Day 3, Merzouga rundkurz

Woke up feeling terrible this morning. Only got four hours of sleep because of my cold so I felt like falling asleep when I stood at the starting line. Luckily, once I started to ride the tiredness disappeared quickly.

The entire stage of today was a special so there was no time for rest. The stage consisted of three different Ergs (Erg = desert area with nothing but sand) with different types of sand and a lot of high speed tracks. The first part went very well and we only had one rider ahead of us for a while. A couple of navigation mistakes later and we had lost a couple of positions. The worst problem came when when my riding partner Carl Hagenblad ran out of fuel and I was almost out. We managed to take a hose and get some fuel to Carl's bike from mine and we continued at a very low pace the last 22 kilometers to the next check point where the service truck was waiting with fuel. Unfortunately Carl ran out of fuel again 800 meters from the check point so I continued myself to the check point so I could get fuel and then return to Carl. My bike stopped after 500 meters but I was able to get the last fuel to the carburetor by tipping the bike over so I could take myself to the check point. Once there, I started to refuel and then Carl showed up. He had managed to blow the last drops of fuel from the fuel hose to the carburetor and took himself to the check point.

After the check point there was a lot of dunes and it all went on smoothly. Considering all the problems we had today I'm sure we lost our 5th place but the race is not over and anything can happen. Especially in the dunes. We had a good flow and was keeping a pretty good pace so it feels promising for tomorrow when there will be nothing but dunes the entire day.

Heating water for the dehydrated food

Now it's time for dinner (dehydrated). I'm starting to feel a bit stiff in my muscles but usually it stops after the third day. It's like your body gets used to the hard work and adjusts to it.

Some of the riders in Team Rally Raid Sweden, who are doing a desert rally for the first time, had a tough time today in the dunes and some of them decided not to continue the stage. The good thing about the Tuareg rally is that even if you does not finish one day you can still continue the next day.