After three days at the Zebrabar, we had everything we needed to continue our trip: the extension of our Passavants, fully charged cars, and decompressed drivers and copilots.
We left the little paradise and were back on the road.
After the dusty roads in the national park, it was time to clean our cars for the photo finish at Lac Rose.
About four hours later, we reached the Lac Rose near Dakar.
And we were quite disappointed. At first sight, we couldn’t see any pink water color at all. It just looked like an ordinary lake.
But at the right angle and at the right location of the lake, the pink color becomes very visible.
Especially from above, using a drone, the intense color of the lake is really impressive.
The pink color is caused by the algae Dunaliella salina. They produce a red pigment to absorb the sunlight, which helps them to gain energy. In the dry season from January to March, the color is particularly strong.
The water of the lake also has an extremely high salt content of up to 40%. That’s more than the 35% of the Dead Sea.
The Lac Rose, also known as Lac Retbar, was the finishing point of the Dakar Rallye from 1997 to 2007, before it moved to South America and Saudi Arabia. And it is still the finishing point of the Africa Eco Race.
I was always a big fan of the Dakar Rallye and have watched many races on television. I even met a Dakar winner in person in the past: Freddy Kottulinsky. He was my instructor for my advanced driving skills training in 2001. He won the second Dakar in 1980 with a VW Iltis, supported by the Audi factory team. A really cool guy. Sadly, he passed away in 2010.
The Lac Rose is a very important location in motorsports. What could be more obvious than using this place also as the official finishing point of our Rive2Dakar tour?
A local policewoman had fun posing in front of our electric cars. Afterwards, Hans let her even drive his Tesla for a short ride.
At Lac Rose, there is also an official monument for the founder of the Dakar Rallye Thierry Sabine, who died in a tragic helicopter accident during the rallye in 1986. Of course, we had to visit this place.
At Lac Rose, we stayed at the Hôtel le Trarza. The main reason was that they have an electric installation that was good enough to charge our three electric cars. Ayoub installed his usual box to charge all cars at the same time.
The hotel has clean rooms, a pool, a bar, and secure private parking behind a gate. But the water supply was not very stable at this place. The shower was often not working. Otherwise, it’s a nice place and can be recommended.
For dinner, we went to the nearby Camping Le Nomade, which has a slightly more relaxed vibe.
It was also our last evening as a group with three electric vehicles, because Doris had to start her return trip the next morning due to her time constraints.
EV Overlanding 