We've made it!

Race Day 15 & 16:Patna to the finish line

Money raise for charity:$1,554

Distance Traveled: 5000 km

Fender Benders: 12

Near Death Experiences : 13

Teammates who completed the Rally: 2/3

Tears of joy streamed down our faces as we crossed the finish!  We jumped out of our rickshaw and were so intensely kissing the ground we didn't realize the rickshaw was still chugging along unmanned until we heard it crash into the side of a nearby hotel, whoops!

The noise of the crash and sight of two homeless looking people kissing the ground drew a crowd,  Chris and I heard our names being yelled by our fellow rickshaw racers.  Our friends swooped in, stood us up, and whisked us off to get properly smashed.  We drank like it was the end of the world and traded stories so funny we fell over laughing, Chris nearly broke a rib. 

We woke at noon and stumbled to the leader board to see how we'd done compared to the other teams. It turned out we were the last team to finish the race.  We arrived 2 days after the race officially ended, out of 73 teams who started the race, 65 finished before us and 7 quit.  We may have finished dead last, but at least we finished.   

We later learned one team flipped their their rickshaw and the driver broke his leg so badly he had to be flown to San Francisco for emergency surgery.  Another team from Japan with 3 rickshaws, a support vehicle and 3 spare drivers threw in the towel after the first week.  The worst of the stories [WARNING: this is graphic, so if you have a weak stomach you may want to skip this bit] A team was chugging along half way through the race when a family of 4 on a motorbike drove by them to say hello, a semi truck passing another semi hit the families' motorbike head on, killing them all instantly, the team quit right then and flew back home the next day.  

After hearing those sobering stories we realized the gravity of what we'd just accomplished.  We drove 5,000 km (3,300 miles) across the most deadly roads in the world, nearly died 13 times, lost a team member, got into an auto reck, nearly quit… but we made it across the finish line… alive!

The last leg of the journey had been a mad dash, we'd driven all day, all night, slept in the rickshaw (which feels like someone's bent you into a human pretzel, strung you up like a piñata and beaten you senseless) and somehow made it to the finish line alive. 

Big thanks go to friends, family and especially our sponsor, Razoo.  The amazing people at Razoo kept us in good spirits when we were down, sent us inspirational words daily and helped us at every turn when our luck conspired against us.  

We're soooooo very happy to be alive. 

Cheers, 

Cedric

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