WE MADE IT!!!!!.....sort of

Right this minute Anthony and I are in or nearby Gatwick International Airport in London. We survived teh nearly 10,000 miles trek from Hyde Park to Kribi!!! However, Lady Deathwish did not make it. After our last post in Nigeria, everything we seemed to put our fingers to seemed to die whether it was our car or the internet [hence no posts for over a week].

The beautiful lady made a valiant effort as the oldest vehicle to participate in an Adventurists sponsored rally. She made it to Cameroon, but fell a mere 1500km short. We had to part ways with our car, our home, our friend in the Northern Cameroon town of Garoua.

The terrible roads of nigeria proved to be too much for her to handle. The last 1000 miles were a frustrating time filled with stops and repairs and eventually disappointment. In her final few days the Lady had to have numerous parts re-welded and finding VW bug parts in this remote area proved to be quite difficult.

A brief rundown of the final repairs and problems:
A) the engine was removed to check clutch and pressure plate, turned out we had snapped the clutch pedal and had to be rewelded. The guys who did the repairs actually fixed up our electrical as well for free. while in the same yard the welder also welded the holes in our exhaust so it didn't fall off.
B) At one point during a treacherous dirt road the VW went airborne at about 40km[25mph] which caused the front end of the chasis to collapse once we nosedived into the corrugated road. The front tunnel houseing our gasline had shattered into four pieces and had to be rewelded. we had to drive the 3km back to the last village with the steering wheel in our lap.
c) the starter was acting up and this may have been in conjunction with the fuel pump concking out because we had to bump start the car for 2.5 days once in a dry riverbed between the cameroon and nigeria border with 15 ft riverbanks with a 45 degree angle.

In the end we got the car towed to the Wildlife College, which works with the Cameroon Wildlife Aid fund, and was a contact of the Adventurists in emergencies.

AFter that we hopped a bus to NGaoundere. Took an overnight train to Yaounde. Then jumped a bus to Kribi. So we made the final party on the 16th. I was so glad that the Adventurists decided to throw me a birthday party. It was really cool seeing the minister of tourism from Cameroon eating my birthday cake.

The party was awesome, with the exception of Ben and Bob, our entire convoy made it for the party and we had a blast. The Sandbox Savants, the Black Sheep, If it don't work hit it, and the Spider-Micra were all there. In total 10 teams showed up and we had a blast. Then on Monday morning we left.

From there we headed up to Douala to book flights home and to see the site of the Auction. Douala looked like a pit. This might have been just a factor of our travel weary minds but the bustle and constant danger of muggings really turned a lot of people off to the placec. Add on the problems the Customs officers [too high import tax] made led to none of the cars being auctioned the first day. Afterwards they reduced the tax by 40% so hopefully next week the auction goes off wiht success.

Now i'm heading back to Vancouver, and Anthony is flying to San Diego tomorrow. It's been a long journey but I'm really glad to have made the trip.

We both plan on putting our 'Final Thoughts' up in the coming weeks so stay tuned. We also plan on throwing up [not litterally] some photos and videos.

Peace!

Nigeria = Murphy's law

this is the fourth attempt to make a post, the power keeps crashing due to the rainstorm.

terrible roads = twice broken steering column
wet distributor caps = hour long stops for drying
rain = slow to no driving
power outages = no shower and no internet

but despite all this which i wish i could elaborate on, I'm liking nigeria. The landscape and people are really nice. But the delays are quite frustrating. After being ahead or on schedule, we have fallen behind 3 days in Nigeria alone. From teams that have gone ahead of us, Cameroon should be much of the same. We are honestly hoping to make the Adventurist's end of race party on the 16th, but that is looking tougher and tougher as the days drift by.

Jibberish in a few minutes

Today we arrived in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. It appears to be the end of our little caravan for now. The Sandbox Savants are heading off to Niger, If it don’t work hit it is heading straight to Benin, Ben and Bob are heading home with the outside chance that Bob will jump into Kirin’s car and join us on the Togo route, while the Irish are heading home as well.

Tonight we are having a combo party for Doug’s birthday and for our imminent departure. Then in the morning we’ll be blasting to Togo and hoping to get through to Benin on the same day. Hopefully; we’ll be meeting up with Tom and Steve again at the Nigeria border so we can have a three car convoy to deal with the corruption together.

Otherwise, besides a serious bout of diahrea brought on due to fatigue and a random incident at the Mauritanian border things have been going great. Nouakchott was cool and the people were friendly they tried helping us repair our tire and the other teams windshield.

The remaining time was spent resting and eating. We decided to get an early start on things the next day because it was a long dusty trail out to the Mali border.

After a few hours outside Nouakchott you could tell that you were heading south. Grass started to appear and the trees more frequent. At one point I thought I was looking out on a golf course with smashed up cars dotting the area.

Finally; once we got to Mali everything was beautiful. The border crossing; the sunset, the scenery, the people, it all was a pleasure to look at. Everything was nice and you could buy beer!!!! It was actually a shame that we drove straight through the southwest side in only two and a half days.

Then once we got to Burkina Faso it was nearly the same as Mali. The only major difference is that the rains had started. Every night since we got to Burkina it’s rained all night and my poor tent just can’t handle it. So we’ve slept inside a church garage and under a makeshift tarp/tent/car apparatus that keeps some of the water out. But otherwise it is quite refreshing to be able to go out at night and rinse the salt and sweat off your body before you sleep.

Mali!!!

Arrived in Mali the other day and ended up staying on a flat landscape that overlooked the horizon. It was a great start to a great time in Mali. Bamako was chaos to drive through and I had to pay a fine for a missing headlight. Last night we stayed at a campsite and had a refreshing well deserved beer. Right now we are off to Burkina Faso in hopes to cross the border today.

PS: Realizing a flight home will cost me 5 to 7 grand is horrifying since i dont have that....hahahahahaha ehhhhh boohooooo