ARWC 2015 Brazil - Pantanal
Stunned by the Heat
Rob Howard / 17.11.2015
Godzone, Merrell and SAFAT all walked into AT4 together after their mammoth mountain trek, footsore and dehydrated but glad to be finished and still competitive and determined.
Warren Bates from Godzone said, “We had quite a tough time up there and I think it’s the closest I’ve ever come to jacking it in. Nick and I were so hot we just couldn’t move forward, we were going nowhere and probably stopped to sleep for 5 or 6 hours in total.
“We tried to sleep on the way up but the ants were too bad and then we realised they’d eaten holes right through our rucksacks and our drybags! When we go to the top of the ridge we thought, great now we can sleep, no ants. Then I pulled on my leggings from my pack and they were full of ants, all biting. I’d transported them up the mountain!”
Nick Gracie added, “I thought I was going to have a heart attack, we were just stunned by the heat and couldn’t move. Once it got dark it was better. We had heavy packs too, carrying 4 or 5 litres of water, but you had to and there were some areas where that ran out.”
Merrell said they’d slept for an hour near CP12 just after Colombia Oncosec passed them. “In retrospect we shouldn’t have, we could have followed their lights down,” said Graham Bird. He told his team he’d probably fall asleep in the kayak and Donovan Sims said, “The kayak is like a sleeping pill for him in this race. We pop him in and he falls asleep!”
Moving downstream there is not real need for the teams to paddle, so all three will no doubt grab some sleep as they drift down to the next transition.
SleepMonsters
