Mini city in midst of sand and stone

DAKAR: GIGANTIC LOGISTICAL MACHINE THAT MOVES TEAMS FROM STAGE TO STAGE IN THE RALLY

- Bisha

Television loves the Dakar Rally with its crisp, dramatic images of cars, motorbikes and trucks ploughing through the blood-red sands and dunes of Saudi Arabia.

But television doesn't show the whole picture, veering its lens away from the camp of 3,500 people, six planes, 11 helicopters, 100 trucks and 70 buses – the gigantic logistical machine that moves a mini-city in the desert from stage to stage and keeps the show, figuratively, on the road.

Set up under tight security on a 25-hectare (250,000m²) plain in the Bisha region in the south-west of the country, the Dakar start bivouac was in full swing in these early days of the 2025 edition.

Night and day, generators churn away next to white tarpaulin structures as large as aircraft hangars. Trucks fill the cisterns of the 200 or so toilets and showers, while others sprinkle water on the roads to settle the dust raised by the constant stream of vehicles.

Roaring sandstorms whip up around the sea of small camping tents, in which most of the inhabitants of this itinerant community sleep. No five-star hotels here.