FACES OF SCRAM AFRICA - Dani Rodriguez
My story with the Scram perfectly sums up my character, my identity, and has become part of me, part of my life.
I do not remember very well how the first flyer of the 2012 edition came into my hands but I knew immediately it was a trip I had to make. Unfortunately, that 2012 I just returned from a 3-month trip to India and Nepal and a few months later was going to be a father. You can imagine what they told me at home.
But I knew I had to live this adventure to the unknown by emulating, with my R80G/S, those epic editions of the African Paris Dakar in which Gaston Rahier and Hubert Auriol rode those huge BMW's.
The following year, the 2013 edition, I signed up and left for the unknown. I must admit that that first year I was nervous and scared. What would I find? What kind of people would the other Riders be? Would it fit in such ambient? The night before leaving, I did not sleep.
Once I reached the meeting point, then a hotel near Almeria, the other riders began to arrive. Those who were going to be my only family for the next 12 days. And I want to highlight Family because that ’s what you find in each edition. People from all countries of the world, speaking different languages, riding the most diverse bikes (some delirious, I must admit). But after all, people with the same passion. The bike, the desert, and the adventure. What else can you ask for? Well, there´s something else. Something that has been forging little by little year after year. The Spirit of the Scram. That Spirit that makes you never leave anyone behind. That which makes you able to drive until 3 in the morning to guide other colleagues who have had a mechanical breakdown for the last 150km of an authentic roller coaster bordering fearsome cliffs crossing the Atlas Mountains with the only tiny light of your old motorcycle and that of the stars. Or helping to get out motorcycles sunk into fesh-fesh from colleagues who are so exhausted that they just want to burn their bikes and go home.
Because the Scram is not a walk in the park, nor a trip to take fashion photos. The Scram is driving on rivers of sand that you would never have imagined being able to cross. It is confronting you with terrible sandstorms that whip you on all sides without visibility beyond your nose. Endless tracks of stones that you pray to God that they run out once and for all. The Scram is to find your physical and mental limits and overcome them. That, mesdames et messieurs, is what makes Scram Africa and its riders great. That is what makes us all a great family that grows every year.
GOD SAVE THE SCRAM!
Photos: Götz Göppert