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