RALLYE AICHA DES GAZELLES 2015, 25TH ANNIVERSARY

The Rallye Aicha des Gazelles du Maroc 2015 is now over.

Jamila and I, Anglo-Moroccan team 219 finished 23rd out of 120 teams in the general 4x4/truck class.

The start :
For the European teams (including 1 British team), the Rallye started in Nice (France). For us it started when I picked up my Toyota Land Cruiser  from Baroud Terre du Sud in Marrakech.

Screentex in Marrakech where our car gets decorated 

I then drove to Rabat, the capital of Morocco, to join Jamila. 

lots of blue!

We were booked in a very nice hotel/palace in Skhirat which also hosted the Libyan delegations as well as the UN, in Morocco to thrash out some sort of peace agreement or government for Libya. This meant security was very tight, lots of burly body guards and mustachioed gentlemen in severe business suits and then there we were, the gazelles, in very casual attire proudly sporting our brand new blue gilets, getting our cars covered in stickers and rallye ready:

Big thanks to one of our sponsors Braids Logistics Flexitanks

The departure from Rabat was unfortunately in the rain :

And what was rain in Rabat became snow in the mountains we had to drive through. The drive from Rabat to Erfoud on Tuesday took 12 hours instead of 7 as we were stuck in snow for about 6 hours, with no heating in the car (we had never needed heating on our way to the desert).

Eventually we made it at 1am, staying at the Xaluca hotel in Erfoud ( the room offered by our friend Ahmed Nait of Travellink) and were ready for the briefing on Wednesday  by 7am. From then on, we simply lived on adrenaline. The car's odometer needed calibrating and this was done in the morning, we had a quick lunch in Rissani ( no time for the local specialty the Medfouna), we did have time to bargain for 3 kgs of dates (this is definitely the region to buy dates in Morocco) and we were on our way to our first "bivouac" or camp for the "prologue". 

Organising our bags :
The prologue does not count in the competition but gives an idea to those participating for the first time of what to expect. All went well (3 CPs over 30kms) and we were back at the bivouac well on time to enjoy the excellent food, put our tent up, reorganise our bags for the umpteenth time (there's a big bag at the bottom of the car for things we won't need until the end of the rallye like our evening dresses and evening shoes and jewellery etc.. then Jamila and I each have one big bag with 9 days of clothes, and then we each have a daily small bag which contains clean underwear and clothes for the following day. This is all done the night before because once the car is in the parking, we are not allowed to go back to it).

We also gave our phones, ipads, computers away, not to be seen for the next 8 days.

Typical days :

The rallye follows the same pattern as previous years with small variations but basically, while at the bivouac, we are woken up by "the Boss" Dominique Serra at 4am, we stumble up, briefly wash our faces and apply heavy suncream, I walk to the car park to pick up our car while Jamila either packs up the tent or simply tidy it and prepares her navigation bag.

At 4.15am, you'll find me breathing a sigh of relief that the car is starting, that the tyres are not flat and that the oil level is fine. I will then drive the car either towards the tents if we have to pack up because it's marathon time or we're simply changing bivouac or towards the departure line that we are given.

At 5am, it's briefing time and it's also the time all the navigatrices are plotting the first point of the day as well as having breakfast.
Between 6 and 6.45am, we're off.

Every day we are given a certain amount of check points to find. A check point is a red flag more or less hidden in the desert ;

Here we are at a check point (middle car)

For 8 days, our lives revolve around finding the straightest way from check point to check point and back to the bivouac:

 back at the bivouac around 6.30pm before the sun sets

The winner is the team which does the least amount of kms between check points, with no GPS, using old black and white maps and compass. Speed is not on, nevertheless it is best not to waste time at the check points and in between. It is extremely difficult to find a red flag in the dark, however good you are at using your in car compass.

The terrain is a mixture of rocks, sand, dunes, mountains to cross. It is magnificent and sometimes daunting as you choose carefully where to bring your car. 

We constantly have to make decisions, trading between making the least amount of kms and the difficulty of the terrain. After a few days, the lack of sleep and the constant need to pay attention can take their toll.

Our Toyota survived brutal terrain and serious bumps. Part of the back bumper was broken (and unscrewed by Nicole, an American mechanic and owner of a spare part shop from San Diego more used to doing the Baja 1000 than the Moroccan desert but amazing nevertheless).

big rocks!

if need be, Jamila will walk ahead to have a look. In order to keep going straight and respecting our heading, I will just have to drive up this seemingly steep bank.

This year I enjoyed driving in the dunes a lot more than in previous years. 2 good training sessions in the dunes with Benoit Delmas (and Alain of baroud Terre du Sud as his deputy trainer) had given me a lot of confidence. This did not mean I didn't occasionally sink the car in the sand but nothing half an hour of shovelling sand or better being pulled out couldn't help. We also helped a fair amount of gazelles ourselves.

SOLIDARITY is the order of the day amongst gazelles.

Navigation wise, Jamila feels a lot more confident but is still regularly racked by doubts. It seems that most teams go through the same process.

Examples of the legs :

1° étape MECH IRDANE / MECH IRDANE – 7 check points over an ideal parcour of 191 kilomètres estimated to last 9 hours and 20mn. For most Gazelles, it will last a lot longer!

Day 1, in blue is the ideal parcour if you were a bird, in white is what Jamila and I achieved

ETAPE 2 - Friday 27 March 2015 MECH IRDANE / NEJJAKH - kilométrage idéal 190 km – estimated time : 10h00 Very little relief, lots of heat haze, difficult oueds (more or less dry river beds with steep borders on each side) where the driver will be challenged. 

nothing much on the horizon, will have to go from tree to tree, keeping our heading

I remember 1 Check point on that leg where after negotiating many difficult and steep descents and ascents we at last see the red flag of our CP. But which side of the Oued is it? We choose one side to find out when we get closer that it is on the other side and what I had just crossed with some difficulty had to be crossed back. Big sigh....

Day 2, we changed bivouac. It also shows we had some difficulty with the terrain and keeping our headings.

Etape 3 : NEJJAKH / NEJJAKH - kilométrage idéal 70 à 110 km – temps estimé 8h00. This is Merzouga and its big dunes. There are 3 parcours: X- most difficult, Y-slightly less difficult and Z still a fair amount of sand but easier for novices of dune driving.

Jamila and I chose parcour X (in black). Jamila navigated the dunes beautifully.

Etape 4 : Marathon : MECH IRDANE / OULAD DRÎSS - kilométrage idéal 335 km – temps estimé 20h00 Etape marathon 
"Après une journée de sable ayant commencé à puiser dans le capital énergie des Gazelles, il est temps de poursuivre avec la première étape marathon. Plus de 335 kilomètres en autonomie totale, pas d'assistance mécanique le soir, un bivouac improvisé et 13 CP à valider sur les deux jours."

What happened at Leg 4?

So 335 kms over 2 days, total autonomy, 13 CPs to find. Jamila and I started well, clocking our 5th CP at about 5pm (although nearly hitting a tree while going up the steep sandy bank of a dry river bed) . En route to the 6th CP, things went wrong. We chose the wrong track (occasionally it is necessary to take a track but choosing the right one is very important). We ended up alone and far from our CP6. By 7pm, it was dark and we gave up trying to find other gazelles. We had never spent the night totally alone in the desert, between 2 ranges of mountains. To say it was impressive, a little spooky is to put it mildly. The sky was superb. It was eerily quiet as well and Jamila and I had a good time. I opened a bottle of wine all on my own (Jamila doesn't drink) and had a glass of wine in my thermos.

I put the tent up and opened my mattress but Jamila refused to sleep in the tent (no vision of what's going on outside)and stayed in the car (which has no back seat and the front seats do not recline). I wouldn't say this was our best night sleep and by 6am, when the sun rose, we were on our way to find our CP. We absolutely had to find it before 9am or we would be eliminated from the rest of the marathon. 

For the first time ever, we had to race against time. It took us for ever to find a pass through the mountain in front of us and we got frantic. Finally we found the red flag at 8.55am.

What a relief but our race wasn't over. CP7 was closing at 11am. Jamila was reading the map well but in our anxiety we took one wrong turn before meeting with the gazelles on moto cross who put us right. Jamila saw the flag with 3 minutes to go. I just drove to it through sand and rocks like a complete maniac and we arrived a 10.59am. 

We were doing all right afterwards but we were 3 hours behind the first cars and it was very difficult to catch up.

a moment of relaxation

 The distances were long, we were very tired. Going 30kms in a direction with little landscape to help you with your bearings means you constantly have to rely on your heading and your in car compass. 5 kms before CP11, with the sun going down, we decided to give up. 

There was still a massively long way to go back to the new camp in M'Hamid and we just had run out of energy. We had passed a broken down car waiting for the mechanics. we decided to turn round and drive back to the car. The mechanics had arrived but were struggling to lift the car with its broken suspensions. They were delighted to use our jack (big, heavy, can lift a small truck!). With most cars having either gone through or given up, the girls would be pretty much alone once the mechanics were gone and Jamila decided we'd wait for them (2 lovely young French girls) and not leave them alone to find their way back to camp in the dark.

The following day, we got a lovely thank you email from one of the girls' father for looking after his daughter. It seems the family could see on the internet that we'd stop to "help" the girls. 

That is the spirit of the Rallye Aicha des Gazelles.

Etape 5: another marathon OULAD DRISS / FOUM-ZUID - kilométrage idéal 280 km.

After getting back to the bivouac the night before at 11pm (and missing our friend Hassan of Hamada du Draa who had organised a room for us in Foum'z Guid for when the rallye would be over), setting our tents etc... at 4am the next morning, we had to pack again. Now we were going through an area I had spent time in in January but not enough time!!! Whereas I remembered the Oued Draa (rather more South of where we should have been going but at least we knew where the track went), I did not remember the difficult terrain around the oued caused by heavy rain (probably since January) on sand which had then dried and was terribly ravined. It was taking for ever to move forward and it was difficult to head straight.  I did remember that during the training we had avoided the area of small dunes with very soft sand surrounding the big dunes. This time they could not be avoided. Finding our check point 3 (30kms away from check point 2) took a very long time. We were elated when we finally found it after first going to other check points. We were so happy that we drove off with the trunk open and were chased briefly by organisers who kindly let us know!

nothing was lost amazingly

We were on our way to check point 4X! Now, gazelles are allowed to follow each over in the dunes. It is actually recommended so you can help each other. None of our friends were on our parcour and so we just asked a couple of cars heading in the same direction if we could enter the dunes with them. Their response was frosty to say the least. They were already 2 cars and a third one can of course delay things but nevertheless, Jamila and I were taken aback. Jamila got out of the car to look at her maps. We set off again and about 1 km later, suddenly Jamila screamed that she didn't have her maps anymore. We had lost the maps!

Jamila started crying and I decided to keep calm but I was close to tears as well. Only one thing to do : retrace our tracks. When we found the maps on the ground where they'd drop, our relief was immense and on top of that, our friends Dounia and Amina appeared. We were not heading into the dunes on our own.

The next hurdle:

We reached 4X without much difficulty. The dunes were fairly hard, a joy to drive. But psychologically, the path to 5X was going to be difficult : this is where 2 years before I had driven the car into a dune and from then on we ended up out of competition.

The conditions were exactly the same : heading West with the sun setting, me tired but this time paying a lot of attention to the way to take. Jamila and I were on tenterhooks and when we got to 5X without any trouble, a huge weight was lifted off our shoulders. 

We slept there with a lot of other gazelles, this time I shared my bottle of wine and I was in my tent by 9.30pm, utterly exhausted. 

We all set off at 6am the next day. It was a little busy in the dunes and by 10am, there was a lot of very soft sand and we were all helping each other a lot (mostly using the rope to drag each other out of the soft sand).

Dounia and Jamila discussing the heading to the next CP

By 10.30am, we were out of Chegaga, having clocked CP 6 and 7. There our paths diverged from our friends and Jamila and I set off to find our other check points.

We made back to camp in good time, enjoyed a well deserved shower and some lovely food.

Etape 6 : FOUM-ZGUID / FOUM-ZGUID - kilométrage idéal 120 km – estimated time 7h00.

The last day. Vast plains, big rocks, finding ways through small mountains, a bit of sand. 
A few kms before CP 7, I get out of the car to check something, remove my helmet because it is so hot, get back in the car, forget to put my helmet back on and get caught by an organiser. 
Result : 10 points (kms) penalty
I cry with rage and frustration. 

And our final score :

23rd out of 120 teams. And most importantly, we are in Essaouira in our own car, redeeming the last sad arrival in Essaouira in our friends' car in 2013.

arrival on the beach of Essaouira

thank you to family and friends celebrating with us on the beach

Essaouira was great. Ian and Sebastian had flown from England. Our friends from Marrakech were there to greet us.

Team 219 with Ian and Sebastian, our biggest sponsors and supporters

Moroccan team 221 Karima LAAROUSSI-MOUHYI and Florence DERAMOND (8 participations) had won the overall challenge

Back in London and Jamila back at work in Meknes, we're struggling with a bit of the blues. The rallye provides such intense moments of joy and despair, such feelings of solidarity with your competitors, such memories, I can see how some gazelles are addicted to it.

Jamila has said : "never again....."

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