Comme des betes !

Like my friend Michel would say, we went 'comme des betes !'
210 km, 4 hours driving, 3 hours of stops and lunch, 6 military checkpoints, 8 liters of water and 38 dg at noon with no shade the whole day. That about sums it up.
I tought I had seen the desert, but this is something else. Flat hard surface,with pistes as large as Belgium makes for amazing driving. Up to 100km/h on some parts, and you can drive where you want because it is hardpacked sand. Except the occasional bump can send you flying if you are not carefull. 'Tony, fait pas le con...'. The route we took is the old Paris-Dakar track, and considering our achievement we should enter the race...yeah right, keep on dreaming...
We did have to turn back at one point, because miliary stopped us from going too close to the Algerian border. We passed 6 military checkpoints. Each time they come running after you, but are very friendly and we had no problems passing.
We all went hard this morning, and having a picknick lunch under a tree in the middle of the desert in this heat is not the most relaxing. So this afternoon we started suffering from soar muscles. For Alain it's legs and right wrist from playing too much with the trottle. For me it's the arms and suffering from the heat.
We got to the hotel at 16h, so plenty of time for a shower, a beer and a dip in the pool. The hotelis the most luxureous in Tata, but pretty run do