Penitent Yanks

A year and a half later...

2008-08-11T14:52:00.002-04:00

Someone sent me this photo, I think taken in the last few months. Thomas still sits at the camp site in Dakhla.

Peace,

Scott

Last Post - maybe....

2007-07-17T14:21:00.001-04:00

So, Scott and Kara are off to see the grand musicians at the awesome musical festival in Carhaix. I'm a bit jealous, to tell you the truth - music festivals are fun, and we'll miss them both, especially Scott during the summer dart league playoffs.
I'm not really sure what the rest of the group is up to these days, I assume that Ed's busy with all the kickball activities in DC, and planning his upcoming adventure ascending the seven big peaks (can't wait to hear more on that later). Jenna must be doing her trademarked good posture gait through Rhode Island live music spots, and Mike -- who knows what he's up to. I imagine it involves high design, art, and his trademarked ineffable sense of style.
To tell you the truth, I don't know if anyone's even coming to this site anymore. It's sort of dead and, if not bloated, then perhaps rotting on the vine. No new posts, no http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifnew news (and how often do you get to type that?). Maybe someone gets this on an RSS feed, and will see the new posting. Doubtless, this is just more "stuff" clogging up the server space in the grand ether.
In closing, I wanted to make a couple of points. First off, check out the link that Scott posted on the Dar Es Salaam site. The bikes and wheelchair we dragged through several thousand miles of sand can be seen at their final destination. That's something to be proud of, I think. At some point, I'm going to check and see if the bus is where we left it, too.
Finally, the money raised. Thanks to you, or maybe someone else that you know, we were able to raise a whopping 11,000 dollars for our charities. We may not have been able to cajole the bus to the Gambia, but the funds made it to where they needed to be, and that's something to be proud of. Could we have done more? Surely. But it's a start, and it's thanks to all the supporters that we were able to get that far. So pat yourselves on the back - we did something good. Inefficient? Maybe. Worthwhile? definitely. I'm proud of what we did. End result be damned.
That's it. Signing off.
you want some more good blog writing, check out mela's posts. They're fun. (note that I would reference Stuart's blog, if I knew what and where he was posting.
Signing off.
PEACE

The final chapter of the bicycle effort...

2007-05-16T11:18:00.000-04:00

Jacques Piriou and Guy Guivarche, our compatriots with ASSOCIATION SOLIDARITE DAR EL SALAM just sent us this link for a blog detailing the work being done in Dar.

There are a few pictures of the bicycles and wheelchairs at their final destination and lots of shots of the village and the community.

In other news associated with our French friends, Kara and Scott are hoping to travel to Carhaix again this summer to visit all the great folks we met in February and work/enjoy the Festival des Vieilles Charrues - a massive music festival they have in their beautiful little town every summer.

This year it's a great line-up

Hope everyone is doing well!

Southern Asia Rally

2007-03-19T16:39:00.000-04:00

No, it's not a banger rally, per se, but it does fit in with driving around southern asia, which was one of our thoughts for the next phase.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6454253.stm

Gabe brought this to our attention. Thanks, Gabe!

mix some bangers and biodiesel

2007-03-13T13:59:00.000-04:00

and what do you get?
This rally (in it's first, inaugural year) was started by the same guy that started the plymouth to banjul challenge. I think this one'll be intesting (I wish I was going). Emily, our defacto challenge guru and advisor, is going on this trip. Go Emily!
I think they might be having some issues with the site right now, but I assume it'll be up and running shortly.
http://www.greaseballrally.com/

The mother of all rallies

2007-03-13T13:58:00.000-04:00

or so they say. These guys have rallies all over the place, including the BABE rally (Big Apple to Big Easy).
http://www.streetsafari.com/index.esp

Cannonball Run wasn't just a movie..

2007-03-13T13:25:00.001-04:00

This is for the speed freaks out there.
http://cannonballruneurope.co.uk/uk/about_cannonball.htm

Ramshackle Rally

2007-03-13T13:16:00.000-04:00

http://www.ramshacklerally.com/home.html

I haven't seen a rally that didn't seem like a ton of fun. This one offers 2 different routes, and one ends in Valencia, just in time for the Tomatina.

Mongol Rally

2007-03-13T12:55:00.000-04:00

I've decided that we need to compile a list of other rallies, just to keep the ideas growing and the juices flowing. We need to figure out the next trip. Speaking of which, someone needs to follow up with Emily and see how her grease ball rally (bio diesel from the US to Panama) is faring.

here's the mongol rally.
http://mongolrally.instituteofadventureresearch.com/

some guys have all the luck

2007-03-09T16:14:00.000-05:00

As long as I'm on the site, posting, I guess I might as well throw this little tid-bit out to people.
We ran into 3 teams in Dakar before we left. 2 guys in a station wagon, 3 guys in a VW bus, and 2 ladies in a 4 door sedan (I don't know what kind of car it was). We'd crossed paths with most of the teams a couple of times before, especially the guys in the station wagon. Personally, I sometimes thought that they were the antithesis of our group - experienced mechanics, traveling light, with well defined plans and an efficient and direct manner. They took their own firewood into the desert. They traveled for weeks in Morocco before we got to Tarifa. They went all over the place. The group, plus another car, traveled across the Sahara with NO guide, just a couple of GPS's. That's crazy.
When we saw them in Dakar, they were planning on going to Banjul the long way around - driving all the way around the Gambia (within Senegal), and then approaching Banjul from the South. Sounded like fun - crazy, but fun (Casamance, in the south of Senegal, is doing a little seceding dance, and things are getting a little excited down there, from what I understand). Anyway, the complication to their travel plans was the intersection of 2 salient facts. One, that all cars that enter Senegal are supposed to be escorted through the country together. These guys had slipped away from their escort, which can be overlooked at the border, but were all on the same ingress/egress document, which means they all have to cross the border out of Senegal together. And, two, two of the teams had to get to Banjul earlier than the rest to catch their return flights home.
So, the plan was to leave Dakar (and, boy, did they get a late start. I remember them leaving way after lunch), drive to the nearest border with the Gambia, say their farewells, and then continue (the last 2 cars) on their trip around Senegal. Unfortunately, things didn't work out so well for them. They were stopped at some point in Senegal by the MPs, with a mismatch between the number of cars in the convoy and the number of cars stated in their travel documents, and got in a world of trouble. Last I heard they were back home safely, but had spent 10 days in "custody" by the police, or military, before things were settled. Here's an excerpt from the PB listserv:

As far as I know they were not entirely innocent and were the unlucky
ones that got caught.
They started out in a convoy from Diama with a customs guide, 2 other
P-B cars and 7 (I think) unrelated old Dutch tourist cars. A Dutch car broke down and the guide handed the "Passe Avante (sp?)" to the P-Bers and told them to go straight to the border leading to the Barra ferry.
Well, they didn't. They went to the next place up stream on the river. Still OK, the other two crossed into The Gambia and handed the Passe to Double de Klutz who headed further inland towards a national park.
When they were apprehended they couldn't prove that the other two cars had left Senegal and the last I heard they were held under threat of jail, waiting for proof to be sent from Banjul.

I'd like them to send me more deatils so we can warn people for next year. So if anyone can get them to do that or send info yourself, I'd be greatful.

2006/7, quite an eventful year for the challenge!

Cliff
Road Book Editor

After re-reading the quote, I guess it was one car that was trying to drive around the country, and the other two had gone ahead into the Gambia.
What's the lesson here? I'm not sure, but I'm pretty confident that, all things considered, we didn't have it so bad when we were stuck in Dahkla for 6 days, sleeping in nice hotel rooms and drinking cold beers. That, and the fact that no amount of planning can prepare you for the random things that lady luck might throw at you. That goes for life here, as much as it applies to the trip.

Observations, part 1

2007-03-09T15:38:00.000-05:00

I don't know what's going on with this blog of ours these days. True, we've finished the trip, and the blog's raison d'etre may have passed, but I feel like there's still lots of stuff that needs updating, and many loose ends that need to be tied up. We need more pictures, for one thing. And there's still the fund to distribute to our worthy charities. And there's work to be done to thank all of our sponsors and contributors. And more talk about our experiences -- the distillation of our travels into small vials of wisdom, rife with the complex bouquet of morals, victories, hair-splitting nuance, and inefficient activity. And our own special ingredient: sand. Lots and lots of that deep yellowy Saharan sand.
So? Where is it, peeps? Where are the deep thoughts that our friends and family have come to expect from us on this blog? Do I have to do everything?

Here's a short list of some of the things that I noticed on the trip that gave me pause, in no particular order:

1. Driving habits of various countries and cultures: I don't even want to get into this one. It's too long and must be saved for a later day. Suffice to say that it gets worse the further South you go (is that further or farther? I always confuse the two. God bless Google, it's farther, isn't it?). I think that this might be a universal truth - that driving habits get worse the farther South one goes. I smell a Theory, and a potential dissertation topic.

2. Toilets: No, this isn't a comparative analysis between western toilets and the eastern "squat" toilets. We were blessed with western toilets for most of our trip, thank the high spirits. That was one skill I wasn't looking forward to learning.
But, there is one distinction between our toilets and "their" toilets, over there. Many of the toilets that I encountered during the trip have a top flushing device, which isn't all that noteworthy, in and of itself. What was interesting is that the flush mechanism had two pieces to it - sort of like two half circles inside a ring type thing. These toilets are designed for 2 different types of flushes, 2 different flushes for the 2 different types of, well, business that is done in the toilets themselves (and looky here, google comes to the rescue again. They're called dual flush toilets. The picture's different, but you get the idea.). What's so great about this, you may ask? Water conservation. Minimize the load on the waste management system (infrastructure). These are good things for a "developing" economy. They're good for a developed economy, too, and basically just good for dear old mama earth. Not sure why they haven't caught on in the US. They have to be better than the godforsaken low flow toilets that were thrust upon the unsuspecting public back in the bad old days.

3. Siestas. Why are the Englishmen and their colonial descendants the only people in the world that think it's a good idea to do work, or anything else for that matter, in the middle of hot days? The rest of the world has figured it out. Find shade. Move as little as possible. Doze. It is just crazy that we try to soldier ahead in the heat.

4. Vacation time. This is more Europe than Africa. Europeans get 6 or more weeks a year of vacation. Why is it that Americans settle for 2 weeks? I know it has something to do with our Puritanical roots, but I don't understand why that can't change? I don't buy that it's bad for the economy - people working fewer hours should increase employment, not decrease output. And overall individual happiness should have some positive impact on an individual's production. Just a question, more than a thought.

5. Plastic bottles. The world used to get by with glass bottles for their soda, and other fluids. That was before we started drinking our water out of bottles, by the way (or paying $3.00 for a coffee). But glass was replaced, over time, with aluminum cans, and then by plastic bottles. It made sense in the developed world, back when we thought oil would last forever, and unbreakable bottles were good for the world (little Timmy will never get cut by a piece of broken glass again. Oh. Sorry, Scott). But now we know better. Why have "they", the manufacturing companies, exported plastic bottles and aluminum cans to the rest of the world. I can't imagine that the recycling process for plastic is better than recylcing glass bottles, that just takes hot water and a bottle deposit process. Maybe I'm missing something, but I think that bottles should be brought back. You would not believe the number of plastic junk strewn along the road in Mauritania. We're about as far from anything as a person can get in theh 21st century, and there are plastic bags (don't get me started) and plastic bottles everywhere.

6. Speaking of plastic garbage, think about the waste management infrastructure of this country, and rejoice. We discard a lot of stuff - mountains of it - and it goes 'poof!' and goes away. There is a lot of planning and activity around that seemingly simple occurance. Most countries haven't figured it out. Of course, most people realize at some point in their science classes that matter doesn't simply dissapear, and then we have to wonder where those industrious garbage technicians are taking our dirty diapers, and what they're doing with them...

Wow! This is going from an observation to an eco-rant! I'd better stop before I go on some sort of diatribe about the merits of reducing. More observations will come along later, I'm sure.

A moment of silence..

2007-03-08T14:41:00.000-05:00

This has nothing to do with the rally, or the team, or anything that is going on in the "real world", actually, but Steve Rogers died yesterday. Whether you liked him or not, it's always a sad day when the world loses a hero.
Here's a story for you:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/books/03/07/captain.america/index.html

The Lost Boys...

2007-03-08T10:18:00.000-05:00

Here's a link to a Youtube piece on the Costa Blanca Dons, the guys who were lost in the desert for four days...

T-shirts, get your T-shirts!

2007-03-05T20:44:00.000-05:00

Non-penitent yanks shirts are available. The great guys from Carhaix gave us a bunch of the carhaix music festival shirts as gifts when we were picking up the bikes. There are a bunch of shirts left over that we would like to see worn and enjoyed. Let me know if you're interested. If you live far away, we can ship.
Details:
All XL
purple shirts
"Govel 4n Ereg Kozer 2005" (I think that's what's printed. I think, too, that this is Brettanish?, Britanian?, Brettonesse?)

bands on the shirt include:
deep purple (hence the color?)
franz ferdinand
buena vista social club
new order
mickey 3d
iggy and the stooges
amadou and mairam
michel delpech
louis bertignac
luke
tiken jah fakoly
and more... (what a show, eh?)

drop me a line if you're interested.

More pictures, please

2007-03-05T18:34:00.000-05:00

Okay, my little droogies. I've taken some of my meager pictures and put them up on the flickr site. You should notice that the picture badge (that thing on the right hand menu bar with the changing pictures) has lots of new stuff.
Being the geekishly interested person that I am, I've also tried to geocode the pictures that I have. Check out this link, and tell me if it works. It should give you a fun little interface that links pictures to maps. Some of the pictures are well referenced on the map (they are where they should be). Others are more generally placed in the general area where they were taken. You figure out which are which.
If that doesn't work, I've shared the set, so you should be able to navigate to:
http://www.flickr.com/gp/59447537@N00/D6nj0o
and see all the pictures. I think there's a link to the map section from there, as well.
Alternatively, you can navigate to the www.flickr.com, and search for all pictures with the "penitent yanks" tag.
If that doesn't work, we'll have to do it the old fashioned way -- you'll have to come over to the house, and endure a tedious slide show. Oh boy!
I can't wait until Mike is ready to debut the 5 gigs of pictures he took!
happy surfing.

Dragin Run

2007-03-02T14:50:00.000-05:00

I just found this - http://www.draginrun.com/02-23-07_Jack_from_Morocco.htm - online after looking through video footage from Marrakech and being reminded of our last day there.

While we were getting our new tires put on, an American couple pulled up on a beautiful BMW motorcycle with a side car. The gentleman said, "You must be the Americans who are looking for tires!". Apparently he had run across other PBC teams at the Marrakech campsite and they had told him our story...

Well their story makes ours look like a trip out of the house to the grocery store. Jack and Janet, both retirees, are currently travelling by motorcyle from China to Mexico. We ran into them seven months into their trip. They met the Dalai Lama in Tibet, travelled through Russia, the Middle East, and were spending time in Morocco before heading to Europe, then transiting over to Canada for a trip to Mexico, by way of Alaska!

Check out their site here, where we got a mention and a picture. I also interviewed Jack in the brief time we had together.

Good luck to you guys and travel safe!!!

Random Pictures

2007-03-01T12:15:00.000-05:00

While I still haven't gotten up the gumption to write a little post-trip musing, here are the few still photos I took on my video camera when I wasn't actually filming video...

Kate and Kara in Marrakech

The Yanks (minus me) on the ferry from Europe to Africa.

Essaouira

McAya's in Dakhla - home of the "Big One", and provider of Yanks sustenance for six days...

4EX ain't what you think

2007-02-28T16:35:00.000-05:00

There was some discussion during our rest over period in Dakar about the expenses of our trip. We were fairly confident that the trip would have been a whole lot cheaper a year or two ago, based simply on the stronger dollar then.
Well, I did the research. It turns out that the exchange rate between dollars and Euros hasn't changed all that much over the last two years. Based on my rather slipshod math, it appears that the same trip a year ago would have saved us about 10% of the cost. That's real money, I know - but it's not the halfing that we thought it would be.
Do the math yourself, if you want. Here's the table I looked at.
After all that, I realized that euro to dollar might be easier for some of us.
Here's all the numbers, inverted for your pleasure. ( I think the math works).

Here's the main page of the site: http://www.oanda.com/convert/fxhistory
you can run comparisons on the Moroccan Dirham or the CFA yourself, thank you very much.

BTW, I'm going to get seriously PO'ed if I'm the only yank posting in the future. You better be careful, or I won't invite you to my goat stew brunch.

R.I.P. Thomas

2007-02-28T08:21:00.000-05:00

Final resting place coordinates:
N 23*45.850'
W 015*54.427'

Here's a link to the google map.

I think I'll go back to Cali...

2007-02-26T08:57:00.000-05:00

No, I don't think so. It appears that our experience of the chaotic Dakar airport has continued. I showed up last night to check in and made it as far as getting the baggage claim strip affixed to my luggage before Air France realized that the plane was full. I'll be taking the same selection of flights home today, getting in a day late - hopefully. On the plus side, I got to spend a night at the nicest hotel in Senegal (which is nice, but not as nice as you'd expect), got some flight credits and an exit row seat guarantee (not sure if i believe that one). On the down side, itùs another day until I can see Amanda and Ethan. 6 hours from now, I'll try it all again.
It sounds like the rest of the team made it through the tough part of getting out of Dakar. I hope they make it all the way home in one piece.
Scott, Kara and I are spending the day in the Almaides region in Northern Dakar. Mellow feel to it - definitely a well heeled area.

DIG update

2007-02-24T09:29:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the dirth of updates, everyone. We've all been busy running around, trying to soak up as much of Senegal and Dakar as we can before we leave. I, personally, have spent the meager time in front of the computer trying to post pictures that we've taken recently - all to no avail. We'll just have to wait until our return state side before adding any more pictures, I think.
Half the team returns home tonight (or early tomorrow morning). The rest of us get into Washington on Monday or Tuesday. By random chance, this means that the stragglers get to witness the presidential election tomorrow (on Sunday). Should be interesting. We're thinking that most everything will be closed for election day, so we'll spend our remaining time on the Northern end of the Dakar penninsula, at one beach bar or hotel or another.
Many things have been happening since we've been in Dakar. Most of the things entail convincing one persistent seller or another that we're not interested in their knock off products, or their brother's store (just around the corner), or a phone card. Then again, we do end up buying almost everything that's for sale from someone or another, so one can understand their motivation.
We made it out to the DIG project yesterday. We were able to spend some time with the outpatient women who are developing one of the DIG gardens and we talked to Steve at length about his plans and dreams. It's an interesting project. Lots of pictures and personal experiences will be coming from the other team members in the near future, I imagine. As for me, I was amazed that they have been able to grow anything in the area - the ground is pretty much sand and scrub. They are using peanut shells as the ground soil in the beds. Interesting, too, that the hard part isn't necessarily in the vegetable production, but in getting outpatients to change their diet, and eat vegetables they've never seen before.
Last night was spent eating at a great little ethiopian restaurant, followed by a night of checking out the local music scene. The local music is called Mbalax, and chock full of myriad drums and african rhythms that you'd expect. What wasn't expected is the communal nature of the music - people come up from the crowd and take a turn on the congas, or sign a verse or two of the song, and then go back into the crowd. We were also able to witness some pretty intense dance offs throughout the night. Guys flail and stomp, showing off their skills and making fun of their competitors. It's difficult to describe, and fascinating to watch. Interestingly enough, it's the men who show off on the dance floor -- the women tend to be very understated, sticking to some basic knee bending and hip shacking. However basic it may be, easy it is not.
That's about it for the update. Tourist stuff is on the agenda today - last minute shopping for family and friends, and maybe a short trip out to one of the islands around the city. Pretty soon, we'll be able to update everyone live and in person. We all look forward to it.

Do It Yourself Saviors

2007-02-22T08:57:00.000-05:00

We met one of the guides who takes teams across the desert while we were waiting to cross the Mauritania to Senegal border a few days ago. He was on his way back from taking a five person team across the desert and mentioned that another team had lost a car during the crossing. They were eventually found and are doing fine, but put quite a fright into people. Nice guys, and we're all very happy to hear that they will be okay.
Here's the article:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007080154,00.html

I guess there are worse things than breaking down in a tourist town.

What's Your Cargo?....des Americains....

2007-02-21T10:04:00.000-05:00

Well, we are alive and well in Dakar, arriving late last night via our new, reliable friend Abdu and his panel truck. I guess we should rewind a bit...

After almost a week in Dakhla, the Yanks were getting antsy - the probelm being we were meeting tons of people who MIGHT have the solution for us, but stories kept changing, prices kept changing, and we were getting a distinct feeling that we were stuck. The biggest problem with getting out of Morocco was the bus - in order for Eddy, as the owner to leave, he had to either get the bus out of the country or seal it with customs saying it was broken down and that at some point in time we would sort it out and either fix it or transfer ownership. By this past Saturday, we wanted to leave so badly we made one last exhaustive push for a solution and found a man that would both get us out of Dakhla and leave the bus.

The owner of a local campground quoted us a price for a mini-camion (panel truck) and a driver to Dakar and said the bus could "stay" with him at the campground. After six days of meetings, back and forths, and what ifs, Jay stepped up and did what needed to be done: he made an executive decision. We were leaving tonight!

We agreed and literally started cramming things in bags for our exit from Morocco. The plan was to check out of the hotel, stay at the campsite, and get a ride the next morning - a three day journey with two of us crammed in the front cab of the truck with the driver, and four living like sheep in a windowless shipping space in the back - human cargo!

The next morning we awoke with a sense that FINALLY we are moving again, albeit without poor Thomas. We packed the back of the truck with all of our belongings, the top with the bicycles, and left exra supplies with a very happy campground owner, and sadly bid our farewells to the bus. Before leaving, Eddy finally got to live his dream of surfing atop Thomas. The bus was, of course, stationary, but with a high desert wind, it was as close as we will ever come.

We departed at 10AM and stopped to get gas. As soon as we were about to leave the station, we got a call back from the campground to return immediately. A sense of impending doom set on us, as we had no idea what was going on. Did customs decide to step in and halt our escape? Apparently, the campground owner stopped in and was unhappy that we were leaving the bus without papers to support it. After a few tense moments and a sense that we might never get home, we were escorted to the customs office, where Jay and Eddy convinced a very begrudging agent to take care of our paperwork on a Saturday. We were fianlly on our way.

We could all go on (as I'm sure some of us will in subsequent posts) for a long time about our experience of the last three days. Travelling 10-14 hours a day, stopping occaisionally for a bathroom break and lunch - we really were human commerce traffic.

Our driver, Abdu was great and with some French and a little English we wiled away the hours talking to him up front, playing cards in the back, and taking in the landscape when we could open the big sliding door in the back.

Our first night we made it the border of Western Sahara and Mauritania at dusk and barely made it through the border. They were shutting down for the night, but with a little pleading from Kara and some help from Abdu, we avoided having to bunk down for the night at the border. Between Morocco and Mauritania, there is a 4km no man's land that is mined. We drove out of Morocco into no man's land well after dark and traversed a rocky, bumpy stretch - confident that Abdu, who had made the trip thousands of times, knew what he was doing. Once in Mauri, we drove until midnight then camped roadside for the night.

Day two was another long haul - from border to border- and ended at Rosso, the ferry crossing into Senegal. Rosso was surreal - it looked like a shelled German town during World War II, complete with goats wandering the streets aimlessly, random street side fires, and a general air of lawlessness. Abdu decided it would be safest to camp outside of town and we finally got our one night of camping on an actual sand dune.

The third day was the roughest, waking at 5AM so we could get into the line for the ferry. The flies were getting thicker in the back of the truck, no one had showered for three days, and we were all somewhat dehydrated. Hours of waiting, talking to locals, and listening to the prayer calls bellowing from every corner paid off in a quick ride across the river to Senegal. Once on the road in Senegal, Abdu confirmed to us that we had never driven in Senegal, and as we got closer to Dakar, we started having trouble finding our way to where we were supposed to drop the bicycles. One interesting thing of note that we observed was how Abdu was treated by police checkpoints in Senegal. Police were gruffer and gave him a hard time, we think based on the fact that he was obviously a Saharan African. At a few checkpoints we barely escaped fines, but since we were finally in the country that our bicycles were destined to reside, we got a lot of slack for our charitable cause. At one point Kara smoothed out a potential fine with a flash of our letter from the mayor of Carhaix and some sweet talking.

We arrived at the outskirts of Dakar at sunset last night, not knowing where we were or how were to get to our drop off point. After literally hours of traffic jams, asking directions, and driving aimlessly, we realized we were completely lost. Finallt at about 9PM we stopped to talk to a police officer. The funniest thing about the experience was that the cop had no idea himself where he was or how to get where we needed. He finally jumped in the trcuk with us, called our contact (with a conversation that started something like this, "Hello, this is the police. No, there is no problem..."). Thirty minutes later, we were at a random hotel, safe for the night, and completely exhausted from our three days of travel.

More to come about what we have dubbed the "post Daklha" portion of our adventure. WE all miss Thomas, but most important - we got the bikes and ourselves, in one piece, to Senegal.

next verse, same as the first

2007-02-17T07:06:00.000-05:00

We're still in Dahkla. We're spending the day(s) talking to people, identifying our options, talking to more people, and spending an inordinate amount sitting in the hotel lobby waiting for news from one of the many people trying to help us out.
There are 2 main considerations and/or problems that we are trying to address. The first is how we get ourselves, and the bicycles, from here to Dakar, in Senegal. There are a number of potential solutions to this problem, all with their respective costs and benefits.
The second, and more serious, concern is how to deal with the bus. The Moroccan government is fairly strict about foreigners not leaving their vehicles in the country. Right now our options are to either A) "temporarily seal" the bus in a customs house, where it will sit until Ed returns to Morocco with the needed parts for repair or B) towing the bus out of the country. There's a three kilometer no man's land between Morocco and Mauritania where the bus can be left (the assumption being that someone will retrieve the bus once it is abandoned and claim ownership of it and do what they will with the whole or parts of Thomas). There are costs and benefits associated with these options, too, which we are deciphering and assessing.
We'll keep you posted on developments. In the meantime, if it's any consolation, the wind has picked up dramatically, and it's not quite as warm here as it was yesterday. We're thinking that the high winds will be an issue if we end up taking a flat bed truck, or hitching a ride on the roof of a freighter across the desert. Talk about sand in your face.

Down and Out in Dakhla

2007-02-16T12:06:00.000-05:00

The Ottoman Empire has officially given up, and Thomas is beyond repair. As of noon today, Thomas bought a one way ticket to the great bus station in the sky, or wherever buses go when they exceed their utility. Apparently, one suh place may be the campground down the street, and the Yanks collectively are moving faster and more definitively than we have in weeks. Current focus is also on our evacuation strategy. Apprently, it is quite easy, for a price, to get from here to the Mauritanian side of the Senegalese border. it's a whole different story from there, and we are still trying to determine if we can do it with the bikes that we have been entrusted to deliver.

Though not without hope, and definitely not without options, things seem decidedly bleak despite the shining sun and beautiful weather. Though, we are still all thankful that we are in a safe comfortable place, and individually gearing up for an adventure of a different sort. maybe riding the bikes to Senegal isn't a bad idea after all. More news as it breaks...but we are fine, mostly well, and planning how we might pick the bus up and finish next year.

jenna and the Yanks

Thomas has left the building

2007-02-15T16:23:00.000-05:00

Today was a day of hurry up and wait. Thomas was relieved of all her accessories as planned, and we anxiously awaited the arrival of Dakhla's master mechanics to remedy Thomas's ailments. 10 am came and went, as did 11 and eventually noon. Discouraged that our optimistic east coast concept of time was incompatible with local custom, the Ottoman Empire was phoned, and he arrived on the scene only to inform us that there would be no tow truck available until 3pm. Foiled again by the Moroccan lunch, we attempted to embrace the rest in the middle of the day, and ourselves went for sustenance. When in Rome....

With nothing to do but sit and wait and eat, we did just that, and attempted to adapt to local tradition. There was much deliberation in typical Penitent Yank style about a lot of dfferent scenarios. Anxiety about timing, and the need to meet other deadlines...flights, meetings, dropping off the bikes monopolized the conversation, and the optimism of last night's heartfelt team decision was replaced by more practical matters: can we make it to Dakar or Banjul in 6 days? The math was inescapable: 3 days of mechanical work + 6 days of driving = 0 wiggle room in the itinerary. Armed with a fistful of logic, and in line with our adjusted perception of time, we returned at 3:30, figuring that we perhaps might have mastered Moroccan time. Alas, we were wrong again, and our arrival met with Utman apparently trying to adapt to our concept of time, and we both just threw our arms up in disbelief.

With the Empire waiting, there was harried discussion about when it would be done, if it could be done, and that if it wasn't ready, we would be hitching the first camel out of town. i'd prefer an ATV myself, and after eating camel kebabs for dinner this evening (tastes like beef) I would be leery that my local ride would know I dined on his second cousing twice removed. New reassurances were given, and we got 3 down to 2.5 days, and we plan to depart from our new home away from home, Dakhla, first thing Sunday morning. In the meantime, evacuation planes by plane, train, automobile, ATV, camel, slow boat, and long bus ride are being hatched, Funy thing though, Kayak wouldn't load for me to check when and how this would occur, and refrains of Hotel California echoed through my mind. But Thomas has left the building, and we sit with fingers crossed in a semi-leap of faith that Utman's mecanical wizardry will get us and Thomas to Banjul as we planned.

The good, the bad, and the ugly

2007-02-15T06:54:00.000-05:00

We spent the afternoon doing the British colonial thing - sitting on the veranda, playing cards (cinch is fun!), and drinking gin and tonics.
By 9 pm, we were ready for news, of any kind, from the mechanics. They spent the day running around town, looking for spare parts and trying to devise a solution. Here's what they brought back:
The good news is that the mechanics are fairly confident that they've found parts that can be modified to fit Thomas.
The bad news is that it's going to cost an arm and a leg to get done, and it's going to take at least three days of around the clock work. Based on our conversations last night, it sounds like most of the cost is going to the parts, and the labors pretty cheap. Based on this morning, "around the clock" work translates differently in Arabic. We took the bikes off the bus and all the perishable supplies into our rooms by 10 this morning, as requested. It's now past noon and we're still waiting for the mechanics to show up and tow the bus to the shop.

We had the longest team decision making session we've ever had last night, trying to come to an agreement on what to do. That's saying something, too, given how much we all love to talk. We've decided to go ahead with the repairs and continue our efforts to get Thomas to the Gambia. We all feel that we've come to far to stop now.

If all goes well, we'll be up and running, and loaded back up, by Sunday morning. This will put us well behind the rest of the PDCers, but we're hoping we can push ahead and that we might make it in time to join some of the teams lounging poolside in Banjul.

Keep your fingers crossed, and we'll keep you all posted on developments. A huge thank you goes out to everyone who has been doing so much to give us a long distance helping hand. Your efforts, your prayers, and your words of encouragement are all greatly appreciated.

The end of the road?

2007-02-14T08:29:00.000-05:00

Well folks...the mechanique came by this morning and took our oil pan off. There was an immediate reaction in Arabic and the three guys came out from under Thomas shaking their heads. It sort of felt like when someone opens a conversation with "I have some unfortunate news...".

We have a broken crankshaft and possibly blown pistons. Very bad news indeed.

We are exploring all options and if anyone has any resources in the U.S. to acquire and ship parts please post in the comment or call us at 00 212 072 08 94 25.

We have been calling the embassy, the consulate and even US AID to see if thy might have parts. In some late breaking semi-hopeful news another master mechanic came by an hour ago and said he is going to drive all over Dahkla today and see what he can scare up. He is returning to the hotel at 9PM tonight with any news. He seemed hopeful.

On the good side, all the folks at the Sahara Regency have been ace in helping us. They have reduced our hotel rates to semi-permanent resident status and there is a Valentine's Day BBQ on the roof top tonight. Freia and her husband, Colin, are ex-pats living here and have been a great source of information, mechanics, and pretty much everything else. Without them, and the fact that we got the bus to Dahkla, we would absolutely be sunk.

More later. Keep your fingers crossed.

Four Wheeling in the Desert

2007-02-14T07:12:00.000-05:00

We definitely picked the right place to break down. Plenty to do while we wait. Mike, jenna and I went 4 wheeling in the desert, down the beach and along the lagoon.
Other options we may need to consider - surfing on the atlantic side, kite surfing in the lagoon, frying ourselves on the beach, deep sea fishing, reading books, writing home to Mom, plaing a major Cinch championship. The list is endless.

Photo essay of a breakdown

2007-02-13T20:34:00.000-05:00

You've heard the story before, and now you've got some pictures to go with it.

First, the bus stopped working.

Then, these local guys came along ( and you ask yourself, 'can there be a hoodie without a hood?'). These guys were unbelievably friendly and helpful, sticking around with us for hours and doing everything they could to keep our spirits up and the bus running.

Then a passing semi stopped for a while and tried to help out, too. This guy was hauling a large load of small rocks. In the desert!

'So, Scott, what's my motivation in this scene? Do I actually fix the thing, or just look like I'm trying to get it working? Union regs say we get a break now, you know.'

A couple hours later, the cavalry arrived. This is either an outing of the society of mad max recreations or the moroccan chapter of burning man.

Then we all stood around looking pensive and contemplative.

Or just stood around eating and talking.

The master mechanics at work on the engine.

It ain't nothing but a street party!

Lawrence of Arabia, eat your heart out

2007-02-13T20:28:00.000-05:00

Shipwrecked!

2007-02-13T20:06:00.000-05:00

If our trip were a novel, seeing this ship a couple of days ago would be considered ominous foreshadowing.

this is your brain...

2007-02-13T19:58:00.000-05:00

This is your brain in an internet cafe.

This picture was actually taken a few days ago, in a different 'cyber cafe' in a different town. Jenna's now wearing a greenish shirt (actually, it could be the same one). The place may be differen, but the ambiance definitely remains the same.

Waiting for the Ottoman Empire

2007-02-13T19:48:00.000-05:00

After leaving Jay and Eddie in the dust...literally, Mike and I hitched a ride with Tanya and Zoe from the middle of nowhere to Dakhla. Scott and Kara did the same, but with Emma and Alice. After getting in the car and hitting 120 km per hour for the first time since I left the States, I began to feel like I was in a race car, not a banger Alfa recovered from a farm in southern France. It was hard to believe that 200 km would only take 2 hours, not the 4 that Thomas takes, but as we sped through the desert to Dakhla, we kept our eyes open for anything remotely resembling a tow truck. Fortunately, my perception of what a Moroccan tow truck looks like is inaccurate, or slightly so, because as we hit the halfway mark I thought to myself that Jay and Eddie were in for a long night. Fears were slightly allayed when we were informed that the truck had left about an hour and half ago upon our arrival to Dakhla. Still, towing the bus would be, and was, a long arduous task, and the Yanks that were left in the desert arrived to the swanky Sahara Regency around half past midnight.

While Jay and Eddie were having a harrowing journey to Dakhla behind a tow truck driver who was apparently visually challenged, I was busily chatting up our future mechanic, Utman, or as Scott called him, Ottoman, at the lounge on the rooftop terrace. Important team business. Although the Ottoman Empire offered up pistachios and what I believe were assurances that he would get Thomas back in tip-top shape, apparently we were not first in line for his legendary mechanical skills. The Ottoman Empire showed up at noon as he said he would, looked at the bus for 5 minutes, and promptly took a two hour lunch.

Fortunately, some of the Yanks were given a leave for some R and R, and what better way to wait for the Ottoman Empire than to spend the afternoon riding quads up and down the peninsula. Jay, Mike, and I joined the Norwegian Army for donuts, jumps, hair-raising dunes, coastal flats, and a lot of sand. It was exactly what was needed, because, face it, how else would we pass the time whilst waiting for the Ottoman Empire to come without pulling out our hair?

As we splashed through the surf, kicked up the dust, and got various wheel in numerous configurations off the ground, the grins returned to our faces and we temporarily forgot that we were actually unable to predict how long we would be in Dakhla, or how much it was going to cost to get us out. Several hours later we returned to the hotel, showered, and the Ottoman Empire appeared. Covers were removed, electricians brought in, but no real progress was made. With a promise to return tomorrow, the Ottoman Empire himself cleaned up for another evening at the rooftop lounge, where Hotel California was eerily playing in the background. You can check out anytime you like...

The remaining teams joined us in our attempts to troubleshoot the state of affairs with Thomas. Considering the multitude of mechanically adept individuals who just cannot resist a proper challenge, and the kind and generous spirits of those who also feel that trekking through the Sahara in a banger is a smashingly good idea for charity, Thomas was poked, prodded, and unhinged anew. Although Thomas did not spring back to life, a number of things that are not wrong with Thomas were discovered, including the fuel pump. The diesel coming out of the engine looked good, and so the puzzle of Thomas remained.

Now, we sit and wait for the return of the Ottoman Empire, and hope that tomorrow brings clear news. In the meantime, there is a Valentine Day party tomorrow evening to keep us busy, and a whole lot of beautiful desert yet to explore. Maybe off to see some monolithic dunes, and hopefully news that the Ottoman Empire has conquered Thomas. so that we may continue our journey.

Downtime in Dahkla

2007-02-13T19:06:00.000-05:00

So, we're still alive, but the bus ain't kicking yet. We had one more valiant effort with the bus from some fellow challengers before they settled in and prepared for a very early start tomorrow morning. The last five or so teams (besides us) will be heading out into the desert tomorrow morning. We'll be meeting with the town master mechanic. Things aren't looking too good in our cup's tea leaves, but we're keeping our hopes and our spirits up for the time being. With nothing better to do than watch the computer take fifteen minutes to render a webpage or a half hour to send an email, and being quickly bored with counting the number of flies crawling across my arms (five at last count), I thought I'd load up some more pictures onto the blog. Who knows, maybe the added bandwidth will actually cause the entire western sahara backbone to collapse, depriving countless local young men of their daily intake of illegal music videos and causing a massive upswell in civil unrest and political instability. If only we could be so lucky. One of the few upsides to our current mess is a roof top bar and pool at the hotel that would make a worth set for Miami Vice. A strictly Muslim Miami Vice, sans bikinis (or women), booze or smokes. And, in the case of our hotel, without any chlorine in the pool.

Someday, boys and girls, maybe you'll get lucky enough to hear what it is like to towed for 175 kilometers behind a drunk towtruck driver on a four foot tow line in the middle of the night on an unmarked and poorly paved road. Let's just say that cars may be real, but semis are scary.

This is what a short school bus looks like when it is broken down in Western Sahara:

This is the view from the broken down bus:

These things take so long to load that i'm going to start creating separate blog entries for each post. Watch me now! I think Jenna's blogging at the same time, so don't get confused. I have some stuff of Mike's to upload, too, just to make it all as confusing as possible.

Driving to Dahkla - part two, the bad part...

2007-02-13T10:02:00.000-05:00

Jay hit save on his previous post moments before catastrophe...our first break down.

We stopped somewhere between Bougador and Dahkla to refuel. Immediately after fuelling up, Thomas started acting funny. We pulled over to check things out and cleaned out our fuel filter, thinking perhaps we got some bad diesel. He started up after a period of re-priming the pump and we were off. 5km down the road the bus just shut down - nothing...we glided to a stop and the reality of our first breakdown in the middle of nowhere set in. We were going nowhere and there was NOTHING on the horizon but sand and rocks...

After a few minutes of trying to figure out what was going on, a posse of merry Moroccans stopped to see how we were doing. With a little French, and a little English we decided to try to bleed the tank of fuel and see if we could refuel with one of our reserve jerry cans. Lacking wrenches and other materials within an hour or so we were convinced we were indeed stuck...and stuck for a while. Talk of tow trucks, a little soccer in the desert with our new friends, and some last ditch attempt by our highly unmechanical team to try jump starting the bus from our friends 1976 Mercedes ate up another hour until we saw some familiar cars driving down the road - fellow PBCers! and lots of them caravaning to Dahkla!

Soon we had a festival like atmosphere around the bus - between the teams and our new friends, there were close to 30 people at work on the bus. The Moroccans left and returned with lunch for the team and we all sort of hung out and had a the best time we could due to the circumstances. Thanks to the Recycled Teenagers and a few other teams expertise, we decided to try to rig a can fuel directly to the fuel filter and bypass the fuel lines - serious MacGyver stuff here.

A few more hours and we all came to the conclusion that we had to tow the bus to Dahkla - about 90 miles. Kara, Scott, Mike and Jenna set off with other teams while Jay and Eddie stayed behind, alone in the desert, with nothing for miles.

Upon arriving, we got to work trying to sort out a depanage - tow truck. After a hairy few hours, a truck was on the way to our boys in the desert, who were apparently cookng food, hanging out with the Moroccans, and generally having a good time.

While the other team settled into a nice hotel in Dahkla, Eddie and Jay began a very hairy night time tow through the desert. The truck arrived, piloted by a semi-inebriated mechanic, and they hooked it up to a four foot long pole. The boys had to steer the bus at night, riding on a hard line behind the truck, crawling through the desert for more than three hours.

They arrived shortly after midnight, looking ragged with lots of stories from the experience.

We are currently stuck in Dahkla - the hotel has arranged a mechanic to look at the bus today. We will know later today what the prognosis is. We are all hopeful, but we have also discussed the possibility of Thomas becoming a permanent resident of Dahkla if there is something seriously wrong. Hopes are high though, and the mechanic who is looking at it is crack guy. This town is full of mechanics and diesel trucks - a good combination for six stuck Yanks.

While the rest of the teams have set off for the desert today, we remain. But at least the hotel is posh, and in a town of windsurfing and beaches, there are worst places to be stuck.

Stay tuned. Hopefully well be on the road soon...Inshallah...

Driving from Boujdour to Dahkla part 1

2007-02-13T10:00:00.000-05:00

We arose at the crack of dawn to head out to Dahkla, both because we really want to get there in time to get organized for the sand crossing and because our hotel was pretty damn bad. Communal toilets that had seen better, and cleaner, days. Small beds in dirty rooms with sheets of unknown origin. Ed felt that we were roughing it, and I tent to agree, although I have to admit that I have saayed in worse places before.
Dinner was the sole bright spot in that pretty dismal town. Fresh roasted chicken and fries, and a really friendly waitstaff.
We heard from Benny, te desert guide, through our new cell phone last night. He’s going to meet us at the camp site in Dahkla, and all our questions, and prayers, will be answered. We’ve been wondering whether we should take the desert crossing, or the new road – whether we need a guide or not if we do take the road, if we need to cross on the road with a caravan of other cars, etc. Clearly, we are leaning towards taking the road rather than the open desert, as we would rather make it to Banjul (and dar-es-salaam) than have fun driving a bus through sand (or, better yet, have fun digging a bus out of sand).
The bikes on the roof are still generating an incredible amount of interest from the locals. We are accosted b at least 2 or 3 separate people every time we stop, asking us if we’d be willing to give them, or sell them, the bicycles. Older men have offered to buy them all off of us, and youger kids have asked for a single bike. There must a huge demand for simple modes of transportation around here. We’re thinking that there might be a business opportunity for some enterprising individuals who want to finance their next vacation. Used bicycles from Europe and tshirts from the us would go a long way towards paying for travel costs.
Don’t worry, Jacques, all the bikes we have are still accounted for. We’ve been guarding them with our lives.
Yesterday was a long drive from tan-tan to Boujdour. The terrain has become much more desert like – rocky, with small scrub brush scattered about. It’s not the sand dunes that one envisions when one hears the word “Sahara” – it’s more like the desert out in death valley and the sourthwest us. Except we’re following a rocky cliff face that drops into the ocean. There are occasional shipwrecks (we’ve seen 3 so far). Very few people. Very few towns, and the few that we passed through or drove around seemed desolate.
WE just stopped to take pictures of a pack(?)/pod(?)/herd(?) of wild camels. They’re one humped here, if you’re interested.
The hotel the night before last in Tan tan wasn’t much better than the one last night, although it was better and had cleaner bathrooms. No hot water, though. It is almost camping, except we don’t have to erect our own tents, or break up camp in the morning, and there’s running water, electricity, and a sturdy roof over our heads that won’t fly away in a strong wind (which there’s plenty of out here). I think that we’ll be spending a lot more time camping from here on out. That should be interesting.
We’ve been getting stopped by the police checkpoints much more frequently than before. In Moroco, we were generally waved through. Here, in Western Sahara, we get stopped at every one. Everytime, it’s the same questions: “where are you going? Why are you going there? What’s your name, what’s your occupation?” It gets a little repetitive, and can take up to an hour to deal with, but we haven’t had any real problems with the guards as of yet, they haven’t asked for any bribes as of yet, and they’ve mostly been very pleasant people. I don’t think that we could have asked for any more.
The roads have been much nicer than I expected, as well. We’ve been driving on 2 lane blacktop through most of western sahara. It’s not well paved, but there aren’t many pot holes. The sides are cumbling and it’s fairly narrow, which makes passing semis or passing oncoming traffic an experience, but the road is not very well traveled, so that hasn’t been a problem. I was expecting graded dirt and potholes the size of houses.
This hasn’t been the tough, roughing it experience that we expected so far. Then again, the tough parts of the challenge are still ahead. Maybe I am seaking, or typing, too soon.

More Pictures

2007-02-13T09:51:00.000-05:00

KATE AND RASHID TO THE RESCUE

2007-02-13T09:32:00.000-05:00

A long over due post about our tire saviors, Kate and Rashid. Upon arriving in Marrakech we checked our email to see that Kate had sent us a note that Rashid had actually found our 8R19.5 tires in Casa! A very excted team mobilized to figure out how to get the tires to Marrakech.

After a few calls, Kate and Rashid offered to bring the tires directly to Marrakech - going well beyond gracious, they were on the road that evening. Upon arrival we unloaded what had seemed almost impossible to find - three new 8R19.5 tires. Rashid had found them at a tire shop. The owner had apparently bought a huge shipping container full of tires a long time ago, and these were in there. Brand new, but at least ten years old! That night we went into Marrakech to celebrate with a nice dinner in the main square - complete with shish kabobs, eggplant, and tea - all in the open air.

The next day, we brough the tires to a shop and found they fit the rims, but were somehow different than the old tires. No worries, with a little olive oil soap and some Morrocan ingenuity, we were on the road in a few hours. We bid Kate and Rashid adieu, as they had to get back to Casa. The whole team is so grateful for their help - again above and beyond the call of duty, and just one more indication of how nice and hospitable the people of Morocco have been during our entire trip. Cheers to Kate and Rashid!

Sorry about the picture, but I cant get it to rotate properly

And onward....to tree climbing goats and surfing paradise...

2007-02-10T06:51:00.000-05:00

A bitter sweet farewell to Essaouira, partly because we loved the town so much and partly because we left another of our short termers behind. Amanda is heading back to Marrakech and the US today, and the bus - with the six Yanks who will see him to the Gambia - is heading south.

Stopped for lunch currently in the seaside town of Taghazout, just north of Agadir. The entire stretch of coast line here looks very similar to the California coastline, and is chock full of Europeans, mostly surfers.

We happened upon one of the most interesting things we've seen yet on the trip today - goats in trees! The local farmers herd goats and they eat the Argan nuts off of trees (Argan oil is is a regional product here and it is for sale every where). Anyway, the goats have figured out how to literally climb the trees to get to the nuts - some climb all the way to the top! Pictures to follow of this Darwinian marvel...

Hope to make far south today - at least Tan-Tan...

The wheels on the bus make us go

2007-02-09T18:24:00.000-05:00

We have devoted an incredible amount of energy..we have gone round and round...to find tires and tire accessories. Today, Ed, Mike, and I walked aound trying to find a tire iron....because the one we have DOES NOT FIT our tires. The three of us purchased what we thought would work; returned to the bus in our premature glee with a brand new tire key... which did not fit either. I left Eddie and Mike throwing a frisbee on the beach whilst I marched back to the shop for a refund!!!or at least, and more optimistically, an exchange. After Khaled, Kate, and Rashid had exerted so much effort, add to the list now Mustafa and Baub. These two drove me around the entire town, and half jokingly suggested Marrakech. We visited every shop that might have an appropriately sized tire iron, or a reasonable facsimile...to no avail. In the end, after a cup of tea; we came upôn the idea to use a bigger iron size, equipped with spqcers to fill in the gaps. This is our makeshift tool..until we get a flat, or get to the Gambia, whichever comes first...pray for us qnd the Gambia first!!!

2007-02-09T18:02:00.000-05:00

comments from the pictures:
More images from the bus. Working on the bus and lots of mirrors.
Our dipstick is eight feet long. We have the biggest dipstick in the entire challenge.
Scott filming his apocalypse now homage.
No more western toilets. Be afraid for us.

Pictures with Khalid and the rest of the tire company crew. We took a very nervous Khalid on a three hour cruise through the streets of Casablanca looking for spare tires. He's engaged, according to sources in the know. We replaced a wheel and got a picture zith the staff. pics with Kate and Rashid are forthcoming.

random images from faraway places

2007-02-09T12:22:00.000-05:00

boats back from fishing in Essa.

A real live snake charmer in the medina of Marrakech. The cobra kept snapping at people walking by. I don't think that is an example of good marketing strategy.

on the road again

2007-02-09T12:14:00.000-05:00

Images from the drive from Marrakech to Essa. Notice our buddy, the Buddh, gets a front row seat.

notice, too, Jenna's admonition: 'keep the TP with you at all times.'

bus update

2007-02-09T12:10:00.000-05:00

updated picture of the bus, taken outside of casablanca when we were fruitlessly looking for tires. Mike has pictures of the tire guys that he'll be posting later.

pics

2007-02-09T07:14:00.000-05:00

The medina in Essa.

Amanda in the night market. Escargot carts in the background. Marrakech.

Essaouira and a day of rest

2007-02-09T06:58:00.000-05:00

We've made it as far as Essaouira, a little beachfront town popular with the westerners. Imaginge the set from Disney's Alladin and add a patina of third world disrepair, exhaust fumes, and do it yourself construction projects, and you'll have a decent idea of what the place looks like.
The decision has been to spend a day, today, resting and regrouping for the long trip down the coast roads toward Dahkla. This will put us a day off schedule, but the cost is worth the chance to recharge and fill up our tanks with energy and patience. Expect several updates throughout the day from everyone as we take breaks to upload text and images. This may well be the last time for a while where we will be around any sort of connection, however intermittent and minimal, to the internet.
Had our first dirt and rock road travel experience yesterday, traveling across the plains from Marrakech to here. The scenery was straight out of high plains drifter. yikes -- google brings back all the results in arabic script. yawza. and i can't get to the exclamation point. it's the fourth option over the 1 key.
Anyway, we nearly fell apart on that short stretch of the road, and we think that we may have lost something associated with the suspension or the frame, but we're still rolling.
Staying at a gorgeous riad in the medina for 2 nights. We'll leave Amanda here tomorrow morning for 3 hard days of driving. She'll take the bus - local, not ours - back to Marrakech.
stay tuned.

WE HAVE TIRES!!!!

2007-02-08T08:29:00.000-05:00

A quick note as the internet connection here is slow....we are the proud owners of three new tires. Like guardian road angels, friends of Farahs, Kate and Rashid, who live in Casablanca found us three brand new tires. They were put on this morning and we are off to Essaouira soon. Much relief, more to come with faster internet and less wacky keyboard configuration...

Which way to Marrakech

2007-02-08T08:21:00.000-05:00

Keyboard

2007-02-07T07:28:00.000-05:00

Here,s an image of the current keyboard configuration. See where the trouble comes in. the a, the m, the w. the numbers are above the special characters, and there are 3 or 4 special characters per key§ oi vey!

Rocking the Casbah

2007-02-07T07:13:00.000-05:00

I'm pretty sure that there are several of us, all updating the blog at the same time from different internet cafes, so i'll be brief. We made it to Marrakech with little problems. Spent the better part of a day in casablanca, looking for tires, to no avail.
roads are deterioriating slowly the further south we go. Interstate toll road to casablanca; 2 laner blacktop after that. Only encounter western toilets in the nicer hotels now. I imagine they will soon be a fond memory. Can't wait to explore the medina and souks. will be here for another night before heading to Essouira, on the coast.
Keyboard makes typing very timeconsuming andf error prone. Internationalization of all internet products is^n't helping much, either; web mail and blogger default to the local language __ either french or arabic. Navigating by memory and guesses. Plenty of time during this brief one day break to post more updates, and pics for families.

Mektoub...Morocco!

2007-02-07T07:12:00.000-05:00

And so it is written, we are in Morocco.

We arrived in Tangiers, and after a lengthy stay in customs, complete with mint tea service at our bus(for a nominal fee of course) we passed through the gates into a new country, and a new continent.

It took a few hours for the Yanks to start settling into the new culture, many discussions were had about how to do this, how to do that, and we all came to the conclusion that a smile and observing those around you is always a good start.

One thing that is becoming apparent is, that with our schedule, and our primary mission of getting the bus to Gambia being the priority, alot of sightseeing is falling by the wayside. We made the decision not to go to Fes, even though we all wanted to see it, and push as far as we could towards Casablanca. We made it to Mohammedia our first night- a beach town just north of Casa. Mohammedia is largely a summer resort, so the next morning, after waking up to the 7am call to prayer, it was off to Marrakech. As we were drving out of town we decided to ask about tires and actually found a tire shop near the hotel. The guys there were definitely intrigued by the bus and the Yanks and before long one intrepid employee, Khalid, joined to Yanks to drive around Casa to find tires. It was funny at first - he looked nervous to be getting on this bus with eight American strangers and after much ribbing from his compatriots about BON VOYAGE and HAVE FUN IN SENEGAL in French, we were off on the hunt. Khalid was great, and before long, partly in French and partly in English we talked about the trip and about his fiance Fatima.

To make a long story short Khalid led us all over an industrial area of Casa in search of tires. A few hopeful moments, but no dice. We returned to his shop, Pneu Anime, and changed out our worst tire with the one spare left which is in better shape and hit the road to Marrakech. All the people at Pneu Anime were wonderful and there will be pictures to follow.

We are in Marrakech until tomorrow night and just ran into our first fellow PBCers here at the internet cafe. More later its time to go explore the souks in the medina.

We pretty much decided our new tire approach is cross our fingers and hope we make it. Thanks to everyone who helped here and back in the US try to find les pneus.

We are making one last call to Karas friend Kate in Casa who may have a lead. If that works out an advance team will return to Casa for the tires and then we head south, south, south....

AFRICA, HERE WE COME!!!

2007-02-05T05:17:00.000-05:00

Just a quick note, as we are gathering supplies, doing laundry and spending our last moments in Europe. The bus is going to make it to Africa! We will be on a ferry from Tarifa to Tangiers in a few hours and then the adventure really begins. We are all excited and are so happy Thomas, the little bus that could, will definitely touch African soil...more later!

PBC vehicles!

2007-02-05T05:15:00.000-05:00

Fiesta en el bus!!!

2007-02-05T05:05:00.000-05:00

The bus has a magical quality - it defintely draws attention on the road, but even our fellow PBCers loved it. So, why not have a party on the bus? Sunday night, while our fellow Americans were watching the Superbowl, we had a great time fraternizing with the rest of teams - Brits, Portuguese, Belgians, and so far, the only Americans in site - The Penitent Yanks. Scott was even made an honorary British citizen by Trevor and Jonas. The one thing everyone expressed was the desire to help make sure our little bus makes it to the Gambia.

Mike here now . . . .blogging with Scott and preparing photos for uploads. Many of the other teams expressed their excitement about our vehicle as it embodies the spirit of the race. Many of the vehicles in the past challenges were newer vehicles and the PBC coordinator was fruastrated with the lack of "unconventional" road machines. Our arrival turned spirits and reignited the passion for many on this challenge- more to come!

Tarifa - These people are just as crazy as us!!

2007-02-05T04:54:00.000-05:00

From Cadiz, we drove to Tarifa - a beautiful town famed for its surfing and kite surfing. Eddy was in heaven! Most importantly, it was the first meeting point for the entire Plmouth-Banjul Challenge. Before we got off the bus at the hotel we sensed something...familiar. Ah yes, it was the assortment of crazy looking vehicles with stickers and paint all over them. That night we started to meet the rest of the teams and hear their stories - their cars, their backgrounds, and why they were doing this crazy challenge. We were amazed at the age range of the participants. On one hand, we met Mike and Pete, eighteen and nineteen, respectively. Everyone´s first question was - YOUR PARENTS ARE LETTING YOU DO THIS?! Cheers to them! We also met the Recycled Teenagers team - a group of retirees with very young hearts. A great time was had by all, and we looked forward to NOT having to get on the road in the morning...

On the road to Cadiz

2007-02-05T04:42:00.000-05:00

The trip from Madrid to Sevilla started, then stopped 30 meters later, when we couldn´t get our bus out of the Madrid airport parking lot. Somehow, we got in, but the exit gate was lower. Luckily the friendly folks at the car park opened a gate for us, and signed the bus as well. They said they wanted to come along...

Once you leave the mesa that Madrid is on, you hit the plains. Olives, vinyards, and lots of wind. This is "La Mancha" - famous for Don Quixote and his pugilistic attitude towards windmills. Well, all the old mills have been replaced with high tech ones - he would have a much harder time fighting them these days...

Along the way we tried to secure some tires, but the only ones we found were farm vehicle tires. We decided that unless we each wanted to buy a tire, and roll to Senegal inside them, we were out of luck for the meantime.

The rains in Spain do fall mainly on the plains, so we were in the drink after a few hours of driving, a rain that would not let up until we reached Cadiz the next day. After a rainy stop in Sevilla to pick up the final memeber of the team, Amanda, we were off again in a maelstrom of precipitation. We were finally ALL on the bus and spirits were high despite the rain...

In Cadiz, we spent the afternoon walking around and enjoying the sun and warm weather for the first time on our trip. Cadiz is considered the oldest city in Europe, founded in 1100 B.C. by Phoenician traders, now they have a Ben&Jerry´s - who would have thought?

Sketches of Spain

2007-02-05T04:34:00.000-05:00

Spirits were high in Madrid, as we had our first rendez-vous with more Yanks for the bus - Jenna and Ed. The team hit a great restaurant for paella and stories from the road. Then it was time to experience some of the nightlife in the Cheuca district. Drinks and laughs, and even flaming Sambuca drinks. One night, and we were off...Hasta Luego, Madrid, it was fun!

Drive on the First

2007-02-02T03:37:00.000-05:00

Pictures taken driving from Bilbao to Madrid, and some shots of the outside of the museum in Bilbao.
We added ¨Bikes for Africa¨to the side of the bus because we realized that observers have no idea what we´re doing or why we´re driving this eyesore around. Mike did a good job of making letters out of tape. Yes, we realize we´ll be in Africa in three days, but I think everyone gets the point.

Madrid In the Morning

2007-02-02T03:14:00.000-05:00

We´ve made it to Madrid, where we´re madly researching tire sources before we head out to Sevilla to meet up with Amanda. We´ll probably cross paths with her earlier in the day when we go out to the airport and get the bus out of the long term parking and she´s switching planes on her flight. I imagine she´ll have an easier time getting to Seville than we will.
The bus is handling pretty well. It seems to be running a little more smoothly than before -- Thomas has been getting in shape with all the work it´s been doing.
We´re still looking for a source of tires. Huge thanks go to Kevin, Scott´s Dad, for doing the virtual legwork and searching for spares. It looks like shipping tires is going to be prohibitively expensive (no surprise). We´ll try again in Gibraltar and see if we have any better luck. Some of us also think that we might have better luck with tires in Africa itself, where they tend to drive more U.S. vehicles (from Aid work) and have older vehicles in operation. Anyway, tires are still the number one concern on the bus, closely followed by engine fluids, which is closely followed by the suspension, which is closely followed by...
Oh, yeah, we met up with Jenna and Ed2. I bet there´s a bunch of you who were worried about her. It worked out pretty well, although it was kind of a late night before we all got together. Then they were seven.
We´ve got a long drive ahead of us today, straight from Madrid to Sevilla. No big plans between here and there, but it will probably be late in the evening before we are there.
Wish us well.

Bilbao

2007-02-02T01:00:00.000-05:00

San Sebastian is a great little city on the Northern coast of Spain. We had a fairly chaotic time driving through the town, and found ourselves in some pretty close quarters and tight turns, all the while getting some serious stares, smiles, waves and hoots from the commuters around us. the reaction to the bus, if we haven´t said so before, changed radically once we crossed the border. The Spanish, at least those in the Basque area, are much more expressive in their opinions. We´ve been getting a lot of honks, light flashes and arm pumping from cars passing us (They tend to drive much more aggressively than the French as well, so there´s lots of passing going on).
We made it to Bilbao in the morning. The Guggenheim museum is pretty amazing, both the structure and it´s contents. Definitely worth the stopover.
Drove about 400 Km from Bilbao to Madrid. Fairly mountainous travel, and snow everywhere throughout. Not the kind of traveling you want to do on a bus with no heat! I figured out around Bordeaux that there are two small holes near the pedals that blow air right on the driver´s feet. I´ve been wearing three pairs of socks and my boots, and my feet were still blocks of ice at the end of the day. We´re all looking forward to the warmer weather we expect in the South.

Long Entry

2007-02-02T00:30:00.000-05:00

This was written by Scott during our drive yesterday, it encompasses a lot of our French experience, about which I, personally, have been unable to encapsulate or communicate effectively. Sort of like that sentence. The point it - our time with Jacques and his friends was pretty extraordinary.
Here´s Scott:

A DAY TO REMEMBER
Well it’s been a fun and busy few days. Driving, eating, fixing tires, driving, getting gas, driving. I think if there were one thing that we all wish we had on this trip was more time. By the time we get to our destination, eat, and figure out a plan for the next day, we are all wiped out. But it beats the day job!
We are currently en route to Madrid (in Madrid by the time you read this) and have a four hour drive to reflect a little on the past week. We want to keep the blog updated as best as possible so we don’t let too much of our trip fly by without writing about it. Details tend to fade and brief summarizations become more prevalent, sort of like that diary you kept as a kid (or at least mine) – January was chock full of musings and minutae of each day, by March things start to taper off. I personally never made it past April. But I tell you this, I can tell you what I was doing every January-March through most of the Eighties!
It will be a week tomorrow morning that Eddy, Mike, Kara and I landed in London and headed to Southampton, but it seems like a lifetime. Part of that is the nature of travel – new experiences at every turn, so much to take in – it makes a day seem like three days of life when you are in comfortable surroundings, living your “normal” existence. Yesterday we started the day with coq au vin in France, and ended it with tapas in Spain!
I think we can all agree that our time in Breton will be one of the highlights of this entire trip though. We got off the ferry in St. Malo on Monday morning and started the first real leg of driving. It was surreal, partly because we stayed up way too late on the ferry, and partly because we had a two hour drive ahead of us and…well this was it! This is what we have been talking and planning, and now we are actually on the bus going somewhere.
We arrived in Callac, France on time at our appointed meeting spot and immediately saw a small Citroen flashing it lights at us. Jacques and the team’s e-mails were not for naught – everything worked out perfectly. We met Jacques and his wonderful sister Marie Claude and immediately entered a maelstrom of activity that would make anyone’s head spin, let alone five weary (admittedly, the weariness was self inflicted) travelers. We stopped for coffee and discussed the day and got to know each other. We were all immediately struck by the open-heartedness of our new French friends. It was one of those far and few between times when you meet someone and everything just clicks immediately, easy conversation, laughs and cheer all around.
We headed out to Christian and Mireille’s house, where we met some of the other members of the association Solidarite Dar El Salam; Guy Guivarch, the president, Francois, Kara and I’s host for the evening, and a bunch of other people. More conversation, a bottle of wine (this would become a recurrent theme during the day!), and a beautiful presentation of a Breton flag to our team.
As a side note, to our American readers, Breton, or Britanny, is in the north west of France and fiercely independent, much like Wales or maybe even the Basque country of Spain, the language of the area (Breton) is spoken by many, if not most, residents and is taught to school children as part of their regular curriculum. It is Celtic in origin and the area has its own distinct and beautiful culture.
Time for lunch! We headed into Carhaix and had a great lunch with the whole group and got to know each other even more. Then to the local grammar school, where the kids had organized bicycles for loading on the bus. This was our purpose here – to pick up bicycles from the association and transport them all the way to Senegal – to the village of Dar Es Salam. The association has been doing charitable work with this small village in East Senegal for ten years, and we thought it would be a great addition to the bus and in the spirit of the entire idea. One of the original ideas that the team came up with was to transport bicycles during the journey…
The kids at the school were wonderful! It was so exciting to see them engaged in this project to benefit other kids. We all feel by making a connection at an early age that the individual can directly benefit the well-being of another, especially across cultures, is a valuable lesson for kids – and hopefully an impressionable one. In the U.S., where our exposure to other cultures is limited in some ways (geographically), it seems like the spirit of a global culture and connectivity gets lost a lot. Needless to say, our current government isn’t doing much to make that better either. Thanks W!
Trois Ouest, a Breton language news station, came and did a story on us (we got to see it the next day) and we just had lots and lots of fun with the kids. They LOVED the cameras, so we let them ham it up to their hearts content.
Next stop, another social hour at a local bar. We did so much on our day in Carhaix, it was truly amazing that we ALSO took the time after each stop to unwind, have a glass of wine, and chat. A lovely aspect of French culture that is certainly more apparent when we, as Americans, always work, work, work…
We ambled across the street to the mayor’s office to meet and exchange cadeaux (gifts). We gave the entire group of our French hosts Penitent Yanks t-shirts, but that was far outweighed by their generosity at every turn – food, gifts, drinks. We explained that as Americans, we are so used to paying our own way, that it’s hard to get out of that mentality and let your host be just that…a host.
The meeting with the mayor was brief, a little bit of formality, in a very casual day. He presented us with a beautiful book about Carhaix and showed us his Breton mayoral sash, different than the standard rouge-blanc-bleu in the rest of France. More wine and cheese and some photos and we were off again. Drinks before dinner and then out to the bowling alley. Bowling alley, you say? Carhaix is a beautiful farming community, and like rural areas everywhere, there is not a Starbuck’s on every corner and a Quickie Mart. Another wonderful banquet style dinner, more drinks and conversation, then back to Christian’s. We spent the rest of the evening socializing, drinking wine, and comparing differences in language, euphemisms and quirks of respective cultures. I think the highlight of the evening was trying to explain what the term “banana hammock” meant… Christian and Mireille’s daughter, Pauline, joined us in conversation, and got a kick out this wacky group of Americans in her house. Close to 2AM, Kara and I finally retired to Francois’ house for the evening (thanks Francois for the beautiful room and for being the consummate host!).
The next morning we repacked the bikes and headed out for the next leg of our adventure – south to Bordeaux. All in all, we got thirteen bikes, two wheelchairs, and a few walkers on the roof. We would have loved to take every single bicycle in the garage on our journey, but Thomas is a short bus after all.
Jacques, Marie Claude, and everyone in Carhaix were so wonderful – truly something I think all the Yanks are going to remember for a lifetime – and who knows – hopefully it won’t be the last time we’ll ever see our friends and the beautiful countryside of Carhaix. There is a HUGE music festival there in the summer and we all would love to go back. And we all hope to stay connected, and work towards the common cause, of making the world a better place by whatever means we can. So for now…
Kenavo! Au Revoir! See you again!

update

2007-01-31T14:38:00.000-05:00

It looks like Scott is uploading the pictures that Mike has put together (it´s amazing what you can do with photoshop these days!). As the pictures show, we´re having a great time. As an update, we´ve made it to San Sebastian, just inside Spain for the evening.
We had our first break down today!! Leak in the fuel line from the fuel intake to the gas tank. Diesel all over the place when we tried to fill the tank. Easily fixed by a very gracious and helpful mechanic that, by complete serendipity, happened to be across the street from the hotel where we stayed for the night. We also realized that one of the rear tires was flat during dinner and decided to wait until the morning to fix it.
We found a tire shop that dealt with large sized tires. Unfortunately, the American tire sizes are different than European ones (like that´s a surprise), so they don´t have any tires for us. We unloaded all the spares that we are carrying with us, and only one tire was decent enough to use as a replacement. One of the tires was already destroyed, and the other is being saved as a last minute back up.
We were back on the road by noon, and smooth sailing since then.
San Sebastian is a beautiful city. The people here have so far been much more enthusiastic and expressive when seeing the bus than the French were. We´re getting a lot of horn blowing, hand waving, and picture taking. What fun.
More news later. So far, so good.

2007-01-31T14:26:00.003-05:00

Photos from the road

2007-01-31T14:26:00.002-05:00

Photos from the road

2007-01-31T14:26:00.001-05:00

2007-01-31T14:26:00.000-05:00

Leaving Carhaix

2007-01-30T06:10:00.000-05:00

Had the absolutely best time over the last day. too much to tell right now. leaving for bordeux and then off to spain.
Loaded down with bikes, wheelchairs and other things destined for Senegal.
Our hosts here have been fantastique. The hospitality has been tremendous. Will write much more later. We are on Brittany TV right now.

Pictures from the road...

2007-01-28T13:56:00.000-05:00

Bill the security guy watches us set the bus up at Southampton airport. A nice guy and a great start to our trip!

Sushi in London!

Bus in Portsmouth

2007-01-28T13:29:00.000-05:00

The vanguard portion of the team (those who flew out on Thursday night) made a stupendous discovery for the team. We've been spending a considerable amount of time discussing and wondering where we're going to park the bus when we arrive in cities through the European portion of our route. Most old cities are far too large and congested for us to deal with in old Thomas.
Somehow, someone realized that we could park the bus in the satelite parking area of the airport. Brilliant!! Airports are outside of town, have easy transportation options into the towns, and the parking lots are monitored and guarded.
So far, it's worked well in Southampton, and should be a viable option in the rest of Europe.

We finally made it back to the bus today in the early afternoon. We almost missed our stop, engrossed in our conversation and failing to notice the stop until it was too late. Lots of bag hauling and hustling, and we were on the shuttle to the bus.
The bus looked fine. No vandalism. No theft. No spontaneous combustion.
We installed the roof rack on the bus while we were in the parking lot. No time like the present to test out the structural integrity of the press board. It looks good, and so far the 3 spare tires are riding in style.

While we were working on the bus, the airport parking security van pulled up. The security people ambled over and started asking questions about the bus. Luckily for us, it turned out that the security person, Bill, was just interested in where the bus came from, where it was going, and what we were all about. He spent the better part of a half hour talking to us while the bus was put back together. Bill was able to help us out on the parking fee, too, which was incredibly appreciated. A great guy, and a stupendous way to officially start off the trip. We all take meeting Bill as a great omen for the rest of the trip. Thanks, Bill!

The bus drove great. No stalling or problems. Still getting our fair share of stares and attention from passing cars and pedestrians. Still haven't passed many cars, nor do I think that we will. More importantly, the music is pumping and the jams are flowing, thanks to our friend, Rod. I cannot imagine how much (more) unbearable this trip would be without tunes.

Beer Glasses by the pound

2007-01-28T13:23:00.000-05:00

England has a lot of beer options. I find it amazing that most bars (or pubs) have a separate glass for each beer, with the beer's name. That's a lot of glassware.
London has been a LOT of fun, although way too expensive for our budget. And here, I thought New York was ridiculous.

A very special penitent yankish thank you goes out to Freddy for being a consummate host for half the team on Saturday night. We had a great time, and it was great for me to spend some time with an old friend. Thanks, Freddy!

Thanks to Bill and Desmond for taking the second half of the team out clubbing. I hear it was quite an experience.

We had a Notting Hill moment at Bill and Desmond's flat during the evening.
In the garden:
"Whoopsiedaisy."
"Nobody says whoopsiedaisy. Only little girls with blond ringlets, and even then, not since the '70s."
Those private gardens are real, my friend.

Day 1 update

2007-01-28T13:18:00.000-05:00

It's only been a day, and we're already at each other's throats. I have no idea how we're going to survive the next month crammed into a small space together without someone dying. London, with all of its amenities, luxurious settings, and understandable language has proven to be a monumental challenge. How are we going to survive in the desert?
Kidding of course. We've had a blast so far.
We're paying for internet access by the minute, so I'll proceed with lots of shorter, single subject posts. The synopsis is that we're in Portsmouth, ready to board the overnight ferry to St. Malo, in France. Things have been going surprisingly well, with lots of good omens and good fortune heading our way.
More details soon.

Insert something catchy here in French

2007-01-27T13:02:00.001-05:00

Ok, so my first posting on the blog site after much prompting, encouragement and abuse from Jay.

So we have all now safely arrived in England with the exceptions of Jenna and Amanda who we look forward to picking up in Spain. After an inauspicious start to our journey, Mike and I had some miscommunication and ended up heading to the wrong airport. Needless to say we will not be the navigators on this journey as we just made our flight. We are now comfortably ensconced in some very plush accommodations in London thanks to our Friend Billy Pick. A pretty cushy start to this adventure.

Tomorrow we leave England and start our journey by ferry to France. The real fun begins then as we will be depending on our trusty bus Thomas to see us safely over the next 4500 or so miles to Banjul. I wanted to say a quick hello to our friends at the Potomac School in McLean, the Pine Crest School in Silver Spring and our friends at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, DC. You all contributed significantly to the success of this trip by providing wonderful bracelets, necklaces and pieces of art that will be given away to and inspire people we meet along the way. So to you and to everyone who has supported and encouraged us in this crazy adventure, thank you.

We are off to France this afternnon and the first leg nof our journey thru Europe. Au Voir

We made it, the bus is here, and only one person perished (but not a team member).

2007-01-26T18:21:00.000-05:00

Happy to say, Kara, Scott, Mike and Eddy made it to London and picked up the bus. She's purring like a kitten and safely stowed at the Southampton airport until Sunday.

The day started out a in a surreal fashion. Scott and Kara made it into London (after alomst missing their flight from Cincinnati to London..Cincinnati? It's a long story..) and took a train from Gatwick to Southampton to meet Mike and Eddy at the docks. Our train, as it was pulling into Southampton station, stopped abruptly. After a pregnant pause, a distinctly English voice came over the intercom and said "We need guards to platform 5 quickly!". The train was shut down and all passengers aboard sort of stood around and waited to be let out of the doors - we had been on the train for two hours and the platform was RIGHT THERE! Police came through and informed us that someone had jumped in front of the train and was "badly injured". After some gasps and more waiting they let us off the train, being sure to route us well wide of the front of the train, and we assume, a grisly scene.

It turns out "Suicide Friday" is a regular feature of Southampton life and being Friday, well....there you go! Once off the train, Kara and I realized that while we were here, Eddy and Mike were somewhere behind us on train from Heathrow and all traffic was stopped. It as 1pm and we had to get the bus by 5pm, or we'd have to wait until Monday, throwing our whole schedule off. A grand start! Well, tragically ,it turned out that the prospective suicide candidate succeeded in his/her attempt, so the clean up was a bit quicker. Trains started rolling again, and Mike and Eddy showed up at 2pm. A quick trip to the docks, and low and behold, there was Thomas waiting to be picked up like a puppy at the pound. Some paperwork, and we were off. We decided to park him at a secure lot at the airport, since we wanted to hit London for a few days. Driving to the airport was our first experience of the "gawking factor" - everyone just stared, chuckled, and even gave us a few thumbs up as we navigated the A731.

So we are in London now, safe and sound, and will be meeting Jay tomorrow. Sunday morning we head back to Southampton and pick up the bus so we can make an 8pm ferry to St Malo, France. Never a dull moment with this crew!

London weather

2007-01-25T13:59:00.000-05:00

Going to be in the 40's and rainy/snowy for the next couple of days in the London area.
This is exactly how I want to start a trip across the desert.
Teammates, catch you on the flip side.

It's finally here! We're off to London!

2007-01-25T12:52:00.000-05:00

Well the advance team of Scott, Kara, Mike and Eddy are off tonight to London. The big adventure finally starts. Jay will be arriving Saturday morning in London and we will all relax and have a day in London to enjoy before we board our ferry to France on Sunday night. From there, we are off to Carhaix, France to pick up bicycles to be transported to Senegal.

Thanks again to everyone, and we mean EVERYONE, who has supported our charities and the team in our epic adventure. This will be the trip of a lifetime and we all look forward to sharing it with you from the road, and when we get back.

Cheers!

Team Penitent Yanks

The bus has Landed!

2007-01-23T15:52:00.000-05:00

Thankfully, the bus was not on the MSC Napoli, and has made it to shore the old boring, normal way, by dock. No tiger-stripped curtains for those looters!!
3 more days, and counting.

Road Book, Deluxe

2007-01-23T09:35:00.000-05:00

Not that anyone has the time to sift through 50+ pages of liner notes about the challenge, but...
The challenge organizers have put together a road book, detailing some of the things that can be expected along the route and identifying some of the obstacles to be avoided.
Might be an interesting perusal for you (if you're one of those people into reading travel books for fun). I imagine this is going to become our bible.
Here's a copy, for those interested few.

the Plan So Far

2007-01-22T17:41:00.000-05:00

3 nights to go before some of us start the journey. You may be wondering what the plan looks like, to date, so here it is:
The first heat (is it gaggle of goofs?) leaves the DC area for London on Thursday night, arriving at both Gatwick and Heathrow on Friday morning. Once they get their bearings, it's a mad dash out to Southampton to pick up the bus. It's critical that we get the bus on Friday, before the processing company whatchamacallem close, since they stay closed all weekend and, without a bus, we'd be forced to spend the whole time holed up in some pub, hiding from the cold and wet. Assuming that the bus is recovered, and it starts, the group will head over to Plymouth (On a personal note, I'm a little confused about Portsmouth and Plymouth and their differences. This is a known mental short-circuit of mine, I have a hard time differentiating cities in the same general area that start with the same letter-- remember the whole Philly/Pitt fiasco many years ago? Or maybe it's just places that start with a "P"...).
Meanwhile, I'll be leaving DC for London the next day (Friday), arriving at Heathrow on Saturday morning (by way of Paris), where I will spend a few short hours with A (who happens, serendipitously, to be working in the London this week) before I make my way to Portsmouth (or is it Plymouth) to meet everyone else. Or I might stay in London for the night, and catch up with my old buddy, "El Freddy".
Either way, we'll be on the ferry to St. Malo on Sunday night, arriving in France on Monday morning. There's a whole bit planned where we're picking up some bikes that are going to school kids in Senegal from a charity in western France, but more on that later. I imagine there'll be pictures, too, at some point.
On Tuesday, we head down through Bordeaux, towards San Sebastian and Bilbao, where good food and that wacky museum build by Gehry await.
Later in the week, we pick up Jenna, Amanda, and anyone else who's coming along in Madrid and Seville. Not sure how that's going to work out. I guess that's part of the adventure, though, no?

Comment Box = Your Comment

2007-01-22T17:34:00.000-05:00

There's a little area, down on the right hand side of the browser window, where we have all sorts of interesting information about the team and stuff. If you peruse those interesting tidbits, you'll notice that there's a comment box section. It's there for a reason, my friend. It's there because we want to hear from you.
Not to toot our own horns, at least not too loudly, but we'd like our loved ones, and our friends, to take an interest in what we're doing. We want people to take a voyeuristic interest in what we're doing, where we're going, and what we're thinking about. We want people to check in on us, and more than once. The thing is, we can't tell if you have stopped by if you don't leave us a little note, or comment, or thought, or suggestion. This is meant to be, however hackneyed and one-sided, to be a conversation of some sort. There's supposed to be some give and take.
So, if you love us, leave us a note. Tell us what you're thinking. If you hate us, do the same. If you just think we're plain crazy -- well, we knew that already.
Come on, it's starting to feel lonely in here.

Random SMS posts from other challengers

2007-01-22T09:50:00.000-05:00

The PDC group have set up a way for team members to post SMS (text messages) to a group list, called the "SMS Field Reports". I doubt that we'll have a phone to use to post to this service, but you never know. If we did text to this service, you would be able to read our messages at http://drewsweb.net/pdc04/pdc07/fieldrep/7458fr.htm, but we're not texting. At least, not that I know of.

Anyway, here are some random texts from the service (from other teams) to give you an idea what is going on:

· stayed in great campsite 27'27.70N 13'03.10W if you see red Dakar vehicle
in carpark on google earth. It belonged to someone else.

· Gaargh. No minibar. What is this; the 3rd world?

· drove wrong way today only realising when another team came towards us.
near laayoune on coast. expected tropical beach got windy cliffs
· nowhere appears to be safe from the relentless attention of the sand.
Camera lenses & teeth seem particular targets. And everything else.

Gambian Visas have been acquired

2007-01-19T13:08:00.000-05:00

Ed called this morning to say that our Gambian Visas have been granted (conferred?). He talked to the consular agent at the embassy, who was interested in our trip and supposedly gave Ed a bunch of advice and tips on traveling in his native country. Too bad Ed never gets around to recording any of these experiences, huh?
Anyhoo - I think that was the last major pre flight hurdle to overcome. We now have all the visas that must be acquired before arrival (Mauritania and the Gambia). We have our passports (obviously). We have the shots, vaccines, pills and lotions to take us through any remote area of the world. We have our insurance (health and auto) for those areas that require insurance. We don't, funnily enough, have any paperwork to retrieve the bus from the shipping company. Huh. I wonder if that will matter? What would the normal paperwork be, anyway, a claim ticket? A valet receipt?
We have our prayer beads, our votive candles, our buddha statue and Ganesh figure, all ready to go (we're taking a shotgun approach to our prayers for assistance). What else? hmm. We have our plane tickets. Some of us even have return tickets (talk about self confidence!). We have maps. We even have a basic itinerary and sense of direction. To top it all off, we even have a hand-held GPS receiver now (thanks, Jeff and Joyce!). What more could we need?
Clearly, what we don't need right now is some clear thinking. This is no time for us to come to our senses and think logically, or realistically, on what we are about to do.
One more week to go, and all that's left is to get the bags packed.

Hey, You - Donate!

2007-01-17T14:33:00.000-05:00

You. Yeah, you. Feel like donating to a good cause while you're browsing? Our charities could really use the support. All you have to do is go to our donation page and follow the directions. True, it's not one click easy, but it's really not all that hard, and doesn't take all that long.

Speaking of donations, we've heard rumors that some people are having trouble executing their transactions through the paypal site. If you do have a problem, or you just prefer to keep things non-virtual, you can always send us a check.
Checks should be made out to "Global Colors" and sent to Ed at:
Ed Fox
1727 Willard St. NW
Washington, DC 20009.

(I guess you could technically send him anything you fancy, now that you have his address.)

If you want something for your donation besides the warm and fuzzy feeling of helping out those in need and making the world a better place, keep in mind that Ed, and perhaps some of the rest of us, will be out at the Duplex diner on the early side of tonight, selling shirts. Come by and say hi!

Bike Business

2007-01-17T08:24:00.000-05:00

I arrived home from work to the temporarily reassuring presence of a USPS Priority Mail envelope addressed with my very own handwriting sticking out of my very own mailbox..the last major possible glitch in the travel plans that I had envisioned. These things meant that my Mauritanian visa (and its’ delivery mechanism, my passport) made it back safely to Rhode Island for a brief stay before embarking on this epic little yellow bus adventure. This was reassuring for a number of reasons, but mostly because after confirming that it had been received and processed, I was starting to imagine all the red tape that would be necessary to locate the required travel documents somewhere between me and DC.

In an predictably excited inspection of my ever thickening passport, I looked at the latest official documents added to a formerly lonely Brazilian visa: the Gambia and Mauritania visas. I had glanced at the Gambian visa previously (for about the 10 minutes between receiving my passport and mailing it back out again), and was compelled to check again to make sure it was still there before admiring my latest acquisition. I am now the proud recipient of a Mauritanian business visa good for 3 months???? In a phone conversation with Eddie yesterday, he said the rest of the P Yanks received a one month tourist visa. Maybe it will go a long way towards explaining the 30+ bikes we are going to have strapped to the roof to be delivered in Senegal…and then again maybe not.

Outlook reminded me this morning at 7:30am in case I forgot that the PBC officially starts in about 14 days. If it’s in outlook, it must be so, right? One or two more shots from now (what’s a few more shots to add to the 11 I have already received this year?) and I will be able to bite anyone and not give them rabies…I mean pet strange dogs.

It’s really happening!!! It’s hard to believe at the moment that a mere 9 months ago the possibility of participation arose through a montage of random thoughts and experiences put together with a anxious hand clicking very decidedly on the submit button. It’s further more difficult to imagine that, 11 years ago, I vividly dreamt of a yellow school bus, a sailboat, and some unusual rocks…with no idea how it could all possibly fit together. I am not sure that I know now, but I can tell you with great certainty that I thought my days on a school bus were long, long, long gone by. I think I might be more logging more miles on the bus in Europe and Africa than I ever did throughout my entire childhood education. The paper on which the dream was recorded hints at accomplishment, anticipation, and joyous outcomes. Perhaps I cannot truly imagine how amazing and life-altering the whole experience will be...or perhaps I will become a business-woman dealing with unusual rocks and push-bikes.

Added a Comment Box to the Blog

2007-01-16T17:50:00.000-05:00

Maybe that's not big news where you come from, but I feel like a new daddy, so proud of my new creation.
Actually, I'm feeling our blog has become home to the Griswalds. We've gone way beyond gaudy. I'm getting flashbacks to the early days of the internet, when every "homepage" had a midi tune playing and a flashing banner. Whoo, boy.
The important thing is that we now have a way for random viewers to leave us little messages. Mom, I want to see a good luck missive from you, and soon.

We're gonna be on TV!!

2007-01-16T00:01:00.000-05:00

Word on the street is that we're going to be on TV on Wednesday. Local tv station NBC4 sometime in the later half of the 5 o'clock news. Check it out, if you can. Ed will be at the Duplex Diner, watching the show and selling t-shirts later into the night. If you haven't snagged a shirt yet, this will be one of the last chances you'll have. Come down and watch the show with him!

Also, if someone has a DVR, let us know - we'd love to get a recording of the segment.

Two Weeks and Counting

2007-01-11T12:40:00.000-05:00

Not to coopt Jay's post of yesterday, but I had been checking the blog intermittently over the past few weeks - sort of dismayed that there were no posts, but too busy to change that myself.

I think we all feel like we did a few weeks before the bus left. A little frazzled with the amount of things to do (shots, visas, gear, what-ifs, why nots?, how do you say "which road goes to Agadir" in French again?). I'm sure it will go just like it did in the fews days before we dropped our chariot off in Baltimore. We will prepare everything we can, then after that...we get on a plane and go! I think we have all comtemplated the delicate balance between being prepared to adequetely deal with the ultimate goal - which is getting the bus to Gambia, and not over preparing to kill the spirit of this crazy adventure.

Kara and I have an added layer to the process - making sure we have our ducks in a row in terms of camera gear. I just returned from a four day trip to Oregon to film for a local production company which afforded me the luxury of a test run of sorts of flying with my gear. 9/11+travelling with large cases full of electronic equipment = lots of red tape before boarding a plane. Things worked out pretty well though and we have a sense of what to expect in getting to London, and getting home from Dakar.

Now if I can just wrangle the rest of the team to do pre-trip interviews before the 25th....hint, hint...

Back from the hiatus

2007-01-10T18:23:00.000-05:00

Looks like we all took a break for the holidays there, but now we're all back in the saddle and raring to go.
The bus may be gone, but there are still a million things to do before we get ourselves on planes and take off for England. Aside from all the visas and vaccines, we still need to say good bye to all our friends and family -- a final bon voyage before we head out (event information forthcoming).
There's lots of communication going on with other people, as well. Ed's been working furiously to meet schools around the area and talk to kids about what we're doing. There are plans to turn the challenge into a virtual classroom, and let students follow our progress and experience our escapades on the route. He's also working with the folks who are coming up with a "vehicular mural" for the bus. He's so busy, in fact, that he doesn't even have time to post any updates of his activities on the blog.
On the education front, we (Ed, Scott and I) stopped by Ethan's elementary school this afternoon to talk to the fifth graders about the trip. Unfortunately, our efforts to both film the event and be official about our plans sent up all sorts of red flags with the school system (to be fair, the flags went up for rational reasons) and ended with a cancellation of our presentation/talk and the need to reschedule our meetings. I'm disappointed. Ed's disappointed, and I know that Ethan's disappointed. Hopefully, we'll be able to get something organized, sans filming, for next week.
So, lots to do, and darn little time to do it in. Stay tuned. Many more posts are on their way.

The bus is on her way to England!

2006-12-24T09:05:00.000-05:00

Mike, Ed and Scott drove up to Dundalk port in Baltimore Friday morning to drop the bus off at the shipping company.

We drove up at 7:30AM and did some filming of the bus in action along the BW parkway. Outside of a few wrong turns in Baltimore and a few close calls while trying to pass the bus in Ed's Landrover/camera platform, we arrived at the port in a light drizzle with everyone in tact and the bus running smoothly. A weird rattle developed halfway through the trip, but it was quickly diagnosed as a loose air filter screw. She's a solid beast...so far.

We jumped in head first. Ed took the lead in navigating the bureaucracy of shipping a two-ton 1987 GMC shortbus painted with zebra stripes and the word "peace" in six languages (thanks to Mike's last minute efforts Thursday night!). First stop - a group of jaded desk jockeys where payment and processing began. Mike and I waited outside until Ed arrived back with a smile on his face. So far so good. This is going to be easy!

I decided to film some shots of the bus pulling in through the gate, driving past rows and rows of Nissan Sentras and John Deere tractors. I can only assume the Nissans were inbound, and the tractors were heading out, but who knows where anything is made in these days of globalization. Second stop, an office with a bunch of salty looking dockworkers hanging out under the stairs to keep their cigarettes dry on a union break. Again, we wait....Ed returns again, still smiling. While he was in the office awaiting our next directive, a fight broke out amongst the workers inside. One old weathered dockworker said it was pretty normal for this time of year, they all get very punchy around the holidays. Punchy indeed!

While Mike and I waited, I rolled film on dock b-roll - ships, cranes, big machines moving even bigger machines. At some point a guy came over and told me that this is a Homeland Security protected area and that if any of the authorities saw me, they would take the tape. End of filming....

We embarked on the last part of the process - actually parking the bus in the spot where it will sit in until someone loads her onto the freighter next week. This was the part of the process we worried about - measuring, and more importantly, inspecting the bus. We were lead around a corner and lo and behold, there was an armada of school buses all waiting to be shipped out! Did we just run across a treasure trove of unknown PDC team vehicles all going to England for the start of the challenge? Was our idea of doing this trip in a school bus not as original as we thought? Nope. Apparently school buses are bought from all over the country and shipped out for service across the globe. The interesting part was that these buses were all labeled and heading out to "The Bin Laden Group, Saudi Arabia". Hmmm...well on one hand, it definitely piqued our interest as to what the story with that was. On the other, it allayed our fears about the chances of a freaky looking shortbus making it through customs!

This scene was too much to resist. Ed and I "decided" that we should get his car and drive over to pick Mike up. The inspector lady took a break from measuring and puffing on her Marlboro ultra light to give us a lift back to Ed's car. We got in the car and I immediately got the camera out and cracked the tinted passenger side window. How could I not film? A ton of buses all going to the Bin Laden family business along with our girl? Too interesting. We did a little covert filming - just enough to tell the story and pulled up next to our bus. Our inspector was all done! No interest in what was inside. It could've been loaded from top to bottom with C-4 or cocaine, but I guess that is England's problem. Just measurements of the exterior dimensions and it was over! She made it through the process with everything on board!

We left the port feeling good. A large chunk of the work involved in our adventure was over. Weekends of working on the bus came to this moment where we had to let her go. Whatever preparations that we should've/could've done are irrelevent now. And we felt a little wistful as well. Working on the bus was a fun, team-building experience. We all became master carpenters (not), got to know each other a little better, and the Penitent Yanks team dynamics started to fall into place.

The next time we see the bus we will be embarking on the real part of our adventure. This is going to fun! A trip-tych with 4,000 miles to check off...

Happy Holidays to everyone that has supported the team thus far, family, friends, and fellow PDC'ers! Thank you all so much for your love and support!

Team Penitent Yanks

Picture Badge Added

2006-12-22T11:38:00.000-05:00

I've added a picture badge to the site from Flick. A picture badge is that thing on the right side of the blog that has images moving around within the frame. It's pointed to a photo album of pictures from the 'bye bye bus' event.
I believe that it's fairly self-evident that I can't take pictures very well, so if you have any pictures that you want to share, send them to me, and I'll add them to the blog. Regardless, I'll keep adding pictures of yanks stuff to the album over time.
Happy holidays.

Bus Final Preparations

2006-12-22T10:17:00.000-05:00

The last 2 days have been hectic. The boys have been fiercely slaving away, trying to get the bus ready for the big ship off to the mother land. The roof rack has been put away, spare parts have been loaded on the bus, and the stereo system has been installed (wired anyway), thanks to Rod, who might as well be a member of the team, for all the help and assistance he's provided. We never did get any work done on the engine, but we have sound, which might be just as important as good hoses and belts, come to think of it.
I've heard (no pun intended) that the sound system is awesome, and there's plenty of power to blow the socks off of any nomads we might pass in the desert while listening to the tunes. Now the problem's going to be figuring out who gets to pick the music. I have a sneaking suspicion that there's limited overlap in our team's tastes. Showtunes or Galactic? Christmas music or Metallica? Cher or the Funky Meters? Oh well, at least we won't run out of things to talk about.

We got some cup holders installed near the driver, too, thank god. I was getting tired of trying to drive and hold a cup of coffee between my legs at the same time. This is going to be a life-saver (assuming we're moving).

Today started early - the guys drove the bus up to Baltimore in the early morning. Here's a picture of Scott filming the bus moving.

Duplex Diner Night

2006-12-22T10:16:00.000-05:00

The big 'bye bye bus' event was a success, thanks to all our friends, family and fellows who showed up to wish the bus well. Thanks again to the Duplex Diner for hosting our party. I hope everyone had half as much fun as we did.

Pictures are forthcoming, and I have no idea why I'm the only person who ever posts this stuff on the blog (hint, hint).

Pictures from a previous event

2006-12-22T10:04:00.000-05:00

More pictures from the Daschle fund raiser. These are the only images, and the only time, that the whole team was together in one place. Mike wanted these reposted, and doesn't know how to do it himself.

New Pictures of the bus!

2006-12-21T14:21:00.001-05:00

The bus, in all it's glory. It's kind of hard to see in the picture, but we've got a zebra print roof rack. Talk about styling...

Our official Challenge Numbers.

Our challenge numbers, on the roof of the bus.

The wheels of this bus not only go round, they also mesmerize.

Scott, hard at work.

Remnants from the bus event. For the christening, we decided to spray the bus, rather than breaking the bottle and running the risk of causing permanent damage to our delicate beast.

T-Shirts Available!

2006-12-21T11:24:00.000-05:00

We've got t-shirts made, and they look awesome!
Design looks like the images posted here.
We're asking for a $20 donation in return for one of these puppies. Contact us at contact@penitentyanks.com if you're interested.

Wanted: Dartboard

2006-12-18T23:42:00.000-05:00

Anyone have an old dartboard they aren't using that they want to donate to the cause?
We need some way to pass the time when the bus breaks down. Since we're going to be traveling with a bunch of Brits, maybe we'll make some gas money along the way with some friend games of cricket.
I knew there was a reason we were bringing Scott along...
FYI, This is the first, and by no means last, wanted post. We even have a label for these things. Check it out, and see how you, too, can help. We're not only raising money for charities, we're also helping you clean out the garage!

Another Sponsor Added to the Site

2006-12-18T23:10:00.000-05:00

the Duplex Diner has been added to the sponsor page. Looking forward to seeing everyone there on Wednesday night. Last chance to sign the bus!!

2006-12-17T14:21:00.001-05:00

Now everyone will know who we are and where we came from.

2006-12-17T13:52:00.001-05:00

Numbers on the bus.

2006-12-17T13:38:00.001-05:00

Putting locks and handles on the door.