Planet Tatooine

We got to Tata to the camp by 11pm on Thursday. Soma says that yesterday's 720 kms with the two 1700 high mountain passes counts as 20 000 km on normal roads. Wow. The bus did very well. Soam and Gyula said that by the evening something was leaking, they had to fix it. They managed to communicate it in approx. 1 hour, and by then 20 people gathered. All the problems came to surface after being locked up together for 48 hours. Fuck yous flew like Harry Potter's spells, and all the smaller who if not mes, we're used to. In the end Soma and Gyula took the bus to the nearby petrol station and repaired it there. We went to get bier. Meanwhile a smaller local group gathered by the bus. The stomach of the bus is rottening, the Ikarus need to be lifted. They lift it in 4 points, but still, the iron bends under its weight. Gyula and Soma was very nervous by the time I got back with the biers. Pretty understandable, they are lying under a 20 ton monster, whos lower part is like a wet cookie. If you look aside, you see 3 dudes commenting in arabic. All this at a very badly lit petrol station out of town. Fortunately some company arrived, the others came back and the 2 riders whose stuff we're carrying. They are very serious guys, they came by 350 cc bikes, and after Bamako they will continue their way to Senegal and Ghana.

By 2.30 am the machine was ready, everything fixed, the vehicle is fantastic again. The arguments started again, who to do what and how, and the fear that the bus won't hold on till Bamako. IT WILL.At 7am Tuti sat behind the driving wheel, we did 200 kms in 3 hours. An overresponsible policaman stopped us. We gave him passangerlist, but it wasn't enough for him.He needed the expiry date of our passports, our sing in the kindergarden, and when we last had solid shit. He got what he wanted, he can proudly report to his bosses where the creten whitepeople and the Indian are in their country!He stopped 3 Polish geographer as well. We invited them on for a morning páloinka in the name of the Hungarian-Polish friendship. The policeman wanted a souvenir, but Aravind tore his shirt off and said: 'I'm the present.' The policeman replied: welcome to Morocco.

We're taking the Dakar Rally's route, so all the local kids harrest us, especially that the dakar was called off. Good morning Sir! Give me a present! Give me a pen! Give me one dirham! Give me a cigarette! Go to 10. it's very annoying. Then a bigger guy comes and sends the smaller away. 'They should be in school' - he says. Greetings. He gets where we're heading. Ah, Mauritania. Cigarette is a big treasure in there. Everyone can be bribed with it. and what a surprise! He has 2 boxes of smuggledcigis on him from the Canary Islands, do we want to buy it for a discount price? No. He disappears. The kids come back. Give me your hat give me your coat...Sand desert slowly takes over the stonedesert. Not yet the finesand one, but slowly-slowly it's coming. Thankfully there's a concrete road leading through it. After our many stupidities we reach the finish in dark again, the Planet Tatooine camp.

Camp is a slight exaggeration, there are a couple of huts in the middle of nowhere, just like in a film. It was a great feeling how the bendy bus crossed the sand dunes. The Norwegians (Team Polar Bears, 139) took some really good pictures. The rest is on their blog: www.polar-bears.no

In the evening we had a big party, we opened 2 barrels of bier, we wanted to eat the Spanish ham, but we forgot. The ham is a real treasure, yesterday the Portuguese really wanted it. They CBed for half an hour for it, and left us alone only when I started to sing Elvis in the radio. We’ll eat it in Mauritania.

All of the participants appreciate the performance of Bus number 7. The Alfa bus team is really helpful, one of he drivers promised to pull us to Bamako, just to reach our destination. Team 47 popped in, they are www.gondwana.co.hu. One of them dressed up like a Jedi. He was said that for everyone wearing a Star Wars costume, the entry is for free. Who knows why this is, but that’s for sure that they haven’t seen the owners for years and the hut people costume is traditional folk dress around here.

The Polish from the morning appeared again, I didn’t know that pálinka has such a pull effect in the desert. The biggest challenge of the whole event occurred: Aravind’s music collection. We listened to some Mali music instead, which is at least good. And Sanyi’s Star Wars remix. Thanks!