Correction

Gyula is not 62 years old, 57 only. One of our teammates told me he was 62, but I won’t give him away. Gyula is a robot. He sleeps 3-4 hours a say, he’s doing everything day and night. When he doesn’t drive, he either repairs or argues. He drinks silverwater int he mornings, according to him that keeps him running.

Tuti and the Fradi flag

Tuti says: Go Fradi, kisses for the family and he loves Brigi! A nurse from the Alfa bus took the Fradi flag, and we haven’t seen them since Almeira. They took another ferry, they are ahead of us. We’re chasing them. (What he is capable of for a League II team!)

The longest day – take 2

The Origo team popped into the bus, and a smaller party started suddenly, details on videa.hu. Xbox switched on, we played, there was music and szatmári plum pálinka. Meanwhile Gyula switched to robotpilot. There was none to navigate for him, therefore we took a wrong exit on the Spanish motorway and we headed towards Madrid. We lost half an hour. Then it turned out that we didn’t get lost, we just took a possible alternative route. GPS explains everything.

It’s really interesting, that in Spain there is an orange field next to every single motorway. I’m sure that the settling exhaust fumes have a very healthy effect on the fruits, moreover, it weights more on the scale. Italians grow grapes next to motorways, heavy metals do such good on the day after!

We entered a small Spanish town, this isn’t the right direction, this time for sure. It was pretty dead at 10 pm on Monday evening. But they were really nice, they helped. And stared. People usually stare at bus number 7, many of them ask what this vehicle is and where we are heading to. Most of the time we encounter the respect deserved only by the mentally ill in their eyes.

After that small Spanish town we find our way back to the motorway. There’s no rest or stop until Almeira. Meanwhile it turns out that today’s stage wasn’t the longest. Yesterday we completed 1050 kms, today only 1007 kms plus the shortcuts, but we are still much behind yesterday’s achievement. And the engine keeps rumbling in my head, and I assume this is going to be like this until we reach Bamako.

News from the team

They are climbing the mountains of South-west Morocco at the moment, at their latest sms they were close to the town of Tazenakht. Today’s finish is in Tata, still 350 kms to go.

The Ikarus is struggling with the windy and rocky mountainous roads. Today they were officially announced to be the slowest vehicle in the race. They manage to go at an average 35 km/h in the mountains. This doesn’t, but the Polski’s 75 km/h average bothers the team, as they tought they could at least compete with the Polski.

Good news that the servicing in Almeira seems to have been successful, as the spirit is high not only because of the fantastic team, but because of the working xbox as well. Moreover, we should give some credit to the good old Hungarian pálinka and beer in here, which are followed with long siestas in the back of the bus.

I'm sure Akos would add some must knows about the Moroccan roads: there are many Moroccans on it and everything is in Arabic. Or in French? Are there any boards at all? And are there cars on the roads at all?

Bus number 7 is tearing along int he middle of Morocco

Greetings from the picturesque town of Tinerhir. Typing is a bit difficult, a sin the local internet café the keys are completely at a different place, instead of qwerty azerty, EVERY single key out of place.

Sorry for leaving you without updates for so long. The reason is that with Aravind’s mobile internet we managed to produce a bill of 320000 HUF (approx. 900 GBP) in 3 days, so we had to give up this option.

We reached Melilla yesterday morning (the ferry arrived at midnight sharp), but because of the late start and the held ups during the day (splendid, but 1,5 hour lunch) we didn’t manage and didn’t even want to complete yesterday’s 850 km stage, so we stopped at Errachidia 130 kms from the day’s finish. Int he end we have a sleeping unit.

We had to use the Siesta heater again for the chilly night, again, it was freezing 0 degrees Celsius.
The team and the atmosphere is great, we have loads of food and drink (just in case we bought 25 l of wine and a huge whole ham, chorizzos, etc. in Almeira).

Today’s stage is 580 kms plus our 130 from yesterday, we managed to complete the latter by 10am. There won’t be a problem. We ask you not to worry if you don’t hear from us, there’s no internet on every corner. Mobilphone signal keeps dropping as well.

All in all, everyone is having a great time, the vehicle eats the km sas it was brand new and runs perfectly.

We’re leaving now, we’ll post as soon as we can!

Big hugs for everyone,

Bus number 7 team

Morning after the longest day

Formule 1 hotel is a really funny place. The reception is open till 7pm, after 7 you can insert your credit card into a slot, they charge you, you get a code, you go in and sleep. There’s no staff. Actually this is quite understandable, as French are on holiday or on strike 250 days of the 365, and the rest is national holiday or weekend. The hotel is made of plastic, it smells like a plane. It’s 40 degrees Celsius in one room and 10 in the other. I’m sure Germans are sad that it wasn’t them who invented it. To our greatest surprise there’s wi-fi. Decent wi-fi, not some upgraded minitel. Of course it was extremely expensive, plus at 3am none was in the mood to log on.

Gyula slept in the bus, and woke up at 5am to repair something. There were problems with the bus. By morning there was a nice big puddle under the bus, we could have had a bath in it. Gyula, Tuti and Soma worked on it, by now it’s ok.

We reached Spain. Must knows about the Spanish highway: it’s full of Spanish, and everything is written in Spanish. We are ahead of the rest of the teams, because yesterday we came 300 kms more than the others. However being ahead of them is only a matter of time.

The others are slowly-slowly taking over us. This Ikarus was constructed to commute between Bosnyak square and Kelenfold, or between Szekesfehervar and Bakonycsernye, have some rest at the last stop, then go to the other end of that route, not to do 1000 km in one go a day. Time by time we have to stop for half an hour, screw or fix or oil or grease this and that. We loaded the watertank and it turned out, that the tank has a hole in it. On our way we have a watermark behind us, like Ariadne with her string. We have 2 100 liter tank, tied together, so whoever wants can follow us till Almeira. Not if it would be that difficult, there’s a straight motorway leading there.

We reach the fishy weather. Around us orange is bein harvested everywhere, it’s approx. 12-15 degrees Celsius, and the driving area is suitable for a sunbath. Good bye winter, it was enough of you. It would be great if back at home the weather would be just like this at the beginning of February. I brought only a pair of trainers.

2nd day - The longest day

Today’s stage is from Mestre to some French town, 1050 km. With our average 60 km/h speed it will be approx. 18 hours. In case we don’t break down. In one word: we suck. We planned to leave at 6am, and after a minor repair we finally kicked off at 7am. Problems start: According to our mechanics-drivers the engine and the aggregator can’t work at the same time, the chance to blow up is too high. This means that there’s no 220V while on the road. There’s no X-box. No fridge. No microwave. It sucks. We worked out a fitness program on the handle bars, now everyone is hanging from them. By the time we reach Bamako, everyone will have toned muscles.

So far, the highlight of the journey was enivetably the coffee in the Autogrill in the morning. It started raining, and the bus leaks in in many places. Duck tape solves any problem. In the morning we managed to reach a 65 km/h average, but a wrong petrol fill up held us back. We reached the sea, the sun came out. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the time to stop to eat in Genova, boiled sausage was the menu, cooked on the bus. It was the most painful moment of the journey so far.

Aravind slept almost the whole day through, he starts to recover from his injuries he suffered in the Autorickshaw Challenge.

We drive on the French motorway. Must knows about the French highway: there are many French on it. Everything is in French. The coffee at petrol stations is much worse than in Italy.

We had the first service. Soma and Gyula changed the pressuretube (I assume), and filled up the cooler. It took them approx. 1,5 hours. I got to know that our stage today is 300 km longer than the others’. This means that tomorrow, the distance will be 150 km less, in addition, we’ll have a whole day to rest in Almeira.

We’re speeding in the French night. By 2am we reach our destination, the Formule 1 hotel in Perignon. Everyone is dumb from the constant noise. The smell of the petrol is sometimes unbearable, in the sleeping unit the beer cools down. I was expecting exactly this!

Pictures are coming up soon!

Bus number 7 is going at a spanking pace!

And yes, Bus number 7 kicked off! On Saturday morning in front of the Houses of Parliament more people gathered for the flag off of the Budapest Bamako rally than on a usual anti-government demonstartion. There were no Arpad striped flags, but lovely ham sandwiches yes. We managed to hit the road after a 1,5 hour of delay. Our first stop was Szekesfehervar, where the mayor would have greeted us, as the team is partly from Szekesfehervar, if we had managed to drive in front of the theatre. We hadn’t, so while Attila was shaking hands, we just caused a simple traffic jam. On our way to the border our spirit stock seriously reduced. This happened because the heating didn’t work properly.

Most of the teams in the Budapest Bamako rally just speed through the European stage. But for us and some other crazy teams (Fiat Polski, Velorex, Ural) the adventure started at the flag off line on Kossuth square. Anything can happen to a 22 year old bendy Ikarus. That’s exactly why we chose to travel with it. It worked quite fine on the first day, it was going at a spanking pace, there was no particular problem with it. We had to stop only once, because something was too warm in the engine. Or too cold? Our top speed is 85 km/h on flat terrain and pur average speed is 60 km/h if we stop in every 3 hours. The oilconsumption of our beauty is 30 litres/100 km. On the Hungarian stage on the same distance approx. 1 litre of spirit was consumed by the 7 nondriving passangers. As for now, there’s no water in the bus. No problem, tea and coffee is better from mineral water anyhow, and having a shower is a sign of weakness. The aggregator works with petrol, and it works amazingly. There is 220V, so we immediately installed the X-box.

What can I write about the Budapest-Mestre stage? There’s a motorway leading there. The Austrian motorway is much better and a lot cheaper than the Hungarian. There are mountains on the left, and on the right, and there are a lot of Austrians. Half of the crew fell asleep in the back. In the back, where the beds are, aka sleeping unit, there’s no heating at all, but it is said that it’s healthier to sleep in the cold, and one can sober up much quicker. I can’t remember the Italian motorway. Villam Geza came in once and said hello. We reached our accomodation in Mestre by 11pm, in a completely average motel, next to a completely average Novotel. We went to have a pizza. The pizza in Mestre is better and cheaper than pizza in Budapest. We went ot bed at 1am.

New passanger on board

Unfortunately, Szabi couldn’t come with us in the end due to family reasons. A new member joined the crew, his name is Gyula. Gyula, 62, was the mayor of Csajag for 12 years. Csajag is in Fejer county, between Balatonfokajar and Balatonakarattya. The train, commuting on the Northern shore of Lake Balaton usually stops here for 20 minutes, so the station’s front view is very well known by many. Gyula drives and repairs buses for 30 years, and his big favourite is the Ikarus 280. He’ll be our driver with Tuti (Csaba).

Dressed up and ready to go

Finally our baby is ready. By now it's completely dressed up. You can see us tomorrow at 7.30 am on Kossuth tér in Budapest at the flag off, or try to have a glimpse of us along the route.