Outside Online landed here this week, slammed in the face with heat and humidity on this sunny northern coast of Brazil, and ready for daily coverage of the 2000 Elf Authentic Adventure. Neither hours of detention in customs nor multiple phone and power adapters will keep us from our appointed duty of wire-to-wire.

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When the teams of seven (four competitors and three support crew) arrive at tonight's competitor briefing here in this modern city of Forteleza, they'll finally learn what their next two weeks look like. Over the course of this second edition of the Elf Authentic Adventure, they'll travel 847 kilometers through the most remote regions of Brazil, make 11 discipline changes and — if they're really fast — finish as early as the 23rd of this month near the city of Sao Luis, three states away.

The Elf Adventure was created by adventure racing's godfather and originator, Gérard Fusil. Known for years as the mind behind the legendary Raid Gauloises, Fusil struck out on his own two years ago, signing the huge petroleum company Elf Aquitaine as title sponsor of his newest adventure racing endeavor. With its cultural exchange projects and three-tier racing classification, the Elf Adventure has quickly gained a reputation for being tough yet imaginative.

Thirty teams from around the world will sleep tonight in a five-star hotel on the edge of a vast blue ocean, their last grasp of civilization until the awards party on the 29th. When the starting gun sounds on the 15th, these men and women will begin a finely orchestrated dance of logistics and pain as they propel kayaks, mountain bikes, sailboats and boots through a vast array of jungle, river, mountain and desert.

The plan is simple: Be the first team to arrive at checkpoint (CP) 37 intact, and you win. Teams are issued a set of detailed topo maps and a competitor's guidebook. That's it. From there they must navigate using compass, GPS, sextant... whatever it takes to find each CP along their route.

Three classifications exist for the Elf Authentic Adventure, making it unique among the three big "expedition-style" A-races. All teams start in the Extreme class, then drop into either the Adventure or Discovery class, depending on how quickly they progress. Miss a cut-off at a checkpoint and your team is demoted to the next lower class. This serves two purposes: to keep the field tight by giving slower teams shortcuts (thereby allowing them to catch up to faster Extreme teams), and also to allow all teams to finish the race after their $50,000 investment in equipment, entry fees and training.

The other unique feature of the Elf Adventure is the Cultural Exchange Project. While token by some measures, the projects — sponsored and implemented by the teams themselves — encourage interaction with the local people and actually do some good. The teams all say they enjoy the exchange, and many people will benefit from medical, social and cultural projects.

At 6:00 a.m. Thursday morning all the teams, staff and press will make a six-hour drive to the small fishing village of Camocim to prepare for the start. A sailing regatta prologue on Friday will set the starting order, then the race begins in earnest on Saturday with a long kayak leg up a river. The competitors then mount horses for a couple days, hike, climb and then mountain bike before returning to kayaks several days later.

Outside Online will not only provide daily dispatches, but telemetry data as well. We'll post the GPS coordinates of the lead teams, and refer you to the actual race topo maps so you can see the terrain. Exclusive photos will set the scene as well, and if we can get the satellite phone aimed just right — we'll post some audio updates from Gérard Fusil and a bit of streaming video toward the end of the race.

So check back here every day, and follow along as we cover the longest, most dynamic racecourse we've seen in years.

Ari Cheren (cheren@aol.com) doesn't claim he has the best job in the world, but the friends he's made around the world—and at home in Los Angeles—seem to think so.