Final Journey

It was a beautiful but all too early morning - Kristian took a walk and got some nice pictures. If we had gotten up earlier we could have taken a trip on the river and watched some hippos - we prioritized sleep. Sleep gets very high prioritization on a rally like this. If the choice is to get up half an hour earlier and get some breakfast or sleep a little more - sleep trumps food.

We transformed and rolled out. Onto the bumpy thirty-something kilometer road back out of the national park. It was actually easier to navigate in the daylight - who would have thought that? At the bottom of the road we did some minimum maintenance on our car. Like changing the air-filter and checking the oil. We experienced that there were always things we needed or should check or fix. There was simply no time to do it. And often when we fixed one problem - that caused another. Like when we adjusted our throttle a little higher - this resulted in our accelerator getting stuck from time to time. The car took on more quirks and becoming more and more complicated to drive - one had to know how to manipulate all the controls in the perfect order just to keep it running.

We set out for the Senegal-Mali border. Rolling trough Africa means a lot of kids coming running towards the car shouting "cadeau" (meaning gift) - it is quite scary how deeply embedded this reflex is in the african children. Some are extremely aggressive - close to the Mali border there was a bunch that simply would not move and when we slowed down to a crawly to slowly plow trough them they started hitting our car with sticks.

Getting out of Senegal was not a problem at all. Though. I can probably not go back to Senegal on my current passport - we never got stamped out of the country. We just drove up to a rope that cut of the road. As we where debating if we should back up and find another way some guy in a uniform turned up and lowered the rope - we just drove on. As we were crossing the river we realized that we had crossed into Mali. We started laughing and saying 'Well, this was too smooth'. And yes - it was.

We got stuck in-between a lot of trucks that were waiting to get past the border control of Mali. They where obviously not expecting to cross anytime soon as many of them did vehicle maintenance - some even seemed to do an full engine overhaul. It took a while before we figured out how to get trough. Luring the car off the road and onto he side. Finding the table where we could get the customs declaration for our car. And where to get our passports stamped. The whole thing only took about two hours. It felt longer. In the heat. Not understanding the whole process.

We entered Keyes in the darkness. Stopping at a hotel that looked to be close to the camp. And we got told that the camp had moved. Nobody knew where. So we ended up staying at the hotel - that is in our car at the hotel - there was, of course, no vacancies. We entered the restaurant of the hotel. There where people there who had not seen us since before Agadir. We got a spontaneous round of applause. It felt good. It felt like it was all worth it. Team FUG let us use their shower. It was magnificent - our standards have been lowered but it was just great to stand in some hot water and get a nice shave after. Thanks a lot guys.

Me and Per decided to check out the local nightclub - it was right next by the hotel. We were going to spend the night between a nightclub and the road where quite a lot of trucks where driving. A quiet night of sleep was what we were in for. Outside the Nightclub we were greeted by "Night Club" - that is what their nice little badge said. We had to pay some money to get tickets. Then we got taken away from the entrance to what we thought was the nightclub and up some stairs - the guard (some guy in some sort of uniform) let us past. Per and I seriously wondered what we actually had paid for... But it was just entry to the more vip part of the nightclub - a place packed with the life and joy of about 5 - at least two of them guests. We had a couple beers and left the club - even tho our hostess was promising us all the hot women would come in an hour.