We stop for a refuel and press on. The bush gets smaller again and after a while we turn off the road and start following soft, sandy tracks.
Stuff like this. It is easy so long as you have some speed, but it gets more twisty and I need to do a lot more work getting the bike around the corners. I follow my friend and fellow ADVrider inmate Vincente Benedict (vbenedict) for a while, but he is riding slower and I end up working harder to keep the bike there. I wait for the road to straighten a little and blast past him, its narrow and I nearly take us both out as I make the gap thanks to the uneven tracks in the sand. Keeping the speed high, I dodge a deep, nasty rut that develops on the right hand side of the track. Vincente pulls in behind me but drops back a bit to get out of my dust.
Quickly we are into deep, white sand again and the track becomes more tortured as it turns and little twists around trees. We slide from one track into the other to get the best line through each corner, it's very hard work because most of the corners are blind thanks to the thick bush. Lots of emergency braking is necessary and in a couple of place, the bush is all flattened where faster guys have overshot and gone gardening. The bush has encroached on us and tears away at our bikes and clothes, it is time to really hang on. The road tightens even more and I have to slow the pace, spinning the bike MX-style through each bend: Left, right, left right, left fork, right turn, left right, right fork and so on. The navigation gets more complicated because everything looks the same. Its only a matter of time as I miss a turn somewhere and after a while notice the tracks are no longer fresh. Damn. All the little turns look so similar. Vincente has followed me and realizing our error, has turned around before me, so I follow him, hoping he is not as disoriented as I am. We are soon onto fresh tracks again but it takes me a good ten minutes to work out where I am in the road book. All that time I am nipping we are going to hit a caution but it blessfully turns out to be unwarranted. Vincente's dust and my more cautious riding has slowed me down though, and it takes a good 20 minutes for me to catch Vincente again.
Here he is earlier in the stage. When I watch him riding he is very precise and cautious, and it pays off, because he always does well.
I manage to get past him again before we enter another hectic series of sandy track. The main track has some bad erosions in it and we're constantly twisting and turning on and off tributaries to the main track. The navigation is still difficult as is the riding technical and strenuous. After a while I get too tired and lose it on a corner, plumping down ungracefully into the soft sand. There is sand everywhere, in my boots, down my jacket and in my helmet. Somehow it even gets into my goggles and eyes. It takes me a couple of minutes to sort myself out, and get the overheated bike started again, but even so no-one passes me during this time.
I’m thankful for that, but I’m really exhausted, and I wonder how much further I have to go. I normally know from the mileage that I write on the edge of my road book each night indicating refuelling points, end of special etc. Today it has rubbed off. The ICO which only goes up to 99km tells me I’m at 0.230 km so I really hope I’m in the last hundred kilometers or so. I spend the next few minutes trying to remember how far the liaison is. Was it four or five hundred kilometers to the end? Eventually it comes to me that I already had a 100km liaison so I still have over 100km to go even though I’m on over 400km on the road book!
I suck at my camelback and it goes dry. Oh boy. Nothing for it now but to press onwards as fast as possible. I have a 3 litre water tank but trying to get water out of is just going to waste more time. This is not an emergency - yet. The sandy road is unremitting, it’s not so fun anymore because it is slow and I have to compensate with my arms twisting the bars back and forth the whole time. This is one huge endless MX circuit we are riding and it is almost comical in its monotony. I build up a kind of numbing rhythm, braking hard on the rear end to slide the bike into each corner, stamping the ground with my feet to keep the bike up, and wringing the throttle’s neck as I burst through the far side of each corner. The tails whips out and I get a bit of a tank slapper each time as I pull away. There is wrestling to be done to keep the bike out of the trees and bush that is overgrowing the trail. Then its straight into the next corner, more hard braking again and so on.
I have lost my sense of direction, I cannot see the GPS reading thanks to the glaring sun, so all I do is count the kilometers on the ICO, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, each time working out that I have probably only one hundred more to go, because I don’t remember exactly how far it was. Was it 580 or 530km? This is all I can think about, and force myself to keep it up so as not to start panicking about the water situation and the unbearable heat. The bike is really hot and I have had the fans running for most of the stage. Oil has been pouring out the breather vent and the front of my bike is a mess of sand and oil. This is a test of equipment all right. I drop the bike twice more but and its all getting a bit desperate when suddenly the track T-junctions against a nice welcoming, wide, sandy road. About thirty kilometers later I arrive at the end of the special. What a relief.
I think I have been battling when leaving the time control point, I pass a pilot running along, pushing his bike along the last 2km liaison. I stop next to him and ask him if he needs help. His handlebars have come completely off and are lying on his fuel tank. It looks like he has somehow stripped the main bolts holding them on. He just stares at me, through me really, his eyes look vacant and dead. Not a word. He passes me without stopping continuing up the road. I ask him if he is okay. Again he ignores me. How he is keeping the wheel straight is beyond me.
I quite disturbed by this, but shrug it off, I need to get out of this heat and to the
park ferme myself before my maximum time for the liaison runs out.
The
park ferme is a fenced off lot in the village.
Filling up at the only fuel pump, I pull in and meet the FIM officials. My Italian friend is looking very serious and tells me I have fifteen minutes left. What? What happened to the twenty minutes I was supposed to have? He tells me that includes refueling. Hmm. That leaves me with very little time, I had better get to it. I pull off my seat and replace the air filter. I top up my oil with a little bottle I have in a pocket in my jacket. There is just enough time for me to put my fairing on and park the bike.
I suddenly realize I am lost without our support crew. I feel terribly alone. Dave and Phil are still out there somewhere riding the sand track from hell. Where are we going to sleep tonight? I stand at the entrance of the
par ferme and look about. This village looks not much better that your typical South African squatter camp. I stumble along a street for about 500m before I come across some Brazilian riders relaxing in the shade outside a hut. They welcome me, and tell me to sit down and relax. They kindly offer me a coke. I’m parched and down it really fast. It is so, so hot, it must be close to 40 degrees in the shade out here. I munch on an energy bar and start to feel a little bit better. I’m hoping I can share the hut with them but there is not enough space. Anyway there is Dave and Phil to worry about too.
How the heck am I going to find a place to stay? I can’t speak the language, who do I ask? I have no idea. I can’t exactly invite myself into someone’s house. It wouldn’t be right. The Brazilians riders tell me they are off for some food, but I can use the shower in their rented house. I gratefully accept and relax under a cold shower. This solves all my problems temporarily, although it’s a weird situation: The owner of the house, a old lady is bustling about and waits for me politely outside the shower. It all a bit awkward because all there is, is a curtain between us. I don’t have a towel or a change of clothes, but I’m too tired to really care. I pull on my riding shorts and shirt again and stumble outside with my jacket, pants, knee braces, and armored vest in a bundle under my one arm with and my helmet under my other arm. She says something to me I don't understand. I smile back at her and tell her in Afrikaans: "Ek is moeg geploeg. Baiae dankie vir die stort."
What do I do with my boots? I have no spare hands. I don’t have slops or anything so I figure I just have to put them on. I must look quite the sight: This pale gringo in blue underwear and riding boots, white legs reflecting in the sun, lumping this huge bundle of heavy kit along the street. I realize this is crazy, so I go back and just dump it all outside the house. If someone wants it they can take it. It stinks pretty bad anyway. I return to the fuel station see if I can find a place to eat as well. I’ve developed the usual post-ride insatiable, ravenous appetite and I need to sort that out fast.
Next to the fuel station is a little open-air hut made of grass. They’re selling food inside, Phil and Dave have arrived and are also there! They’re looking pretty worse for wear. Absolutely f***** actually, the same as me, there is no other way to describe it. I grab some stewed meat with rice and avoid the salad, a surefire way to get the runs. We sit at the table silently devouring the food before us. Dave finishes first and set about looking for accommodation outside with another rider acting as translator. I ask the cook in Spanish if he knows where we can stay. He disappears for a while and comes back with this elderly gentleman in tow who says he can help us. I call Dave who has also found a place but my guy sounds like a better deal, so we opt to follow him, slowly walking through the village of San Felix de Tocantins. We trudge out the opposite side and looking at each other we wonder how far he is going to go. Walking in boots is really not that fun and we are missing our bikes already.
We eventually arrive at the last house in the village, his place clearly. He opens it up and reveals a simple, very rustic, but functional layout. It turns out he is some or other government official, quite the big shot here. The fridge is full of oranges and fresh milk; he has some buns out for us and shows us the bedrooms. We have a bed each in two rooms. Real beds! A real, cold shower. He has internet! Amazing out here in the boonies and there is internet. Talk about luxury, especially compared to the revolting conditions we have been camping in so far. We wonder where he will be staying, because there are only three beds. He insists the place is ours, he will stay somewhere elsewhere and hands us the key, explaining where to hide it when we go out. We are stumped by his generosity. We ask him how much we owe him and he tells us it is his small gift to us. He wants no money.
We are flabbergasted. Do you know of anyone who is prepared to move out of his house for a group of filthy dirty bikers you have never met? I don’t. Not until today. It humbles us immensely, we are so grateful. We have to leave something for this guy. I go back across town to fetch my gear while the other decide to visit a local spring for a wash.
It turns out to be really beautiful.
I take another shower to cool off instead and have a powernap as well. Sleeping on a bed without the sound of machines around me is a wonderful, wonderful thing indeed. When I wake up feel really rejuvenated, I think I must have got a little bit of heat exhaustion.
We stroll back into town, three muskateers dressed in only our underwear. We comment where would this be considered pretty weird behavior, but over here we only attract sympathetic smiles. Its time for the briefing, and we crowd into in a junior school classroom. Our translator is not there, but it wouldnt have helped the briefing was chaos. I spend the next hour trying to get my time back for helping the injured guy the day before. I have to apply in writing. I get this done and while I eat dinner, I get a response from the FIM race committee next door that my appeal is accepted, even though it is a day late. I celebrate by eating another dinner, washed down with electrolyte replacement I brought with me.
I trot back to our palace set into the shack and set to marking my road book with the guys. We feel like kings here, really. It's strangley quiet, real bliss. We discuss the day quietly, it was tough, very hot, but not so bad anymore. We are all a little concerned about our bikes. Phil has electrical problems, nothing works. Dave has a leaking shock and a fuel problem. I seem to be okay, but Im worried about cooking the engine. We can get through tomorrow. Its going to be another 450km of the same. We can do it again. We will do it. One step at a time. Its only four stages to go now. We cannot crash out. We will not crash out. As Phil aptly has written on his bike. Focus. Flow. Finish.
We hit lights out and instantly asleep. A really nice, peaceful sleep.
Phil and I have climbed 11 places today, and 10 & 9 places overall. We both climbed 4 places in our class. AWESOME. Dave holds his position in his class but drops two places, also fantastic. We feel like heroes. Phil and I would be if we could just manage our radar zone penalties! At least we have no new ones today.
As I dream about the hardships of my race today, I have no inkling of the epic experience that is about to befall me tomorrow.
It’s the second marathon stage bringing fresh challenges including this river crossing among others.
