Paris Dakar Stage 33 to Skoura

Stage 33 of 60, day 39 of 71: 140.6 km, 984m, 4:41, 350 shifts, ave speed 30, max speed 60.3

Our 6th consecutive Moroccan stage in the Fez to Marrakech block was longer and therefore harder for me. We set out at the back of the pack about 8:30. Of course our very many days record of packing up bone dry tents remained unbroken. We rode back to the town of Tinghir, then turned south and a bit west for the rest of the day.

Our little group pacelined along through the desert and stopped around 40 km at a little café for cold drinks and snacks. Lunch was up at about 80 km so that turned out to be perfect. We met up with some more riders before lunch and there was some enthusiastic faster and faster riding. Luckily we soon had to stop where Ype had lunch setup. When we arrived the average speed was over 32 kph so far for the day, even with 500m of climbing done. For the first time, Rigo had parked the luggage van there too. This was key as it provided shade for many people and shade was in very short supply out there.

I was feeling a little used up and the stop was just great. I texted our family WhatsApp group with progress and was shocked to see a reply (in Arabic no less) from Katie. It was 3:54am in Santa Cruz. When I asked what was up, she said she was just hoping I’d call. So we had a pretty amazing video call, from the exact middle of nowhere. It let her actually see the stark desert we are riding through these days (and every day for the next month!)

Soon it was time to leave lunch and the route continued up a small hill. My legs were so dead. But after a bit of a warm up, we were good to go again, and continued 30 km to another little café. This one had Orangina, my staple drink in France, but not seen much since then.

The last 30 km was just more of the same, more up and down, slow and fast. We pulled into Skoura and got to the campground easily. It was pretty bleak looking, but things do start to look a lot better after lots of snacks, drinks, soup, and a shower (quite cold). It wasn’t easy but I found a shaded place for my tent, then retired to the pool to write this and drink more water. It’s a little surreal having nice fast WiFi here.

After some snoozing, it was time for dinner duty. Our crack crew set the tables and served pasta with vodka sauce, eggplant, cucumber salad and an unnamed dessert that was very tasty. We washed a million dishes, then I headed for bed, tired. Two more days to Marrakech!