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The London to Cape Town Rally has reached Africa. Last country was Saudi Arabia: the first time an international motorsport event has passed through the country.
The Tuthill built 911 is holding onto 6th place. Not many times stages since our last update but now we’re back on dry land, the fun can resume. One day this week features a 720 km run, with tight timing all the way. It’s not going to be easy to make up the time they are already down. The car looks in good shape, though: only a taped-up headlamp lens to be seen at this point (pic by Nicolas Ampe of All Track Racing).
Ferry after ferry has been the rally way up to this point: from Italy to Greece, from Greece to Egypt, from Egypt to Saudi Arabia and from Saudi to Sudan. Now the cars have arrived on continental Africa, there is nothing but land between the rally group and Cape Town.
Today is day 12 and the rally has been through almost as many countries. We forget just how different many of these places are, with unfamiliar rules governing the rights of women, for example. Here’s a slice from the blog of Rachel Vestey and Suzy Harvey: two great girls who were on the ’09 Peking to Paris and are now doing this event. It’s a view into how the other half (women) live in Saudi Arabia.
Three hours sleep and then we were up again to get on the ferry at midnight. It left at 4am and we arrived in Saudi having had a very uncomfortable night with no beds, either rubber necking badly or lying on the floor, trying to sleep. We were all so tired after digging sand and pushing cars all day. All the men had a good laugh and took loads of photos of us wearing our abayas then we had to get in the cars with our designated drivers. Suzy had Ed to drive the MG and Rachel went in the Frontera with Chris.
A long and boring drive, but on excellent roads, through Saudi desert along the eastern edge of the Red Sea to Yanbu. We both feel that wearing the abaya makes us feel strangely pathetic. We can’t even move the car to be helpful in a queue. And, unlike the men, we weren’t fingerprinted or photographed at customs.
