THE INCA TRAIL

the big South American adventure rally

Day 50: Punta del Este - Porto Alegre (Brazil) (777km)

Today sees the rally leave Uruguay and make its final border crossing of the event, back into Brazil for the run for home, which we reach in five days' time. From the superb seafront hotel and casino at Punta del Este, a short run led to the beginning of the day's Regularity and Explorer section: 53 km on superb smooth finely graded gravel. The roads were twisty with varying gradients: the driver's dream. There was clearly a lot of fun being had by drivers, navigators and timing point marshals alike.

Clothes? Who needs them? The team from Course Car Four were getting demob-happy. Crews could hardly believe their eyes when they came across what appeared to be a naturist colony flagging them down beside the road. One or two 4x4 crews had the presence of mind to obtain still and video footage of the naked apparitions, who were making full strategic use of their STOP boards and HERO arrows. CRT contenders were instructed to proceed as Jingers about-faced to give the GO command, neatly emblazoned on his posterior. When asked why, on a nasty cold windy day of all days, they chose to go ahead with the stunt, the answer came, 'It seemed a good idea at the time.' Peter Rushforth's view was 'I'm amazed they're not all dead from hypothermia. If I'd known they didn't need their clothes all that time, I'd have had them: I was jolly well freezing where I was.' Young blood...

Photo courtesy of Roberto Chiodi @ www.girodelmondo.com

A stitch in time

But further down the road there was drama brewing among the Three Musketeers. Getting back into their Land Cruiser after stopping to admire the countryside, Carole Flack missed her footing, and badly gashed her leg. They drove on and stopped at the Explorer finish control, where Phil Surtees summoned medical assistance in the form of the now-stood down 'Stop-Go' marshalling team. The driveway that the Explorer control was outside turned out to led to a vet's surgery. He kindly allowed Greg Williams to use the premises to put in the necessary stitches. Carole's friend Margaret Waterhouse commented later, 'I just can't believe how efficient and professional these people are. One minute they're having a great time manning a time control; the next minute they're speeding down the road to sort out a medical problem. Just tremendous.'

Course Car 6

But more was to come. Just as the final stitches were going in, news reached Greg, Jingers and Daniel of a major incident involving Course Car 6. Paul Marsh had somehow lost control while driving through the Regularity and Explorer section after it closed, and overturned the Mitsubishi. Event medic Mark Human managed to escape unscathed but shaken. Paul wasn't so lucky. He suffered head and neck injuries, and was fortunate to have with him a specialist in motor sport incidents of this kind: despite having to free himself from the wreckage, Mark had also managed to free Paul and begin treatment beside the road that probably saved his life. By the time the ambulance arrived, Mark had done for Paul everything that could be done, utilising his own emergency equipment carried about in each of the medics' vehicles. Paul was eventually transferred to the major hospital in Montevideo, where he has made good progress, and will be repatriated as soon as possible.

The rally hotel at Porto Alegre was a fairly sober place that evening - but it could all have been so much worse.