Sorry for not having blogged more recently. As we are approaching the start date, more and more missing and still to do things pop up:

• the SMS to e-mail feature of our Thuraya sat phone doesn’t work. Spent half a night trying (most of the time outside at 1 degree below freezing, since a sat phone does not work indoor) but giving up now. We will have to connect with our notebook to the Internet to blog 🙁
• started to enter the waypoints of the stages into our GPS. Corresponding to the philosophy of the Budapest-Bamako there are not too many waypoints in the roadbook (we’ve got the coordinates of every corner of the Monaco Formula One racetrack, but for the offroad sections there are sometimes 3-4 points only). However Google Earth is perfect to fly over the stages and to add some more points. It’s a pity it doesn’t work offline.
• There are still some small things to be done in the car: add at least one more loudspeaker (there is only one working now) to enjoy music in stereo, mount the roof rack, etc.
• sort, label, pack the donations. The picture below shows what I did today: 20 boxes, more than 250kg. This is approximately 50% of the things we received. Computers, clothes, drugs. I will deliver them on Wednesday to the African-Hungarian Union, the organization running the truck which is accompanying the race. I hope they have enough space left for our stuff…

We proudly announce to have finalized our second charity project. We are cooperating with the Mali branch of SOS Children’s Villages International and donate computers, toys, and books to their schools in Bamako. Read more about the project on our Charity Page.

This is to test that the mobile blogging feature I just installed works. Sending this post from my mobile. I can also embed pictures: