Two nutty friends from Aachen, Germany, and their killer ride on a mission from God: To master the Plymouth-Banjul Challenge 2007. Read about their impossible mission here ...

 
Made in Aachen
 

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Filling in the details

Almost exactly one year after our tour start I put the finishing touches on the website. During the tour I kept a real diary, and now I transcribed each day's experiences to this blog. I always love reading other traveler's tales going along the same route, and hope I can also entertain some readers with my stories. If nothing else I would like to come back to this page to remind me of the excitement and fun we had on the tour.

Friday, January 26, 2007

Photographs

I put all the photos from the trip online, have a look: Click Here

Monday, January 22, 2007

Back Home - Results of the Auctions

After three weeks of excitement and adventure Mario and I are back on German soil, trying to review past events. It was a great tour, I learned a lot about this unfamiliar continent and it´s people. I am sure that this won´t be the last time I will travel Africa. Thanks to Julian Nowill and the Plymouth-Banjul Challenge, I think they did an excellent job.

The blazing veedub was auctioned off for a respectable GMD 25,000.00 or 700 Euro, a good price considering that I accidentally broke the rear window of the car the last day we were in Banjul. I tried to put the jerry cans inside the trunk, and inadvertently closed the trunk lid with a bit too much determination. I still feel really bad for hurting my baby like that :-(

All in all the Plymouth-Banjul challenge 2007 raised GMD 6,069,600 or 164,000 Euros for charities, which sounds like a good number to me.

Saturday, January 20, 2007

Mario has to stay Banjul?

When we arrive Tuesday night Mario gets a little shock: His flight ticket back to Germany has not arrived as planned at the Safari Gardens Hotel. He is in panic. We subsequently spent most of the last three days trying to get Mario on the flight: Fabian calling people from Germany, me calling people from Banjul, and Mario spending hour after hour at the travel agency in Banjul.

Mario was told to be patient and everything will work out. Not! The result of days of tedious negotiations is that he needs to pay a lost ticket fee of 100 € to get a new ticket issued. Our cash is low and unfortunately in The Gambia only two teller machines exist, both of them taking Visa cards only. We travel with Master card. Talk about being stuck.

I think the situation is funny, or at least ironic, but my jokes about promising to visit Mario in Banjul next year don't cheer him up. I don´t know why.

I think we somehow found a way now and inshallah - as they say in the islamic world - he will fly back home with me tonight.

Time to say Goodbye


Last farewell

It is time to pat the greatest car of all times - my trusty companion for so many years - on the back, and wish him a great retirement in laid-back Africa. Good luck to you, my friend!

Marc

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Camping Sukuta

Banjul turns out to be a relatively well developed tourist resort with hotels, paved roads, running water and electricity. Even though in some parts the locals still have to do without these amenities, it is the most modern city we have seen since Morocco.

We are the only ones of the PBC teams that stay at the camp ground, everybody else is at one of the many hotels in Banjul. The Sukuta camp ground we are staying on is an excellent site owned and run by two Germans, Claudia and Joe. We feel very at home here, and enjoy starting our days with their delicious German breakfast including perfectly boiled 5 minute breakfast eggs, and ending the days with some nice conversations with seasoned travelers in the self-help kitchen.

The stories we hear are amazing: The Dutch couple that is on their way to South Africa by bicylcle, the two German guys who have spent the last 15 years driving cars down to The Gambia and selling them here, or the retired German couple that has been traveling all throughout Africa for 2 1/2 years and 70.000 km in their 4x4 camper van. I am totally fascinated.

Banjul itself is very laid-back, it is called the Jamaica of West-Africa, and that is very fitting. With the exception of a few annoying bumsters in town, the locals are extremely friendly, and we enjoy sipping cheap local Gin and just hanging out.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Barra - Banjul ferry

Today we got another full blast of the African experience, which is always most concentrated at border and ferry crossings. First we head for the Gambian border without the passe avant. As expected we get into trouble with the Senegalese border guards. For half an hour we try to explain to the border guards our situation, but they won´t let us pass. This is not good. We somehow manage to get hold of Don and Dave on their mobile. They crossed this border a few hours earlier, and they supposedly have the passe avant with our car on it. Not quite: They didn´t have a passe avant either, but they got through customs without any problem. Just as I hang up the phone the border guard waves us through and we can take off. We don´t even have to pay any fee. Wonderful African law!

We enter The Gambia and I am relieved to hear the locals speaking English. The whole trip so far was French only, and I just don´t speak French. I was so glad that Mario spoke French relatively well, so at least we could communicate, but now it is like heaven being able to talk to the local people myself.

On the other side of the border we have to show our passports to a young police man in uniform. We strike up a pleasant conversation, and Mario points out how progressive The Gambia is, since just across the street he sees female police officers dressed in that same uniform as our fellow. This is quite liberal in comparison to the role women play in the rest of Africa we saw.

At the end of the conversation the police officer hands us back our passports and asks for the obligatory cadeaux. We haven´t given out anything the whole trip, but I make an exception since he was so nice. In the next village we realize what asses we were, because our officer was actually just a young lad in a school uniform and the female police officers just his school mates.


Getting in line for the ferry

The last hurdle before we reach Banjul is the Barra ferry, a few kilometers South of the border. The 30 minute ferry ride will take us across the Gambia river to our destination. After our ordeal at the last ferry we are glad we are driving with other PBC participants. Again the ferry landing is closed off by a metal gate, and we get the car in line. There are about 20 cars to the metal gate, which looks like a long wait.

As we get out of the car we are immediately swarmed by an army of bumsters. Bumsters is a term for untrustworthy looking kids and young fellows harassing travelers, asking for money or cadeaux, and offering shady deals for mobile phones, tires, whole cars, and everything a traveler might be carrying with him. There is a constant danger of pick pocketing or getting something stolen out of the cars. The atmosphere is very tense.

The queue of cars is moving slowly, as one car at a time is let into the metal gates, but it is only 11 am and we are hopeful to arrive in Banjul in a few hours. After 3 hours the metal gates finally open for us, but the sights sends me into shock: There is another queue of about 200 cars in two neat rows between us and the ferry landing! We get out of the car and walk further down the queue, and find a number of fellow PBC participants we had met earlier at the Zebrabar. Some of them had already been waiting for six hours, and where no where near the ferry.

In Barra there usually are three ferries taking cars across the Gambia river, but currently only one is running. The ferry can take about twenty cars each time, and takes about one hour to get to Banjul and back. At that pace we can only hope that we are on the last boat across leaving at 10 p.m..

Mario strikes up a conversation with Basirou, a nice Gambian truck driver also waiting in line. He lives in a village down the Gambian river, and crosses over the Banjul regularly with varying goods. His father is the chief of the village and he invites us to come and visit, and he ensures us that his father would be very pleased. At the end of our trip we meet Basirou again, as he is at the airport to say goodbye.

We are indeed one of the last cars that make it onto the ferry. Two other PBC teams bribe their way onto the ferry with mobile phones, something every Gambian seems to have or want to have. At 11 p.m. we were finally home free at our final destination: the Safari Gardens Hotel in Banjul. 7200 km in 18 days. We made it! The car made it! I can´t believe it.

Toubakouta


Breakfast with bread from the local bakery

The campement turns out to be something like a hostel, and there are other travelers staying there as well. The family is nice enough to lend us a small table so we can have an enjoyable breakfast outside.

The house has electricity and there is a water faucet in the courtyard, enough comfort for us. Just the combination toilet/ shower needs some explanation. The toilet is European syle, but does not have running water. The water comes from a barrel of rain water just outside the toilet. You get some water with a small bucket. You wash your hands in the bucket, and afterwards use this water to flush. That makes sense. What I don´t get is the shower head hanging just above the toilet. I decide to skip the shower for this morning, and just wash my head under the faucet in the court yard.

Butcher is selling beef by the roadside

Watching Africans go about their daily business is like watching slow-motion. People take their time with everything, as if time was eternal and there was no need to preserve it. I am reading Karen Blixen's book Out of Africa, a diary about her time running a coffee planation in Kenya during the 1920. She describes this pace of life very well:

Natives dislike speed, as we dislike noise; it is to them, at the best, hard to bear. They are also on friendly terms with time, and the plan of beguiling or killing it does not come into their head. In fact the more time you can give them, the happier they are, and if you comission a Kikuyu to hold your horse while you make a visit, you can see by his face that he hopes you will be a long, long time about it. He does not try to pass the time then, but sits down and lives.

Monday, January 15, 2007

Sneaking through police checkpoints

Senegalese backroads

After a lazy four days and over 100 beers at the Zebrabar it is time to move on. Today we are using the back roads of the Senegalese savannah. We are travelling without a passe avant, a document necessary to move about Senegal freely with your own car. This apparently is an alternative to the police escort: When you leave the country you have present this document with your passport and the car entered.

Don and Dave left to Banjul two days ago, and apprently our car was on their passe avant together with their own car. We are worried: Martin from the Zebrabar explains to us that there are police posts all over Senegal that will ask us for this paper, and if we don´t have it they will try to charge us a hefty fine/ bribe to let us pass. I already see Mario and me dealing with a new police bribe every twenty miles.

Nevertheless we have to move on, so we join another PBC group and leave for the border. We use the Senegalese backroads in hopes to skip some police posts, and to our amazement we don´t even have one police post on our way. Lucky bastards we are!

Tonight we make it to Toubakuta, a small village close to the Gambian border. The village has a little tourist resort, and the others check into the hotel for comfort, while Mario and I try to find a camp ground. We learn that campement is not the French word for camp ground, but the owner of the house lets us pitch our tent in the court yard for little money.

Friday, January 12, 2007

Zebrabar


Zebrabar campsite in St. Luis, Senegal

After our little adventure we finally arrive at the infamous Zebrabar in St. Luis, Senegal. After the last seven days without shower and alcohol we are more than ready for this piece of paradise. It is said to be the best camp site in West-Africa, and a meeting point for all travelers going down the west-coast. Here we get a soothing shower, cold beer, delicious food and a cozy bed. The nights are long and the days are lazy as we relax here for a few days.


Mario tries surfing on the river

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Crossing into Senegal at Diama Dam

We wake up early. Thank God nothing has happend to us: We didn´t get robbed or killed. We drive the car out of the bushes and have a look around. Diama Dam mainly consists of the customs building and a bridge across the river, not much of a village around. With the exception of a few water buffaloes we are the first on the dam, but after all it is only 8 am. The new plan is to wait for the others and cross with them. We get out our folding chairs and cook up our first coffee of the day. The Africans we meet here are very friendly, not the hurried type like in Rosso. We strike up a conversation with a customs officer, and learn that many people dread the road conditions to Diama. That´s whay this crossing is so quiet.

We spend the morning relaxing until two Englishmen of the PBC challenge - Don and Dave - arrive a t the border. We had met the two previously, and they seem to be on their own schedule away from the large group just as we are. Don and Dave are both retired and now use their time to travel the world extensively, many times by car. They have been doing this type of rallye for almost twenty years now, some of them much more daring than this one, e.g. when they drove real old-timers all the way down to South-Africa through 28 European and African countries. This trip included an air-lift with a Russian cargo plane across the Sudan.

They are breezing through this rallye with an old Renault 5 with no problems at all. They seem to be good company, and we decide not to wait for the others and cross the border with just our two cars. The road book talks of chaotic negotiations and eight-hour waiting periods in Diama, but we agree to an escort fee of 70 Euros for our two cars, and get through the order in less than an hour. After our Rosso experience we cannot believe how easy things can be. Two hours later we arrive at the Zebrabar.

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Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Odyssee to Diama Dam

We are worried that the mob will follow and rob us if we stay in Rosso, but a drive back to Nouakchott is impossible, as the sun is already going down. Driving in Africa at night is crazy, and nobody does it. Biggest problem besides the potholes is locals often walk along the streets at night, and - I am not making this up - black people are very hard to see in the dark!

Our last option is to head over to the Diama Dam somehow. The road book explains that the road to Diama is almost impossible to find, as it doesn´t look like a road at all for the first kilometer or so, and certainly doesn´t have a sign pointing towards Diama:

At waypoint N16° 30.900' W15° 48.866' there is a Naftec petrol station on the right. Turn to the right (south of) after it. Turning off the main road involves driving down a fairly steep dirt track slope that is rutted from past rainwater run-off. It looks as if it goes nowhere but proceed at 90° to the main road with a wall on your left and the Naftec station on your right. (...)

We try to follow the instructions in the book to the letter, but there just is no road to find, and we feel our mob closing in on us. By now the night is pitch black, and we start driving aimlessly across the fields next to the main road. We get out the compass, as the Diama road should be pointing exactly west, but all the dirt tracks we are able to get to point somewhere else. Because we keep getting lost we place items on the road so we can recognize if we have been somewhere before. It helps, and finally after about two hours driving aimlessly about we are pretty confident we are on the right track.

The dirt track is very hard to drive on, because there is not a single track to follow. At all times there are multiple tracks next to each other, some on top of the dam, some on the side of it, or even up to 20 feet into the bushes. It looks like Africans make a new track every time the original dirt road has been washed away by heavy rains. While this bears a challenge when driving during the day, it makes our ride a nightmare in the dark night.

If we find a piece of track to drive on we are constantly slowed down by potholes of various sizes, some as big as the car itself. Around midnight we hit one particularly big hole and the car stops. Suddenly there is silence. The darkness all around us creeps in, and the car won't start again. This is great, since we're both not very good with cars. We open the hood and have a look. The whole air filter sitting on top of the carburetor has come off, and it does not look good from the little I can recognize.

Just as we try to asses the damage we hear a truck coming up for behind, the only car we have heard or seen on the whole drive to Diama. Immediately I get out the pepper spray my brother gave me for the trip. We turn off all the lights and pray this is not the angry mob from Rosso. An old Mercedes van stops next to us, and three fellows get out. To our relief they are not the guys from Rosso, and just want to help us. I explain to them what I found out, and they find a piece of old wire in their car to attach the air filter back. To my amazement it works and thanks to their help we can continue our tour.

Two hours later we think we arrived in Diama, but the darkness engulfs everything. We cannot see whether there are houses or other roads besides the one we are on, so we decide to hide the car in the bushes and sleep inside the vehicle. We are still worried, but at one time we do fall asleep after an exciting day.

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Rosso

Cross the Senegal river and enter Senegal at one of West-Africa´s most dangerous border crossings? We´re naive enough to give it a shot ...

In an attempt to feel the real Africa we want to cross the Senegal River by ourselves, without any of the other teammates. Our road book gives us two options: Cross the river in Rosso, a town renowned to be run by touts, bandits, and con-artists, or head 100 km further down the river to Diamia Dam, where the crossing is supposed to be much less dangerous. For both locations it suggests going in a convoy to reduce the danger.

Since we are not of the faint-hearted we decide to go alone, and at least have a look at Rosso. If we feel it is too dangerous we can always continue to Diama Dam. Worst case we wait for the others to arrive. At least that is the plan.

In Rosso the customs area is locked off by a big metal gate, behind which several customs offices and the ramp for the ferry are located. To get to Senegal we only have to take the 10 minute ferry ride. The first thing that happens as we stand in front of the metal gate is that a police officer asks us for our passports, which we hand to him. Next he opens the gate and gives the papers to a very untrustworthy looking fellow, who immediately shouts orders at us. How does he know what we want? And how did our passports get into the hands of a stranger so quickly? We are overwhelmed. Mario tries to talk to him in French, and gets a price quote for getting us through customs and across the river. The price is in Senegalese currency, and have no idea how much it is. The guy with our passports pressures us as the last ferry for today will be arriving soon. After some calculations the price seems to correspond to what our road book states, and even though things don´t feel right we agree to let our guide help us.

We are let into the gate, and within minutes the "guide" - escorted by Mario - has our papers ready: Our exit visa out of Mauritania, and the car insurance for Senegal. The visa for Senegal we will get on the other side. It is too good to be true, but after paying only 19.000 CFA - roughly 30 Euros - and waiting only 20 minutes we are already crossing the Senegal. This is a breeze in comparison to our last border crossing, and the border-crossing nightmare described in our road book for Senegal. Even though we are still uneasy about our guide we feel great about daring to cross over at the "infamous Rosso."

After seven days of wild camping without shower or alcohol, the Zebrabar - the hailed campsite just across the border in Senegal - was within the grasp of our hands. Soon we would be sitting on some porch in rocking chairs, still wet from the refreshing shower, sipping on ice cold beer, and telling wild stories about our treacherous crossing.

Our little dream bursts into pieces once we get off the ferry. Our guide leads us into a customs office, where he is joined by two other shady fellows to quote us a price for the customs escort. In Senegal, it is illegal to import and sell a car that is older than five years. To enforce this law tourists entering the Senegal with a car older than that need to be accompanied by a customs escort, a guy who stays with you and the car as long as you are in this country. Very strange concept.

The road book quotes a price of 35 Euros for the customs escort, while our gangster trio comes up with an official price of 240.000 CFA, which after some calculation comes out to 340 Euros. Great prospects: We have already paid the exit fee from Mauretania, left Mauritania, paid the ferry, bought Senegalese car insurance, and bought the visa to enter Senegal, and now this incredible escort fee will keep us away from our well-deserved beers.

Unable to pay the escort our only choice is to turn around and take the ferry back. As we get off the ferry in Rosso we thank the guide and try to give him 10 Euros for his troubles when things turn sour. He gets angry, accuses us of trying to trick him out of money, and soon we are surrounded by a gang of other guides putting pressure on us. Our guide now wants us to pay 140 Euros for the exit fee for Senegal, the ferry, the entrance visa to Mauritania, and his expenses. Surrounded by this angry mob we get a bit frightened, and Mario walks over to a police man sitting close by. A brilliant idea, except the police man agrees with our guide about the sum to be paid. Remembering back this was probably the same police man who gave our passports to the guide in the first place.

To get us out of this mess we pay the money demanded, and take off as quickly as possible out of this bandit town. Thank God we´re alive and well!

We are worried that the mob will rob us if we stay in Rosso, but a drive back to Nouakchott is impossible, as the sun is already going down. Our last option is to head over to the Diama Dam somehow. The road book explains that the road to Diama is very hard to find, as it doesn´t look like a road at all for the first kilometer or so, and certainly doesn´t have a sign pointing towards Diama:

At waypoint N16° 30.900' W15° 48.866' there is a Naftec petrol station on the right. Turn to the right (south of) after it. Turning off the main road involves driving down a fairly steep dirt track slope that is rutted from past rainwater run-off. It looks as if it goes nowhere but proceed at 90° to the main road with a wall on your left and the Naftec station on your right. (...)

We try to follow the instructions in the book to the letter, but there just is no road to find, and we feel our mob closing in on us. By now the night is pitch black, and we start driving aimlessly across the fields next to the main road. We get out the compass, as the Diama road should be pointing exactly west, but all the dirt tracks we are able to get to point somewhere else. Because we keep getting lost we place items on the road so we can recognize if we have been somewhere before. It helps, and finally after about two hours driving aimlessly about we are pretty confident we are on the right track.

The dirt track is very hard to drive on, because there is not a single track to follow. At all times there are multiple tracks next to each other, some on top of the dam, some on the side of it, or even up to 20 feet into the bushes. It looks like Africans make a new track every time the original dirt road has been washed away by heavy rains. While this bears a challenge when driving during the day, it makes our ride a nightmare in the dark night.

If we find a piece of track to drive on we are constantly slowed down by potholes of various sizes, some as big as the car itself. Around midnight we hit one particularly big hole and the car stops. Suddenly there is silence. The darkness all around us creeps in, and the car won't start again. This is great, since we're both not very good with cars. We open the hood and have a look. The whole air filter sitting on top of the carburetor has come off, and it does not look good from the little I can recognize.

Just as we try to asses the damage we hear a truck coming up for behind, the only car we have heard or seen on the whole drive to Diama. Immediately I get out the pepper spray my brother gave me for the trip. We turn off all the lights and pray this is not the angry mob from Rosso. An old Mercedes van stops next to us, and three fellows get out. To our relief they are not the guys from Rosso, and just want to help us. I explain to them what I found out, and they find a piece of old wire in their car to attach the air filter back. To my amazement it works and thanks to their help we can continue our tour.

Two hours later we think we arrived in Diama, but the darkness engulfs everything. We cannot see whether there are houses or other roads besides the one we are on, so we decide to hide the car in the bushes and sleep inside the vehicle. We are still worried, but at one time we do fall asleep after an exciting day.

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The other side of the Sahara


Smooth straights in the desert

We have reached the Mauretanian capital Nouakchott on the other side of the Sahara desert in one piece, and I hit the first Internet cafe I saw to report that all is well.

As we leave the city we have to stop at a police post. We chat with the police man, and I can´t believe my ears: He saw from the license plate that we are from Aachen, Germany, and he congratulates us, because our soccer team Alemannia Aachen beat Bayern Munich a few weeks back. Wow!

Impressions of Mauritania

We camped out with three other PBC groups at the beach, and today the others want to drive together the 200 km paved road to Nouakchott to take a day of rest there. Mario and I decide to venture out on our own and take off early. We want to skip the day of rest in Nouakchott and head straight for the border to Senegal in hopes to spend more time in Senegal.

As we drive towards Nouakchott we are able to collect some impressions of this country. Mauritania is very simple, mostly consisting of barren desert inhabited by nomadic families, some fishing villages along the coast line, and a strip of fertile land this side of the Senegal River. The country is three times the size of Germany, with only about 1/30 the population. The number of paved roads can be counted on one hand, and there is only a single railway line linking the iron mining centre of Zouerate with the port of Nouadhibou.

It seems like Mauritanians have just recently moved from a nomadic life to settling down in villages and cities. Huts are very simple, often built out of scrap building materials. There are no streets in the villages, and the spaces between houses are littered with garbage: Plastic bags, rotting fish heads, dead goats, and such. The people don´t seem to be particularly bothered by this, and their demeanor is one of complacency. Even though tourists pass through some of these villages regularly, nobody is interested in selling them anything, not even some of the abundant fish the fishermen pull out of the sea. They seem to be contempt with their very simple ways, and not interested in changing their living conditions, as if it would be a breach to their culture.

The road to Nouakchott is excellent, and we are there in two hours time. We enter the Mauritanian capital from the North, and here we find quite a veritable city of 800,000 inhabitants, some of which living in stone houses with electricity and running water. Nouakchott has an air field, a hospital, and even foreign embassies. The gas station we pull over at even has regular fuel for our car, a rare commodity in a country where everything is Diesel. Even the adjacent super market is stocked well. Inside town we actually manage to find an Internet cafe, a small, windowless shack with six computers, flat-screen monitors, and an ADSL line. Half an hour of surfing cost 10 Ouguiya, about 3 cents.

Nouakchott also has a poor side, actually most of Nouakchott is very poor by our standards. Starting at the town center, the whole rest of the city is made up of small huts and shacks built with scrap wood. The streets are not paved, and the main mode of transportation in the capital city is with donkey carts. We pass a sheep market as we leave town, and then we enter a vast field of garbage. The whole south of Nouakchott consists of one big garbage field. A strange sight to drive half an hour through this dump site, but the locals don´t seem to mind. We keep on driving to head to the border to Senegal.

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Tuesday, January 9, 2007

Beach driving

Some parts of the Sahara we want to cross contain active mine fields laid in recent conflicts between Moroccans and Mauritanians. A way to avoid these regions is to drive part of the way along the beaches of the Atlantic ocean. During low tide there is just enough space to drive a car safely Southwards along the beach. That´s our plan for today.

With yesterday´s experience under our belt we are more relaxed about the driving, and we take turns to sit on the car´s window sill enjoying the cooling breeze. Some passages are so sandy that we have to deflate our tires almost to the point where they fall off the rim. Our guide helps us gauge how much air to let out. With this trick we glide over the sand more easily, but nonetheless every so often one of our cars gets stuck. Most of the time we don´t have to do much digging as we just attach it to the 4x4 to get it pulled out. Thank God for that.

The beach driving starts at the entrance to the Parc National du Banc d'Arguin. There is a village near the entrance, and as we pull up we are surrounded by some children that had seen our cars coming. Some of the other teams have collected items at home to give to the poor kids along the way. These kids certainly look poor enough to be able to use writing materials, soccer balls and such. Unfortunately, as soon as the first kid receives a hand full of gifts all the other children are alerted. A true frenzy breaks out. More and more kids come rushing from the town to surround our cars. Mario and I don´t have anything to hand out, so the children leave us alone at first, but as time progresses we are also harassed by the kids looking for gifts.

At first our other team mates are still trying their best to give out their gifts, but soon there are children everywhere, screaming and besieging the car trying to get their hands inside. It is a nightmare, not at all what our helpful team mates imagined. Frantically they struggle to get all the children's hands out of the car, close the windows, and lock the doors. To escape the mob we flee to the other side of the village where the children can´t follow us anymore.

Later on we find out that the kids living in this Mauritanian village are not very poor at all, as most tourists traveling in Mauritania will enter the only national park this country has to offer, and thus pass the village. Most tourists have something to give to these children, and so the kids receive pens, notebooks and soccer balls all the time. Apparently they are not allowed to keep them, though, but have to turn them in to be sold on the black market later on.

This is the first time on our trip we get asked for cadeaux, the French word for present. From here on this word will follow us all the way to Banjul, as the first thing many people - children, adults, and police men alike - will ask us for is cadeaux. It almost seems to be the equivalent of saying hello to tourists in this part of the world. Politely declining to give anything seems to earn us respect from the locals, as they are used to getting something from all the tourists.

As we wait for low tide we spend some time relaxing at the beach. Mario and I take a dip in the ocean, since it has been days since our last shower. The water is surprisingly cold, but a good refreshment with the midday sun searing down on us.

The drive along the beach proves even more challenging than the desert driving. The beach is sometimes only three meters wide, and besides avoiding to get stuck in the sand we now also have to dodge the waves. If water gets the motor of a regular fuel car like ours, the motor is ruined and we are doomed.

The sand has formed speed-bump-like humps perpendicular to the beach every 20 feet, and again we ought to glide over these bumps smoothly. Unfortunately, our poor driving skills leave us nothing but to fly over the bumps Starsky & Hutch style, dipping deep into the sand in between bumps. The suspension is aching terribly as the wheels regularly scrape the insides of the fender upon impact.

We pass another group from the PBC challenge and see one of the passengers, a Latvian girl we had met in Dakhla, lying on the beach apparently hurt. We later on hear the she had broken her leg trying to hold down a rope of one of the fishing barges that anchor at the beach. She stepped on the rope so the cars could pass over it, when to rope was caught by one of the cars. She was taken by her team mates to the hospital in Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania 200 km South.

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Monday, January 8, 2007

Crossing the desert

We start early for our first day of desert driving. With the guidance of our Mauretanian passenger our convoy makes its' way through the dunes. The ground we drive on is a mix of rocks, bushes, gravel, and soft sand. We go at about 50 km/h, and the car´s suspension is taking quite a beating.

The most challenging parts are the sandy partitions, as this is where the cars can get stuck, and have to be dug or pulled out. The sandy patches are usually 20 meters long and you don´t really see them until they´re right in front of you. It is best then to speed up, glide over the sand with a lot of momentum, follow in the tracks of your predecessor, and steer as little as possible.

Easier said than done. It is incredible that a car can take such a beating and still run: At times we fly over bushes and rocks, other times we dive nose first in to the sand, the rest of the time we get shaken up so vigorously we can barely hold on to the steering wheel.

A real challenge for man and machine. At first we worry about the car, but after a few hours we enjoy each little challenge the path brings. While other teams occasionally loose mufflers, roof rack luggage, or get stuck in the sand, our blazing veedub is holding up well.

At night we try to reach a Beduin camp in the middle of nowhere. It is amazing how our guide is able to find his way through the featureless landscape. Sometimes there are a few tire tracks to follow, but most of the time he is following his own mental map written by years of experience. We are running late, and have to drive the last half hour through the total blackness of the Arabian night. Still we find the Beduin camp without a problem.

It is the camp of a single nomad family: Four blue tents reserved for the men, and four white tents for women, children, and visitors. Around the tents we hear a heard of goats bleating. We are invited into one of the tents for tea, as it is customary in North-African countries.

The lack of light and running water doesn´t seem a problem for the Beduin woman preparing the tea. She clamps a flash light with her left shoulder, and washes the dishes with water from a hot kettle. The dirty water is then discarded out the tent´s entrance. We drink our peppermint tea quietly. We set up our tents close by and fall asleep under the amazing desert sky.

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Sunday, January 7, 2007

Crossing the border to Mauretania

Our group leaves Dakhla at 5 am early in the morning to reach the Mauretanian border as early as possible. Even though we are only covering 300 km today on well-paved roads we have to be at the border early to minimize the wait. Clearing both sides of the border can take a very long time, and we want to make sure that tonight we are on Mauretanian soil, and not stuck in no-mans land between the two countries.

Our convoy of five cars heads South through the sleepy night. Watching the sun rise over the desert is a beautiful sight, and a nice reward for getting up so early. At 10 am we arrive at the Morokkan border. There is a line of about fifty cars and trucks in front of us, a mix of tourists and locals. They must either be here since yesterday, or must have headed to the border even earlier than we did, as we didn't see any cars at all on the only road leading to the border.

At the Morokkan side of the border everything looks like chaos, as hords of people bunch up in front of various offices, with no sign of any procedureal information. We ask our way through, and after a while it becomes clear where we have to stand in line, and who to give which paper to. All in all it's just a lot of waiting, and we try to pass time playing backgammon.

Six hours later we clear the Morokkan toll gate and head through a strip of no-man's land towards the Mauretanian border. The road book warned not to move off track here as this strip is heavily mined, and we are thoroughly worried when we see several burnt-out vehicles along the road. The fact that there is not one but multiple rocky tracks leading through this mine-field just adds to the excitement. Only after crossing do we find out that burnt-out cars are from days past, and that the mine fields have since been cleared.

While the Morokkan border actually had a few brick buildings with a Morokkan flag showing, the Mauretanian side comes as a surprise, as it consists of nothing more than two makeshift wooden shacks, so small and torn up that you wouldn't even suspect a homeless person to dwell there. Not very representative.

The border guards are relatively friendly, we are quickly done with our paperwork here including buying car insurance for Mauretania. We have hired a guide at the camp site in Dakhla to lead us though the desert, and we pick him up at the border. He is a quiet, wiry Beduin, dressed in the traditional Djellaba, a long hooded robe. He leaves a trustworthy impression, but we can just hope he knows the desert by heart, since teams have previous years have reported trouble with some of the desert guides. He will drive with the first car of our convoy giving directions, while the last car is the 4-wheel drive, and these two cars can communicate with via the radio.

It is close to sundown by the time we are finally in Mauretania, and after a short while our guide has us pull off the paved road at a sand dune to set up our first camp in the Sahara. We make a bonfire out of wooden crates we collected along the way, and imagine how the next days will unfold. Soon the fire is out and it's time to go to sleep.

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Saturday, January 6, 2007

Getting Stuck

We leave Laayoune to head for Dakhla, where we hope to meet up with the group 2 to cross the Sahara together. I judiciously choose the very first available opportunity to get the car stuck in Sahara sand: I pull off the side of the road because Mario wants watch some birds with his binoculars. I slowly drive onto the sand, and straight away the steering becomes mushy. I haven't prepared myself for this and I instinctively slow the car down. Bad choice. Now we are definitely sinking.

In panic I and try to veer the car back onto the paved road by making a sharp turn. Bad choice again. The wheels just dig deeper into the sand. To finish off the series of bad choices I step on the gas once it is too late to let the front wheel spin several times until the car is totally dug in. The veedub's belly is now resting flat on the sand, and the wheels are fully covered. Good work!

The PBC road book states that it was not necessary to take sand ladders, because plain old pushing is more effective. This is true if you are in a group, but we find out that one man pushing is a joke when the car is stuck like this. We start some more amateur rescue efforts including digging, shoveling, putting small rocks under the tires, using our floormats for traction, and again plain pushing. This doesn't get us anywhere at all.

Remember I said that there are not many people out there? I begin to wonder how we will get out of this. We are in luck and after some time a French couple passes by. They have mercy on us and pull us out with their van. Looks like driving on sand will separate the men from the mice.

We finally catch up with group 2 at he camp site in Dakhla in the very South of West-Sahara. About fourty teams are here, and we split up into groups of five cars each crossing the desert together. For safety reasons at least one of each five-car group is 4-wheel drive truck equipped with a two-way radio, so some for of communication is possible within the group.

A lot of the Volkswagen Golfs suffer from low back suspension, and other teams have gone to a local mechanic to get the suspension raised for the arduous ride through the desert. We have the same problem, but are running out of time to fix anything. We'll just have to pray.

We stack up on food and water, as Dakhla is the last town we will see in a long while. We will be in the desert for three days, and need another day to reach Nouakchott, the capital of Mauretania, where we can refill supplies. For safety reasons it is good to take double the amount of food, water and gas that you expect to use, so the car is filled up with our supplies.

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Friday, January 5, 2007

West-Sahara

We leave Tan-Tan Plage and cross into West-Sahara. The barren regions of the Atlas mountains and the rocky plains South of it are no comparison to the isolation of this deserted region. In Morokko there always were some people dispersed in the landscape - sitting by the side of the road, walking, or seen far away herding sheep - here in the desert there is no soul to be seen for hours, with the occasional exception of a car we pass. A certain feeling of danger creeps up in me.

Around this time of year the sun sets at about seven o'clock here, and to cover more ground we discuss driving for a couple more hours after sundown. A local advises against it because of the danger involved: With absolutely no street lights the night becomes so dark that it is too easy to get into an accident. Further North there was still a reasonable amount of traffic on the road until about nine o'clock in the evening, but here life stops abruptly with the dissapearance of the last ray of sun. Everything goes to sleep. Even the towns are swept empty, places that where bustling with people just half an hour earlier will be dead at sundown. Most of these days we set up tent just around six o'clock and like the locals are in bed by seven.

We arrive in Laayoune - with 190,000 inhabitants the largest city in West-Sahara - in the afternoon. The city is a military outpost with large contingent of UN troops, and soldiers are seen verywhere. After drinking the obligatory peppermint tea at a tea house we decide to stroll around the city.

We chat up with a local, who starts talking to us in Spanish. It turns out West-Sahara was a Spanish colony until the 1960s, after which it became an independent territory. Morokko has since been trying to take control over this sparsely-populated territory with mixed success. The Morokkans have provided infrastructure like paved roads and electricity, and given Morokkans tax incentives to move to West-Sahara, but the West-Saharan people are reluctant to be dominated by their Northern neighbors.

On a street corner we get asked for directions to the local camp site in English. To our surprise the guy is an American traveling through Morokko, West-Sahara, Mali, and Burkina Faso on bike. We are impressed, and we decide to meet up with Darren at the camp site 15 km outside of town in Laayoune Plage. The camp site turns out to be a parking lot with a few camper vans parked on it, no running water and toilet provided. We arrive there just before sunset and find the only other tent around to be Darrens. We enjoy chatting a little with him about Africa, but soon it is time to go to sleep.

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Thursday, January 4, 2007

Morokko

Mario has been to Morokko twice in younger years, and he convinces me that we should go far off the recommended PBC route to get a glimpse of this great country. Morokko shows itself as a peaceful Islamic country with welcoming people and a beautiful variety of landscapes, ranging from the juicy plains of the North via the rocky canyons and snowy mountains of the Atlas to the rock deserts of the Anti-Atlas.

Morokko is quite a well-developed country, with plenty of well-paved roads and electricity. People are quite used to tourists, and many speak a little bit of German or English, while French is spoken almost everywhere. The Morokkans generally are friendly people with strong religious beliefs. We fell welcome in many places and don't get hasseled much anywhere we go.

Our route takes us from our camp site in Asilah in one day via Meknes to Azrou, where we camp in under the clear blue night at the foot of the Atlas mountains. The next day we drive through lunar landscapes, past crimson rock formations, and pass over snowy peaks that remind me of the Swiss alps. We dive deep into oche canyons to reach the other side of the Atlas in Er-Rachidia, and head West along the mountain chain via the street of the Casbahs all the way to Quazazarte. As hours pass the landscape is constantly changing, for the harsh mountains to the fertile plains and then to the barren rock desert.

We stop in a little town called Tazenakht at an internet cafe, where I meet Ahmed the clerk. He was in the middle of chatting with Melanie from Germany, who could'nt see anything strange in this situation. We re not that far away from home after all.

Our pace is fast as we still try to catch up with our group 2 to make sure we don't have to cross the Sahara desert alone. We cover many kilometers each day without the chance to rest in any place for too long. I am longing to dive deep into Africa, so the pace is fine with me. Morokko seems more of a vacation than an adventure, and I hope this will change as we get into more proper African countries.

We head to the coast to Agadir and then finally turn down South to Tiznit, where during camp set up I realize that I left my sleeping bag in Quazazarte airing out on a tree. This mishap leads us to take a detour back to Agadir to buy a new sleeping bag, and back on track down to a small village with the enticing name of Tan-Tan Plage. We are close to the Southern border of Morokko and things finally start feeling like a trip to the Sahara.

We start to see sandy patches in midst of the rock desert, and the population density drops rapidly. I supress imagining a break-down with the car here, where you won't see anybody for hours. It sure would be different than at home, where you can just call your local garage.

In Tan-Tan Plage we camp wild the first time, setting up tent in the sandy beach. It's our first day without shower, toilet, or running water, but it won't be our last.

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Wednesday, January 3, 2007

Souq in Meknes

Monday, January 1, 2007

Fuzzy tits

We're now in a muslim country, and do't want to offend anybody, so I decide to tape the nipples of our fuzzy tits.

Sunday, December 31, 2006

From Tarifa to Tangier

Driving 17 hours without break we reach the Gibraltar straight and Tarifa at 5 am at night. Tarifa is our first meeting point with the other participants of the PBC challenge, and we are excited to see the colorful cars of group 3 at the hotel. At 5 am the reception is closed and everyone is fast asleep. We decide to get out our sleeping bag and stay in the hallway of the hotel.

We wake up around 11 am and try to mingle with the other teams. Unfortunately everyone seems to be occupied with themselves, and there is no group feeling. We could be staying here at the hotel to celebrate the new year, but under these circumstances it sounds much more exciting to touch African soil in Tangier today.

Catching some sun outside a bodega in the harbour of Tarifa we plan the next days. We will cross to Tangier today and drive a few kilometers to the quaint town of Asilah to celebarte the new year small. Mario has a special handicap as he is not allowed to drink alcohol for the next seven days because of his yellow fever vaccination. He stays firm on the issue but I am sure he is suffering silently.


First glimpse of Africa

The PBC roadbook warned us of the chaotic circumstances that make up African life, and I knew to expect hustlers and touts at every street corner trying to rip off your valuable Euros. I read that customs transactions require lots of street savy, with hours of patient waiting and negotiations, where large and small bribes are handed over from time to time.

Sure enough we are thrown into this mess as soon as we get off the ferry in Tangier: A mean fixer tries to pass as an offical, and wants to "help" us through customs. Panic rises from my stomach as I realize that I have just accidentally handed over my passport to this criminal, a thing the road book warns never to do. As a stern customs officer starts demanding some green document that I have never heard of before, and I start panting in rhythm with the accelerated beat of my heart. All the tranquility the day before is suddenly gone and I am deeply stressed.

My panic is in stark contrast to Mario's naive calmness. I am sure he doesn't understand the danger we were in. I am wrong. Mario is an experienced traveller - he has been backpacking in places like India and Australia for six months at a time - and knows very well how to handle the situation. He politely tells the hustler that we will try to get through customs by ourselves, and we get my my passport back without a problem. Mario then asks the customs officer for help on how to get through customs. We get through in less than twenty minutes without bribing anyone. The customs officers are nice and helpful, and even the mean hustler politely backs off and wishes us a good journey. I guess my preception of Africa is a bit off.

Saturday, December 30, 2006

Road Movie

We cruise through the silent Spanish night like a passenger jet that has reached its altitude. The car is enveloped by darkness. We've been driving for twelve hours straight but no one is tired, as if we had countless road trips under our belts and this was nothing new.

The tranquil silence outside mixes with the chords of a dirty rock'n'roll guitar coming out of the stereo to create a road trip feeling you remember from the movies. Fingers lightly strum the beat on the steering wheel as we move on.

The further we get the more my thoughts can let go of the life back home, until I am totally here, not in the past and not in the future. I am focused on tonight, the tour, Spain, the view, and the cool air. My inner tension has stayed behind. I relax.

Sunshine and waves

After a cold night in the tent and a rainy morning we are crossing the border to Spain in bright sunshine. Warm feelings of summer arise as we get our first glimpse of the ocean.

Friday, December 29, 2006

On the road

At last we turn the ignition and head down South for Africa ...

Super Mario to the Rescue

Yesterday Fabian had to throw in the towel and had to cancel his participation in the tour, he was just not fit enough. I am very sad.

By stroke of luck Mario - a friend of mine with whom I had already done my bike-tour from Aachen to Paris - was actually willing to jump in for Fabian. I had been chewing his ear off about the tour for months, and he had already signaled that was a bit jealous. I am surprised, but he agreed on a moment's notice - after calling his parents to tell them about the plan. He does not have the vaccinations and he does not have a valid passport, but we'll manage.

This morning he got the yellow fever shot and a new passport, and now we´re finally off on this great adventure. We are leaving in the next hour and hope to reach Bordeaux by night. Wish us luck!

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Dying to leave

I am all antsy here waiting for green light from Fabian that he is feeling better, but it does not look good for a start tomorrow. He´s dead sick. We have a 1 1/2 day buffer when group 2 meets and spends a day's rest in Tarifa, but if we don´t leave tomorrow morning that buffer is used up and we might have to cross over to Africa alone.

At least this way I had time to put some finishing touches to the website: I added a google map of our tour, which will be updated along the way as we reach our waypoints.

I also added a link page to some sites of interest. I hope you like it.

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Representing Aachen

Aachen is excited about our tour. The largest newspaper printed a nice full-page article about the adventure of their two sons. We hope to stay grounded despite our celebrity status.

Tour Start Delay

Our great adventure tour was supposed to start today, but we have to delay the tour start due to illness of Co-Pilot Fabian. He was struck down by the last rabies vaccination, which he got on December 24th, under the Christmas tree. Now he is labouring a fever. We hope to be one the road by tomorrow morning.

Monday, December 25, 2006

Kraftfahrzeugbrief - The Vehicle Registration Document

"We Germans sure are a bit uptight" I thought to myself with a smile when I read this post about the in the PBC newsgroup:

Kraftfahrzeugbrief: vehicle registration document (do not store in the car, its a certificate of title. [...] Very important. Replacement very difficult! No registration in Germany possible without that! Nearly more important than the cat itself. If you don´t have that paper you are not the legal owner! No matter if you have the car or the keys of what ever.... Without "Kraftfahrzeugbrief" you have nothing!)

I smiled until I looked for the Kraftfahrzeugbrief of the blazing veedub myself. To my amazement it was gone, nowhere to be found in my tidy German filing cabinet. No Kraftfahrzeugbrief, no rallye. How can this be? I am German, I am well organized. Shit!!!

A profound sense of panic struck me. What now? Via the internet I found out that this was not the end of the world after all. The vehicle registration office issues replacement registration documents if you sign an affidavit and pay €80.

At the registration office I explained the mishap the lady in charge and signed the affidavit. "Now you just have to pay €80, and in six weeks you will get a new registration. During this time you are not allowed to sell the car," the lady explained patiently. "What? I need the new registration now. My car needs to go to Africa to be auctioned off for charity." I was devastated. She explained that first an official inquiry had to be made about for the registration before a replacement can be issued, and that the six weeks waiting period is mandatory. On top of that I was told that now that I had signed the affidavit I had to go through with the procedure and pay the €80, because now she knew that the registration document was missing. Great!


The Kraftahrzeugbrief

More panic struck me. In my desparation I already saw myself locked up in a run-down Moroccan prison for forging an official document without bribing officers properly. No water, no food, no toilet paper. The only thing that could save me: Find the damn Kraftfahrzeugbrief. In a mad hunt for the elusive needle in a haystack I went through all my files for the last 15 years, and checked every piece paper I had ever filed. The immense effort finally payed off: I found the darned piece in some totally unrelated papers from 1996. Goodbye you mean Moroccan prison guards, hello PBC!!!

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Thursday, December 21, 2006

Lucky Dove


A good luck charm for our trip

I swear I am not making this up: I was just about to check the oil in the blazing veedub when I found this beautiful little dove under the hood. It was neatly tucked away between air intake and alternator. Without a head. I have no clue how it got there, but it certainly didn´t get sucked in my the massive engine intake.

Well, if that´s not a good luck charm then I don´t know what is. I think I´ll wear it on my keychain so I can rub it for good luck during the trip. Or does anybody else have ideas what to do with it?

Give peace a chance

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Friday, December 15, 2006

The BLAZING VEEDUB Website is Launched

Hi people,

I am happy to announce that the blazing veedub website is launched just in time to keep you updated on the events of our odyssey.

I am working on setting up some form of communication with the website during the trip, sending up-to-date infos as we cross Africa. I haven't heard any reports of Internet cafes along the way, but sending MMS is possible in Morocco, and SMS can be sent from Senegal and Gambia. Crossing the Sahara and Mauretania none of that will work, not even mobile phone.

I am still torn between taking sensitive electronic equipment to shoot good pictures and videos and going back to basics and traveling lightly. Computer is definitely overkill, but that means no videos since I cannot empty the memory card of the camera along the way. Decisions decisions decisions.

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Monday, December 4, 2006

22 Days Left Until Departure



Africa get ready for us

We´re at T-22 preparing for our grand adventure: The Plymouth-Banjul Challenge.

The last months we haven't done much except talk a lot, but now that the departure date is getting closer we are getting things done. Last week we bought the return flights from Gambia: We'll be leaving on the 19th of January, which gives us 4 days to hang out in Banjul and relax.

Other preparations are also well underway: Fabian and I are getting vaccinated every Monday now. There is plenty to vaccinate: Think Yellow fever, Rabies, Tetanus, Pertussis, Hepatitis A, and plenty of other viruses. We are taking the maximum rate of four vaccinations at each doctor's appointment, one shot for each extremity. The result is that we basically can´t use our arms and legs for the rest of the week. No more Friday night dancing for us until we leave!

Mathias and I have successfully installed the luggage rack and glued on the official Plymouth-Banjoul stickers to our trusty car - the Flammen-Golf - today. Still we have lots more to do.

Tomorrow Fabian and I will try to get the international drivers licenses, international insurance, book the ferry to Marokko, and apply for visas to Mauretania. Time is running out for all our preparations.

Tonight I devoured the diary of team Fox Tango reporting from last years challenge, the Plymouth-Banjoul Challenge 2006. Now I seriously can´t wait to hit African soil.

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Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Plymouth - Banjul Challenge: The Kickoff Meeting

Tidde tidde tidde

This weekend was kickoff-party in Plymouth, and co-pilot Fabian and I mastered the first test of our globetrotter survival abilities: Drive nearly 800 km to go meet fellow participants, party, drink lots of alcohol, pass out, and drive back 800 km in less than 48 hours. Done that.

The real odyssey of 6.000 kilometers through dusty deserts and juicy jungles will start on December 26th, and we're hot and ready to go. Now we need to spend our £15 wisely to prepare the car for the ride of a lifetime. We were thinking of buying mudflaps for the money ...

Take a look at these great pictures of last years challenge I found on the internet.

Saturday, May 6, 2006

Plymouth Banjul application accepted!

I had seen a report on this crazy rallye taking beat-up old cars through the desert on television years ago. I was intrigued, and always thought that it would be a great tour for my car. For a long time I was searching the internet for the name of this tour, until one day I just typed in the right keywords in Google and ended up at the official website of the Plymouth-Banjul challenge. I talked to my best friend Fabian about the idea, and he immediately loved it.

And it were Fabian´s words that put me over the edge to finally apply for this endeavor: "You don´t know how much I would love to go on this rallye." As we spoke about the idea his words were so full of yearning for adventure, so full of desire to break out of the constraints of daily live to take back control. I could totally relate.

Since university ended life as an adult has proven to be tougher than expected: I have slowly been transformed from an individual in control of his destiny to an animal fleeing from one danger to the next, just constantly reacting to the problems life was posing. I had gone from acting to reacting. I was in need for a sign that life had more to offer.

This adventure smelled like taking back control, of choosing destiny beyond the daily obligations. We will go to Africa! The same night I applied for our team to take part in the Plymouth - Banjul challenge, and now - four weeks later - we got the official notice that we are officially approved as participants. What a great feeling to choose destiny again!