Day: May 24, 2006

On the eve of a holiday and long weekend for some of you, our caravan follows it’s unrelenting progression to the rhythm of Serge’s steps.  In the morning our runner is still a bit rocky, the time it takes for his tricky knee to warm up.  It is still swollen.  Today is rather gloomy, with clouds which at least give us a bit of coolness.  The temperature is 28° Celsius.

Many of you in your messages recommend that Serge let up a bit and for the last few days he has seen his averages decrease on his spread sheet. This is necessary if he is going to start again on sound footing after 5 months, more than 11,000 kilometers and two falls in less than a week.  “He who wants to go far has to take care of his steed” and Serge knows it.  Clear-headedness is necessary, even if for the cubic root of 25 Serge made a mistake of 2 decimal points (in addition to keeping track of his steps, mental calculations is his pet subject).

We went around the city of Hami, the melon capital (the season hasn’t started) and last big city in the province of Xinjiang, which we will cross before entering the province of Gangsu in a few days.  At the end of the afternoon a team from the national television CCTV, joined us.  They will spend four days with us and hope to make a documentary about the fabulous epic of Serge Girard and his team.

Tonight we are stopping in a hotel and it will signal our return to civilization after four nights in the desert.  We will have a good shower and a good meal in a Chinese fast food place.  The night will be comfortable and too short.  Thursday, the alarm will ring at 6H45 and our day will begin.