ExpAfrica D2: Moving on (2)

And then we were off from the canyon exit and aiming to get to the section from where teams approach  CP14. We found teams AR Switzerland and Cinnober. Both teams were looking a bit hot and they’ve had a bit too much sun. This aside, they were actually looking good.

Cinnober’s photographer, Martin Westerstrand, spoke to his team out on the route.

“They didn’t really say much,” he says. “Magnus (Albinsson), their navigator, is very focused. He’s concentrating on the navigation all the time. During the night they were climbing up some cliffs on the trek. That was scary for them.”

We shot ahead down a track through the tea plantation that was added to the map to direct teams towards CP14. We weren’t exactly sure where to find the CP so we hung out waiting for a team to arrive. It wasn’t long before we saw AR Switzerland. Like us, they were struggling to place themselves and not sure exactly where the track had spat them out. Having followed other media people in, we definitely didn’t take the farm track indicated on the map but were instead on a parallel route.

Around the time I was asking myself, “If you’re not where people have told you that you will be, where else on the map could you be”, the team was asking a similar question of themselves too. Phew! Problem solved and they were again moving in the correct direction. I suspect that some teams got the right track because both Cinnober and Havacrack (maybe others too) slipped past us.

AR Switzerland - problem solving. Photo by Bruce Viaene.

We met up with Sportotal (Argentina) at CP14; just ahead of AR Switzerland.

Elevating sore feet at CP14. Nathalia Delgado from Sportotal. Photo by Bruce Viaene.

Although the control description for this CP read “Start of trail”, Sportotal bombed straight down through scratchy vegetation. Photographer Bruce Viaene was following them so he was relieved when they located the trail after a hundred metres or so. He went about half-way down the trail and proclaimed it to be “incredibly steep and winding”.

Out here, darkness descends really fast. Back up on the spur we heard voices. Across the small stream we watched a horde of around five teams appear next to where our vehicles were parked. We sat down in the grass to wait for them to head in our direction.

Words by Lisa de Speville | Photos by Bruce Viaene