The only sound is the wind rustling through the camel grass, sand stretching as far as the eye can see. We’re somewhere in Saudi Arabia’s 1.18 million square miles of desert in what appears to be total isolation until the faint hum of a four-stroke engine carries across the landscape.
When the Dakar arrives, you hear it first. Squinting into the distance, you spy a silhouette speeding across the horizon. The sound muffles as it disappears into a dip, then the rasp suddenly echoes around the valley as the bike and rider burst back into view, approaching at speed.
They scud along a crest, disappear behind a mound and then scramble up the hillside, metres from our waiting group that’s showered by the plume of sand kicked up in the wake.
The path taken by the lead bike is carved through the valley below, a dark line arcing across the desert with gaps where the machine leapt over the rugged terrain.
Then come the others: more following the same path, riders constantly hauling their bikes into line as they slide and skid on the soft surface. They’re followed by quad bikes and then the cars in fast pursuit: the barking twin-turbo Toyota V6s and the otherworldly Audis, with squealing electric motors that drive the wheels and a droning engine turning at constant revs to power its batteries.
Later will come the buggies, windows open to the elements, and the monstrous trucks that look like they are more likely to crush rather than crest the dunes as
