Arriving In Morocco

Unfortuately there was little to no internet access during our trip so I will begin a summary of our trip and experience at the Transmarocaine adventure race today. I willl continue to update each day of the race every day or two for the next week or so.

Day 1 Arrival in Morocco

After a long overnight flight through Brussels we finally arrived in Morocco on March 6th. We were gtlad to see that all our luggage including our bikes arrived in Marrekesh with us. After making our way through customs we were greated by race management who helped us load our gear onto a bus and provided us with transportation to ourselves. Along with us were teams from Belgium and France. The race managemnet was able to keep us updated on the lay out of the next day or so of the race and spoke English well enough that we did not feel completely lost. Upon arriving at our hotel we were pleased to see that it had all the emenities you would expect of a US hotel. After getting to the hotel we began the process of putting together our bikes and race equipment for the days of racing to come. The hotel had a basement which provided ample room for all teams to assemble their bikes and store the bike boxes for the duration of the race.

After finishing putting our bikes together we took them for a test ride and were pleased to see that they made the trip in good working order. During our bike ride we had the opportunity to begin to see the Morocain culture that would be so tied together with the race itself. Camels could be seen in the outskirts of town and in the further distance were the high mountains we would be traveling throught during days 2,3,4, and 5 of the race. The town of Marrakesh was adorned with a great deal of Arabic architecture and palaces. It did not take us long to realize that this would be a unique experience unlike anything we have had in the past.

We finishedthe day with a dinner of pizza and burgers trying not to be to adventurous in what foods we orders as we knew we had 5 long days of adventure racing ahead of us. We ended the day early feeling the effects of our travel and getting a good nights sleep in preparations for the days of adventure racing to come. Teams would continue to arrive throughout the night arriving as late as 2 am.