Baja Travesia 2008
Day 3: Now that was a trek...
Jacqueline Windh / 27.03.2008
Day 4, 6 amWith no news of either DART team emerging from the trek yet, Gary and I decided to head towards TA8 at the hot springs. It was after midnight as we drove about 14 km in on a winding sandy track following a riverbed, with lots of shallow river crossing, thinking we’d see bikes coming out – but not a sign.
I strung my hammock up, and at 4am I awoke from the cold. I don’t know if it’s some reporter’s ESP thing or what, but after I got resettled I thought I should just take a glance up the river – and there were six headlamps coming slowly towards me!
Lack of sleep had caught up with the lead team DART-nuun/NW Kayaks. Cyril, Jen and Rinn set into the bush after Glenn, Mari and Sean with a seemingly hopeless task – to make up two and a half hours this late in the race.
But Cyril, Jen and Rinn had slept. Some time in the wee hours, in the middle of somewhere, they literally found DART-nuun/NW Kayaks. “We were suffering from lack of sleep. We were cold, and as a team we’d made some mistakes,� Sean explained to me.
The two DART teams engaged in some sort of pow-wow, at the end of which emerged an agreement. To travel together, all the way to the finish line... together.
The agreement baffled me a bit – DART-nuun had caught them, and certainly seemed stronger. I wondered why they’d agreed to go together, so I asked Cyril. “Pity!� he exclaimed. “No, it was a good decision for all of us. We didn’t come here to do this, each of our two teams came here to win this race. But really, we are all one team. We’ve come this far, we’ve all made some mistakes, but really, we are all one team, so we’re doing this together.�
35 minutes later, the two teams set out on their bikes together, down that sandy road, across the highway, and towards the beach where they will set out for the final kayak section.See All Event Posts
