After approx. zero minutes of sleep we manage to get on the bus and kick off towards home. According to plans we’ll get home on 8 Feb sometime in the afternoon. A tense tempo, with a day off in Marrakesh. We can make it.
From the morning drive I only remember that we stopped once to change drivers and we were literally attacked by 300 kids. I woke up and saw team number 1’s flipped car. They wanted to go around a goat, brake and pulling turning the wheel in the same time, and only the well prepares car saved them. They can be delivered only in a lying position. We had to go for 5 km before we could turn back and head back to Bamako. Right 2 days after the same guard shouted at us that we can’t park in front of the hotel by our bus, is shouting at us again. We shout louder. The ambulance takes the 2 guys; hopefully they don’t have any serious injuries. I wouldn’t mind staying in Bamako that day; Mali plays against Ivory Coast that day in the Africa Cup. But according to plans we leave after half an hour of break.
Bamako 2.0
Some of the participants are waiting for their plane in the hotel hall. This is one of the most difficult part of the rally for them, as one Andrea Bocelli like song is on on repeat item mode volume full on. There are new buyers for the bus, calls are made, boss is coming with the money. We skip the deal of our life and try to get out of Bamako. Soma mends the Norwegians’ hifi, and we finally have music. It’s a very stubborn sound system, it’s willing to play only one song from the USB, which is the Polar Bear Theme Song. It’s a very good animation film song, but gets boring after the 40th time. We manage to get some Norwegian metal and some folk music on as well. Silence, please!
We manage to reach the Mali border by the evening. Everything is faster on the way back. Aravind doesn’t even have to help in filling out the papers. A dude gets on the bus and shows us where the petrol station is. Next to a completely dark road in the middle of nowhere there are two manual pumps. Assistant nowhere. The dude goes for the petrol station guy, and after 20 minutes he comes back with two other guys, one of them holding an extremely dirty milk can. We want to fill up a 200 liter tank with this. We give them two 20 liter containers, and they don’t get it in the beginning why they need two for. Gyula and Soma are filling the tank, while the guys are pumping one after the other. They overload each and every containers, while two if the three of them smokes. We finish in half an hour.
We reach Mauritania, Gyula drives, the others sleep. In the night a guy gets on and shows how we ca get around Kiffa. Then the bus stops.
From the morning drive I only remember that we stopped once to change drivers and we were literally attacked by 300 kids. I woke up and saw team number 1’s flipped car. They wanted to go around a goat, brake and pulling turning the wheel in the same time, and only the well prepares car saved them. They can be delivered only in a lying position. We had to go for 5 km before we could turn back and head back to Bamako. Right 2 days after the same guard shouted at us that we can’t park in front of the hotel by our bus, is shouting at us again. We shout louder. The ambulance takes the 2 guys; hopefully they don’t have any serious injuries. I wouldn’t mind staying in Bamako that day; Mali plays against Ivory Coast that day in the Africa Cup. But according to plans we leave after half an hour of break.
Bamako 2.0
Some of the participants are waiting for their plane in the hotel hall. This is one of the most difficult part of the rally for them, as one Andrea Bocelli like song is on on repeat item mode volume full on. There are new buyers for the bus, calls are made, boss is coming with the money. We skip the deal of our life and try to get out of Bamako. Soma mends the Norwegians’ hifi, and we finally have music. It’s a very stubborn sound system, it’s willing to play only one song from the USB, which is the Polar Bear Theme Song. It’s a very good animation film song, but gets boring after the 40th time. We manage to get some Norwegian metal and some folk music on as well. Silence, please!
We manage to reach the Mali border by the evening. Everything is faster on the way back. Aravind doesn’t even have to help in filling out the papers. A dude gets on the bus and shows us where the petrol station is. Next to a completely dark road in the middle of nowhere there are two manual pumps. Assistant nowhere. The dude goes for the petrol station guy, and after 20 minutes he comes back with two other guys, one of them holding an extremely dirty milk can. We want to fill up a 200 liter tank with this. We give them two 20 liter containers, and they don’t get it in the beginning why they need two for. Gyula and Soma are filling the tank, while the guys are pumping one after the other. They overload each and every containers, while two if the three of them smokes. We finish in half an hour.
We reach Mauritania, Gyula drives, the others sleep. In the night a guy gets on and shows how we ca get around Kiffa. Then the bus stops.
No comments:
Post a Comment