Day two - Start of Rally

This morning we kicked off the Rally in Hyde Park London. It seems that our vehicle generated a lot of buzz in London. Everywhere we went heads were turning, thumbs up galore, kids chasing us down. I'm guessing some of that had to due with the defeafening roar of the engine.

But when we arrived at the starting point it was great to see the great array of cars showing we were not the only crazy souls actually taking part. Some of the cars were quite awesome looking, carpetted like a zebra or cheetah, another painted with an african scene on it.

After walking down the line of vehicles we noticed that we were the only fools to ship our car. That and the fact that we were one of three American teams. But from the sounds of it, we had the most popular car, although the head honchos didn't reward our efforts.

As we set off we decided that the best option would be just to follow the line of cars leaving the park. Almost immediately I knew this was a bad idea. At the first stop light the fellows in front of us jumped out of their car and said, "Hope you aren't following us mate we haven't a clue where we are going". So in order to get us to where I thought we should head we got stuck in traffic outside a construction site. This set us back about an hour.

Finally we busted through and got our route back on track, but since London was built hundreds of years before the invention of the car it's inner city throughways are not designed to handle 20th century traffic. So after a noon start we didn't get to the Chunnel train until after 4. We hopped on and found we weren't the only team to get lost so we chatted with one of the other American teams on the way over.

ONcewe hit continental highways we really found out what our vehicle was made of. Come to find out 55mph uphill is balls out fast, and downhill we can reach upto 65mph. So the typical 6 hour drive from Calais to Frankfurt us about 10 hours. We arrived in Wiesbaden around 3 am. I felt bad because we had no money and no phone and Soline had been expecting us at 10pm. Once we found her apt and buzzed her, she told us that the sound of the car coming down the street woke her us and she knew it was us.

So the first day of travel has opned our eyes as far as our ability to cross vast stretches of land. It looks like we will have to drive in shifts and camp in rest stops to make Morrocco in time to get our visas before next weekend. Today we get the car looked at to set the timing and tomorrow it's knights and wenches party in Praha.

Cheers FOLKS!!!