The last two weeks were ruled by paperwork: Visa forms, passport photos, car insurance, personal insurance, CB radio and sat phone permits, car tax, donation agreements, and probably a few more which I forgot already.I hope everything is complete now. We are supposed to receive our visas, permits, and the starting number in a few weeks.
On the equipment side, there are the follwing new items piling up in the trunk of Baby Beast:

• second spare tire (still without a rim, Baby Beast’s strange rim size is hard to find on ebay)
• two aluminum sandplates
• a 12V to 230V converter
• a tent (we left our tent in Mali last time, I found a cheap new one for 30 Euros, I hope it will be OK for two weeks)
• a shovel my father donated