Dream...Struggle...Victory...cont.

The sun set quickly, and no sooner had it dipped below the ridge half a km from our camp, Faan’s guys were serving us food that had my saliva drooling as I stood in line. Mashed potato, chicken, sweet pumpkin and red pepper, and a sauce that just couldn’t have been rustled up in the desert, but it was and what an introduction to roughing it Namibian style. Dessert followed and we sank a cold beer as we relaxed in the warmth of the camp fire before settling down for our first night.

Barking Geckos, were my alarm clock in the desert. These little lizards have a funnel shaped burrows that act as a natural amplifier for their barking call to attract “little miss barking gecko” for a bit of nookie. All I can say is "little miss gecko", was obviously playing hard to get. So I rolled out of my sleeping bag at 05:30 and got up in search of a caffeine kick start to my day.
Breakfast was soon on the go, and as I returned to camp from my attempt to catch sunrise, camera in hand, everyone was up and ready to start the day.

We were all eager to get on with the day, and soon we were off in the direction of “beacon point 724”. Kobus explaining en-route all that we should be aware of, joking at every opportunity and lifting everyone’s spirits as the heat increased with every step.
He explained to us that in Namibia everything is named literally! Brandburg, to our left for example is burnt mountain, which is just as looks at certain times of the day. He struck a chord deep in my soul though, when we reached the summit of “beacon point 724” and he calmly turned to us, arms out stretched and announced “ Welcome to my office” the panoramic view was simply breathtaking.
Kobus stated earlier that “he was born in Namibia and he would die in Namibia”, and I knew I my heart that here was a man who knew and treasured the value of everything in his life. I was envious, intrigued and could feel my respect and admiration for the easy going jovial Namibian growing by the minute.

The desert was rippled with laughter when he explained that the sap from a certain plant, would cause an allergic swelling reaction if it contacted your skin, a worker clearing a plant from a fence line had scratched his testicles with sap on his finger and resulted in them swelling to tennis ball size, the only remedy being to dunk them in milk until the swelling subsided, to which Alan shouted... “ Did you pack the milk Ken, or have I got it?”

After a demonstration between Steve and Kobus of exactly how hard it is to identify another person over a distance in the desert, a few of us, Joakim, Ken, Chris, Will, Alan, and me decided to break into a trot and jog the remaining 2kms back to camp, the heat had an impact immediately and we were all sweating and silently re-evaluating our strategies for the race on the next day, Shit, it was hard in the soft going under foot.

Lunch was followed by Amy, our "flame haired" expedition doctor, casting an expert eye over our medical kit and compulsory item check, along with training from Steve on the use of GPS navigation aids, testing our traditional compass skills, and ensuring we knew how to use signaling mirrors, in the event that we strayed off the marked route, found ourselves lost and needed to attract attention to our position. Then the rest of the late afternoon was left to relax and share advice and spare kit with those who had overlooked certain items. That for me is what I love about extreme events, adversity bonds people, and helping a fellow competitor is something we all do, because we are all competing against the environment together.

We must have set a record that night, because by 20:00 all runners were tucked up in bed leaving hushed Namibian voices around the camp fire asking... What’s wrong? Where are they all? (evidently ATD events usually have a lively camp fire routine with plenty of refreshments)... didn’t they realize we were all shitting ourselves?
continued below...