed a little difficult to go over, we could always go round on the curved hills. It was all going smoothly except we were heading full West and by 5 o’clock I had the sun in my eyes.

200m from CP5X, “tragedy’ struck : I went straight into a small very soft dune sideways, sinking the car and leaving it precariously balanced. Jamila and I got out of the car and admitted we had no idea what to do.

A few minutes later, some experienced gazelles arrived and were very sure how to pull the car from its position. I was not keen to go back in the car and Jamila took to the driving wheel. She turned on the engine. Naima pulled with her car and our car turned over on its side. We didn’t kill the engine quicly enough (ignorance of the consequences). All the oil whether from the engine or from the gear change came pouring all over the sand and drowned the engine.

We called the assistance mechanique. It was too late for them to arrive in the evening but they’d be with us in the morning.

We put our tents up but Jamila and I were struggling to be cheerful. I felt awful. 2 seconds of inattention had ruined our score.

I found out the next morning that 2 seconds of inattention had ruined the race for us. The car was not starting again and we would have to be towed out of the dunes and back to camp. We were “Hors classement”, declassified. I felt awful as Jamila had worked so hard to get us in the most amazing position. I had let her down, I’d let my family and friends down. I can’t think of another time when I thought so strongly in those terms. Jamila as ever was magnificent: we were uninjured, we had had a superb week.

GETTING TOWED OUT OF THE DUNES was quite an experience in itself : at first the mechanics were not very enthusiastic; they are all volunteers and most of them come with their own cars. Lionel who has been a mechanic for the last 20 years on the rally brings his Toyota and was a little worried for his car. He was accompanied by another Toyota belonging to a Paris-Dakar Pilot, Jerome, who drove the doctor. We didn’t need a doctor but it’s the way they work.

So both cars towed us with  kinetic cords. My job was to try to keep the cord always straight, job particularly difficult going downhill as without the engine running, the brakes were not working well. But it was while being pulled up that the  bumper detached itself and I saw it flying off on its own, leaving me behind.

going up

front bumper gone!

My front bumper is attached on the first car's roof

The front car is towing the second car to give it more power which is towing me

The men attached the cord somewhere at the side. 20mn later, that also disintegrated. I was very worried there’d be nothing left to tow the car out.  It took us over 2 hours to get out of the dunes. On the other side, the truck was waiting for us but they couldn’t load the car as the terrain was still very tricky so they kept towing us for about 4 hours until we were in the middle of Lake Iriki.

Lake Iriki is a huge expanse of dry land where you can actually drive at high speeds for miles and miles. There’s nothing. The truck was told to stop and await instructions. Jamila and I sat in the shadow of the truck in the company of 2 mesmerizing truckers : Fat Boy and Grunter. After an hour, they were told to drop us there and go back to the dunes to pick up some other gazelles in distress. They gave us 2 bottles of water and disappeared.

Lake Iriki :can't put my own photo as our camera by then was jammed with sand

The feeling of loneliness was immense. After a few minutes, we noticed a car from the organization coming towards us but they then stopped 100 yards from us and seemed undecided. Jamila and I were waving our arms wildly. The car at last came towards us. There were photographers and press people inside. We asked the driver to tow us and he received permission from headquarters. For the next 40 kms, he did and that’s how we arrived back at camp in Foumz Guid.

It was not the joyous moment it should have been. I was in tears. We brought the car to the mechanical park in the hope they might be able to repair it overnight.

Jamila in between being towed had managed to talk to one of the young Moroccans who stand at the red flags and give you a sticker if you’re at the right CP to ask him to call our friend Hassan in M’hamid to come to Foumz Guid as we were going to need help . The message relayed to Hassan had been such that he thought Jamila was in bad shape and he came rushing down the track between M’hamid and Foumz Guid bringing his friend Brahim along. Jamila had also talked to the gendarme at the camp who had organized transport for us to an auberge. We could have camped but we had enough, we were not feeling enough cheerful to be with the other gazelles, we’d see them in Essaouira if we could find a way to get there.

ESSAOUIRA

Going back to the mechanical park the following morning, the news were not good : they had started the engine but it was running on 4 cylinders instead of 6 and there was no way we could drive it to Essaouira, more than 8 hours drive away.  Alain was sending a tow away truck from Marrakech and Jamila and I were to find our way to Essaouira.  For Hassan, this was high season in his “auberge” and he was reluctant to take us all the way to Essaouira and spend time away from his work. However when he saw how tired and distressed Jamila and I were,  he and Brahim agreed to take us there.

Our friends Geraldine and Sophie absolutely wanted us to climb on their pick up and this is how we arrived on the beach of Essaouuira. 

The gazelles' arrival on the beach of Essaouira

Our friends Alain, Katy, Heather, Patrick and some of their friends were there to cheer us. It should have been a great moment for us and them but Jamila and I were struggling to keep the tears away.

friends and fans

Gala dinner Saturday night

Still,l the day was gorgeous, we were in Essaouira, we had had an amazing week and we celebrated accordingly with the other gazelles.

A l’annee prochaine Inch’Allah

Rallye Aicha des Gazelles du Maroc 2013- Part 1

A week since the race finished and back 4 days from Marrakech. What a week that was, smaller than last year on daily surprises but bigger on emotion.

This blog like last year is written retroactively as we are given only a temporary address during the rally and allowed only 200 words per email. We did however do a daily interview for French Radio London which was following us. You can hear Jamila’s and my impressions on their website.

THE START

For the Moroccan teams, the Rallye Aicha des Gazelles started in El Jadida on the Atlantic coast  Sunday 17 March 2013. The Moroccan channel 2M was there to interview us before the start

I’d arrived in warmish Marrakech Friday night and had taken possession of “MY” car on Saturday.

I would like to mention now that this blog, while primarily in English will be loaded with French and Moroccan words. Anything to do with the car will be in French, anything to do with the scenery like “douar” for village and  “Oued” for usually dry river bed will be in Moroccan.

So Alain, the owner of the Toyota, had put new “injecteurs” in the car ( which at first I mistook for new “ejecteurs”), new brake pads and basically my 21 year old Toyota was like new. It had taken us a while to come up with the décor for the car but it was Ian in the end who suggested the poster of a lovely Moroccan movie by Nassim Abassi called Majid. We had the slogan : “A life without a dream isn’t worth living”.

On Sunday I happily arrived at the Mazagan Beach Resort to meet up with Jamila and the rest of the Moroccan, Canadian and American teams. You have to admire some of these women who arrive for the first time straight from Montreal to Casablanca on a night flight and start driving a 4 wheel drive in Morocco.

It was great to see Jamila again although she looked somewhat exhausted : she’d had flu the week before and a ton of work up until Saturday night. 
The “stickage” of the car was due on Monday but due to risks of rain, it happened Sunday afternoon.

The Rallye Aicha des Gazelles has a fair amount of official sponsors. We, however, had few despite Jamila’s best efforts. Not easy to get sponsors in Morocco ( and quasi impossible in the UK where the rally is not known).

In bed relatively early, we woke up at 6.30 the next day. The adrenaline was starting to build up, this same adrenaline which would see us drive and navigate for 12 hours pretty much every day for 8 days until 2 seconds of inattention compounded by ignorance terminated our race on the final day.

On Monday morning, the organisers installed the tracking system on all the cars. This enables them to know where we are and at what speed we drive. It also enables you, family and friends to track us and our progress daily.

 Nassim Abassi, the producer and director of the movie whose title was decorating our car joined us in El Jadida

ERFOUD

After lunch, Jamila and I drove off from the beach of El Jadida to Erfoud in South East Morocco.

 Uneventful drive, half motorway, half busy roads but beware the police check points. They’re everywhere. Still, the gendarmerie had been told to expect 300 gazelles to head off towards Erfoud. We smiled and waved, they smiled and saluted, no problem.

In Erfoud we joined all the French and European gazelles for a briefing at 9pm Tuesday. Most French Gazelles had travelled from Paris Trocadero to Barcelona, boarded a night boat to Tangiers and drove down to Erfoud. Some of them already looked exhausted.

Next morning, we had to drive to a specific place for “l’etalonnage”. This is where the organization controls your kms, compares your odometer with theirs and gives you a coefficient.

Lunch in Rissani 

already hard at work

( unfortunately no time to order a lovely Medfouna as we had done in December during our training) and Prologue in the afternoon. For those like us who have already participated in the Rallye, it’s not a big deal. We didn’t do very well but we didn’t care as it does not count in the overall classification.

In the evening we gave up all technology : our phones, our ipads and computers for the next 8 days.

START OF THE COMPETITION

Thursday saw the official start of the competition.  The second check point was tough to find, hidden in an oued.

Last year, Jamila had been desperate to avoid oueds as they can be tricky to drive in when wet but this year, we used them a lot to go round areas we might not wish to get stuck in. They add in kms but help you with speed and even if speed is not of the essence, checking at all the check points is.

I can’t remember much of the day except that for the first time, EVER, we checked at all the check points and were back in the “bivouac” or camp by 6.30pm. We  were elated. In terms of distance we had done quite well as well.

at a check point

Friday’s parcours was very long but again, to our utter amazement, we checked at all the CPs.

What a difference with last year! All due to our training with Benoit last December and Jamila's hard work.

MERZOUGA : FIRST DUNES

Saturday was going to be a day driving the dunes of Merzouga. This is where we had practiced navigating (Jamila) and driving (me)for half a day in December 2012. Whereas last year I had been so petrified about driving in the dunes that I’d got a migraine and avoided them altogether, this year we felt good, not overly confident but good.

There are 3 choices on that parcours : the “X” one, toughest, the “Y” one, less tough but not easy and the “Z”one for those who’ve never driven in the dunes.

With our new found confidence, we decided to gun for the “X” parcours.  We got to a good start and were very surprised to join the top teams looking for CP 2X. There were 2 ways (probably 3) to go about it and both were a complete struggle. We spent 2 hours trying to go beyond a dune with the sand getting softer and softer. Eventually we took the strategic decision to give up and do the “Y” parcours. Better do most CPS in the average course than spend all day trying to find an alternative way to 2X, clocking a lot of Kms in the process.

that was fun

And thus it was that by the end of day 3, we were 16^th in the classification out of 120. Considering we’d finished 83 last year, we were very pleased with the work accomplished. To be honest, most of it was due to Jamila’s amazing new navigational skills. No more arguments like last year. I followed her instructions, paying attention to the difficult terrain in front of me while she kept her eyes on the horizon and the compass.

hard at work with our old maps

FIRST MARATHON

The following 2 days were our first marathon. Mixed terrain with stones, crevices, ravines, sandy oueds most of those 2 days, we checked at all the CPs on that first day. However we were stopped in a douar chatting with another car ( Geraldine and Sophie) when a moped driving at high speed hit a young girl and drove on without stopping.  This happened behind our cars and the first thing we knew about it was when a couple of children were screaming. I thought they were playing but Jamila got out of the car and saw the girl uncounscious. Jamila thought she was dead and rushed back to the car to call the medical assistance. We are not allowed phones but the Iritrack system  ( by satellite) allowes us to call for mechanical  (yellow button) or medical (red button) assistance. There’s a 3^rd button (blue) to call headquarters. In her panic, Jamila couldn’t remember which colour was what and pressed all the buttons, jamming the system. We then asked the other gazelles to press their buttons further jamming the system. Anyway, when we at last understood what to do, the medical assistance decided to send in the helicopter.

In the meantime half the village had gathered and we were very keen to explain that we had not caused the accident. 20mn later, the helicopter landed and the doctor on board took charge of the situation. The girl had regained consciousness and he felt there was no lasting damage. We found out the following day back at camp that the organization of the rallye had decided to send an ambulance to take the young girl to hospital.

 We left the douar and decided to set up our camp with 4 other cars in a sandy stretch. We had a lovely evening. Geraldine and Sophie had been given a bottle of excellent calvados which we enjoyed after dinner. Jamila and I had noodle soups warmed up on our camping gas and Julia and Celine had brought saucisson and bread and wine. What a picnic!

under the stars

Next day was going to be a bit of a disaster for us. 

early morning after our night on a sandy stretch

Instead of being given the usual lattitudes and longitudes points or the course and the kms, we were given an inverse course. So we knew where CP6 was and were told where CP8 was and had to work out where CP7 was. Julia and Celine had studied it during their navigation course and told us what to do. Good! Once we’d checked at CP6, we were heading North and then back South for CP8 and then back North for CP9. It looked a little curious but hey, you can’t always guess the organisers’intentions.

We all arrived pretty much at the same time at CP6. Usually Jamila takes a while to organize her maps. To be honest, it takes a huge amount of patience to organize the different maps we’re going to use throughout the day. Anyway, that day, Jamila was organized and we left CP6 soon after checking and before our friends.

Ahah, look how fast we were! Heading North, we were going to cross a douar surrounded by small dunes, soft sand. So soft that we “tanked”. Bogged down. Got the shovels out and started shoveling, helped by a couple of young village girls on their way to school. We gave them pens to thank them and proceeded shoveling on our own. We were absolutely exhausted so that when a young man showed up and started shoveling, we did not have the energy to refuse. As a gazelle, you are not supposed to be helped other than by other gazelles but there were no other gazelles ( something which should have alerted us that maybe we were not going in the right direction). We gave him 15 dirhams ( $1.5) and he got us out.

At last in the douar, we met up with the driver and the cameraman of the Moroccan channel 2M who were filming us that day. The cameraman pointed to the right where he was going to film us but oh no, our course was to the left. He insisted, to the right, no no, we’re off to the left. So his driver and he followed us through a mountain pass ( we were very pleased with ourselves to have found this mountain pass) for 15kms when we stopped as I needed to have a wee.

The driver (who has a GPS) came to see Jamila; he is not allowed to help but all he said was : “are you sure of your course?”. Jamila took the map out and we recalculated. Same course, different direction. We should have headed South, not North.

Anyway, it took us 7 hours that day to check at our second CP, which was CP7. All our friends had taken the time to verify their point at CP6 and realized their mistakes. They’d all arrived at CP7 by 10am, we’d arrived by 2pm. Below is the live video of us :

http://www.2m.ma/Media/Videotheque/Videos/Videos/Rallye-Aicha-Des-Gazelles2/2013/Rallye-Aicha-Des-Gazelles-Mercredi-27-Mars

The organisers who’d seen most teams in our group drive by in the morning were totally bored and rather pleased to see us! They even gave us each a bottle of coca cola! Being lost and late has its rewards!

After that, it was all fairly straight forward and we checked everything except the last CP(10). It was getting dark and we felt we’d spend a lot of Kms looking for something in the dark and it was much better to go straight back to camp where Julia and Celine were waiting for us, extremely apologetic. But really, it isn’t their fault, we are all responsible for our own calculations and driving.

To compound a rather poor day, we got to camp and couldn't open the trunk. Jamila had to perform some gymnastics inside the car to open the trunk from the inside ;

Not Jamila's favourite picture

 

there she is

LIFE AT CAMP

From 16^th, we’d moved to 24^th. Too many kms. But still we were feeling buoyant. The advantage of going back to camp early (ish) was that it gave us time to socialize with other gazelles, in particular the Moroccan teams ( and the Canadians who’d been in El Jadida with us). There were 7 Moroccan teams although out of 14 gazelles only 4 were truly Moroccan. Even Jamila who was born in Morocco actually has a French passport. It gave us time to enjoy the truly very good food cooked by the Moroccan cooks for us and this year I also enjoyed a glass of wine pretty much every evening.

The showers are basic and it can be a struggle to get warm water. Also and curiously they’re mixed, forcing us to dress and undress in the cubicles.

Last year we’d used 2 tents, one to sleep in and one pop up one to use as a dressing. But this year with 4 bivouacs planned instead of 3, it required too much effort to set up two tents and we slept in the pop tent only. Pop up tents are great to unfold but I could never fold it properly in the morning and ended up shoving it forcefully between the rear window and the spare tyre. 

All the Moroccan teams have their own press attache, the usually cheerful Yacine who also conducted an interview most evening with Jamila and me for French Radio London.