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With a Mercedes 190
D From Holland to Mali
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| Gadgets,de
Navigator, GPS handheld, Garmen Etrex whit
attitude . find your way is a peace of cake, unless your stuck at an big
river or canyon always 'Tout Droit'. The Camelback, Like an Camel U can store your water, 3 liters, on your bag and allways drink when u want to. I had the Hawk on my trip an it never leaked so its Cave proofe. Super tool, old fasion army knive, happely only neaded for making breakfast. Headlight, always handy to use in the dark, and it gets pretty quik dark over there. But whit an full moon U can see all. Camping gaz... oke its almost commen, but handy for light and cooking. Converter van 12V, from the car, to 220V, handy for my camera to load and other small electric divises that are not gadgets.(top) . |
| Sounds:Your
far away from home so your about to hear differten things your not used
to. It starts in Spain, not really special, whit an all night concert
of frogs. Some Birds in Bamako made a strange noice in te morning, it
sounds like someone is using his remote to open his car. but then a parkinglot
in 5 minuts. The continious humming of the airco. In the netherlands we
have special cars that whip the pavement whit a lot of noice, but they
pass. Art wrote about it and I heard it. The Sound of silliance. True
silliace is that U only hear the humming of your vains in the ears(top) . |
| Travel,Our
light blue Mercedes 190 D, 19 years old. Sold to rest his live probebly
as an cap. Capdriver is realy popylar, if your have an car, U are an 'Taximan'.
the cost is always the same nomethere how far. Up to 6 passengers wil
fit in an mercedes. We have tried it whit 6 men plus taximan. Oke its
not royal class but we made it. There are also small green vans is Bamako
that are rebuild as an taxivan so up to 22! people wil fit. No doors so
you can get in en out quikly. On the countryside everything on wheels
is an taxi. They sit on top of Trucks, in the back of pickups, U name
it.(top) . |
         
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| childeren,They are al hapy and the all want gifts, cadeau, when there are lots of they get nothing or just a colourfull magazine. The love that. Bic ballpens an baloons are allso nice to give. The baby are tide up at the bag of the mother and they seem to like it. I saw millions of them and the only time I heard an baby cry was in the airplain back to Europe.(top) |
| Food,
Camping gaz whit an light friing pan. Easy for soups, sausage and tea.
U can easy buy bread all day. The frence leard them to make a fine pice
of bread. 40 liters water extra. Buy it in spain, oke The fake Coke was
cheaper than the water... only 26 eurocent for 2 liter. Make lots of tea,
not the sweat on the normal. Alcohol: when u like it, pernot (mix with water), whisky/wodka, beer is too heavy and lukewarm, yeh I had to search for that word. And all day Coca Cola, don't ask for Cola, they simply don't know what that is. So Coca Cola is right, there is only one.(top) |
 
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Oders: Lots off awfull smells, so here and there you think, yes I might eat this. It all starts in spain, just with a reagular 'smel' of industries. Lots of Gasolin Cars whit huge black smoke. Close your window. In Marakesh and Bamako there was smog. In day hour of the vehicles in the evening the people cookt on the street whit small barbeque's.(top) |
| Sports, Hmm.. I think, they don't do it. At al? Oke a few men on a racebike, real riskey on that roads and traffic, a jogger, and lots of soccer. Mali selebrated there 4th place of the Afrika Cup when we just arrived in Bamako. Oke I sandboarded on a dunde and thats it.(top) |
| Telephone, take your old mobile whit U. They want to buy it. We could call whit our phons all the way up in Marrok. In Mali we bought an prepaid sim-card. In every street U see an Teleboutique. With or whitout telephone.(top) |
| Animals
they don't know pets, U rarely see dog's. Dogs are filty annimals, the
islam says. Lots of donkey's, sheeps, goats and cows near and on the roads.
Grasshoppers by the million in Marrok, and Camels in the Sahara. When
U see a goat on the road: stop or drive at realy low speed. When U see a Donkey: Drive past him at any speed When U see a Cow: go slowley and they walk on(top) |
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| Route, the route we followed From the Netherlands, via Antwerp> Paris> Bordeaux> Madrit> Algeciras> boot too Ceuta>(Marokko) Meknes>Marrakesh>Agadir> too Dakhla allong the coast> (Mauritanië)Nouadibou> Nouakchott>eastwards to youna dela tous> south Sahel> (Mali) Diema> Bamako. I think that wil do it! Take a guid throug the sahara or an 4x4 whit gps. at the end we had driven about 7500 km in 14 days. (top) |
| Don't forget ,tools: 2x pump for cartire, U want to pump it up after U let some air out to drive better in the sand. Once we went down to 0.8 bar. We started at 2.5 bar. Screwdrivers, wrech and hammer to nail your tent. I cut a snowboard in 2 so we could use that as a board to put under the wheels to get grip. And 1/2 snowboard is a great shovel(top) |
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Cloth, 1x strong
boots, a pair long and short pants, some socks lots of T's, 2 whit long
sleefs, for the muskitos, on warm hoody. It doesn't matter how U look.
U look strange!! |
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| Sleep: F1 hotel, camping, impregnate..... your innertent againt muskitos, for malaia. When U camp in the wild, not everybody have to see u and leave nothing behind. A official campsite is mostly nothing more than an a dusty site whit walls surrounded. Somtimes U can't camp u have to rent a small room. On the map u can see on the red spots where we went overnight. We spent 6 nights in a 'hotel' some whitout running water but with 50 liters of water to do your thing.(top) |
| Officiel,
U have to arrange a lot of shit at home, think about insurance, your ID
has to be valid vor 6 month at least. It's handy to make some copy of
your ID, whit extra info like: were U life, work u do, were u about
to go. It helps to get U throug the controlls quiker. At most boarders
or big cities in neighbour countries U can by Visa. Check also your vacinations,
malaria etc...Once we counted the checkpoint we had to do over 560 km.
26 times we h ad to stop.(top) |
| Internet, All bigger places have an cybercafe. U have to be luckie because sometimes there not connected. Or once the Power went off by all computers. And the speed of the connection is really great. Share one 33k6 modem whit 8 computers so U have to be patient. In Nouckchott the had an pretty good connection and even flatscreens.(top) |
| Garbage,dirt... I think they allready stopt cleaning in Spain. But Afrika is worse. Directly outside every village they dump it all and let it fly away. Oke cars dont fly away, they wil be stripted. In Bamako they have an open suir. When it gets stuck, they just drop the dirt out of the suir on the street, let it dry and after a vieuw days the burn in at the same place. Onve I saw somethng like an garbage collector whit a donkey.(top) |
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