Paris Dakar Final stage!

Stage 60 of 60, day 71 of 71: 79.1 km, 233m, 3:04, ~40 shifts, ave speed 25.8, max speed 42

I don’t even know what I really feel now. We woke up as normal, packed up as normal, ate breakfast in camp as normal. Then we pushed our stuck van out of the sand and started riding as normal.

It was a mellow little ride on a dirt road for a while then we picked up the regular paved track to Dakar. We rode through villages, along the highway, over a million speed bumps. All normal. Before lunch we stopped for drinks, in this case coconuts whacked open with a machete. Then we had lunch as normal.

We rode some more and stopped for drinks again, as it was getting hot as normal. But from this stop my Garmin said 11 km to go. We attempted to get everyone together but it didn’t fully work. But we all rode those last 11 km and at the end I was in the lead and turned down the wrong driveway, so classic. We found the right one and suddenly everyone was cheering and it was crazy. There was much high fiving and drinks and snacks, then champagne and wow. It was overwhelming.

I hugged everyone and there were pictures. We started working on stuff like drying out tents that we had packed up a few hours ago soaking wet. Daniel and I got a little bungalow with A/C. I gave back Ype’s bike and got mine and my bike box and packing stuff.

We had showers then I headed for one of the pools (!) and the water felt so good. Harry arrived with an armful of giant beers and we just relaxed by the pool for a long time. Jonny brought another round. It’s still hard to comprehend.

We chatted and hung out all afternoon and evening until a big group celebration dinner at 8. It was super fun, ending with a summary of the trip by Rob and presentation of a souvenir gift from Wilbert. The gift was a wire bicycle made in Africa, with a Paris Dakar map. Wytze gave a nice talk about lessons learned on the trip. He ended with a quotation from me, “It’s a simple life but we live it like kings and queens.”

I will say that it feels really really really great to have finished this tour. I still can barely believe I was lucky enough to do it. I will miss it and I won’t miss it. I can’t wait to get home although a tiny part of me wishes we were continuing on somewhere.