Some quotes from the roadbook

Some generic advice: “keep in mind that when we use the term “possible” it means “possible”. It doesn’t mean “easy”, “piece of cake”,  “without any effort”, “without shoveling”, “without sweating”, “without sacrifice”, “without pain”. It just means “possible”, which is the direct opposite of impossible.”
About wrong expectations: “Don’t ever expect a party to happen at night. Organize one.”
How to prepare: “Achieve final balance and harmony before the big challenge. You must be of sound mind and body to embark on the Budapest-Bamako. Come clear your mind, heal your body and find harmony with the universe at our yoga mediation session before the start”.
About the main sights of a Moroccan town: “The town is famous for its skilled mechanics.”
Accomodation options: “If you don’t feel like roughing it and camping today there are some sub-standard, bed bug infested little hotels in town. Enjoy!”
About entering Mauritania: “Today you’ll be entering the land of alcohol prohibition so finish your supplies.”
About the Morocco-Mauritania border crossing: “The border crossing will be somewhat annoying and nerve wrecking. Be cool! Be patient and accept your fate. The Moroccan border has three stages. Consider it an obstacle course … There are no police or military here. There’s no law. However, there are plenty of mines …  After the minefield you’ll arrive at the Mauritanian side. The bureaucratic nightmare will continue here.”
About the Mauritania-Senegal border crossing: “Consider the Morocco-Mauritania border a walk in the park compared to this one.”
About Mauritanian stages: “Please fill up every extra can. Have 10 days worth of food and water ration. You will not be able to shop for the next 2-3 days.”
“Find the spot where you can cross over to the beach road. Mark the spot with an empty can or by placing one of your mates there as a living road marker. Get back into your car. Build up speed … Don’t run over your friend unless you want to!”
“You’ll have to get through an insane dune field. If you get stuck here there isn’t enough money to pull you out. You’re better off buying a new car than have your old one towed. The wrecks will attest to that.”
“Sandboard here. Sorry no ski lifts!”
About the quality of maps of Senegal: “It’s imperative, that you don’t start following someone else today hoping that he knows the right way. Chances are that you’ll get lost together.”
About dangers in Niokolo Koba: “No bush camping tonight!!! There are real wild animals here that can attack you any time. If you get stuck, sleep in the car.”

Roadbook, maps, etc.

The first edition of the rally roadbook has arrived a few days ago.  Great reading material, funny and informative.  In less than one month we will be on the road again, the fever of excitement is rising.
In parallel we are preparing the maps. We will use Android tablets as the main navigation tool this year, they have much better displays than GPSes and are smaller and easier to use than laptops. I tried a lot of different navigation apps, most of them, even those which are not free of charge, are crap. Finally OruxMaps emerged as the winner of the contest, highly recommended if you are into geocaching.
During the last nights I prepared a nice set of maps:

  • Russian military maps last updated in the 80s, but still providing the most details (the main alternatives have not been updated since WW2)
  • Satellite images (you are not allowed to download Google Earth images, but there are other sources, just search on the Internet for offline satellite images). The ones I found have a resolution of around 10m!
  • And finally Open StreetMap for the cities.

OruxMaps allows to easily switch between them and automatically loads the next map if you leave the area covered by one.

You have reached the first post of the blog, sorry

No more pages to load