Stage 57 of 60, day 67 of 71: 92.6 km, 293m, 4:37, ~70 shifts, ave speed 23.7, max speed 47.4

At breakfast it sounded like everyone had a really good sleep. It was pretty quiet, the wind was low, there was no sand! I sure slept well. Simo caught something and couldn’t ride today but everyone else is healthy.

After breakfast we headed out to the main road and turned south, again with the wind. The road was smooth and it was perfect riding easy with Wytze and Daniel. It was rolling, interesting terrain, past little villages that looked a little more prosperous than further north. We saw lots of cattle, goats and tons of camels (no nursing ones though).

We stopped for drinks. I paid with a 500 and was really happy he could change it since that was all we had. I didn’t notice that I paid 90 for 3 drinks, that’s €2.25, too much. We went outside because the shop was filthy and the guy brought out our watermelon. Wytze had pointed to it to ask how much so he assumed we wanted it too. We got a big filthy knife from him, washed it, and cut up our melon. It was great. Later Richard bought one to share and Ype pulled another one out at lunch after I told him this story which reminded him he had one too.

Then we stopped at a rare thing: an intersection where we had to turn. We had some drinks and Daniel got an offer from a local: his bike and watch for the guy’s Mercedes. He bought it 10 years ago for €1500. We had a lot of fun and eventually he gave four of us a short ride. We thought of trading Ype’s bike for it and then proudly showing Ype his “upgrade” at lunch.

On to lunch. At 55 km, the pavement ended and it was all dirt from there. Lunch was at 62, a bit hot but not too bad. Then we had another 32 km of rough (sometimes comically rough) dirt road. It was pretty fun though, with lots to see.

We had some checkpoints to pass through, but they didn’t give us much trouble. We heard one of the vehicles had guys with weapons, pointedly loading clips, cocking and being menacing. But they were all pretty nice to us.

We pulled into camp and started on snacks and soup. We spent the afternoon hanging out chatting, but there were a few problems. Our NZ and Ozzie riders hadn’t all gotten their Senegal visas in advance as they are required to do. Two went early to the border today and were not allowed in. They plan to taxi back to Nouakchott tonight to get their visas tomorrow. The rest of us should be good for visas on entry. Then we realized Jan hadn’t been seen all day. He had no Sim card so we heard 3rd hand that he had made a wrong turn but was ok. He ended up safe, arriving during dinner, having ridden 180 km. Ype had a hard time driving the road and arrived much later. Dinner was early at 4:30 because at the old bush camp from last time there were so many mosquitos and bugs. But our camp is like last night: no bug problem. We sat out until dark and had three more of our 0% beers.

Bob is our best photographer and took some amazing shots today. I especially loved his spiders, taken in camp.

We’re only 8 km of dirt road away from the Senegal border, but we rode right along it today. A great side effect of being so close is that my phone can connect to towers there and now works.

Right after breakfast, we plan to ride as a group to the border and cross with the trucks as usual. It will probably be confusing and not work very well but we only have 52 km to ride after crossing so it should be ok. Here’s hoping! Only three more stages to Dakar!!!

Stage 56 of 60, day 66 of 71: 144 km, 333m, 4:37, ~80 shifts, ave speed 31.1, max speed 56

Today was good and bad. Good was riding through the amazing city of Nouakchott and arriving in camp in a much more lush area than we’ve recently seen. Bad was my bike breaking; it can’t be ridden any more until the fork is replaced. Good again was our amazing mechanic Ype, lending me his bike for the rest of the tour❤️

Riding this morning was almost a little surreal. Knowing the planned route to get through the city was basically impassible due to chaotic construction, people headed out on different, improvised routes. Daniel, Wytze and I took our own. After maybe 2 km I noticed my handlebars could bend upward, a very bad and scary sign. Unfortunately I had no realistic choice but to continue, carefully.

I consciously decided to just not worry and have a great time. About then the road turned to crap, sandy, and the traffic got super chaotic. Somehow though it was relaxing, and I ended up just riding with the flow, loving it all. Neil Young was echoing through my head and breath, over and over these slow, enigmatic lyrics fun to think about.

I want to live with a cinnamon girl
I could be happy the rest of my life
With a cinnamon girl

A dreamer of pictures, I run in the night
You see us together, chasing the moonlight
My cinnamon girl

Ten silver saxes, a bass with a bow
The drummer relaxes and waits between shows
For his cinnamon girl

(That’s all I could remember)

Anyway it was a surprisingly fun ride. We rode through a crazy market, goats everywhere, cars that you can’t believe can move are coming at you from all directions, exhaust smells, filthy, chaos, alive and somehow amazing.

Construction was also crazy but after 16 km we were finally back on the route, with a paved road. There was a bakery right there so we had pastries and drinks, then headed off on the highway.

We rode easily with a tailwind to 60 km where I said we had to stop. There were camels including a nursing mom!! Katie had given me a personal mission to photograph a camel nursing and I thought I could, although they were a ways away.

We stopped again at 75 km so as not to miss lunch, got the message it would be just ahead, went up, waited, and Ype arrived and set up lunch. Then I asked him to look at my bike and he verified what I suspected, I should not ride it. He gave me his instantly, and soon, we were off. It was under 60 km and went quickly, with another drinks stop. Camp was down a 2 km long dirt road, in a meadow(!) with trees (!) around.

We set up, had dinner, and I finished this post. Thanks very much to Daniel again for his hotspot, and for riding with me and for being awesome 😎. Thanks to Ype for being awesome and lending his 🚲. Thanks to Wytze for having so much fun today and looking out for me. I will miss you guys so much, very soon.

Our 10th rest day was November 6, 2023. It was so nice to have another rest day. I woke up feeling rejuvenated and able to cycle…but didn’t have to! Breakfast in the hotel was lackluster, then Daniel managed to get our laundry done by the guys on the roof for a tiny amount of money. During the day I talked to Katie, read, did some Strava programming, did a session of Bike Love and took a nap. It’s a hard life!

We had a long relaxed dinner. We ordered three different seafood dishes and each ate 1/3 of a plate, then passed to the left. We had beer with dinner and chocolate mousse after. We bought some oranges on the way back, but skipped the ice-cream. It was a fun day and I’m looking forward to getting back on the road tomorrow, although the stage is over 140 km. But the weather is supposed to be a little cooler, so it should be ok.

Stage 55 of 60, day 64 of 71: 122 km, 175m, 3:45, 63 shifts, ave speed 32.4, max speed 54.1

All the days in Mauritania feel the same, go to bed really early, very tired, but it’s almost too hot to sleep. It finally cools off a little at 2-3am. Get up 6-7, get ready, eat, get on the bike and ride off in the relatively cool morning air (not actually cool). Ride for too many hours, battling winds, traffic, rough road surface, thirst, and bidon water that feels like it’s 50+°C. Certainly it’s uncomfortably hot when I pour it on myself. Get to camp, drink, eat, repeat.

Today was all that again. On the plus side, the road surface was better and we ended in a hotel in Nouakchott, the capital city of Mauritania. It’s one of the largest cities in the whole Sahara, with 1.2 million people. Mauritania is pretty big, a million square km, but only has 4.2 million people total.

We rode along until we came upon a shack with drinks. The locals have truck batteries hooked up to a solar panel, powering refrigerators full of cold drinks! They are super happy when we show up as it’s generally a group of four or more riders with each person buying multiple drinks. We had a couple of stops, then made it to lunch at 70 km. It wasn’t noon yet but it was getting really hot already. An interesting side note – I’ve noticed quite a few times that basic arithmetic here is not comfortable for people. Every person we buy from struggles to multiply a number like 30 by 4 or even easier ones. Some are very thankful when we whip out a phone and show them on the calculator. I didn’t notice this any of the other countries we’ve visited.

After lunch, we cranked out in a paceline, diagonal because all day we had a side wind. Wytze, me, Daniel, Bart and Kris. After a while a couple of others we were passing inserted themselves into the front row, kinda rude, and after realizing they wouldn’t leave, I suggested to Wytze we take a holiday, our code for slowing down. 44 to 38: that did the trick, then right away we found the best drink stop ever. Unlimited drinks, huge selection, cold, in a clean shop. We celebrated our success in not blindly continuing or escalating a speed war, neither particularly safe.

After a good long stop we had only 15 km to the hotel. We did get stopped at a checkpoint where they wanted name, birth date and passport number. Wytze gave a fake one and I just nodded when one guy asked if the other guy had already taken my info – I was going to be Jimi Hendrix if it came down to it. The rest faked it or showed actual id. Then we were in town, on a long, flat road. Finally we pulled in at the Hotel Hayatt, not a typo. We were ushered in and asked to park by the pool. Perfect! Whip off helmet and shoes and dive in! That felt really really really good! I don’t know the temp, around 39-40°C in the shade, but burning in the sun.

We sat around in our bike clothes in the cool water for a while, then slowly drifted to rooms for proper showers etc. I went down the street to the surprisingly good super market and got a liter of water, a liter of orangina and something super duper rare: an ice-cream bar!

We relaxed in the afternoon, basically staying in our air-conditioned room, loving it. About 7pm we had our interesting cultural experience of the day. Daniel had made a friend two days ago at a drink stop who invited us to his house when we arrived in Nouakchott. He is a Deputy of something in the government and travels to Morocco and Senegal. He called and said he was on his way to pick us up. There he was, same Toyota Land Cruiser, and we were off. It turned out dinner at his house was tomorrow and it was only tea tonight. When we said we needed food, he knew just the place, the Palacio. Driving the back streets, some unpaved, like he totally owned the city, we went there but it was a drive-thru fast food place with a long line. Long story short, we tried two other restaurants, one from Google and one from trip advisor; both were non-existent. Daniel found a third and it was real. It was weird but we got in and sat outdoors in a nice garden. We ordered salads and main dishes – Daniel and Wytze went with the waiter’s recommendation: camel stew. I had monkfish with rice and veggies. It was a nice dinner, then we tried to pay but no, he had to pay. Only he didn’t have enough. We felt weird about having this guy pay most of our €60 dinner of which he ate only a tiny amount, but there you go. I’m not sure what will happen tomorrow, we might have a “required group dinner” or something, or we might go to his house. There was something more than just the language barrier – communication was just hard.

Enough about that. Today we have another rider profile. This time it’s Kathy Lovell, an amazing woman from New Zealand who I didn’t have the pleasure of meeting until we all got to Paris, what feels like a lifetime ago.

Kathy, where are you from and how old are you?

I’m from New Zealand and I will turn 70 years old in 2 weeks – 21 November, have one daughter and 2 grandchildren.

Tell us about your bike…

I ride a Merida, 28mm tyres, XS Frame size as I weigh only 48 kg and stand just under 1.5 metres.

What motivated you to sign up for Paris Dakar?

I started my sporting life as a runner. Ran a 2 hour 48 min marathon [!] in 1989 and won NZ cross country champs in 1990 [!]. Have done quite a few kayak paddling tri-athlons, including winning the North Island Coast to Coast [!] which goes from one side of the North Island to the other. Took up cycling in 2010 after my husband died as a way of meeting more people and having something to look forward to in the weekends. We had travelled a lot – worked in China, Malaysia and Mongolia [!] so I have very fond memories of those times together. Decided I had to keep travelling so first went to cycle Madagascar in 2018, Italy 2019, Balkans 2021, completed 100 Cols in France in 2022 as well as riding around Netherlands. Registered for P[aris] to D[akar] in 2018 for start date 2020 but Covid stymied it for a few years. I had always wanted to do a big ‘event/adventure ride’ and had not been to Africa.

Do your friends think you’re crazy?

Many cannot believe the extent of this ride but admire me for doing it.

What else do you want people to know about you?

I’m not sure what’s next – am seriously considering riding the Danube River from source to sea. Have ridden the Rheine. But my 11 year old grand daughter is a NZ champion artistic roller skating so I am really keen to support her further. In 2014 I went with 10 other women to Kari Kola in Nepal to teach the women to sew. Took 9 sewing machines, huge quantities of fabric, accessories, scissors etc. It is now a micro industry for them and they are doing well from it.

Wow, thanks Kathy! What an amazing life you lead!

Stage 54 of 60, day 63 of 71: 133.2 km, 430m, 4:03, 109 shifts, ave speed 32.8, max speed 55.6

Given how used up I was from yesterday’s ride I was a little worried about how much rejuvenation I would get overnight. But it worked! I woke up early, around 5:30, feeling pretty good. Going to bed before 8pm can be great 👍 I went out to do my morning business before it got light and it was surreal. A giant truck and earthmover arrived and drove right through our camp. The guys made a ramp out of sand so the earthmover could drive onto the truck, but it was right by one of our tents, strange.

Breakfast was normal and we took off. Wytze, Daniel and I stopped at every possible drinks place, including the town at 5 km.

At 20 km we drank lots more, then at around 65 we stopped at the best one: a small hut with a freezer powered by a car battery, full of icy drinks! I had an icy milk melon drink. The guy made us tea and we took some group photos. Some riders had to hang there for an hour to make sure not to get ahead of lunch.

We continued and found lunch; it was getting really 🔥🔥🔥. We knew there was one more stop at 97 km and sure enough we found it. I drank another liter and Wytze poured lots all over me, soaking my jersey.

I can’t believe it lasted 10 full km. Camp was rumored to be at 127 km but after passing Suzanne broken down at 124, we had to continue until 133. It may not sound like much but trust me, those last few km were grueling. The temperature was about 40 in the shade but there was no hint of shade. Just brutal in the sun.

We pulled in and I was very relieved. I had something left in the tank thanks to all the drinks. We sat in the shade, then Jan arrived, completely used up like me yesterday. We got him to drink a ton, wet all his clothes, dumped water on him for a long time and made jokes at his expense. A few people set up their tents but it wasn’t even 3pm and there was no reason to set foot in the sun, except for brief water or soup runs to the kitchen, 10m away.

That’s it for today. We are very excited to have only about 125 km to go tomorrow to the capital, Nouakchott. We have a rest day there in a hotel and hopes are high for getting the sand out of all the places it has entered. After that, it’s hard to believe but there’s a block of three rides to St. Louis in Senegal and a final block of two rides to Dakar and that’s it! I don’t know anyone who will be disappointed to have this adventure end!

Stage 53 of 60, day 62 of 71: 174.2 km, 390m, 6:07, 89 shifts, ave speed 26.4, max speed 45.6

This post is courtesy of Daniel’s hotspot again as there was no chance to buy a SIM card today and Google Fi really doesn’t work in Mauritania.

Today we started with a deficit, 30 km we should’ve ridden yesterday but couldn’t due to the lengthy border crossing. This extra was into the wind. I didn’t make it easier by leading the pack the first 10 km either.

We finally did make it to where the road turned 90°, which should’ve really improved our day but didn’t somehow. We stopped there at the ‘town’ and Wow, that was a real ‘Welcome to Mauritania’ moment. There were some very dilapidated shacks, one of which had cold drinks – we bought lots. Then the kids discovered us and it was a difficult cultural exchange. They all begged, and one enterprising one even got into my bike bag and stole a bar. The only words they said that we understood besides “Give me…” were unprintable, thanks internet. I understand how amazing we look, and one glance at their homes will give you sympathy for them in spades.

As we left they threw rocks at us and my bike and I were hit again, as was Wytze. We hadn’t had that since one time in the beginning in Morocco.

We made it to lunch at 90 km somehow, I didn’t think I could still pull off another 80 given the extreme crappiness of the road, and the strong side wind. But after eating a bit and drinking a ton, I felt better. The road also curved in the right direction after 20 more km. Some people were bailing to the trucks and the ones who were planning to ride to camp from lunch bailed too. But pretty soon, it was back in the saddle and onto the ‘Pain Train’, as Kris calls riding with Wytze.

We made it 11 km more then stopped at a pretty decent restaurant with cold drinks next door. I inhaled 850 ml of mango drink, good to go!

Wilbert had agreed to stop at 140 km for water so we were counting on that. But at more like 120 we ran into him, stuck in the sand. We tried to push him out but in the end asked a kind driver in a 4×4 pickup to pull him out. We refilled with water and cruised off.

There was one more water stop and a drink shack stop that I didn’t make with the team but caught up and we all continued. At about 160 km, I felt like going slower so I went solo from there. The track ended with no sign of camp, but about 2 km ahead, there it was. Best camp ever! Not really but boy was I used up. I drank then lay on a bench waiting for the sweat to dry. Someone said 38°, maybe in the shade but it was way hotter in the sun.

I drank a huge amount, had soup and snacks, and finally around 5 set up my tent and took a one bidon shower. The water was from my bike and was almost too hot to stand. Yow!

That’s it for today’s post. Dinner will be soon, the sun is just setting and it’s hot as hell here. So far I can’t really recommend Mauritania as a travel destination, but I’m prepared to be delighted later.

It turns out my phone doesn’t really work in Mauritania. So just a quick post, courtesy of Daniel’s hotspot.

Stage 52 of 60, day 61 of 71: 102 km, 240m, 2:52, 46 shifts, ave speed 35.4, max speed 52.7

We rode about 77 km to lunch in the morning, then just a few km more to the border. The short story version is that it took 7 hours to get the trucks and everyone through. Something like four hours of that was getting out of Morocco, with four separate passport checks, by far a record for me.

Getting into Mauritania was similar, quite painful. No need for details but it leaves a sour taste for sure.

The sun was about to set when we finally got out of there so we could only ride about 13 km instead of the planned 40. Our impromptu bush camp was very windy and sandy. Dinner was massive and good, amazing under the conditions. Tomorrow is 172 km instead of 141.

I’m writing this to the sound of sand blasting my tent. Good night!

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.

Stage 50 of 60, day 59 of 71: 133.3 km, 185m, 4:18, 46 shifts, ave speed 30.9, max speed 55.5

It was another hot night in the hotel in Dakhla. I stayed up late watching a movie for the first time on the trip, About Schmidt. We woke up at 7:30 and packed up. At the hotel café breakfast was going to take a long time so we walked across the street again and had the same as yesterday, tasty and with a view.

We didn’t leave until 9:30. We had to retrace 40 km from yesterday which meant riding into the wind, but it turned out to be light and no big deal. There were a couple of dirt, under-construction sections along the road. I didn’t stop until a shop/gas station at 77 km where I bought drinks for lots of riders. The owner was really nice, bringing us extra chairs and some dates, all the while smiling and saying “USA good, Biden crazy”. He seemed really happy.

We had a text from Ype sounding maybe a little mad that we rode too fast, but he moved up and put lunch at 82 km. We waited a long time then went there and had a good lunch.

It turned out we were camping at 130 km instead of the planned 151, so we had a short tailwindy ride. The gas station/shop at the turnoff had cold drinks. I was really hot from riding with the wind. From there we followed the Bike Dreams chair marker down a sandy dirt “road” that eventually ended. Off to the north, Bob spied the vehicles so we headed there cross-country. It was mostly rideable, but with lots of sharp obsidian-like rocks. Our tires did an amazing job as usual.

There are sand dunes around camp and we’re finally pretty far from the road. It seems like one of our best campsites yet. Snacks and soup were on. Then I set up my tent, using my bike to anchor it down in the wind. I had a semi-modest 1.5 bidon shower then sat in the shade to write. It may seem like a crazy place to camp but I predict we’ll be missing stuff like this in two weeks when this trip is over.

I had a bit of a nap in the afternoon, then dinner at 7. We had lots of wine since alcohol is strictly forbidden in Mauritania; we cross the border day after tomorrow and have to use it all up. Then I retired to my tent to relax out of the wind.

Our 9th rest day was October 30, 2023. Dakhla is a big city of over 100,000 people. I had never heard of it before signing up for this trip. It’s fine for a rest day as the hotel we’re staying in is clean, we have access to the bikes to do whatever maintenance is needed, and there are plenty of restaurants around. You can go swimming in the bay, get massages, etc. I think most people are like me, really in need of a rest, so are not looking for museums or special touristy things to do. I know I’m not.

Our room was pretty hot last night so Daniel and I had to sleep with the window wide open and the door propped open for airflow. I finally got to sleep after 1am but slept until after 8. We bailed on the hotel breakfast at the café next door since everyone said it took forever and was average. Across the street we had a leisurely good breakfast with Wytze, with a view of the bay.

After breakfast it was time for a session of bike love. My bike has been working great all this time. I cleaned and lubed the chain, and checked to make sure it wasn’t worn out – amazing it’s still perfectly good after over 6,000 km. I swapped out the derailleur battery, checked the tires and did a little more cleaning too. It’s a really amazing machine.

I worked on a few projects on my computer during the day. In the afternoon we met on the roof where Ype brought a bunch of almonds, peanuts, walnuts and hazelnuts from the market we saw last night. It was so nice and relaxed chatting with the view of the bay and several bottles of tasty red wine. What a perfect rest day activity!

Later, we headed over to a seafood restaurant that many others found too. Most of the staff arrived soon after us, and Ype and Emily sat at our table so we could treat them. We had several kinds of salad, then a bunch of dishes, like seafood paella, calamari, grilled fish, etc. Basically from 5pm to 9pm was constant carbo-loading for me.

I’ve been asked about laundry – how do we do it? I usually hand-wash but that’s hard or impossible in the bush camps. Sometimes campgrounds have washing machines, but ideally, you’re in a campground and you can wash all the bike clothes you wore in the day right after a shower, and then dry them in the sun and start the next stage with everything clean. That worked all through France and Spain and parts of Morocco. Usually hotels charge a lot for laundry but you can find local places nearby. When we arrived at the hotel in Dakhla, we quickly found that the hotel would do your laundry for the amazing low price of 17 MAD (€1.50) per kg. Many people, me included, put in bags, to be ready by “noon at the latest” the next day. In reality, nothing was ready until 6pm and mine was nowhere to be found. But at 9:30, after dinner, I spied my clothes in a new bag, labelled with a different room number that someone else had paid for. Everything was there and clean and dry. Still it’s pretty risky and probably better to wash it yourself, at least your precious, destroyable and absolutely vital bike shorts. I learned, back in 2019 in the Andes, that you can actually wear cycling clothes two or even three times without washing. That’s not ideal but certainly it beats bringing six or more sets of riding clothes. I brought two sets with a backup pair of shorts that I haven’t used yet.

Our next block of six riding days will take us over the border into Mauritania, 829 km, to Nouakchott, the capital city. After that we’ll be so close to Dakar, it will be possible to visualize actually making it there. Right now, not so much. It’s still a long long road. If you’re interested, Bob found this article on what the border crossing we’ll do in a few days is like.