Day: May 29, 2006

12000 kilometers in 161 days, 22 hours and 24 minutes.

The camp awakened at 6H45.  Daniel was the first up, he got out the generator and started it, then set up tables and stools. At the same time, Laure started the kettle, set the table with bowls, coffee, sugar, bread, jam, honey and muffins.  Ludo and Thomas began folding up their sleeping bags and putting away their things.  Serge got out of his bed in the camper with some difficulty and got dressed.  The 15 minutes Serge takes to get up is a privileged moment which he stretches to the maximum.

At 7H00, we are all grouped around steaming coffee.  15 minutes later everyone was ready: tents were folded, there was a last check of Serge’s food for the day which had been prepared last night and was in the 4-wheel drive, the breakfast dishes were washed and everything was in its designated space in the camper or vehicle trunks.  At 7H40 Serge left.  Everything was put away except the generator which continued to recharge the computer.

Serge was on the road, followed a few minutes later by the 4-wheel drive, which was also starting its day.  The camper remained and the table became a desk from where we typed the daily log and a few e-mails.  One hour later the camper joined the rest of the caravan on the road.

This morning we met 2 Japanese who were walking.  They are part of a group who, for the past ten years, spend several weeks of the year walking.  The left from London and will get to Tokyo in 2 or 3 years.  Mrs. Miwa Matsumoto even ran with Serge for 2 kilometers.  She recently ran her first marathon.  It was an unusual meeting on this asphalt ribbon which stretches as far as the eye can see in a crushing heat with a favorable wind.

At the 50th kilometer, Serge reached the city of Anxi.  In the distance clouds of dust hid the horizon.  We wondered what was happening?  We were in the midst of it, that is, the construction of a toll road.  It’s an enormous undertaking which employs thousands of people over a distance of 250 kilometers.  Highways aren’t built in section, everything is done at the same time.  A track has been cleared along the roadside to permit traffic to circulate.  The cloud of dust we saw was just the sand raised by the constant stream of trucks.  We were sometimes obliged to stop because the vehicles disappeared completely under a blanket of sand.  The condition of this track made us creep along at no more than 10 kilometers per hour.

And Serge in all this… He was in a veritable sand bath.  The heat was suffocating and he was “fed up.”  He wanted to end his day as soon as possible and didn’t feel like celebrating the 12,000 kilometers, which would have meant stopping for an interview in front of the luminous panel and being saluted by the whole team.  Daniel and Thomas improvised a 12,000 Km in the sand to immortalize this 1,000 km, without doubt the most difficult (see the log on D161) in 14 days, 1 hour and 57 minutes.  This one thousand kilometers will have been the longest and Serge hopes that is will stay the longest until he reaches his goal: Tokyo.