The beginning of the day
Day of recovery.
The night was excellent. I get up with the sunrise. Like every morning it's cool. There were arrivals during the night, but I did not hear anything. I slept like a baby.
The breakfast with good chocolate and bread gives me a little bit of energy. By cons for legs, it's like that seems a little stiff. In fact as long as I move it can go, but as soon as I stop moving, there I need 10 minutes to get the machine started!
Aches, lactic acid ... In 48 hours we will talk more, this is the advantage. No injury, just a pain in the back but will fade quickly (probably a counter effect of the bag).
The beginning of the day will happen by visiting the site of Bachikélé located right next to PC6, The Ark of the lyre (PC6), and the Ark of Aloba (PC7) which will allow me to see by day what I did at night.
The ballad is nice in 4x4, and we even make the long straight between CP5 and CP6, that of 25km with the headwind, except that it is still faster. Approaching the area where the ark of the Lyre, I seek the famous carved rocks seen arriving at CP6. I do not see it. We must probably arrive by another track. Except that at a moment we pass in front of the famous abandoned hotel, so no, we took exactly the same path.
We go beyond the Ark of the Lyre (we'll come back to it later) to go to Bachikélé, a very special canyon
So far still no sculpture!
We park the cars and continue on foot. We are warned, formal prohibition to put even a toe in the water ... They bathe there, we leave half of the leg!
We enter the gorge, and we find a flock of perhaps 200 dromedaries drinking. Surprising show here. In fact the camel drivers bring their flock to supply water here, then go back to the desert and come back every 10 days to fill up with water.
Nice walk, then we go back to see the Ark of the Lyre. Once again, no sculpture on the rocks ...
Uh ... I wonder if ...
It is true that if such sculptures existed, we would probably have heard about them ... if only from a tourist point of view, and I can hardly imagine our visit today not to stop in front of such works.
In short, there have never been monumental sculptures, just my mind that began to wander in broad daylight after 36 hours of racing ...
We leave the Ark of the Lyre to go to CP7, borrowing something quite close to what I did when I left the trail. I discovered the areas I crossed at night, the location of PC7 and of course the huge arch of Aloba! Even more impressive day than night!
Back to the camp, aperitif, lunch, quiet time then we start the awards ceremony. Speech by local authorities, podiums, presentation of medals. Nobody is forgotten ... Well on the podiums of the different races, but all the competitors are honored, finisher or not, as well as all those who participated in the organization.
Presentation of a film composed of excerpt from the race and edited in "sprint" mode, as well as a first slide show.
This time again I will not resist very long. Direction the delegate for a second night of recovery despite the music that sounded a bit late, but I had to hear that during the first 5 minutes.