January 28, 2018 The finish line of the rally was in Serrekunda, right next to the capital city of Banjul. It’s a beach town, so hotels and restaurants have sprung up near the main road on the beach in the last few years that cater to tourists from Western Europe. While tourism has rapidly … Read more
January 27, 2018 The Gambia is the smallest country on the African continent. Yet to get from Janjanbureh to Tendaba, about 100 miles, took us several hours. This was due to the countless roadblocks that are present on every main road in the country. This is apparently nothing new, the country is used to having … Read more
January 26, 2018 I wasn’t even surprised anymore whenever we got lost. We wanted to go off-road and follow the provided GPS coordinates but the itinerary proved to be very challenging. We ended up on a track that turned out to be a dead-end; the Gambia River didn’t let us continue, and the track … Read more
January 25, 2018 A noise woke us up in the morning as if we had set up our tent in the middle of a village market. About 50 cars were camping under a bunch of baobab trees and since we were never really far away from some villages, we were inevitably found by the … Read more
January 24, 2018 We were woken up early by the muezzin, so we weren’t the last ones to get ready in the morning for a change and we even had time for breakfast. We filled up in St Luis and headed for the savanna. From an off-roading perspective, it was going to be an … Read more
January 23, 2018 Nouakchott wasn’t supposed to be on our off-road tour itinerary, so we had to plan our own route for this day in order to meet up with the rally teams again. It was still the three of us together: Mate and Aliz in the Porsche, Gyuri and Jim in the Discovery. … Read more
January 22, 2018 The off-road stage that followed the very difficult Sahara Desert section from the previous day would be similarly difficult, we were told. Hence, we decided to skip the off-road section and head straight down to the capital city, Nouakchott, on paved roads. The off-road stage from this day was supposed to … Read more
January 21, 2018 The rally stage from our desert camp near Bou Lanoar to the bivouac near Atar turned out to be the most challenging of the whole trip. We had a very early start again because we knew the stage was not going to be an easy one at all. Marc from California, … Read more
January 20, 2018 We started our day very early, leaving the camp at around 6 am. We were heading for the Mauritanian border, and knowing that another 130 cars had the same plans for the day, we wanted to make sure we weren’t going to be last in the queue. It was still pitch … Read more
January 19, 2018 One of the downsides – among many – of a disputed territory such as Western Sahara, is that some areas can be full of landmines. In some parts of this region it’s not advised to go off-road, which is why the official rally stage was getting us directly down to Dakhla … Read more
January 18, 2018 Our goal for the day was Laayoune, the Capital of Western Sahara, about 360 miles from Icht. After quickly washing the mud off of the windscreens, we left the hotel, driving west towards Plage Blanche. The Plage Blanche is at least a 40-mile long white sand beach tucked between the Atlantic … Read more
January 17, 2018 I’ve done some research around the definition of ‘off-roading’ or ‘off-road driving’, and there is a debate on where can you draw a line between on-road and off-road. I don’t think we need to necessarily define them and put them in their own box, because some non-paved roads (i.e. roads that … Read more
January 16, 2018 Today’s stage was Midelt to Ouarzazate. We started very early, at around 6.30am, and headed for the off-road tracks and river beds. The previous day’s drive was really nothing compared to this one. Sharp rocks on the tracks, snow, huge drops, sunshine and nearly dry riverbeds made the first half of … Read more
January 15, 2018 Great sleep on the ferry, during which we arrived in… Spain. Melilla is still Spain so we had the border crossing in front of us. We expected it to be chaotic – and it certainly was. Hustlers and ‘Hello, my friend’-type helpers approached people constantly while we waited in line for … Read more
January 14, 2018 After a great, long sleep in the outskirts of Munich the previous night, we felt so relaxed (well, Evelin did – I crashed around 3.00am) that we carried on driving overnight, only stopping for a couple of hours sleep in one of the rest areas on the Spanish motorway just after … Read more
January 13, 2018: Not much happened on this day other than trying to get as close to Almeria, Spain, where our ferry left from, as possible. Motorway miles, just to get to the end of the continent. Let’s talk about the Rally itself then. So what is the Budapest-Bamako Rally? The short answer: a great … Read more
January 12, 2018 Start date! The long awaited start date of the Budapest-Bamako Rally had actually arrived. It was quite a long wait, with preparations taking place over the previous weeks and even months. A trip to Africa was on our list for quite a while but never been to that continent, we decided … Read more