Day 5 Merzouga - 'dune race'

Mad motocross race in the sand, three laps of a twenty kilometre loop followed by a bonkers dash up the steepest, softest side of the highest dune to the final time check, decide the prudent course of action is to follow for the first lap and then rip! In fact I set out on my own first lap and then decided to follow a fast little Italian called Boazzo for lap two, boy did he give me a schooling! 'What? you can use fourth in the dunes?' Gulp.. Brilliant second lap thanks to the flying signore, still managed to get lost on the third lap even with all the tyre tracks! Fast fesh-fesh (super soft, dusty sand) track a bit scary, can't stop handlebars twitching, I'm stood up, I'm leaning back, I'm gripping with legs, I'm relaxed on bars, still it steers as if by remote control, glad to get back in the sand.
Hit the final hill after sitting at the bottom and reccying all various routes, previous crashes must have knocked some sense back into me 'cos I get up to the top first time with such a whoop and a holler to be greeted by a smiling signore Boazzo, 'grazie ciao!' Seemed like quite a short day and only had one, good crash, so decided to go out for a ride in the dunes with Nick Plumb and Matt Hall of 'Race to Dakar' fame. We went out with one more rider (KTM Dave) for company and hit all the biggest dunes in the fading light. We had a seminal ride making our marks on the very tops of the big dunes and then took a sweeping ride back through the curves of sand feeling like surfers carving through the tops of sand waves in the setting sun - best ride in the sand EVER...

Tomorrow we head back to the stony tracks of the Atlas and the anti-Atlas, after the drifting sands it will all seem so easy.

Day 6: Merzouga - Missour

Up bright and early for a good, long wait around in the cold, desert morning at the pre-start collection area, thought deserts were supposed to be hot... Hassim from the hotel explained that it's cold in Merzouga when it rains in Algeria, 'cos the border between Algeria and Morroco is still disputed and hard to find a published version of it, I wonder how far into Algeria it's raining... The post-stage ride that left all my kit soaking wet with exertion doesn't seem like such a good idea now in the light of cold, wet, clamminess of the kit! Head off over the dunes in groups of four over what is described as the 'dakar' crossing of the Erg Chebbi. We are glad this is the 'easy' crossing point because we have a lot of water damaged, washed out trails ahead which throw big holes at us unexpectedly around every corner. Mentally exhausting stuff, can't stop concentrating for a split second 'cos were doing 90 feet a second! The washouts affect the distances on the roadbook quite badly and on one section a LOAD of riders get lost. Sadly I was one of them!I end up on the wrong side of a mountain ridge with the compass bearing correct, the distance correct and the description looking good, took half an hour to figure out, took others LOTS longer. last rider into the hotel at Missour was Paul Blezard famed freelance journo who got lost and then tried to correct the mistake by following the GPS arrow - comforting thing the GPS arrow, mostly false comfort! after ridng an 'extreme enduro' for an extra 50kms Paul managed to get onto a road pointed to Missour and got in just in time for bed! Very hard day for all including a ridiculous, steep, boulder field with no track through at all, carnage when I got there with a dozen bikes laying in the rocks, feel smarter than the other guys when I throw 20 dirham notes at the local kids and we get all 'chaingang' to clear a trail for my battered bike, it remains upright and gets no more scratches, the downhill is interesting, can't see over the fairing!... looking forward to nice, cosy tent... Everyone is worried about tommorrow's river crossing, seems if it rains in the mountains tonight, we may not be able to get through it, er, upright, there is no alternative route, we have to get creative or wet!