Mongol Rally Day 3

Hungover and exhausted, we committed to seeing a few of the city sites in Prague before making our way to Vienna. After a typical Czech breakfast of 3 Pizzas and a Hamburger (gives you a sense of our state yesterday morning) on the main square, we walked around the city – which is also experiencing a massive heat wave, just what exhausted, hungover people love.

Prague was beautiful and we would have loved to stay to explore the sites, but Vienna was calling. We hopped back in Bonnie and began our journey, what we thought was going to be a short 2 hour drive.. but then we realized that is if you are cruising at a brisk 180 clicks down the highway. Bonnie’s good, but she’s not that good!

After finally figuring out how to leave Prague, a city that does not believe in street signs, we turned on to a country road to take the scenic route to Austria. And man is the country side beautiful! We passed fields and fields of Sunflowers and wheat on the rolling hills. We also, successfully made our first right hand drive pass with our left hand drive car. Passing cars is an adventure in and of itself. As the driver slightly turns out right, the passenger and chief navigator is responsible for call out any impending trucks that might crush us. Committing to what the passenger has said we then floor it to overtake the car in front of us – only 1 near miss with a Mac truck incurred.

On the border of Czech Republic and Austria, we found ourselves in the charming town of Hate. Charming in the way that towns where as far as we can tell literally only hookers and heathens live. We passed about 15 brothels, complete with little trailers for what we assume have an hourly rent. The one amazing thing about Hate though, is that in the center of this small town, they have a massive statue of what appears to be an emperor type man, holding a massive Tommy Gun. Why? Because tommy guns are awesome that’s why!

We pulled in to Vienna around 6 pm and were met by our lovely friends Johanna and Valentine. They arranged to have us stay in a friend’s apartment who is currently out of town, and our first night of sleep in a real bed was positively glorious!

After quickly unloading our stuff, we took the metro out to Denube, and let us tell you, swimming in the Denube is amazing, especially after being trapped in a tiny car all day. We hung out on the banks of the river with our Viennese friends, watching crew shells go by – a happy site for the 3 rowers in the car, and for the first time felt completely relaxed and at ease. At 10 pm we decided we should probably grab some dinner and proceeded to having some of the most amazing food we have every had at Ulrich Kitchen.

We hit the hay at midnight and completed our 3rd glorious day of the Mongol Rally.

Mongol Rally Day 2

Our day started after only 4 hours sleep in our very intimate and very temporary Liege lodgings. The road which alluded us so effectively in the darkness was quickly found in the light of the Belgian morning. We were grateful to get out of the lowlands which everyone agrees as I write this is currently our least favorite country we’ve visited.

We knew we likely had one of our longest days of our European trip ahead of us but didn’t want to drive clear across Germany without stopping to take in some sites thus we decided on lunch in Heidelberg. The schnitzel was delicious and the heffeweizen fresh and dearly needed. The view from the road next to the river was incredibly picturesque and we were all amazed we had not heard more people rave about the beauty of the city, it’s formidable castle, and cheerful riverside residences. Next we headed into the Black Forrest which proved to be far more dense and large than any of us expected. The forest was densely crowded by a single type of foreboding tree and it was easy to see how such it could inspire visions of monsters and magic.

After a long day on the road we finally found ourselves in Prague with only an incomprehensible address and a local map that one friendly Czech taxi driver described as “terrible bad”. Several such stops were necessary to find the abandoned rail station that was the site of our campsite for the evening and our late night rave. We were all impressed with the kindness of the Czech people and the fact that they all seemed to be aware of and fans of the Mongol Rally. We picked up another team of Americans as we divined our way through the city but they abandoned our navigational leadership after our “tram racing” incident**

**The car screeched sounded across the warm Prague night air as our Nissan Micra braked to avoid an oncoming street tram in the bombed out neighborhood of Zizkov. Only seconds after our near miss we realized we had accidentally entered the dedicated tram lane and our exit (or “Ausfart” in German) by 16inch embankment that our low riding car (Bonnie) could not possibly clear. The only option was to continue moving forward. We eventually found an exit but not before scares with several trams.**

I will point out that we did find the eventual site of the party/camp at 11PM, a full 30 minutes before them. Upon reaching the campsite we discovered that the “campsite” continued no grass, and only cobble stones. We discovered that there was an abandoned hallway shrouded in darkness behind the factory that was just large enough to pitch our tent in and was completely obscured from view when our flashlights were turned off. The smooth concrete of the hallway proved far more comfortable than the giant rock laden patch of grass we had originally found. We pitched our tent and went to get after it at the CzechOut Party - a massive rave for all the tired ralliers. After many pints and a dedication to watching the sun rise, we crawled back into our homeless shelter-esque tent at 5:45 am, excited to finally get some sleep until the blowhorn went off at 7:30 am.. I guess we'll sleep when we're dead.

The team is here!!! Time to pack the car!

With the full team finally in London, today the KhanQuistadors became official. We spent the morning sorting all of our kit and making last minute lists of things to run out for. Overall we are feeling like we are in great shape! All the sponsorship stickers are now on the car - vinyl is SUPER hard to get evenly on a car by the way - we managed to fit all our gear in the roofrack, leaving the boot for all our duffels of clothes and sleeping bags.

With every sticker we added our team fell more in love with our seafoam lover. She still has yet to have a name, but we are sure in the next few days, something will strike us.

Now on to last minute errands and a nice steak dinner with the Bierces to set us off in style!

T-1 Day!!!!!

First Day in London!

Today was the day we met our Mighty Seafoam steed! After a quick train ride out to Upminster, we made our way to West Motors, and met Reece, the voice on the other end of countless phone calls to get our registration and car purchase sorted. Colin and I took a look under the hood, pretending like we knew anything to look for (obviously we had no idea), and took it out for a quick joy ride. Within all of about 7 seconds of driving, we put the windows down only to find the driver side window fall into the driver side door never to return. Reece helped us jimmy it out but our driver side window must now permanently remain up... which will be a blast in the desert.

Our next stop was to pick up all the gear we had shipped to a friend in Croydon. We loaded up boxes to find our roof rack never arrived - fuck. There is absolutely no way our stuff will fit in this car without one. Feeling a bit down on our luck and angry at potentially spending a boat load of money to get a roofrack at the last minute, we wandered into Halfords to see what we could make happen.

Then, it happened. We met our mechanical fairy Godfather, Kevin. After initially trying to sell us a 400 GBP roof box, we explained our rally plans, in hopes Kevin might know of some better options. Instantly Kevin's eyes lit up - he was heading on his own rally to Germany the next day and loved cars and thought our trip was just Brilliant! He leaned over and said, "for 40 quid I got an old roof box back at my flat if you want to pop by" - yes, yes we did.

Kevin then checked our entire car. We learned we had ZERO engine coolant, aka our car would have completely died and killed our engine for good before we made it to London. He fixed our AC, which we will most certainly be praising his name through the Gobi Desert for. He explained how the engine worked, how we could jerry rig fixes with Cider/Stella cans to save our engine, seal up cracks, not get fined in France for not having stupid headlight blinders on and all other sorts of tips. He was in all senses, our Mongol Rally Savior.

2 hours later, and 350 GBP of gear, we found ourselves at Kevin's house to pick up our enormous roof rack - which is lovingly covered in bird droppings for some extra flair. He also was generous enough to give us a new car radio, bungees, rope, and other random spare parts for free - he was the absolute best. Kevin's generosity and awesomeness is going to be hard to beat, but it is what the rally is all about - meeting strangers and getting excited about adventure!

... On our drive back into London we passed a Korn concert - what?! Tomorrow we pack the car and it all becomes deal. T-3 days!!

6 days away!

Over the last 9 months we have: - Purchased a car off ebay, in a country we do not live, that is a stick shift that only 2 of us know how to drive Had countless calls with the DVLA, Visa Machine, Insurance providers, and concerned parents - Applied for and luckily finally received visas for 20 different countries - Purchased a go pro, a drone, a tent, a cookset, and a bacci set for extreme play at the Gates of Hell - Absolved ourselves of the "real world", put work on hold, and focused on planning what will be the greatest adventure we've had to date...

With the start of our journey just 6 days away, our bags are packed and we are ready to stop with the planning and organization and conquer the unknown. Too excited to sleep! Watch out UK, the KhanQuistadors are coming for you!