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Saturday, April 15, 2000 Thirty teams and over 200 competitors spent their Saturday morning a little differently than most weekend warriors, paddling up a raging river into the mouth of the longest adventure race ever. Five hundred miles from now, in approximately 10 days, one team will be dousing each other in flowers, champagne and hugs — celebrating the end of the Elf Authentic Adventure 2000 Brazil. But for now, on day one in the blistering heat that is springtime in Brazil, the teams got a sense of exactly what mischief Gerard Fusil has in store, when they launched their kayaks off the beach of Camocim and worked their way upstream for a day-long paddling leg. Team Spie Pharmanex didn't seem to mind the work so much, quickly distancing themselves from the herd and arriving at the second checkpoint (AKA CP2) a full hour ahead of their nearest chaser. Team FujiFilm of France was that team, landing on the shores of Granja determined to close the gap - whatever the cost.
Where Spie Pharmanex used a full hour to change clothes and prepare the team's horses for the pending two-day ride, FujiFilm turned around a 40-minute transition, cutting the leader's gap to just 20 minutes. Whether they pay for it later in being ill-prepared or under-fed remains to be seen, but by the third checkpoint the gap had increased to 40 minutes — still meaningless at this stage of the race. Thousands of spectators lined the shore of the river in Granja, standing on the old iron bridge and watching the boats battle their way against the often-swirling rapids of the rain-swollen river. Food vendors sold fries and dogs, while men sat around tables laughing and drinking Pinga — the local hooch derived from sugar cane. With the roaring water and splashing children, the whole checkpoint took on a circus-like atmosphere. Spie Pharmanex arrived at CP2 at 1:45, FujiFilm at 2:45 — five and six hours after starting, respectively. But soon thereafter, Team AR Zone arrived in 3rd position, just 15 minutes back. From then on it was a constant stream of boats landing on the shore, as all but three teams made it to CP2 by the 6:30pm release of team rankings. By that time 12 teams had made it through CP3, leaving up to two more hours of riding before bedding down for the night. While the lead teams will spend Saturday night grounded until 5:30am by the safety dark zone, some teams chose to spend the night at CP2 in Granja, making for a whole new race on Sunday. Day two will be entirely composed of horseback riding, as FujiFilm tries to catch Spie Pharmanex, and a whole posse of chasers work hard to motivate their skinny horses to make up lost ground.
—Elf Authentic Adventure Correspondent
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