Back from Africa!

Proudly we announce that we have made it back in good health (knock on wood for malaria has an incubation period). The car clocked a total of 8600km’s before being handed over to the next owner for a modest wad of CFA’s in the town of Mopti (see pic).

From Mopti we continued our journey to the Dogon country. This region constitutes of a 150km’s long valley, and is mostly visited by trekking around on foot. Since we had jobs waiting in the Western World restricting our time frame, we splashed out and rented an old 4x4 from some greedy local that knew we had more money in our backpack than the local bank in its save. With the old Nissan and Hamidou as our guide, we ventured into the bush, to visit old towns.

First up was Sogho; a town where once in three years (or so the ‘sub guide’ tells us), the boys aging from 8 to 12 have their female part removed from their manly hood in a sacred place, decorated with wall paintings. If any woman in the village hears them shouting, they are banned from marrying a girl from their own town. Luckily the threat of a snakebite is persuasive enough for most of them to suck up the pain, for there is no anaesthetic. During the 25 day healing period, they all learn how to play one of the 1000 instruments for ensuring a successful celebration of a smaller penis at the end of the ordeal.

After that we moved on into the Bandiagara escarpment. Our guide told us exaclty like it descibed on wikipedia: we saw the house where Marcel Griaule wrote his book, we traded respect with the village Hogon's and the jackal devine sandboxxes, so no need to mention it here. Funny detail, we have taken pictures that look almost exactly like the ones posted on wikipedia.

And there it is.... Bamako!

Exactly two weeks after departure from Amsterdam and some 7600 kilometers we have reached our destination. Bamako! It shows that one can actually combine a bit of adventure and the coorporate life. No need for "off the shelf" vacations, or an all inclusive when you have only 3 weeks in between projects.

The last kilomters before rolling into Bamako we pictured ourselves finally resting in a loungechair, in a nice quiet and calm atmosphere, with a cold beer. Hell... we even had a bit of hope for a cosy chat with some lost female backpackers on the side of a pool filled with refreshing blue water.

Instead we found ou that Bamako is a very dusty and bustling city. The sun had started to move to the other side of the world as we cursed the Lonely Planet for not stating coordinates! How is one supposed to find their "pick" when there are no coordinates? Asking for directions always resulted in the same answer "est ce que la voiture est a vendre?". Fortunately good food can be found in Bamako . Unlike in Sevaré , were I was served a chicken with 4 legs and a tale (see pic!).

We ended up in hotel Tamana. Not quite what we had in mind, but looking back it wasn't all that bad... We stayed two nights before fuelling up for the road toward Segou. A nice quiet town on the river Niger (see pic).

Route de l'espoir to Mali

The ridiculous amount of checkpoints on the 'route de l'espoir' to Kiffa messed up our mojo, resulting in an exciting night drive through Mauritania's mountainous scenery. Not an ideal situation I'll have you know, especially with a grumpy police officer on the back seat next to our vodka filled water bottle (heu...of course we'll give you a ride... you do celebrate Ramadan right?!). After dodging “soon to be road kill” for about 2 hours on a pitch black road, we finally made it to the 'phare du desert'. An overly expensive, but fairly decent resting place.

The next morning, after embarking the first passenger of the day (military!), we steered for Mali. The road was crappy, and on some occasions the road spontaineously turned into a river. Only one time did we get stuck in swampy grass while taking a detour through the cattle fields (see pic).

After the never ending border crossing formalities we found ourselves in the objected country... Mali. Major milestone!

We spend the night in Nioro du Sahel. A lovely little town with lovely people and ice cold BEER! (In case you didn know, Alcohol is Illegal in Mauretania). The sky collapsed on us and the families started washing, praying and eating. Everthing was Irie....

Mauretania, Nouakchott.

Am am writing this from the country with an unpronounceable currency: The Ouguiya. Yes, we are in Mauritania, the capital city of it to be more precise. Nouakchott.

The pic below is the biggest oases in the world. It's in the Atlas mountains of Morocco. You can clearly see the divide.

The Benz clocked 6150km's so far and has seen his fair share of adventure. I am writing this from the lobby of some hotel, so I have to be quick writing this update. Apologies.

Here are some headlines. Rino and I both managed to get a speeding ticket in the Sahara. One would think there is nothing but sand, but this is not the case. There are two bushes, and behind those to bushes there are people that have gotten a radar for Christmas. Here is a picture of me, helping the guy out writing my speeding ticket.

As far as the car is concerned. The Benz never ceases to amaze me. The thing just goes and goes... and goes. Even in the terrible heat of the dessert. The tail end started to hang a bit low, but it is not affecting the driving of it. At some point we noticed the muffler had broken loose, but we got out some wire in the middle of no where (western sahara) and it was ok again (see pic).

The road from Agadir to here was a long one. And there is only so much sand you can see. But camping out in the desert is mesmerizing. The road is pretty good, you just have to watch for crossing camels and such. The border crossing between Western Sahara and Mauritania was no picnic. Or actually... it was. A very long one.... Waiting games to get out of the country and corruption games to get into Mauritania. Between the two countries there is a stretch of 'no mans land'. I'll write about no mans' land later on.... but we got stuck and digging out did not help.

On the way from Nouadhibou to Nouakchot we had to give two military guys a ride. We already had one passenger in the back, so it got crowded back there. Clearly the coup de l'etat was the conversation of the day. We can clearly feel a divide between those for the coup and those against it. However, we do not feel any immediate danger. There are a lot of road blocks, but that is business as usual. We have to answer the same questions over and over again. What a pain......

Anyway... a lot of nice pics to show... but not enough time... We have to set course to Kiffa now. 650km's in the heat and many roadblocks to go (duane, military and police roadblocks). The last pics is one of people that did a similar trip and had to walk away. The pic was taken in no mans land between Western sahara and Mauri. RIP.

Suicide Donkeys

Today I was going to write about getting yelled at by a Moroccan police officer for not noticing his road block and flying past it, but it got degraded by a very cinematic moment in the Atlas mountains.

Let me set the scene: I was driving towards Er Rachidia and Rino had dosed off (I think its his hobby). The Benz was rolling about 80 in a 60 zone (end of a little village) when 3 donkeys and their owner decided to cross the street. I took me a little while to realize that the had actually decided to do so, because it seemed like suicide to me. I hit the breaks ... hard, and as we skidded towards the three donkeys Rino opened his eyes. We had no time to place bets, but judging by the size of his eye balls, Rino would have placed all his money on at least one dead donkey. I remember wondering what the going rate is for a donkey in Morocco. It was a moment of make or brake. The Benz came to a halt 1 centimeter (I kid u not) from a donkey. The donkeys didn't even blink. Business as usual for a Berber donkey I guess.

We have now driven 3200 kms and I am writing this while chilling in Hotel Riad in Er Rachidia. Tomorrow we will continue course towards the biggest Oases Allah has provided the world with.

Funny Fact, we just found out that there is a 2 hour time difference between here and Amsterdam. Tracking back its hilarious. We now realize that we left the campsite ridiculous early, went to bed ridiculous early and ate ridiculous early. It explains why the restaurants were always empty and why we were the first ones awake of the entire campsite (including the owner).

Camel Head

We departed from Amsterdam Saturday september the 6^th at 13:00. The first day we drove until 02:00 and spend the night in a 1 star hotel just outside Bordeaux. It cost 41 euro and it reeked of sweat, but hey...the first 1000 Kms were a fact.

The Second night we spend in a field between Madrid and Cordoba. The only campsite on that stretch of road was closed and we felt like we deserved a beer and some rest, so we set up camp in the wild. Not the best night of our lives, but very doable and cheap.

The third day we really started to feel the vacation atmosphere while driving through the Sierra Nevada towards Algeciras to grab a ferry for the African continent. After 2500kms, 205 euro's and one hour later, we were in Morocco indeed. After some hustle at customs (They thought I was filming and had to be convinced I was not) we felt like the 'walk away car project' had really started. We spend our third night on a camp site in Tangier, named Montemira. Of the German owners no sight, the pool was not to be used during Ramadan, and a cold shower cost 50 euro cent but otherwise very decent. After setting up camp and a beer we grabbed a 'petit taxi' (fiat uno with no shock absorbers) to the old Medina for 7 Dirham (70 euro cent) and had a Tagine. That night I really got Rino jealous when it took me about 1.5 seconds to fall asleep.

The fourth day we drove form Tangier to Rabat. We had found some coordinates for a camp ground near a beach in Rabat on the Internet and set course to reach that and chill for a while. When there we found out that what once might have been a camp ground, now is a building site. Bummer. In Rabat we did - however- get the question answered we asked ourselfes upon entering Morocco 'does traffic from right have the right of way?'. The question seems obsolete since the driver showing most balls has the right of way. Approaching at fast speeds, and looking the other way seems to work best for us so far. Anyway, we drove on to Meknes and camped there. The old medina (city center) of Meknes is magnificent I found.

While in Meknes, we were looking for some meat for the BQQ, we (especially Rino) were very disappointed to learn that there was no camel meat left. Just the head! Oh well. Go ahead and try to spot the difference....

trip preparations

I write a couple of days before departure.

De Benz is as ready as she'll ever get. The upholstery has been wiped, two new tires have been put on for grip, an armrest has been custom made by Rino, 4 new looking hood caps for LA style *bling bling* are tie ripped on and an Ipod connection has been installed for onboard entertainment. If we get around to washing the bird droppings off she'll "looka like a new!"

As for other preparations:

Visa for Mauretania en Mali have been issued for the both of us. We have obtained them trough a visa agency for saving hassle at the border crossings.

And although the political situation in Mauretania is unstable and no one wants to go there, a single entry visa still goes at a rate of 32 Euro's. What a joke. Rino has acquired some malarone against malaria, I will just do with 50% DEET and 50% Beer in the blood stream to keep those little malaria injectors from being attracted to me. Shots (Yellow fever, Typhus and what have you) have been checked and updated where necessary. International driver's licences that will probably never see day light have been purchased, and thats pretty much it ;)

project: The Walk away car

A colleague of mine asked me if I had any holliday plans this summer.
“yes” I said “I’ll probably be going to Mali this year”.
“Oh nice” my colleague replied “what will you be doing there?”
“fly back!” I said.

There is only one way to travel to Western Africa in order to get the full flavor off it’s offerings - mine fields, unbearable heat, corruption, despear, robbery, hassle, sand and terrorists- by car and low budget. So that is exactly what me and a friend of mine will be doing this summer. Just to add a little extra flavour we’ll doing this during Ramadan (September 2008).

What people do to compensate the corporate office life! Really.

We named our new endeavour: Project walk away car, for the simple reason that If it breaks down and the costs to repair are greater than our budget we should be able to just "walk away". We considered a 4x4 but found none within our walk away budget. Apparently it is doable in a 2wd (with aironditioning).

Happy to inform you that my friend and I congratulated eachother with becoming the proud owner of a Mercedes benz 200 D recently (for the conneseurs: the w124 model without airconditioning). We are hoping she will take us through the Sahara from Amsterdam to Bamako with limited issues. Why this car? Good value for money, its known for its endurance and apparently can be quickly resold.



To be continued soon....
In the mean while.. you might want to know what we are taking with us? What is it you need to think about when going to the Sahara in a TwOWhEeL drive? Click here