Paris Dakar Stage 51 to Bir Gandouz

Stage 51 of 60, day 60 of 71: 159.8 km, 335m, 4:32, 80 shifts, ave speed 35.2, max speed 58.3

It was dewy and windy all night and in the morning and that made for tricky tent packing. After breakfast, at 9, we headed up the dirt road, some riding, some walking. Suzanne had a flat halfway to the road but we all waited and cheered when she made it.

We started out, easy with a tailwind. We then curved around so that we actually were climbing one hill with a real headwind, hadn’t felt that for a while. Around 50 km, Wytze, Daniel, Bart and Kris came by so I joined and rode to lunch with them. There was some really fun racing, with premature celebration, passing and repassing, then huge laughs at the lunch stop. First we had drinks in the shop, then Ype’s lunch.

Finally we had to start onwards, with 83 km to go. This half was more boring and the wind was less good. By km 140 I was feeling tired and dropped myself from the pack. Wytze said later, “Mental weakness.” Kris also dropped then Jonny. I joined forces with Kris and we traded the lead back and forth but I was far from full power. Riding together was great for sure. Finally we made it and pulled into the hotel in Bir Gandouz. We had been warned it was crappy but other than a non-functional toilet and shower drain, the room I’m sharing with Daniel is fine. Sodas are available in large bottles (one liter is good for rehydration). Emily had lots of snacks out too.

My legs were pretty trashed from all the riding – I wasn’t the only one noticing while walking up the stairs. I had a short power nap, then it was time to work on the wine problem. The problem was that we had some bottles left but it’s really illegal to possess alcohol in Mauritania. So we opened a couple along with some walnuts and worked on the problem. In the end there was still one bottle we couldn’t drink so Wytze took the hit and offered to smuggle it (who knows where he’ll stash it?) I said the value would at least double or triple across the border tomorrow.

Dinner was prepared by the hotel, tajine for everyone. That was nice and I even got a veggie one. Dick had made a nice fruit salad for dessert then we spent some of my extra dirham on more desserts and water.

Speaking of the Morocco vs Western Sahara issue: Dick had a funny story. His truck was stopped at a checkpoint and the official asked to see the book sitting on the seat. It was the Bike Dreams wiki guide for this tour. He looked in it, ripped out all the pages that mentioned Western Sahara, then asked how many more books like that there were. Dick thought how every single one of our bags in the truck had one and answered, “None.” Quick thinking! Ype also lost the Western Sahara pages from his copy in his van the same way.