Budapest to Bamako 2022. Or how I learned to stop worrying and love the strangers.

Nothin left to it, but to do it!  Here's the party

 

This place is wild, though I tell ya.  Not the party, but the locals.  you'll walk down the street and they'll whistle at ya.  If you don't respond they'll make kissy noises at ya.  When you do respond, they ask for money.  People will ride by on mopeds and shout  "HEY!  I love you!!!!"  It's all a bit much, and that level of unsolicited friendlyness always makes me uneasy.

At the party I've got Jack on the chat and he's got no cash.  I've hit up like 2 different ATMs at this point, and dinged each of them for the max amount I could, multiple times.  I tell him to hang on and I got his back.

I book it back to the room (through all the "hey, I love you's" and kissey noises) and grab a million out of my money envelope.  I snag a tuk tuk back and drop it on the table.  Jack's gonna have a good night.

Back at our table, it's great times.  Team India is with us, so is Bananas, and Slow-Vakia.  Much beer drinking and eating follows.  Mostly fish and french fries in the food department, and beer runs are done 6-beers at a time because of the lines (might as well get one for everyone!).

There are certificates for the finishers, and I'm sure to grab mine.  We drink until it's well after late and cheerfully walk back to the hotel.  More kissey noises from beggars, and "hey, I love you!"'s and of course  one guy who absolutely WILL NOT leave us alone  (I love you!  We are friends!  yes, we are best friends!  You are my friend and I love you!!!).    Man, I tell you what.  This bed is going to feel so damn nice after all this...

So there we are...  I survived the Budapest to Bamako 2022 rallye, and all I got was this stupid certificate   

To be continued...

Thanks for your stories - It's so great to read them in the evenings - this make me smile and puts me in a good mood - crazy adventures 

 an eska paska to hold it all together!

Viva an eska paska!!! 

it seems that they are the only reason the truck didn't fall apart in this trip 

I've been worried about one question for a long time - how did you get through whole Europe without turn blinkers?

It's your the best picture of the entire trip  ever!!!

Even the GPS is in Slovakian... 

Sorry, man, but... I laughed a lot here 

Burreh Beach is so beautiful!!! amazing views!!!

VikkiDp said:

Thanks for your stories - It's so great to read them in the evenings - this make me smile and puts me in a good mood - crazy adventures 

 an eska paska to hold it all together!

Viva an eska paska!!! 

it seems that they are the only reason the truck didn't fall apart in this trip I've been worried about one question for a long time - how did you get through whole Europe without turn blinkers?

aaaaah!  No spoilers!  But I will give you a little hint:  Those aren't actually "turn signals".  They don't blink.  They're simply side markers that light up when the headlights are on.  I never knew this until I hit a deer once back in 2003 or so (I had a 1987 Toyota 4x4).  It damaged both of those lights and the orange ones mounted in my bumper.  At the time I didn't have much money so I was buying lights two at a time.  Wanting to be as safe as possible, I bought those (the most expensive ones) first!

It didn't fix a damn thing... I still had no turn signals

It's your the best picture of the entire trip  ever!!!

I had so much fun making jokes with that picture 

I couldn't help myself.

Even the GPS is in Slovakian... 

Sorry, man, but... I laughed a lot here 

Wait for the next couple of days.  The Slovakian gets worse before it gets better 

There I was.  Freetown, Sierra Leone and exactly zero plans for the day... 

I guess we'll call this "trip +1".  There's no itinerary, there's no crowd, there's just..... nothing!

I'm up at 7am after the party and I take another cold shower in my room.  I would give just about anything for a nice, warm, relaxing shower at this point.  I still have YET to have one on this continent!

It does feel good to wake up and not be in a camp site, and to NOT have to tiptoe around to avoid disturbing people.

We had talked a bit last night and Bananas want's to go to a place called "Banana island" (for obvious reasons).  They wont head straight there though.  The idea is we will first head to a beach resort just to the south (most of the Bananas will take a Taxi) and from there they'll peel off (pun intended) and catch a ferry to the island for 2 days.  I plan it out in my head and I could probably BARELY make it back to my truck in time if I went, but ultimately I don't want to squeeze it.  I'm only supposed to take 2-days to rest before I start my drive back north.  And even then I would rather start today instead of sitting around (I tell this much to Jack over messenger, he's in the same ballpark but the hotel is very expensive and very much already paid for so he also opts to stay). 

What I decide is I'll stay at the resort without the bananas and drive back to meet Jack at the Merriot and we'll both travel north together.

Downstairs we decide to clean up the truck a bit before we enter this next chapter of our journey.  Roman is the Banana who will be staying behind with us and he helps out

Maaaaan.  Nostalgia is hitting hard.  Every item we pull out triggers another memory.  Katka's 3-euro shovel (she bought it online before the rally thinking she found a great deal on a folding shovel.  When she got it, it almost fit in the palm of her hand!).   The Decathlon "foldable organizer bin"  (which I'm still 100% positive we only bought because the two of us couldn't fold it back up in the store). 

It's a bit sad, really.

Wandering around the truck, I cant help but notice the CB antenna is bent at a funny angle...

somebody snapped the fiberglass between yesterday and today.  We think it was probably when the man decided to wash the truck (because it certainly wasn't broken when we parked)

We wander of to breakfast and Team Kangoo (the Slovakian family) is already there.  We join them and I order an "African omelette" for breakfast which just turns out to be green onions folded into a 2-egg omelette

ah well.

Back in the room I lay in bed and don't move for a bit.  It's really new and really new to me to not have to constantly move and I'm not entirely sure what to do.  Eventually I pick up the phone to message Mrs. Hungary and notice I have a message waiting for me.  It's not good.  I hadn't sent anything last night because of the party and I didn't send anything this morning so I'm in a bit of trouble again.

Katka knocks and says she want's to go through the truck again, so we do.

We talk while unpacking (again) and it gets really depressing as we go.  Mostly because of all the failed hopes and dreams.  Here's some examples:

- She has this bug zapper lamp that you might have seen a couple times in photos of camp.  Back before the start I hung it off the back of the truck like a gypsy lantern and it looked so fitting, like this was our gypsy caravan.  We thought we'd hang it there when we camped (again, like we were all in a gypsy caravan) but never did.

- The foldable decathlon bin was again joked about.  Back when we bought that we were so optimistic about the trip.  When we unfolded that in the store and it quite literally burst open, we had a big laugh.  When we couldn't get it closed, Katka simply stuffed it under her arm, half zipped up, as we marched confidently to the counter, we laughed even harder.  Here it is, and now what are we going to do with it?

- we still have TONS of donations for a school that we never visited!  All these school supplies and even an iPad that we collected (and protected through the entire drive).  The bumps and bruised they survived, and the leaky roof, and all the things we did to make sure they got here and now they have nowhere to go...

- We have paints in the car for the school kids who were supposed to receive the school supplies.  our idea was to paint their hands and let them put hand prints all over the truck and we never got that chance either.

- and then there was the deflated finish line.  We went through everything and didn't even get to take that last team photo under the Budapest to Bamako podium...

It's stupid, but this whole time we were all so ready to be done with everything, and now that it IS all done we're all sad about it.

This sucks.

We eventually get the truck re-packed up.  Patrik wrote Katka's phone and informed her that he might have to work so Bananas might not go to Banana Island after all.

I was checking the power steering fluid when that happened, and we're low enough that I need to top up.  The problem is, I haven't seen any fluid to do so in any of the gas stations since... well... ever!  I sent out a message to the whatsapp chat, and someone in a Landcruiser has "red stuff" that he doesn't mind giving away.  I give him an ETA, but we're still waiting for that laundry we dropped off last night so we're still stuck at the hotel for the time being.

Katka is messing about on her phone and finds a school in Sussex that might be a candidate for our school supplies.  She gives them a call, and someone over there speaks english!  We jot down their address, but this won't be a today thing.

Eventually the laundry is done, Bananas exits stage left in a taxi, and Katka, Roman, and I pay our tab around 11:30am and are about to leave the hotel when Roman notices something under the truck...

It's coolant.  And worse, it's coming out of the weep hole on the water pump.

*sigh*

Ok.  Nothing we can do about that right this minute.  We decide we'll get that power steering fluid from the Landcruiser man and go from there.  The power steering is starting to make that "dry sound" and I dont like it.

Just up the road, we pull into Landcruiser man's hotel parking lot and get the fluid

It's one bottle of Dextron and one bottle of Type-A.  Dextron is what the truck needs, but I take the type-a as well as I figure something is better than nothing if I run into an emergency.

and speaking of emergencies, about that failed water pump:

We google a bit, and I use the ATM real quick to pull out more cash (again, three times I dinged the ATM for whatever the maximum amount is) as I figure we're going to need it for this repair.  I brought almost everything under the sun, but I most certainly did not bring an extra water pump with me.  The receptionist at the hotel doesn't know where a mechanic is so we try the Whatsapp chat, but no one has a spare pump fur us (The 4-Runner is a bit unique).  One of the teams says a mechanic chain called "Dads" is highly recommended in the area.  We look online but dont find anything.

Katka finds a shop on google maps but it has no reviews.  it IS in an industrial area though, so we figure if it's no good then we can walk from there.

We all hop in, and off we go!!!

Right into traffic...

and it's hot.

and I'm watching that temperature gauge like a hawk.

It gets to the point that I'm turning off the truck any time we're stopped.  The gauge isn't reading "hot" yet, but I have no idea how far we're going to have to limp this thing.  We're still not to Katka's garage, but I look kind of diagonal right and HOLY SMOKES!  It's a DAD'S!!!!  And it lists "Toyota" as their specialty!

We pull in and I show the first mechanic I see the issue and point to the water pump.  Then I clean off hte 22-RE sticker and I ask if they can help. 

"Ah, yes!" He says.  Then he says they can help, and it'll be 2-hours (assuming they can find a water pump for our old girl.  See?  I KNEW paying $20 to put that 22-RE sticker back on the valve cover would pay off!)

ok then.  This is what we're doing!

The man driving it into the garage isn't the same man that said he'd fix it.  I'm thinking "lot attendant" versus "mechanic" here.  I have no idea what this guys' plan was for pulling it in, but it isn't working.  Furthermore he is having the WORST time with the clutch.

Eventually he gets the truck parked where he wants it, and shuts it down.  I can smell my clutch at this point.

A crowd gathers around the truck and the mechanic peels off to come talk to me.

"sir, your clutch..." he starts

"yeah man, I  can smell it!  Listen, if I would have known it was your guy's first time driving a stick then I would have offered to park it for him!"

"but your clutch..." he tries to continue

"it's new" I interrupt (and it is.  It doesn't have much more than 6-months of operation on it) and he doesn't push the issue any further.

meanwhile, we get settled in for a long sit

Once we're settled and the water pump is removed from the truck, our mechanic tears off on a motorcycle out into traffic.

I peel off first.  We're going to need more cash if we're going to pay for a mechanic and I don't know what I have in my wallet right now, but it couldn't be more than $175 or $200 or so.  It just takes SO MUCH Sierra Leone cash to equal anything that you really have to completely drain an ATM to get anything of value.

setting off on foot, I follow the main drag outside the garage.  There are a couple ATMs nearby on google maps and I try them all.  None of them work.

Walking out further I can see a few more.

nope.

Walking out further...

(you get the point).

I'm easily gone for the better part of an hour at this point and have taken a few left hand turns to stay on the main drag.  ATM after ATM is met with fault after fault and none of them are the same.

Some don't work at all, some the buttons dont work, some wont communicate with my bank.

Eventually I get to one that takes my card AND my pin and then just...

That's it.  It just stopped there.

With my card in it, and my pin entered, and my desired withdraw amount, it just...  stopped there!!!!

For MINUTES on end, I just stared at that screen wondering what to do.  I know "minutes" doesn't sound like a long time when you read this, but when your card is in the machine and your truck is in the shop and you're waiting for some cash so you can walk nearly an hour back... 

oh my god.

Eventually it spits out cash and I'm left with another decision.  Go looking for a better ATM, or try this one that I know will eventually work.

Yup, I'm a glutton for punishment.  I know this one will eventually give me cash so I hit it for all it's worth.

Pockets filled to the brim with cash, I finish my last transaction and start back to the truck

CFC???  Didn't we ban those for putting holes in the Ozone layer?

Someone is having just as bad of a day as we are...

I'm back at the truck and it's been over an hour now.  No one is around it and the man on the motorcycle hasn't come back.

Katka tells me that one of the mechanics was telling her they might just replace the seal on the pump, and asked if we had one.

I'm 100% positive we do not have a bearing (not a seal) for the water pump.  I tell her (and a mechanic) as much and sit down nedt to Roman.  Then lightning hits my brain!

Inside the truck, and behind one of the side panels, I stashed a complete engine gasket set!  Maybe there's something in there that they can use.

I pull out everything "seal related" and show it to the mechanics so they'll have a reference.  They keep calling it a "carbonizer kit" and I have no idea why.  But that's not important right now, I simply set it on the driver's seat so if there IS something they can use then they know where they can find it.

Then we go back to waiting.  two hours pass, and then almost three.  Still no motorcycle.

"It's either going to be the complete pump, or they'll find the seal" they keep telling us.

We're starting to run out of water, and now the sun's moved so we're running out of shade too.  Katka and Roman decide to head out and look for food.

Out they go, and I sit on Roman's bag.  It has all his passports, etc, in it so I promise not to let it out of my sight (and I dont).

Fun fact!  That engine gasket kit was actually from a Volkswagen Taro.  Apparently it came equipped with a 22R engine from Toyota, so when I went poking around Europe for replacements it's what I found

It was 14:30 when I got back to the garage.  Just a brief sit before Roman and Katka set off for food. They've been gone for a long time.

That motorcycle man still has not returned...

What the heck is taking so long???

at 15:30, I get a message from Katka.  It's simply a picture of the menu

"American burger with fries, please.  Also the chicken ceasar wrap!  Bill hungry!"  I reply

Eventually the motorcycle man returns.

He shows me the new water pump:

I don't know where in S.L he found it, but I guess it's been sitting on the shelf for so long it started to rust!

I send a message off to Katka to let them know the status update.

and then I wait.

and wait

and wait.

16:30 I send a message to Katka again "Were you guys kidnapped or is the kitchen still trying to catch and kill the cow???"  I ask

"We're waiting for the card to work" she replies.  "and waiting for the food"

She asks for a status update on the truck and I tell her they're being slow as berk.  There are 3-mechanics on the truck and not a single wrench in sight.  I get to thinking that Julius and I need to open a 4-wheel-drive garage out here, we'd be RICH!

By 17:00 I can see that the water pump is finally making it back in.  I shoot off a message to Katka

I never get a reply, but the mechanic is talking to me now:

"Green or red coolant, sir?"

Green

"ok, and the mix sir?"

half and half

"Got it, sir.  Thank you!"

Katka and Roman arrive immediately afterwards and I begin to eat my burger.  It's so hot out, and I'm so thirsty (we're a bit low on water at this point) that I'm probably not going to eat that cesar wrap.  Ah well.

Eventually it's time to pay and we're told we owe 4.2 million Sierra Leone bucks (I think that's about $250) and as I'm leaving our group to go pay the cashier Katka says "see if you can talk them down!"

yeah, right.  I'm not a negotiator on the best of days.  Nevermind they have all the power here.

I sit in the office forever at an empty desk before a woman finally arrives.  She tells me the price (4.2 mil) and I count it out.

Then she counts it out.

"How in the world do you manage when things cost so MUCH?" I ask

"you get USED to it" she says jovially.

and I bet you do.  But man...

What's done is done and I get a receipt.  It may have taken a while, but this was a good spot to break down.  Remembering the "driving into the garage" incident, I take the keys and hop in the driver's seat.  I sit for a second with the engine running while I wait for the gate to open and our mechanic tells me I'm not allowed to drive out, but he will for me.

"ok.  But are you going to be easier on my clutch?" I ask

he promises.

and he was.

First stop was a fuel station.  1.2-million in the tank and boy am I glad we hit every ATM for all it was worth!

Here we go, guys.  Tokeh Beach, or bust!

Man, I should have posted this map at the beginning of this day, but honestly I didn't know where we would end up so that's going to be my excuse.  Going forward, I don't know how I'm going to do the maps as I don't ever know where we're going to go, or when we're going to get there.  I want you guys to see things as I see them in the trip, and not how I look back on them now.  But I digress, "Tokeh beach or bust!"

So it's 45 minutes to Tokeh beach and there at the bottom you can see "Banana Island"

The road is all pavement except for the very end.  There's about 300-meters of dirt road and as hard as I tried to keep the truck clean, there was one puddle that we were forced to go through.  The truck is dirty again... I can't help but think that's going to be a pain in the butt if we're still planning on having kids is Sussex put their handprints on the side.

Anyhoo, we go to check in and we're told that there is one room left and one cabin left.  Each sleeps two people, but the cabin does not have a bathroom (only a bed).

"Well, I'll take the cabin" katka says.

"No, better let me" I reply

She protests and I respond with "listen.  When you get up to pee in the middle of the night, do you want to go behind a tree or in a toilet?"

"I'll take the room!" she tell Matt.

Matt is a British man who is running the counter here.  He moved down 6-years ago and is totally at peace with life.  He loves it and says he doesn't regret it a bit.  I can imagine, and I can see it on his face that he's 100% genuine.

We can charge the rooms and everything to the card, but it needs to be on Katka's card since I'm leaving a day earlier than everyone else.  This will include our bar tabs and I 100% plan on running one up.  I tell her as much but we're using an app called "splitwise" to document all our spending on this trip so things will be split equally between us in the end.

We go to our rooms and it turns out that the Bananas are Katka's neighbor.  We were kind of expecting that.

What we weren't expecting was that Lukas and Misha would be my neighbors!  It turns out that this is where those two disappeared to after we parted ways in Guinea.

Electricity here is only available between 6pm and 6am, and that includes wifi.

Time to get settled in!

The beer tap is empty, but I get a cold Mutzig and park on a beach chair.

I'm using this time to get caught up on notes and messages.  I notice that Julius has a book and is reading a few chairs down.  I decide this is a damn good idea so I get my book and another beer and join him

The sun goes lower, and so does the quantity of beer in my bottle.  Eventually it's time to return my book to the cabin and join the group at the bar.  In doing so, I walk by the DJ booth (who's just setting up to play music) and MAN do I catch the smell of weed.  Is that Matt??? 

No.. some other white guy in the hotel.  No idea.

anyhoo!

I sit down and a gin and tonic is placed in front of me.  We talk about the trip for a while and it's nice to go over memories with everyone.  We talk about our running jokes, and Katka and I tell the other guys about or "Imagine Wagons" and sing "and we're driving, through the jungle!"

phone... phone... phone...

not much later the English disappears and it's all Slovakian again.  I excuse myself for the night.

Excited to hear more when you have time!

Sunflowerbw said:

Excited to hear more when you have time!

Man, I do apologize.  I let this go way longer than I intended.  Here goes:

There I was.  We just said our goodbyes to the children and were ready to start the engine and back out of the lot.  "click!".  Um... could someone give us a push?

Trip +2

I'm up at 6am, and just in time to catch the last of the wifi.  It's time to get caught up on my messages.  The chat is alive with people trying to sell vehicles, local currency, US dollars, and sharing hotel/travel info.  Some are headed to the airport in Freetown, others are hopping on a ferry, it's a lot.

Once done I take another cold shower and sit down for my morning coffee.  Looks like I'm the first to wake up again (sigh).

Patrick and the rest of the Bananas wake up and as if on cue a local meets them at the left-most edge of the property with a plate:

The owner of the hotel comes out to investigate (he's not a fan of having locals bother his residents) but Patrick explains that he set out last night and set this up.  The hotel owner just starts laughing "You went out and set this up?"

Yup!

"And you're actually eating it.  Just like this?"

Yup!

(laughing, and with a slight accent) "you guys are crazy, man.  Crazy!"

I chose not to partake.  Seafood is not my thing, aside from things with fins.  But I love these Bananas.  Their "do not give a berk" attitude is infectious, and it helps already "loose" me loosen up a bit more.

Back at the hut (cabin?) I take the opportunity to change and get my bags reorganized.  When we were in Freetown, Katka made contact with a school nearby and today is going to be our delivery.  I just have to kill a bit of time in between.  I snag my book and head back to the covered area and Misha and Katka are talking in Slovakian.  If there's any testament to how much Slovakian language I've been around, it's this conversation right here.

Misha is explaining to Katka in Slovakian that they brought some stuff to donate to a school as well.  Mostly bags.  Katka is responding in Slovakian and telling her we're about to head over to one to drop off our stuff.  Misha says if we go over and knock on the door of their hut then Lukas will give us their bags.

Katka looks at me:  "Go talk to Lukas and he'll give us the bags?" I ask.

"um.  yeah" Katka responds.

I proceed accordingly.

Eventually Katka gets the coordinates, and Roman, Katka, and I set out to make our drop.  But when we set out we don't see a dang thing that looks like a school:

But I mean... What does a School in Sierra Leone look like anyway???

We set back out and eventually we find it.  The "Abundant Grace International School".

We meet a man named "Moses" who introduces himself.

"Your name is 'Moses'?" I ask

"Yeah!" he responds cheerfully

"Well my middle name is 'David', so we have 'David' and 'Moses' together all at once"

This causes lots of laughter, and he translates to some of his colleagues who also have a laugh.  We open up the back of the tuck and unload what we have

It's not much really.  But out here, everything helps.  We even have a iPhone with a screen that has a small crack in it (complete with charger and data cable).  But it's so much more than what they have already, they're just so happy to have it.  We get a tour of the place:

It's been so long now that I cant remember how many children attend this school.  We got to meet some that were heading off to college (about 8 in total) and that had us pretty excited, but they looked so young!  Maybe 14 or 15?  Much different than we're used to in the west.

Back outside, we have the reason I wanted the truck clean for this delivery.  If I haven't mentioned already, Katka and I had an idea where we would bring paint for the children to make their "mark" on the truck.  And now that's exactly what we're going to do.

"Wait." Moses asks.  "It's ok that the children 'paint' your truck?"

Absolutely!

"Where?"

Everywhere!

A few other staff members ask the same thing, but we help them along

Done with the truck, the teachers are circling up the kids in teacher-lead activities outside.

"What's going on?" I ask Moses

"The kids have just eaten lunch so they all get tired.  We bring them outside for activities to help them feel refreshed and ready to learn again"

When we leave, we give these guys everything we have that we never used on the trip.  All our coffee cups we never handed out, all our pens (kadoo?), and even a 5-gallon collapsible water jug we never used for drinking water.  We noticed that they had two buckets in the common area with spigots on them for the children to drink and wash their hands from.  We figure this 5-gallon jug will help them in that area (even if it isn't the most sturdy thing in the world).

Back in the truck I go to start it and "click".

What???

"click"

Aw crap.  Hey Moses?  Can you give us a push?  And just like that we bump started the truck in reverse.  Lots of laughter from both parties ensued.

It was good times, and we're all riding high on the way back to Tokeh beach.

Back on the highway we have Iron Maiden's "Trooper" blasting out of the speakers, and Roman pulls out his phone to record the scenery.

Roman (shouts something in Slovakian while putting away his phone)

Katka: He says that with the music blaring, he wont have to add anything to the video when he posts it.

I laugh and turn it up louder.

Back at Tokeh beach there's nothing going on.  I'm almost out of data and the power wont be on for hours yet so I decide to kick back with my book and let the sun go down.  The scenery ain't bad

Back at the tables, Bananas and Katka are hanging out and mostly looking at their phones again (seriously, guys.).  I think I mentioned that the Bananas originally wanted to go to Banana beach and I would have to stay behind as I needed to leave tomorrow and they wouldn't be back yet.  Well they decided to stay because Patrik had to work.  Right now Patrik is trying to do that work, but he's out of data as well.  "Flying Bananas" is a tour agency and he's trying to search for good rates for destination travel for their next tour (You can find them on instagram, and they even have a playlist on spotify).  No one's paying any attention to Patrik but he's trying to work anyway.  I can see he's having issues so I devise myself a plan.

I head back to the truck and get a zip tie.  I then change my password to my mobile hot-spot to "eska paska" and head back to Patrick.

"Having data issues?" I ask.

"yeah.  I need to search the web to get this planned but am stuck because I can only access the cached websites my phone has"

"Here.  let me show you a trick" I say while reaching for his phone.

Taking his phone I explain that you can put a zip tie around the phone and leave the tail if it sticking up like an antenna to boost the signal.

Then, opening his wifi settings, you have to tell the phone what it's looking for.

(I type "eska paska" into his wifi password and his phone connects to my hotspot)

There.  Try it now

(He's basically pissing himself with laughter at this point)

He goes back to work, and I order a beer from the bar behind me and read to a good stopping point in my book.

Patrik does go through my last gig of data, but when he does the power comes on shortly afterwards.  Finishing up, he has another surprise for us and tells us its dinner time

We walk to the left-most edge of the grounds again and meet with some locals on the beach.  They have a plate of grilled fish for us:

The locals explain that although Patrik ordered this with potatos or french fries, they couldn't get any so they grilled up a few extra fish instead.

It's not a problem for any of us (I mean, I wasn't even expecting this.  but again... non Slovakian speaker issues still) but Patrik takes the opportunity to haggle down the price.  A new one is agreed on, and we invite the locals to sit at some seats at the edge of the property.

"er.  The owner doesn't like us on the property.  he'll call the police"

That suck.

Ok, there's a dock right here.  We have cell phone flash lights.  Lets eat here!

and we do

If you can't tell by the picked clean bones, the fish was damn delicious.

We finish up and head back to the covered area.  I don't know where Misha and Lukas are, but back at the drinking table it's Katka and I with the Bananas.  I'm doing the usual "space off" thing  while most of the group stares at their phones or speaks in languages I don't understand when I see a man in a Seattle Supersonics basketball jersey

Now I need to point out, that I'm not a sports fan (at all). But I'm from Seattle and this guy has a Shawn Kemp jersey on, and that just blows my mind

(notice the bananas on their phones in the background?)

This crazy!

We get to chatting.  I'm an American from Seattle.  I live in Hungary.  He tells me he's Hungarian and then races off to get his palinka.

We start drinking.

After about the third shot we've got a good belly laugh going on.  I don't remember what we were joking about, but I remember it was just so nice to be able to talk to someone again and understand them.  My near-constant headache at this point was going away when I looked back at my table of friends

"I'm sorry.  But my friends at the table here don't speak much English, and they don't speak any Hungarian.  I feel a bit uncomfortable leaving them sitting in silence"

It's cool and we take one more shot before he heads off.  Never to be seen again.

I sit down at my table of friends and sip beers in semi-silence.  Occasionally one of us will crack a joke, and before he leaves Patrik wants to make sure I don't take off without saying goodbye to him tomorrow.

I promise not to

Now it's just Julius, Katka, and I at the table.  We're nursing our drinks and speaking in english.

"Say something in Slovakian" Katka says

Like what?

"Just string together something that sounds Slovakian"

Ok. (translated into english for comedic effect) "My camel, spider.  Good morning, beer.  Berk the hell off."

Enormous laughter erupts from the two of them

more beers are nursed and eventually the hotel owner finishes playing his techno on the beach and walks past.  "Hey!  If I send you some music over bluetooth, could you play it?"  Katka asks

He agrees and she does.  he sits down and we put this guy through all the steps we had to go through.  The Major Lazer, the "I'm like... I'm like... I'm Like hypnotyzed"

"It's so AWFUL" he exclaims laughing

"we know!" we all laugh back and the music continues.

Eventually the owner moves on and it's the three of us again.  More beers were emptied and now it's time for me to turn in.

"Hold on.  I have one more sentence for you two" I say. 

Dovidenia priatelia  (Goodbye my friends)

And we hug it out before I head off to my bed.

There I was.  2nd beer in and headed to the motorcycle.  It was going to be in pieces when we were done, and I was sure we had the tools to do it.

I'll call this section "Northbound"

The plan here is to head back to Freetown.  In the "Northbound" chat I started, it was agreed that we'd meet at the Merriot hotel parking lot.  From there we'd all group up and head north.  Miroslav from the Slovakian Mercedes van team would be there, as would be the Slovakian family from "Team Kangoo".  I was messaging Jack a bit last night and he mentioned he was going to meet with the British Fire Truck team in Conakry, Guinea.  There was a motorcyclist named Max that would meet us there if I wanted to come.

Max's motorcycle had broken down in Sierra Leone and needed a ride back to the UK.  More on him later.

I agreed to follow Jack's team for three main reasons:

1) I needed an English break.  This isn't a dig on the Slovakians, as it'd be the same in any language.  But constantly being the "odd man out" had taken it's mental toll on me and I couldn't take another second of being the only person who spoke a different language.

2) The firetruck is limited to 80kph, and my truck is easily capable of 130kph (this will be important later) but despite the speed difference, we passed the firetruck multiple times a day on the way south which could only mean that their lack of speed was made up for with seat time.  Anyone who could spend that much time in a seat was the team I needed to be with.  No stops, all go.  I have a work deadline to meet, or else...

3) Jack is a hoot to be around, and those other Brits look goofey as hell.  Along with an English break, this will be a nice "dont have to behave myself" break.

Jack booked me a room to myself in a hotel in Conakry for the night we'll arrive and with that it was time to shower and wake Patrik up.  For giggles I wrote him a "Dear John" letter and left it on the mirror in the bathroom like we were breaking up and I was leaving in the middle of the night.  I hope he got the joke.

(oh.  regarding that shower:  Still cold...)

by 6:45 I'm in the truck and ready to go.  And as miserable as I was this whole damn time, I have to admit I'm depressed as hell to be leaving it all behind. 

And that's it.  We're off on a new adventure with a whole new group of people.

After I shut the camera off, I was reminded that Katka's USB stick was still in the radio.  Major Lazer starts up, and lifts my mood:

Back at the Merriot parking lot I park near Jack's motorcycle.  I never noticed the arrow he had on his windshield before and it's cracking me up right now.  You can also see team Kangoo's vehicle as well as team Kovi from Papa.  Those guys look like they made camp right there in the parking lot and there are a few scantily clad women hanging around.

hmmmmm.  wonder what they got up to.

Team Kangoo is the first to start loading their vehicle.

"achoo!" one of them sneezes

"Na zdravie!" I shout back

"Ďakujem" she responds

"Pachisa"

berkin hell.  I'm going to be a slovak after this wont I.

I will say I do love learning other languages.  Did you know that "vodka" means "cute little water"?  It goes like this:

Katka's name isn't "Katka".  It's "Katarina".  But much like you'd shorten the name "David" (very adult sounding) to "Davey" (very child like), you do the same with the letter "K" in slovak languages.  So "water" (voda) becomes "cute little water" (vodka)

Kinda cool

anyhoo, I swear Slovakians are magnets because pretty soon "team Kangoo" has a crowd of Slovaks around them (Including Miro from the Mercedes Van team, he's in a Landcruiser) and I'm not going anywhere near.  Instead I catch up on messenger and the car sharks start showing up.  These guys want to buy any vehicle they can from the rallye and they have cash to do it.

"You want to sell your car?"

No...

"How about a gift?"
(aha, I've learned at this point)

"You mean, you give a gift to me?" I respond happily "ok, I accept!"

we both laugh.  He goes on sharking through the parking lot but I don't think he finds anything because before long he's back.

"any change for me"

(ah darn, he got specific)

"no.  what about you?  Any change for me?  Silver?  Gold?" I respond.

we laugh again, but he doesn't leave this time

I'm kind of going through the truck at this point and cleaning and organizing and I come across a pack of cigarettes Katka left behind.  I don't smoke so I give them to the car shark.  He's pretty happy about it.  He removes a black beaded bracelet from his wrist and gives it to me in exchange.  That made me pretty happy.

Jack shows up at 9am like we scheduled and we toss his stuff in the back of the truck and talk strategy.  He's limited to 80kph on his bike, so it's going to be a 14-hour day.  I'm used to doing the whole thing with one driver at this point.  He also says he needs to stop for gas, but I want to haul ass.  As a compromise, I pull a can out of the back and top up his tank.  We pour the rest in the truck.

"How do you want to do this" he asks

"You cut a hole in traffic, and I'll follow through" I respond.  And just like that, we're off.

Initially Its fast movin and things are awesome.  I love Jacks bike and the exhaust it lobs in my direction is like taking incoming fire.  That thing just HITS! 

Reaching down to the radio I play "Hypnotized" one more time for old times sake:

On our way out we're driving by memories.

There's where the going away party was.

There's the garage where the truck was fixed.

There's the ATM where I got the "please wait" screen.

And further out, there's the place where Julius and I taped up the roof after the rain storm

There's the side of the road where we found Julius and Katka in the rain storm with the windows stuck down, desperately trying to shove anything they could into the openings to stop the water intrusion.

Jack's bike gets a LOT of attention from the locals, and he's approached every time he slows or stops.  I never thought about how exposed you are on a bike like that.

Cruising along at a pace set by Jack, it's smooth sailing all the way to the Guinean border

At the Guinean border there's less fanfare.  Someone hung a "farewell" sign:

Just after snapping that picture, I see "Assan" the super cheerful guy who had the "christmas donation box" on the way in.  "William David!" he shouts

hey, he remembered me!

We're through customs at this point, so I bring him out to the truck and give him a few pens from my visor.  Just afterwards, Miro and Team Kangoo are pulling in "Assan, these are my friends.  Take good care of them" I say.

And we're off.

Aside from almost eating it (running off the road) at a detour, things wen't pretty smooth.  About an hour out of Conakry things started getting goofy again.  I saw a group of people pushing a car uphill in traffic, and when traffic would stop one of them would toss a wheel chock underneath.

In Conakry, traffic was AWFUL.  My last GPS instruction was "you are 11km from a roundabout" and then the phone overheated and shut off.  I took it off the windshield to cool and just kept moving forward in traffic.

I stop at 3 different ATMs while letting my phone cool down (one had a 30-minute wait) but none of them worked.

Eventually I ran into a spot where the police had the road blocked.  The ambulance in front of me just hopped the curb to get around them, so I did too.  About 3km afterwards the ambulance was gone and I was stopped by the police.  GPS was working by then so I showed him the hotel destination, he simply had me turn on my flashers and proceed.  In about 100 meters I'm going to learn that they had closed the entire road to traffic in my direction and I'd be facing down 4-lanes of oncoming vehicles.

I learned just to stay half on the right shoulder and to flash my lights at anyone who looked like they were getting too close.  This whole thing was an INSANE mess.  Thankfully I got to the hotel at 16:15.  Jack had checked in years ago (PS:  If you're going to be in African traffic, be in it on a motorcycle.  It's easier)

The brits were outside so I joined them for a beer

Ok, so going from left to right.  The big guy is Alistar (AJ).  He's the owner of the firetruck and a big old Mercedes fan.  Next to him is Dan.  The guy on the phone to the far right in the last picture is Max.

Comment on people coming up to you on a bike (not my own expertise but I have read many stories):

On a motorcycle, you are living other people's dream. In a poor country, they can't even dream of owning a car, but they can dream of and/or succeed in buying a motorcycle. The motorcycle is taking the trip they dream of taking on their own motorcycle, someday.

GRM equivalent would be seeing a dozen million-dollar cars go buy, and then seeing a mud-coated aircooled Porsche with a roof rack. Which car do you approach to talk to the driver?

This is a supercool story by the way; thank you for sharing it.

matthewmcl said:

Comment on people coming up to you on a bike (not my own expertise but I have read many stories):

On a motorcycle, you are living other people's dream. In a poor country, they can't even dream of owning a car, but they can dream of and/or succeed in buying a motorcycle. The motorcycle is taking the trip they dream of taking on their own motorcycle, someday.

GRM equivalent would be seeing a dozen million-dollar cars go buy, and then seeing a mud-coated aircooled Porsche with a roof rack. Which car do you approach to talk to the driver?

This is a supercool story by the way; thank you for sharing it.

I think that's a very good way to put it, and it makes perfect sense.  If you look at the contrast in the picture between the people in SUVs and the people not, there is a very "exocit car" versus "mud-coated aircooled porsche" vibe. 

It's a bit early to tie one on, so I call it good after the first beer.  I'm going to head up to my room and unpack/decompress a bit.  For a meal I pull out two of those freeze dried backpack meals (rice curry) and for water I boil tap water 3 times in the kettle as I can't pour from my "water to go" filter bottle.

I hop in the shower, and dear god.  For the first time since I set foot on the continent, I FINALLY have a warm shower.  You'd think I'd stand in that thing forever, but I dont.  Still though, it's damn nice to have a warm shower finally.

Afterwards I sit down and eat the rice curry and catch up on messages.

Katka and Julius are writing.  Apparently a flight was delayed 3-hours at Freetowns and now they're not going to make their connection at Dakar to Milan.  They're now trying to find a workaround.  Immediately afterwards, Jack writes:  "Hey, all my tools are in your truck!"

I write back "hey, so are mine!"  and tell him I'll be down in a sec.

We're going to try to stuff Jack's bike in the back of the fire truck.  His suspension is still collapsed, and there's no way he can ride it all the way north.  We meet downstairs and get to work:

That smile on AJ's face?  yeah, that never goes away.  The guys is really that chill.

So Ants crawl all over the bike and next you know it's in pieces.  I took a second while tools were out to address something I noticed with my truck:

Would you look at those seats and all that head gear?  I hear this beast is absolutely punishing to ride in.  AJ's got an air chair installed in the driver's seat, but everyone else is sitting on plywood bench seats.  All complain of sore butts, and we talk about rotating people through the Toyota.

Speaking of the Toyota, I'm low on fuel and that can we dumped in was my last one.  I've gotta go top up.  I pull out 3.5 million in the local currency from an ATM inside the hotel and head to a fuel station one block away.