Day: October 8, 2003

…and the charitable gods finally brought us around two hours in the morning our first African heavy shower, preceded by a light breeze which, in addition to the fact of having made it possible to each one to better sleep, will have also accelerated the camp foldand advanced the departure of Serge. For three days, Serge and Laure have given up their bed in the cell of Saviem TP3 to sleep under the tent, in the search of fresh air. This cell, arranged in a motor home, is air-conditioned a few hours per day in the afternoon thanks to a power generating unit, at the time of the nap of Serge at the end of his stage. Unfortunately, when the group is cut off for the night, the temperature inside goes up out of arrow and the lack of ventilation makes then the cockpit hard to bear. The fresh nights to come in desertic zone should solve this problem. Serge starts his 7th stage at 3.06, followed by the usual tenants of the Toyota, Ludovic and Laure. After this mid-night coffee, Stéphane, Rémy and JB go back to sleep until 7h30, almost a true fatty morning at the rhythm from now on taken by TransAfrica. At half stage, Tambacounda, capital of the province of the same name, are the last Senegalian city crossed before the Malian border. While Serge keeps on running, followed like its shade by the Toyota, Saviem and his occupants made there a stopoverfor a water and fuel supply (and some others liquids for fighting thurst), time also to give some phone calls and even a rapid Internet connection. Tambacounda is a important and animated communication hub on the railway line Dakar-Bamako, where the National Road number 1 coming from Dakar is duplicated. A junction goes down towards south-east, borrowed by the tourists (rare in this end of rain season) going to the National park of Niokolo, largest of the country, where one can see the last elephants of Senegal which would not be any more but 20 specimen. The other junction, and it is that which we will take, goes up to North-East, straight towards Mali. On this beautiful road with a very new surface, still straight but now slightly undulating, with much less villages and traffic, Serge runs in calms and under better conditions, thanks to some clouds. The camp is assembled in a landscape of dry savannah with high grasses looking like the African ”brousse” of our children’s dream. Serge’s shin split problem seems stabilized, its pace is stable and its glance carries far, towards the first border of his TransAfrica expédition. During this first week, he covered 529 K and its daily average is of 75,5 K in spite of a stage truncated to 34 K at the 3rd day following an insolation.