Exploration

First day

Here we are in the first chilian speciale. Winter is here (we are in the South Hemisphere) : cold and rain came along with us on our first day.

With that bad weather, we were all scared of the bivouac to come and were looking for some dry place at night time. We got lucky and what could have been a humid and sad evening ended up as a very good time. Indeed, a school where the 25 students stayed over night welcomed us.

They finished their school work very fast to climb on our cars, truck and surf the internet on our computers. Then, it was time for a photo session when we gathered all the material from memories from the last recos.

A very good and special evening that only the Dakar and the recos can offer us.

Tomorrow, we’ll keep working on our way to La Serena, the finish of that first stage with a wonderful bivouac on the Pacific Ocean.

Hasta pronto !

Second day

We told you yesterday that it was cold and sometimes rainy but we thought that it would stop going North of La Serena.

Indeed, rain there is very rare. There is often fog in the morning but almost never rain. Never… except yesterday night when it rained for 3 hours. The population of the village where we stopped welcomed that rain with a concert of klaxons. Indeed, they’ve been waiting for rain for the past 11 years.

Today, it’s sunny (but cold) and we keep going North. After the hills we will find sand, vast landscapes and of course dunes !


Tomorrow, we’ll tell you more about our adventure on the ocean of dunes north of Copiapo. But it will be nothing compares to what you will live next January. Because, if the temperature will be 14 degrees for us, you’ll ride the dunes under 45 degrees !!!

Third day

We are actually on the dunes, North of Copiapo. The place is just extraordinary. We are riding sand dunes as we have never seen before. Everybody is in love with the scenery but a little tired too because we had our first delays. Four hours to drive through 40kms of sand, camel grass and dunes in front of us.

We are undergoing our first mechanical problems with the break of one of the engine support on one of our cars. The whole team worked on it and fast, everything was fine again.

Tonight, we stay on a bivouac in a canyon after a 1800 meters descent absolutely magic!

Fourth day

We covered about 260 kilometres today which is a very good pace. But, we knew that this part of the speciale Copiapo – Copiapo was quite fast.

And it’s a good thing because the last 100 kms looks difficult.

Our bivouac is set up at the bottom of the dunes in order to start that last part at early morning when the sand is more carrying.

Our mechanical problems keep annoying us as the engine support broke again. We have to spent the evening working on it.

Tomorrow, we will arrive in Copiapo and will leave again into the next speciale that will take us to Argentina after the amazing crossing of the Andes.

Yesterday, we tought that we would cross the dunes in 6 hours… Well, 6 hours became 12 !!!


Indeed, the sand dunes of Copiapo are a lot harder than what we thought.

Our average was very slow because of the difficulty… and the beautiful landscape ! We stopped quite often to watch the amazing scenery of Chile.

Tomorrow, we’ll finish the speciale from Copiapo to Fiambala and cross the Andes to get to Fiambala in Argentina. The border just opened again after being close for three days because of the snow.

Sixth day

Here we are in Argentina and we got lucky because a beautiful sun kept us company during our trip at 4600m altitude.

Everybody is in love with that road section that seems to be one of the most beautiful and surprising of the next Dakar. And of the last past ones as well!

Seventh day

We are almost done with the speciale Fiambala – La Rioja that seems to be quite tough. The numbers of difficulties made us take the motorbike out in order to find the right path.

The warm welcome at each village we cross is quite incredible. That passion, just for our two cars and truck, lets us imagine the joy when the rally will go through.

Time for us to go back on the road, the car is ready to go again (the engine support…). We have only one car left because a rock hidden under some grass broke the other one. Hopefully, it will be ready to go on our next trip in October to finish the Argentinean road book.

Eighth day

After a night at the race track of La Rioja where the bivouac will be, we are on our way to Cordoba. The landscape has changed : sand and dunes are gone and dirt and trees are now around us. The end of the rally looks like the arrivals in Senegal. Indeed, we have the forests, the fast dirt roads… without the boaboabs!


But a huge new element changes the scenery: the cactus !!! It’s really incredible to see, on the first 200 kilometres, those forests of 4 metres high cactus… Looks like the doctors will have a lot of tweezers work with the bikers at the bivouac at night.

Once we get to Cordoba, we’ll go back home to rest and write down the final version of the road book.


Some people will work on the cars in order to allow us to come back at the end of October to finish the road book with the first week of the rally.

Ninth day

The reco team is on the road again to finish the road book of this Dakar « made in » Argentina and Chile.


We are gone for 3 weeks of adventure in the South part of Argentina that will become the biggest part of the first week of the race.


We are in Santa Rosa where the first bivouac of the Dakar will be. We just ended the speciale that wasn’t too difficult. It will allow everybody to enter the competition easily.

We’ll start our journey to Puerto Madryn for the second stage that will be the last “easy” stage before the first difficult parts.

Tenth day

We just passed Puerto Madryn and are on our way to Jacobacci.


The Dakar director just joined us along with journalists from Eurosport and French tv. So you’ll see some of the reco on TV soon.


This stage is the first big one of our trip and will be the first long stage of the rally. 
The only delay we have on our trip is coming from the fences. Indeed, Patagonia is made of huge properties closed by fences gates. The gates will of course be open during the rally but it takes time to write them all down so we put someone at each of them during the race.

Patagonia landscape is wonderful especially with the great lakes full of animals (flamingos,…) looking at our cars pass through. 

Eleventh day

We are going slower now because the two stages we just finished have a lot of sand. Yes : sand dunes are everywhere!


The landscapes are still amazing and we have time to see it because we are going slower : our truck and cars are getting stuck on the sand quite often!


Be also careful with slow punctures : spines as big as fingers eventually managed to destroy our tires.


We are getting close to our goal : two more stages to go and then back to work at the office!