Day 1, Nador - Missour

Today was the first day of the rally and it started with a 400km stage that took us from Nador at the coast up into the Atlas mountains to the city of Missour. The enduro path through a steep canyon (that I described a bit in the previous post) went well for me and my riding partner Carl Hagenblad. We got off early from the start at the port in Nador so we were among the first up the canyon so we didn't have any problems with other riders standing in the way. After the enduro path there were some technical navigation stages followed by a special that took just about under an hour.

The mechanics at work in Missour

The special was a mixture of somewhat tricky navigation and technical riding in a long riverbed. We made no mistakes and had a good flow through the special. The only problem was that there was a lot of cars that we caught up with and the dust makes it extremely difficult to try to pass them.

We were the first ones of the Swedes to reach the finish and the Berglund brothers showed up a short while after us so I don't know how it went for the others yet. The results of today will probably be posted later this evening. All in all it was a good first day and I'm happy with how the day went. The cold I felt yesterday doesn't seem to get any worse so hopefully that will not become a problem.

The upside of being among the first to reach the base camp is that the showers are hot and the toilets are working. :) Plus, you have a lot of time to get everything sorted for the next day. Right now its about 1830 and I'm all done for today so now I just have to focus on eating and talking to new and well known faces.