Goodbye civilisation – Friday 6th April 2012

After a huge feast for breakfast we headed out for a bit of a scramble to the buses that would take us to the desert.  What was billed as a 3½ hour journey turned into almost 5 hours by the time we’d made numerous pee stops, lunch stops and other random stops.  The route started out winding around some deep valleys before heading out into more deserty type terrain.  There were a lot of hills and a lot of rocks – not your classic Lawrence of Arabia sand dunes as far as the eye can see. 

Judging by the trees, we weren't the first to stop here for a pee

On the journey we were issued our road books detailing the route and distances for the race.  The chatter on the bus dropped a few decibels as everyone scanned the pages.  In reality it didn’t hit home what each stage would mean as I’d no real context for the type of terrain we’d be facing.  What was clear though was the distances – 33.8km, 38.5km, 35km, 81.5km, 42.2km and 15.5km, totalling 246.5km, or 153miles.  Those early stages were a little longer than I’d anticipated, and the last stage seemed short, but as I said, no context made it hard to plan for it. 

Eyes down - road books being issued en route

Eventually we arrived at the end of the road, literally.  The buses pulled off onto a sandy “car park” in a village and we all piled off grabbing our bags and jumped into one of the half dozen open backed trucks which took us on a bumpy and dusty short ride to the first bivouac outside the village. 

Herded like cattle towards the bivouac

The bivouac was an impressive sight, with hundreds of tents laid out in perfect formation with 2 circles of black tents for the competitors, a huge number of white tents for the organisation and a massive inflatable dome used by the caterers.  A small party of berbers were singing and clapping as we entered the camp which added to the atmosphere.  This scene however belies the chaotic nature of our arrival – the race was already on to find a “good” tent – this meant one close to the camp entrance, the medical and communication facilities and, we hoped, the finish line each day.  James was sent ahead to bag a suitable location with the rest of us following behind carrying all the luggage.  And so it was that tent 64 was to become home for the eight of us for the week. 

The rest of the afternoon was spent faffing with our now more limited kit choices, settling in (meaning drinking tea and eating biscuits) and wandering around the camp to get our bearings and trying to appreciate what the next week would entail.  We had some familiar faces in the tents either side of us – in tent 65 were a number of folk from the Racekit training weekend – Nicola, with Martin and Duncan.  In tent 62 was Darryl along with the “Welsh Record Holder” Rory Coleman – an MdS stalwart who was there for his 9^th or 10^th Mds, along with his partner Jen Salter who was bidding for a win in the female race.

Since we would not be self-sufficient until the morning of the race itself, the organisers put on an enormous catering operation for almost 1,500 people and fed us well up until then.  Tonight's offering was a hearty Moroccan tagine with a glass of red wine to wash it down with - clearly easing us away from civilisation slowly. However lighting was not provided away from the catering tend and so once we got back to our abode it was a very early night, and one which was reasonably cool, although not as bad as I had feared.  The wind around the camp got up during the night and kicked up some sand. Little did we know that this was nothing compared to what was to come.

Time for bed