{"id":63,"date":"2003-10-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2003-10-10T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sergegirard.com\/5continents-africa-en\/2003\/10\/11\/j10-10-11-2003\/"},"modified":"2003-10-11T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2003-10-10T22:00:00","slug":"j10-10-11-2003","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sergegirard.com\/5continents-africa-en\/2003\/10\/11\/j10-10-11-2003\/","title":{"rendered":"J10 – 10\/11\/2003"},"content":{"rendered":"
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D10 – 74.5Km<\/h4>\n

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‘It is with a small pinching in the heart that we leave our pretty small corner of savannah, first camp in the bush on the territory of the Republic of Mali. We will need now nearly one month to cross it. The objective of the day is the town of Kayes, at 75 K. Since the passage of the border with Senegal yesterday, we advance in no man’ s land. Good-bye to the beautiful Road ”RN 1” which led us through Senegal and which moved brutally into a track of which it still too early for saying if it is a good one or a bad one, not knowing what awaits us ahead, in better or worse.During 50 K at an average 20 kph in the truck, shaken by the holes and the bumps, we will cross only some trucks with no age, emerging from clouds of dust, before finding the villages and their morning animation approaching Kayes, same small charrettes as in Senegal, often charged with wood and drawn by two or three asses, the same ”french baguette” and also big herds of zebus led by Peul shepherds. In this new country, it is also necessary for us to return to our studies and to come out our Bambara dictionary, some in language Wolof learned through Senegal not having any more but very little course in Mali. At the 10th day of race, Serge is now well fixed in his cycles of running\/resting\/sleeping and invariably starts each day slightly before 3 hours in the morning. Today will be a different run for him since it does not run any more on one regular bitumen coating but, for the first time, on a dented track where it must seek its supports. Naked chest in the night, the Toyota rolls full headlights 40 meters behind, in order to light the way to him and to allow locate him the possible traps. After savannah and its splendid imposing baobab trees, we cross a somewhat lugubrious marshy zone when the day points. The rain season (also called ”hivernage”) is ending right now and some large sheets of water extend on both sides of the track. The area of Kayes has the cruel reputation to be, with Djibouti, the hottest place of Africa. We all had read it in our guides but did not dare to speak about it in the presence of Serge, already surprised by constant heat since its departure of Dakar. The embarked thermometer will mark today at midday 46\u00b0C under shelter outside the Toyota and 50\u00b0C inside the cockpit. Little after 13 hours, Serge finishes some at the entry of the city, just after a last stop supply at the police checkpoint where all its team was awaited following a call of the border post. The commander of the Gendarmerie receives us to welcome us in Kayes and to transmit a message from the French Embassy in Bamako. Rather tired, Serge agree after his five last consecutive days running more than 80 K to stop at 75th K. Tonight, it presents on his right side permanently exposed to the south, an irritation probably due to an excessive exposure to the rays of the sun. The caravan of TransAfrica will sleep this night in town, with the M\u00e9dine Hotel on the edges of the Senegal river and it is difficult to explain by the words the happiness of a air-conditioned room, a fresh cloth and a cold shower running with great floods.’ <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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D10 – 74.5Km ‘It is with a small pinching in the heart that we leave our pretty small corner of savannah, first camp in the bush on the territory of the Republic of Mali. We will need now nearly one month to cross it. The objective of the day is the town of Kayes, at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-classe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sergegirard.com\/5continents-africa-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sergegirard.com\/5continents-africa-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sergegirard.com\/5continents-africa-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sergegirard.com\/5continents-africa-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sergegirard.com\/5continents-africa-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sergegirard.com\/5continents-africa-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sergegirard.com\/5continents-africa-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sergegirard.com\/5continents-africa-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sergegirard.com\/5continents-africa-en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}