BudaBama2011

Facts

2011-02-02T14:53:00.001+01:00

Total distance km 9433.1
Overall average 56.5 kmh
Moving average 74.6 kmh
Maximum speed 144 kmh

Total time stopped/rest 40:19

The gas guzzler at the clinic.

2011-01-31T17:45:00.001+01:00

Thanks buddy you were great.

2011-01-31T15:26:00.001+01:00

31.01.11 Time to say goodbye

This morning at 11 o'clock we had an appointment with Adama from MHOP a social program which sponsors the clinic in Sikoro. The drive was with mixed feelings, we are going to have to say goodbye to our truck and we also know that it will make a difference on the life of the people of Sikoro.

When we finally arrive in the slums of Sikoro, we see straight away that there is an enormous need for the clothes, teddy bears, water purification system and the car. Their immediate need is to find financing for a wall to close the compound of the clinic. This is something that we need to figure out and see how we can help them. There are no words to describe what we see and how thankful the people are.

After two hours, we say goodbye and leave our Truck in Adama's hands to take a taxi back to the hotel.

2011-01-31T09:39:00.001+01:00

The gas guzzler in front of the well which was built by Budapest Bamako. Thanks to our water purification system the village can now benefit from free clean water.

Party at village ventures

2011-01-31T09:36:00.001+01:00

Mini and maxi at the finish

2011-01-31T09:34:00.001+01:00

Zo nu eerst een ........... Bavaria

2011-01-31T08:54:00.000+01:00

Zo nu eerst een ........... Bavaria

2011-01-31T08:53:00.000+01:00

2011-01-30T15:31:00.000+01:00

29.01.10 Village Ventures Charity

We had a good night at the hotel. The disco/night club was somewhat loud but we were knock out around 22:00 anyway and slept long.

It's the second last leg to Diema where we sponsor a water purification system for the village thru the charity of Pam Young Village Ventures. Pam is totally happy with it and it will be a major step forward to operate the well which was dug by the rally.

On the way there we stopped at a village and gave a local school/Mosque three footballs, two baseball bats and lots of pens. Furthermore, we have been passing out little tool sets and Teddy bears to kids and teenagers. Lots of smiling faces.

In Diema we stock up on gas at a rate of 650 CFA against the Euro and try to change some with them but they are not allowed. We check with the local money changer and he is changing at 125 CFA against the Euro, which would be very very stupid. Lots of Polish did change money and were ripped off pretty bad. Hahaha

Fact is that it was over 38 degrees in the cars so that might have been the reason why they did do the change.

The party at Village Ventures was very nice lots of local dancers and food. As we were a little to late to stand in line for the food we cooked ourselves and had dinner with Sarah and John.

30.01.11 last leg to Bamako

The last kilometers, the last day and slowly it will be time to say goodbye to our fantastic gas guzzler who did us well. It will be hard cause in the last couple of weeks we have grown really attached to our friend who has worked so hard driving us all the way for more than 3000km on the highway to Spain. Than he had to pound his way up the mountain passes in the Atlas mountains. Sweat thru the desert thru Western Sahara and Mauritania. Howl his way up to the B2 Beach. Keep his nose closed all the way to Senegal to arrive in Mali where he will spend the rest of his life. Hopefully the hospital will keep him and give him the honor of being the strongest ambulance in the town of Bamako and restore his pride as a rescue vehicle like he started out in 79 on the fire squad in Switzerland.

We will miss him. The drives home after work, to school or just to go and get some camping stuff in France for the trip. Thanks Chevy CK20 ZH194 342 for dragging us all the way!!

Even apeldoorn bellen......

2011-01-28T20:47:00.000+01:00

Overloaded??

2011-01-28T20:46:00.000+01:00

Our football team in Kayes

2011-01-28T19:41:00.000+01:00

2011-01-28T17:15:00.001+01:00

2011-01-28T17:13:00.001+01:00

2011-01-26T22:26:00.000+01:00

Market at Nouakchatt

2011-01-26T22:24:00.001+01:00

Shell in Senegal

2011-01-26T21:54:00.002+01:00

2011-01-26T21:54:00.001+01:00

All aboard the bus is leaving

2011-01-26T21:53:00.001+01:00

Baobab tree

2011-01-26T21:52:00.001+01:00

2011-01-26T21:16:00.001+01:00

26.01.11 boardercross and Baobab.

It's done with loitering today we start at 5 in the morning and drive out of Nouakchott in the dark avoiding potholes and trying to find our way. The map sucks and the Navi is showing us that we are driving in the desert - something is not right, did we miss a turn or is the map wring??!
We decide to turn back and soon see other rally cars. Hmm now what? We decide to head for the point where there should be a road which of course is not there. U-turn and step on it. We passed most of the slower cars already before the off-road section and head into the Senegal Delta on a 100km dirt road to the boarder via Diama.

In a small village we pass out lots of bears for the little kids and a football for the boys and head on.

The boarder will hopefully give us a wrong impression of this corrupt nation. Everything goes slow and is impossible until we pay the police 10 euro and the master chief (Mr. Senegal
with a cap) 15 euris. We figured out that every boarder until now has a master chief in normal clothes with a baseball cap. After we paid our little bribe we can go. This bs has cost us 3 hours and made the local honcho a lot of money. Rob spend the three hours watching the car sitting on the roof cause the people and kids in the parking lot drove him crazy. The entry leaves us with a bad after taste.

Driving to Dakar, we stop for gas and the gas station is all of a sudden full with women with fruit and men trying to get a gift or to sell us something. We stock up on gas and drive on. Every village it's the same story, people sitting and talking or fixing Peugeots 504. The brand to have for a real hustler in this part of Senegal. Most of the village is full with litter and mobile telephone shops and advertising - Orange and Tigo.

Villages have their speciality, one sells pottery the other furniture etc

Later on we lost our way close to Lac Rose and got totally annoyed in a shanty town of Dakar. Scary stuff. We turned the wrong way and had to back up which Robbie dutifully did smashing into the front of a car. Aouch nasty moment, what now? We gave the guy some Euros and went on looking for the camp and were actually early compared to the rest.

It was a crappy day all in all.

2011-01-25T20:04:00.000+01:00

2011-01-25T20:03:00.000+01:00

2011-01-25T20:02:00.000+01:00

Nouakchott got to have a Mercedes 190 in the fashionable red rust color.

2011-01-25T19:31:00.000+01:00

As you know we had a rest day today and as a good tourist we headed into town. The taxi a Mercedes
190 had four wheels and all the body available. Not something which you can say about most of the cars here. Preferred model is the Merc 190 in all stages of it's life from good looking till driving scrap metal. The market was a Big mistake cause it is nothing special and strange smells come from every corner.

We decided to wad back to the hotel and clean the car top till bottom. Checked all we could and it looks good to go again. Tonight we will head to a restaurant advised by the hotel. It's European he said so let's see if we survive this one.

2011-01-25T17:16:00.000+01:00

2011-01-25T17:15:00.000+01:00

2011-01-25T17:14:00.000+01:00

2011-01-25T17:13:00.000+01:00

2011-01-25T17:12:00.000+01:00

2011-01-25T17:11:00.000+01:00

Out of reach

2011-01-25T14:37:00.001+01:00

23.01.2011 crossing into Mauritania

We have seen lots of first ones already on this rally, but last nights hotel was a once in a life experience. It was dirtier than you can imagine and the whole setting was very strange. Car after car lined up in front of the boarder which we fear because of all the things we were told. The restaurant has some very strange people in it and walking around the parking. After our camel dish we decide to go to bed and sleep on our own air mattresses and in ours sleeping bags.

In the morning we go to the cars and need to complete a form for the customs which we hand over with our passports. Than we need to pick it up and go to the customs guys for the car. We give them our special Moroccan car papers and this gets stamped signed and returned. After this we need to go to the last post which is the big book registry. Lord knows what they do with all this and how they file it but they love to fill in, complete and write as much info as they can at all administrational posts of the police, customs and national security agency.

The first car which passes is a white beaten up, falling apart Land Robert Discovery which flipped three times when their tire blew out. They need to go to the hospital in Mauritania and are waived on without any formalities. They are fine and in the camp.

We are waived on and enter the mine field. We strongly believe that this is total nonsense as at some stage we see a guy with a herd of camels???? So either these camels are a member of the bomb squat and can smell where it is safe or there are no mines?? In this very strange part of the world we see two Dutch Mercedes' as well as a latest model totally pumped Italian one. They are parked in this no country no law zone and were probably used in a crime and nicely disposed of this way. There is also a family living there at the Mauritanian boarder. How strange can it get?

Than we cross into Mauritania, more forms more stamps more waiting and that's it we are on and there come the money traders. We get some quotes and trade Dirham into Mauritanian money and move on to the camp which is in the middle of the desert and has two lines of military defense.

Word goes around that the big monster Iveco rally van flipped and later at night this car enters the camp looking like it was squashed by a dinosaur. It's driving.......but that's it. The guys are fine and from now in might even wear their seatbelt.

24.01.11 keep on digging.....

After the fantastic night under the stars in the desert, we head out for a long off-road section in the desert. We thought we would be driving dirt roads, but its straight thru the desert - what a load of fun. We have some beautiful pictures, but will upload them when we have proper wifi available. We see a lot of camels and Bedouin and drive thru the desert until we get stuck. Ice-cream comes to pull us out and we're driving again until we are stuck for the second time. This time the Norwegians with their tractor pull us out and we notice that our 4x4 is not on. From there it's a piece of cake.

The rally gathers at the only gas station in the middle of the desert and we clear out all their diesel.

We head for the B2 beach and this is where the massacre begins car after car gets stuck we pull, dig, push and carry them out the sand and wait for the tide to go down. Than one big stampede for the B2 beach. It's a wonderful 22km drive on the beach.

The military protection is very visibly present again and we make a chat with the cooking team which is preparing spaghetti for the whole squadron. They invite us for dinner, but we have to pull out some cars. Our little vehicle was stuck 5 times today and we are right at the beachfront where we set up tent and build a campfire. No use getting stuck tomorrow when we leave at 7.

We spot a fishing boat and I decide to try to get them to land but because of the military escort which I have they are afraid and it takes a lot of persuasion to get them to come. Finally some fish, I buy four and prepare them Remko style on the beach.

25.01.11 rest day.

150km beach drive all the way to Nouakchott which is great we see fishing villages, some team saw dolphins??? We make it in to the city which is one big traffic jam and head for the hotel. Today we will do our email, clean our car and have a good shower. Maybe we will head into town.

2011-01-22T20:54:00.000+01:00

Road trip to no man's land continued.
We're traveling the long road down and left town before sunrise.

It's a long long drive. Before Dakhla we experience what a fata morgana is - we are slowly losing it. It's very hot and the terrain is monotonous flat. For a navigator this a rest day, but we are driving together which means I am the second pair of eyes when taking over a truck or when trucks come towards us. The road is very narrow and the sides are crumbling. Beyond this point there are no showers for several days - wet wipes and we have a makeshift shower using the water boxes that we have on the roof. Whoppa wir sind rho-nal-din-ho. Losse mal die music pingu Whoppa (Only for insiders and members of the hair club).

Sometimes we smell this amazing penetrating smell and it either coincides with a dead animal next to the road or some oil. We had a whole theory that when we smell this our v-snare flips cause that is what happened most of the time, but not today. Mourad in Tan Tan sold us very good ones and it is still in the right spot.

We have a lunch stop at the tropic of cancer sign and make the necessary pictures. This sign is probably the only sign in the world with a facebook page - have a look at it.

Later we make a stop at the beach between all the dunes. The whole coastal road is beautiful and sometimes we drive 50 meters high on cliffs and the other moment its full blown desert with beautiful dunes.

We press on to the boarder as we do not know what to expect. When we get there we are the first ones and decide to pitch the tent where the camp should be or better said was supposed to be. The organization comes and we need to be in the little square in front of the boarder cause we are in the military zone. We quickly go to the bar which has some rooms available for us, rick and tracey and the Spanish guys than it's finished. The rest needs to camp in the square. Rick sprays our room with DOOM AGAINST ANY FLYING OR CRAWLING INSECT. It's going to be a long and strange night. At least we made another Moroccan friend who really did his best to clean the room even though we sleep bivouac style cause we do not want to sleep on the beds. He has been in Rotterdam and Amsterdam and likes the Netherlands which is why we get the better room. He must receive a lot of kinderbijslag 

Tomorrow chaos at the boarder?? We don't know what to expect, but we will have to experience it.

Road trip with David Guetta

2011-01-21T23:36:00.000+01:00

We left camp today at 05:51 and got gas in Guoilmim the village that on the map looks close to the camp. In reality you have to drive a 7km dirt track at a speed equal to walking and than do 25km on a normal road.
We upset the local police a little bit cause he expected to loot all of us as of 7 o'clock and this was definitely a bit to early for him. They waved us on and wished us a good trip.

Things change after Tan Tan you get more frequent checks and they want gifts. The first stop got cigarettes and the second one caught Rob making a driving mistake for which we got pulled over. He wanted to know if we understood the rules of a roundabout. Normally when we are on a rally we take them on the left side when there is no traffic coming our direction because it is faster and you can take over the car in front of you. This time we accidentally fully ignored a Moroccan stop sign, not that there was a car, and drove straight on the roundabout. The guy did not like that. Lots of talk and one shirt as a cadeaux and we were driving again. Interesting bunch and it goes on and on and one and we keep on using some grease to please the legal system. The last one got three dirty shirts from us for the workers at the police stop. He also wanted our caps and we told him to butt off. Greedy flippo.

Our V-SNARE nightmare continues, we bought 3 extra and we hope that we solved the problem with that. We also bought a small one cause they do not cost a thing and it feels better to have the equipment and to have no problems. It seems every town has a shop with 50,000 on stock in any size you can think of.

After Tan Tan we also see the first camels and sand dunes. Very cool. Luckily there is a slight breeze in the car and a bit of overcast which keeps the temperature okay.

40km before Tarfaya we see a stranded truck in the sand next to the road. Nothing amazing, but this must happen a lot the road is so narrow that we and a truck hardly fit, we already had some hairy moments.

Lunch was a pizza and some chicken together with the English team. On the highway to nowhere we saw a camper from Graubunden Switzerland. They must have come back from a surfer trip to Dahkla which seems to be the Mecca for surfing here. Should have taken a board cause the waves are great here!! Damn.

We checked into the camp site in Boujdour and noticed that the exhaust pipe was hanging loose and straight away made our way into town to have it fixed. After asking where we could go in the maim street we were sent to a small workshop. The owner (Najib Amhali look a like) did not speak French but Spanish and mine is limited to some dirty words and basic food and other nonsense such as the cat is behind the table and I do not work I am a student. Thats what university Spanish is all about. So I asked him to have a look and because it was obvious he straight away called his men to come and fix it and the kids to have a look to see how you fix a bad ass chevy. 15 minutes later the gas guzzler was fixed and running nicely again: charge 3 euro. We paid a bit more and gave the guys a baseball plus bat and a pocket light. Next time we go on holiday we should stop over for a day and he will fix the whole car. For 10 euro. Wonderful. Happy faces all around and we have a new friend.

Dinner was at a local fish restaurant with our English friends.

Tomorrow road trip part two and bivouac between the minefield at the moroccan side of the no mans land zone. That is going to be interesting.

2011-01-21T08:35:00.000+01:00

Tel does not work, but we have email.
We cannot post twitters.

Early start at 05:51 on the road from Guoilmim to Bojdour. One straight line down into the war zone.

We expect that email will disappear in the Western Sahara part of morocco, but are not sure.

Have a nice day and I hope we have one too.

2011-01-20T22:02:00.000+01:00

As usual an early morning, but we had a good night in a warm hotel bed. The others who staid in the camp had a very cold night and arrived very late. It seems that we were the first to pass the atlas mountains and did so mainly in daylight.

When we came to the camp for the briefing, we were told to drive carefully, team 27 is missing they crashed into a stone and their car was found in the canyon with the drivers missing. Lots of the teams had to struggle thru the 150km dirt track in the dark.

Today was good quick and lots of kilometers. We had a nice breakfast and lunch went from the atlas to the sea level and drove a very crappy track to the camp.

2011-01-20T15:56:00.001+01:00

We arrived at the Westcoast in Mirhleft. Unbelievable the difference of landscapes in Marocco. Until now our trip is fascinating.

Happy Bithday Jessi!!

2011-01-20T07:31:00.000+01:00

Jessica has turned 18 today. Let's all email her a happy birthday

jessi.v_93@hotmail.com

Thank you

Remko

The roof of the Atlas Mountains

2011-01-19T22:12:00.001+01:00

2011-01-19T22:11:00.000+01:00

Day X we have lost count.

2011-01-19T22:10:00.000+01:00

After a very cold night in our tent -3!! We decide to drive early and skip the briefing. Later in the day this will prove to be a mistake - at least that is what we think. We will not know until tomorrow what was discussed at this briefing.

We skip breakfast and start in our drive to the cascades which we decided are not worth looking at. We want to go as quick as possible to Ait Ben Haiddo.

Of course we need to strengthen the inner human being and decide to have a nice breakfast at a nice NRS (Frits rallies) point overlooking the lake on an old road situation - wonderful!! A guy comes walking towards us and we offer him a coffee which he gladly accepts. He does however need to pick up his merchandise quickly and he comes back with little Berber tents which he makes himself. He offers us one as a gift and we buy a second one.

Thereafter we continue towards our goal using straight line navigation and trusting our map which just like our Dutch girlfriend CANNOT be trusted. Our should we have gone to the briefing???!!!! The moment we drive past the dinosaur footprints which are a must apparently we enter a road that looks challenging. But remember we wanted to go to Ait Ben Haiddo which is beautiful and can be navigated using google earth with surround pictures etc wonderful. The road starts to twist and turn which is certainly not the case om our maps - it's a straight line!! It turns out to be the most spectacular drive we ever had climbing the Atlas mountains and navigating between tops as high as 3825m. Our trip takes us on a very small road thru villages who do not see many out of towners. Inbreeding must be the most normal thing here. We stop when we see a small girl playing on the road with her friend and give them a bear each. The little girl gets is straight away and thinks ah that one is mine the little boy needs to seconds.
We climb and climb and climb and the gas guzzler is happily pounding forwards thru little towns turn after turn after turn (about 1697). We decided that we will not go to the camp but will get a hotel in Ouzarzate and continue our journey. After several hours of steering we enter flat land and are stopped by the police. He wants to know where we are going and where we came from. When we tell him he says we are crazy, laughs and wishes us a good trip. Small navigational mistake which takes us hours but took us past amazing scenery.

In Ourzazate which is a beautiful city we decide to stay in the mercies hotel which is good, warm and has a nice restaurant. Dinner is a salad and Tajine lamb and chicken than bedtime.

2011-01-19T10:50:00.001+01:00

Coffeebrake and breakfast in the mountains near the lake.

Lady on donkey

2011-01-19T08:25:00.001+01:00

2011-01-18T22:09:00.000+01:00

After a cold night in the hotel, we enjoyed a nice little breakfast and made our way towards the atlas mountains.

After two hours we decided to stop for a quick sandwich and changed the old v-snare during our little break and continued to some fantastic off road stage. Our gas guzzler is totally happy plowing thru the mud and loose gravel. We cross rivers, drive thru plowed roads on which the are working and make one small navigational mistake which we figured out very fast. We made our way thru little towns and wherever we go there are men standing, walking along the roads or sitting in cafes. Amazing but no one seems to work.

We hook up with Rick and Tracy and decide to go to Fes. But first we have a quick lunch: Rookworst and bread with la vace qui ri. By the time we get to Fes it is so late that we keep on driving to the camp. Here we arrive at six and the sun has just gone down.

We pitched the tent and went down to have dinner with the group. The Emirates Tourist Center has prepared wonderful lamb and chicken Tajines which we enjoy with a little red wine.

Now it's 21:09 and we are getting ready for bed. Tomorrow we will head to Ait Ben Haddou an old time which we really would like to see.

Good night.

Into Morocco

2011-01-17T22:17:00.001+01:00

Last night we had to stop again to put the v-snare on and we decided to drive all the way to Almeria - albeit very slow. When we finally arrived in Almeria at the hotel at 01:45 we dropped in our bed and slept till 6:30 to see if we could get a new special size as Rob thought he needed. Around 08:00 we were able to reach Jean Pierre Gabathuler who prepared our car and sponsored us a lot by offering his time. JP told Rob to look better cause he had of course put a v-snare with all the things he prepared for us. We were waiting in front of an auto part shop and decided to make a run for the boat - v-snares can wait until we are in Nador. We raced thru the city bought a ticket and were told to hurry up. After we parked on the dock it took at least 30min before we started to embark so we are a bit mind boggled why this Spaniard told us to hurry. The way we experience things in spain most things can be done tomorrow but they are always stressed. Very strange way of doing things. Thru all the hassle last night we missed out on tapas and our diet is getting worse.

Dinner last night: tuc and some other salty cookies.
Breakfast: baguette with salami from the gas station.
Lunch on the boat: some mushy pizza sandwich and chips.

First task getting money than a krouwa and than a hotel and food. Thanks to Sophie Dielissen of Banque Pasche Geneva we now know the following in Dutch:

V snaar is COURROIE in het frans, volgens mijn man spreken ze dat uit als "krouwa" in het marrokaans, maar in principe spreken die garage houders gewoon frans.
Hallo = Salaam mou halikoum.
Bedankt= shoukrane
Fonetisch gespeld.

Sophie I am sure we will have to rely on you some other times as well. Thanks for your help.

The first route is programed and this took a while to figure it out as well. Our lovely Garmin girlfriend is a typical woman who cannot read a map nor program it. She is not related to me I am very sure of that all my girls are excellent map readers like their husband and father. Jessi already proved that ones during a rally which we drove together. Something I would certainly like to do again.

During the boat trip we slept and watched the dolphins play in the water. We also had a nice chat with Rick from South Africa who is planning to drive all the way back home in 42 days together with his wife!! That is going to be one amazing trip.

Our Hungarian friends decided to buy all the beer available at the bar and were having a good time. Albeit a bit loud.

There was one little boy together with his mother who cried almost the whole trip. She did not want him to walk around. That is going to be one little disturbed soul later in life. We should have told the woman to let him walk around a bit but I do not speak Moroccan which certainly will prove a problem during the next days.

And than the nightmare started......... First we needed to import the car that took about one hour but was the easy part. Than we headed to the customs, police and all kinds of men in civilian clothes - we are still puzzled about their function - who had to see all the stuff in the car. So we unpacked all the boxes with shirts, Teddy Bears, toys etc. The guy from the police said it was all fine because it's for the poor people. But than came the big customs honcho and he decided that we could not take our car with us. We needed a customs permit and ask for permission to cross the country, deposit money which we of course would get back when we exited the country. Luckily there was a German speaking local who tried to wheel and deal cause he also had some kind of problem. After waiting for a very long time we were given the okay to continue our travels together with team 28 who tanks to us being there got into troubles as well. We were very happy that a solution was found and that we were granted entry permission. Of course we understand that there are protocols etc and are looking forward to the next three borders.

We asked the police man who, was very kind, where we could find a car part shop and went on with our trip. You notice straight away that you are in a different continent ad we drove carefully to Nador to have a look in three little shops for our v-snares and found them. Now we must have enough available. The polish team 28 came with us from the port and cannot believe that we can stay so calm and go with the flow of the country they are very impressed and a bit scared.

The hotel that we are staying in cause we did not want to continue driving in the dark is fine and has protected parking. 70chf to spend the night is not that bad. Dinner was a grilled fish platter at a local restaurant and was okay but actually nothing to write home about which I am doing anyway.

Bed time ... tomorrow will be a day of lots of new impressions and we look forward to continue our trip

Late night with some problems

2011-01-16T19:21:00.001+01:00

Today an early start and a late night/early morning. We received some permits for Mali and Senegal since our car is older than five years.

Lots of problems at the exit of the garage as some enlightened souls decided to park in front of the exit. Guess what there are a bunch of people who need to embark on their boats for sardinia and corsica. My best bet is that they will need to take the next boat. We of course had the same problem and had to ask the grave diggers to move their funeral car for us to be able to get out of the parking.

Most participants will opt for sleeping half way or a bit further and take the 5 o'clock boat in the evening tomorrow we however decided that we want a nice rest day and will drive all the way to Almeria today. It is very quite on the highway and we are making good time ETA is 22:38 but I guess it will be more around 24:00.

We passed some cars in the early morning but have not seen anyone for a long time. Very strong performance of the smallest of smallest participants who you can see on the below pictures. At the briefing we also heard that the car of the organizer broke down and we also did not see the Norwegian VW guys?? I guess we will hear more about this when we finally reach the bivouac in Morocco.

17:45 PROBLEMS. The power steering is gone and the next gas station is 24km away. We decide to carefully drive all the way as we need the light to see what is wrong. Working on the side of the road in the dark is to dangerous. When we open the hood we see that one of the fender belts came of. PROBLEM NO. 2 How do we fix it. We decide to use common sense and figure out the system together with my fantastic red flashlight which I got for Christmas. Luckily Rob goes daily to the fitness and can lift 100 kilos which allows him to loosen the bolts. One hour later the fender belt is back on it's system and the gas guzzler is humming away on the highway again. Like we predicted it will be a late night today.

Our smallest competitors

2011-01-16T09:30:00.000+01:00

2011-01-16T09:29:00.001+01:00

2011-01-15T21:53:00.001+01:00

This morning we had a great start and were supported by Rob his parents and friends. It was also good to hear that everyone at home could see the start and enjoyed it just as much as we did.

During the first 150km we took over a lot of cars and made good time until our Dutch navigations tussi took us on some very strange roads. The b@$&:) did not have up to date maps of the fantastic new highway between Budapest and Slovenia. Luckily we have iPhones and know where we are going.

We on purposely ran out of gas as we wanted to know how far we could get on one tank (250km) and lucky as usual we were at an exit for a P!!!

At the junction Zagreb/Slovenia our girlfriend decided it was time for a detour again, but this time we did not follow her advise and stayed on the road to Ljubljana and cut our driving time by one hour. She did not agree to this self initiative until we reached Maribor. Maribor is a town of which we have a lot of good memories from last years' wintertrial. At that time Maribor was very cold and extremely white. Now you could put on your bikini and swim in the pool. Our best guess is that the wintertrial should be called springbreak this year, but some of the locals have promised snow for next week which coincides with the right temperature of the el niño effect in conjunction with the position of the moon and Venus as well as the color of my socks.

After Ljubljana I took over and Rob could finally enjoy riding shotgun. I must have done a good job cause Robbie was of to dreamland within a few minutes.

We crossed into Italy at Trieste where we finished with another rally a few years ago and had a nice party in Koper. Later we drove the new road at Venezia which of course did not show up on the Garmin Nuvi. If you buy one check the maps because this is starting to get slightly pathetic. In the meantime we ate the last spare-ribs and blasted on to Genoa.

When we finally arrived we were met by Julian from Amicorp Zurich he managed to catch the train to deliver the Amicorp sticker. Amicorp sponsored us with lots of Teddy Bears for the kids along the way!!

2011-01-15T09:30:00.000+01:00

2011-01-15T09:29:00.000+01:00

2011-01-15T08:32:00.001+01:00

Start in -- hmm it should be now

2011-01-15T08:03:00.001+01:00

The first car is rolling thru the start and we are slowly getting the familiar rally jitters.

We have already been on Internet TV, does that make us world famous??

It's all a bit bigger than we are used to. Today will be a semi-long drive compared to what we are planning for Sunday.

One of our favorite cars is the one in the picture. Our best guess is that they fished it out of lake Balaton.

More when we are finally on the road.....

T-1

2011-01-14T18:13:00.001+01:00

Today we parked the car in the parc ferme and met lots of competitors. There are some very interesting characters. Check out the grave diggers team who look the part and are driving a funeral car including a coffin on top.

The rally starts tomorrow at 8 o'clock with the race class and after that the tourists such us will drive across Hero Square - what a typical name for a place to start a rally to Africa.

We have seen the usual nervous people doing last minute things on their rally cars and met with Rob his friends and parents. Thanks for coming and wishing us a lot of luck - we will need it. Tonight we are going to a typical Hungarian restaurant.

Some of the cars look excellent and I am sure that no money was spared by our fellow competitors to participate. We have seen a monstrous Hummer with a complete disco light show and some very large Nissan Patrols. Another team driving an orange Land Rover even has their own service team!! We had a quick chat with them cause one of the guys is Dutch and hope they will help us in case of a problem.

We also decided that we will hook up with the Belgian team in the camp since they have enough light available on their Toyota to fry an egg and we will at least be able to see something during the evening while preparing my usual 5 course menus. Our kitchen will prepare wonderful hero ravioli and 10 minute pasta courses. I am looking forward to the seaside in Morocco and Mauritania and hope I will be able to score some nice fish, lobsters and crabs along the way. We were also told that we should try the local camel burgers, but I am not sure if Rob will. Haha

Enough for today tomorrow will be a long and boring drive from Budapest to Genoa on the highway bringing us very close to some old rally sections which we drove during Wien Trieste and the last two Wintertrials.
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As of 8h. Start live on website

2011-01-14T15:09:00.001+01:00

Budapest-Bamako live

Watch the the start ceremony of the Budapest-Bamako live!

http://www.budapestbamako.org/en/

2011-01-14T09:43:00.001+01:00

Missed opportunity for our old employer

2011-01-13T08:04:00.000+01:00

A new day started. As always during our rallies I (Rob) check the oil. Normally with our Alfa GT we need one liter on 1000 km drive.

Yesterday we drove 750 km with he Chevy but he spilled no drip of oil.

2011-01-12T16:50:00.001+01:00

2011-01-12T16:48:00.000+01:00

It's D-day.

After saying goodbye to our wives and kids we left at 10:30 for Budapest. I am pretty sure the people in the Beethovenstrasse thought Michele an I just fell in love haha.

Action and take off. -- At the first turn, the side door of the back of the truck opened and the Jerry Cans fell out!!! Haha a good start so to say. Luckily there was no one driving directly behind us.

After 280km Rob figured that driving with 4x4 on does not make any sense and we decide to switch it off. All of a sudden our big bad monster truck turns into a race truck and we can easily drive 130kph!! Now we are moving with the traffic instead of causing a traffic jam.

We have crossed into Austria near Salzburg via Munich and will start looking for a hotel somewhere near Vienna. We are both looking forward to a wiener schnitzel mit pommes.

Driving between Munich and Linz there are a lot of good memories of the Wintertrial, our usual winter adventure. There is almost no snow and we fear this will be the case on most of the WT route. We will keep our fingers crossed for our friends who start in 10 days and wish them lots of snow.

Have a nice evening.

2011-01-10T21:05:00.000+01:00

The car is almost fully packed and we are anxious to get on the road. We are wrapping up the last things we need to do in the office and are now slowly fully prepared. We bought some extra loaders for our phones and I burned lots of cd's to keep us awake on the first monster trip days.

Tomorrow we are celebrating Michele her birthday and on Wednesday it's time to leave for Budapest.

In Budapest the action will start on Saturday, but we need to be there earlier to load all the map material, register ourselves and do some more administrational stuff.

Rob his parents will be there to see the start and wave us goodbye.

I have been watching the Dakar every night and hope that for us B2B will be a lot easier. Paved road etc. Maybe an occasional sauna and well prepared roadside meal. We have not bought anything which takes longer than 10 minutes to prepare. I guess that will be a bit how we will look when we return.

On the official website of Budapest Bamako there is an SMS wall on which you can see how the teams are doing. Check out the site via our links on our website. I am not sure if we will post, but we might when we have no Internet access to make sure you can follow us.

2011-01-02T13:45:00.000+01:00

Its only one and a half weeks before we leave for Budapest and we are almost fully prepared. Rob will still bring some things from the Netherlands and on the 11th we will start packing the Truck with all the goods that we bought for our trip. Of course we will try to keep you upto date through this blog and when possible update it on a daily basis with pictures and text.

We will bring lots of things for the children and also for the hospital which we are supporting. Check out the Mali Health Organizing Project and their response on our website.

All in all, we will be bringing the following things to Africa:
1. Truck which can with some small changesbe brought back in its old profession of rescue vehicle
2. Two water purification systems
3. Tools
4. 160 Teddybears
5. 20 footballs
6. Numerous baseball bats with balls
7. 200 shirts
8. Big box with Eyedrops and Paracetamol
9. Ballpens
10. Erasors
11. Small tool sets with screwdrivers and ledlights

Except for the Truck all these items were bought with sponsor money or were donated. We sincerely thank our sponsors and everybody who has made this trip possible and will keep you up to date.

We also would like to thank our wifes who made it possible for us to do something like this and who have always supported us with whatever idea we came up with. We already look forward to see you two and our girls when we finally return to Zurich!!

Rob & Remko

2010-12-28T15:07:00.000+01:00

Our stuff for the trip to Bamako.

2010-12-28T14:40:00.001+01:00

2010-12-28T14:37:00.001+01:00

Testing the blog