These were originally published in our 'Off-Piste' Substack, which you can subscribe to here.
A City of Shifting Sand
It can take twenty minutes to walk to the bathroom. Some days, you have to decide whether you'll eat dinner or take a shower. The roads are nothing more than water soaked sand and the adjacent alleyways play home to massive motorhomes and chase trucks, straddled with spare parts and tires, washing machines, makeshift kitchens and massage parlors.
Nearly three thousand people eat, sleep and work within the confines of the bivouac. A settlement in sand, encompassing everything from a mess hall and medical center, to scrutineering, a fueling station, showers, a small stage and even an arcade in recent years. This city of transient souls moves every night through the desert, leap frogging rally racers as they navigate massive sand dunes and razor sharp rocks, aimless camels and thorn laden flora. It's a village for lack of a better term. A Bedouin camp for mechanics, media personnel, racers and their respective crews.
Our first day in the bivouac was spent orienting ourselves and just generally getting a better sense of our surroundings - the media center being our starting point. From there, a grid system spills out around us, marked by makeshift signs. Race teams park their chase rigs and camper vans so as to create an encampment, within the encampment. They bring their personal chefs, massage therapists, mechanics and social media teams. It's a zoo. A traveling circus of motorcycles and racing machinery.
Welcome to the bivouac...
Luke Warm Pepsi and Lamb Kabobs
Chasing the Dakar Rally may be the most intense emotional rollercoaster anyone can experience. One moment you're questioning whether killing yourself might be the best way to end the suffering, and the next you're in the shadow of an immense geological formation, on what feels like a distant celestial body, unable to imagine a place in our universe you'd rather be. The highs are very high, however the lows can be soul crushing.
Three meals a day in a massive mess hall with 3000 other weary racers, crew members, media personnel and the like, all suffering together. A collective conscious. Emotions running high on both ends of the spectrum. There's constant noise, too. A buzzing in your ears. Generators and race engines, people shouting and public service announcements leave you feeling a little concussed. All this and we haven't even left the first bivouac.
The days grow longer. Sleep is a commodity that can't be traded or acquired. You have to take what you can get - cat naps in the Land Cruiser as you transit to the shakedown course. Some days you find yourself standing, asleep in the sun, eyes closed, waiting for that familiar sound of a four stroke dirt bike at full tap.
By the time we'll reach the half way point of this godforsaken race, hundreds of racers will be on their way home, defeated by the brutality of the desert, the prolonged stages, the ever changing conditions. At that point, a decent nights rest is a distant memory, and those three meals, that luke warm Pepsi and the lamb kabob, are the solace you seek at the end of yet another day at the Dakar Rally.
And yet, we've only just begun...
Doom Scrolling Across Saudi Arabia
"Dakar is all about counting... You count down the days until it begins, then you count the days until it's over."
Numbers seems to rule world these days. Followers and likes and shares and click through rates. As photographers and journalists, we work tirelessly to ensure racers have content to share with their respective communities. Post to their profiles. Snapshots of the Special Stage. Moments caught on camera, lasting a lifetime. But the reality is, these are fleeting feelings, disappearing into the darkness that is the internet and it's seemingly insatiable appetite for images and information.
The sun is just starting to swell, stretching her big yellow belly out across the horizon. The sand shifting from black to beige, and then a pale pink as her glow emanates across the sky. Edo is at the wheel, and we're moving quickly across the desert, dancing the old Prado down a dirt road, the tracks barely visible in the low morning light. It's 6:30am and we've been up since shortly before five. The truck is loaded with four photographers, racing across this heartless landscape to get out ahead of Ricky and Skyler and Mason and Ross. All the racers whose social media feeds we will be producing images for - vignettes into their lives here at the Dakar Rally - a quick look at their Stage result, and then you swipe onward, to the next channel, the next content creator, the next racer.
In a century that seems obsessed with making sure nothing stays the same, or nothing sticks around, the legacy we leave on this sport through our photography may get lost in the bulging oculus that we see the world through nowadays. Everything disappears. Swipe right for the next post. Scroll past and carry on.
Skyler Howes has been a friend of ours since 2016. We've documented his efforts to become a Dakar Rally racer from the very beginning. His infectious laugh and ridiculous mustache make him lovable in ways few other off-road racers can be. He beams. And somehow he manages to stay grounded in a world that's working tirelessly to disconnect all of us in so many ways.
Our first encounter here at the 2025 Dakar Rally was something like seeing an old friend who grew up in the same neighborhood. He checks in, we laugh, there's no talk of the work that lies ahead for either of us. We both know this is going to be difficult, and Skyler is all too familiar with just how difficult what we do really is.
So, when you see your favorite rally racer drop that little flashing camera emoji at the bottom of the photograph or reel they've shared, remember that while you'll quickly forget what it was they posted - swiping on to the next shot - a lot of work went into capturing that moment in time, that freeze frame of the world in 2025, of racers and their crews, traveling thousands of miles across a desolate landscape in hopes of standing on the podium, a simple gold medal hung around their neck if they would be so fortunate. And then, just like that, everyone forgets, the world turns again, and we start all over–another year, another rally.
Dust in the wind, or whatever...
Work Harder, then Smarter
Days here are never easy. Some are good, all are bad. But it's about finding solace in the work, knowing that you're capturing a moment, holding someone’s dream in your hand, in an image, or the words you write.
This is a difficult job. Chasing cross-country rallies over thousands of kilometers. Sleeping on the ground night after night. You never stop moving. Not for a moment. You pack and unpack, land and unload, edit and upload. A constant state of motion. Meals are taken in a fever pitch. Food becomes fuel. You water yourself like an old oak tree—slowly and continuously. Time becomes only the transition of light to dark, dark to light. Your eyes are tired. Your skin burns. Your lungs filled with sand.
We're six days into the Dakar Rally at this point. The last 48 hours have been some of the hardest. We jumped ahead of the racers into the Chrono Stage, a two-day-long endurance test in the midst of a two-week-long endurance test. We arrived at the remote bivouac just before the sunset, and shortly before the fastest racers arrived themselves. Their suffering was palpable. Scars on their sleeves from the thorn bushes they’d blown threw. A faded look on all their faces. Racing has turned to tactics, and you could feel the frustration.
We made camp around 10pm—an old mountaineering tent my home for the night. Up before the sun and back on the road, into the dunes. Our two Land Cruisers, laden with hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds of people and picture taking equipment soon fell victim to the soft sand. I was on my hands and knees pulling the fine granules out from under the truck, hoping to provide more traction, a chance to keep moving, further into this unforgiving landscape.
Eventually we stopped, the clock was ticking, and we decided to hike the two plus kilometers to the track that the competitors would soon carve themselves across. Lines in the sand. One following another, using only notations, an odometer, and a cap heading to navigate their way through the brilliant white sea of sand.
As the last of them finally passed, a collective sigh of relief overcame us. But the hike back, and the journey we would have to make to return to the road lie ahead, a reminder that although the work was finished, it had only just begun.
Six days down, many more to go...
Inshallah, as They Say
There wasn't an explosion, but you'd have expected there to be given the damage that was done to the rear tire on the passenger side of the Prado. Edo noticed it right away, slowing and eventually pulling over on the side of the remote highway we'd been driving on for a few hours. The tire was shredded. Sidewall blown out in three places. Marcin, Edo and myself got to work assembling the necessary tools to replace the wheel and tire with a fresh one affixed to the roof of our Land Cruiser. The bottle jack that Edo had in the back was just tall enough to get the wheel off, but not tall enough that we could replace it with a fully inflated tire on a new rim. The Prado balanced precariously on single metal shaft, us digging out the dirt beneath where the wheel had been in hopes of making enough room for the fresh tire.
Saudis are an incredibly hospitable people. Especially when it comes to foreign travelers exploring their country. Earlier in the day we'd been in line at a roadside coffee stand when a kid walked up from behind, excited to get a closer look at the Land Cruiser. He shook my hand, using his other to hold his phone and film what I assumed to be his next Instagram story. His English was nominal. When we went to pay for our coffees, however, we were informed that the kid had covered our bill. I jumped out and walked back to thank him and his father. "Come to our house to eat, and for tea," his father insisted. I explained our schedule, though, and left with a feeling of gratitude seldom experienced when traveling abroad.
Our efforts to replace the wheel were seeming fruitless, as we had dug out all the dirt beneath the truck and realized the math wasn't math-ing in our favor. Then, as if sent to us from the Rally Gods, a white two-door Land Cruiser passing in the other direction slowed and then stopped. A gentleman about my age leaned out the window and, in English, asked if we could use any help. Immediately I noticed this wasn't just any 70 Series, with Dobinson suspension underneath, knobbly tires and an overland setup inside. His name was Mohamad, and after he lent us his own bottle jack, which we used to raise the Prado a few desperately needed inches higher beneath the front differential, we were able to mount the new wheel and tire.
Mohamad is a procurement and supply chain manager for one of Saudi Arabia's largest rental car agencies. In his free time, however, he explores the deserts around Riyadh, camping in remote locations, seeking solitude. He told us that he'd come north toward Ha'il to watch some of the Dakar Rally, but wasn't sure where to go. Marcin, without missing a beat, suggested that's if he wanted to truly see some action, he come with us...
We Camped that night in the desert. It was cold. Something like 28-degrees Fahrenheit. With Mohamad in tow, we had traveled another two hours, past the start of the Special Stage and into a desolate, dark and exceptionally quiet part of this country. By the time we'd setup our tents, we had only three hours to sleep. The next morning, or rather just a few hours later, we awoke and took down our camp, hands struggling to function in the cold, tent poles like razor wire in our palms.
Milk. That's what Mohamad offered me that next day as the final racers passed our photo point. It had been heated on his kettle along with Saudi coffee and some kind of bread pudding made from dates. The milk had been mixed with turmeric and ginger and cardamom and sugar. It was, without a doubt, the best beverage I've had the pleasure of sipping since my mouth rested on the edge of a cocktail when I turned twenty-one. Life altering shit. A warm respite at the end of an especially cold day spent in the high desert outside of Ha'il.
"I love to drift!" Mohamad exclaimed before we packed into the Prado to make our way back toward the road, en-route to the next bivouac. His 70 Series swung sideways, a wave of sand exploding from the back tires. Edo did his damndest to keep up as we raced across sand tracks, dodging buried rocks and brush weed. When we hit the road, we exchanged information and insisted that when we made it back to Riyadh he join us for a celebratory dinner, assuming we didn't die before the end of the Dakar Rally - ha!
This place is magic in more ways that you could imagine. Cold and dark and desolate and devoid of pleasantries. And yet warm and comforting and full of people willing to do things they don't need to, just because it's the right thing to do, at the right time.
We had joked that night when the tire blew that Allah didn't want us to rest. Instead, I think he just wanted us to wait for Mohamad.
Onward to the end in one piece, inshallah...
The Bivvy
There's never a still moment or a quiet corner you can escape to. There's constant noise in the bivouac. An undying hum. The sound of generators and race engines, diesel trucks and a myriad of foreign languages being spoken from every corner of the camp. When you walk into the mess hall, the sound escalates, from a hum to drowning thunder, rolling across the massive tent from one side to the other. If silence is golden, the bivouac must be brass.
You remember that scene in Star Wars, when Luke and Obi-Wan walk into the Mos Eisley Cantina to meet Han and Chewbacca? The establishment is full of traders and smugglers, bounty hunters and desert dwellers from every corner of that far away galaxy, such a long time ago. Well, that's essentially the bivouac at Dakar...
Setup in a grid system that's relatively unchanged between the multiple locations it's created, you can always find the water closet to the right of the media center, the catering tent just across the road. Helena, shortly after we'd arrived at the first bivouac in Bisha, told me she was excited to travel to the next one, even though it would likely look and feel exactly the same. She couldn't explain why, precisely, only that she felt as though she'd be in a new place, even if it was, all things considered, the exact same. It's a sort of stasis. A place frozen and yet forever moving at the same time.
From above, the bivouac looks like an ant colony, a constant state of motion within it's makeshift walls. People enter through a single gate, their wrist bands scanned to insure they're allowed inside. They travel down the main road, splitting off on their respective numbered lane to enter their pit, repair their car or bike, then make their way to catering for some kind of vegetable mush, rice and whatever meat is on the menu that day. The food is hit or miss, but it's been missing a lot more as of late. The bathrooms are a window into the depravity and disgust that is humanity. They do their best to keep them clean, but you can only do so much, because people are gross.
There will be eight bivouacs this year. They travel across the desert like Beduoin camps, with a new one being erected long before the current one is brought down. A team of hundreds travel in a caravan of massive trucks, loading and unloading makeshift shelters - medical facilities, scrutineering, race control, television editing stations, the media center and mess hall, and more. It's a circus, really. A circus for racers and reporters, mechanics and crew members. For the fortunate few, there's VIP access, a sort of water color window into what's really going on. They observe like kids accompanied to the zoo by their school teachers. But for those of us that live within its walls, the bivouac is a reprieve, a place to eat and poop and shower and charge our batteries, literally a figuratively.
We've just left Riyadh, where the bivouac has been set up at an old airport, atop a mix of asphalt and sand. This is our last stop before we move into the Empty Quarter where the circus will play it's final show. For many, this traveling city is all they see, as so few are allowed onto the race course, or a have a vehicle which allows them to access its remote locations.
At night the bivouac comes alive, the sound intensifies, the lights come on and a layer of dust settles over everything. These encampments are better than before, though, when the race wandered it's way around South America and the media center was just an open air tent with dozens of cables crisscrossing the dirt floor. Now, we have high speed internet and running water, bathrooms with stalls and an enclosed catering tent where our whole world eats and discusses the days successes or failures.
It's not bad. But it's not great. You have to make decisions you never thought you'd have to make: do I use the toilet, or do I eat. Should I visit that camp at the end to shoot photos of a racer you're hoping to do a story about, or should I make sure all of my equipment gets cleaned and my camera batteries charged for the next days stage. Decisions that have a huge impact on your productivity. And decisions that impact your general health and wellness.
Like everyone else in the bivouac, you never really stop moving. A moment to stare into the distance and sip an espresso is all the solace you'll receive during these three weeks. But you learn to cherish those moments, to enjoy the noise, and to deal with the consequences of your decisions.
Maybe today I'll take a shower...
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