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Owner Stories
International Travel
News From The Road
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Owner Stories
International Travel
News From The Road
Tips & Tricks
Budapest to Bamako Rally

The Romantic Notion of the Desert

Desert, Desert, and More Desert Mauritania is not usually on anyone’s bucket list.  It is poor, the desert is taking over, it only abolished slavery in 2001 (and still has slaves) and really there is not very much there.  It is, however, hauntingly beautiful, desolate, diverse and in some ways scary.  It was where the Rally and so many others have their desert focused portion—the Paris Dakar spent a lot of time in Mauritania.  Our first real day in Mauritania we started off on a 530 km run from Bou Lanour to Atar along the longest train in the world

Read More +
Budapest to Bamako Rally

Observations about Morocco

Morocco 101 Morocco is a really nice, gentle introduction to Africa. It has been both a Spanish and French colony with both cultures reflected. That means baguettes are available everywhere!  The scenery is amazingly diverse with the desert, mountains and then these verdant valleys with olive ‘orchards’ and vegetables.  There’s beautiful architecture, bustling markets and medinas, fabulous restaurants and nice hotels and spas.  It is a place I would like to spend a lot more time and a lot more time in our EC.

Read More +
Budapest to Bamako Rally

The Start of the Desert

Mines in the Desert From the high Atlas Mountains, we came down to the beach and then into more of a desert area.  Much like Central Oregon, this wasn’t a sand dune desert but a more rocky, gravelly one.  This is where we entered Western Sahara, which is about 800 km of what was once disputed territory between Morocco and Mauritania.  Both sides used to mine it…land mines! So we pretty much had a transit stage from outside of Dahla to our first camp at Bou Lanour in Mauritania. It was suggested we didn’t venture too far from the road,

Read More +
Budapest to Bamako Rally

Up and Down The Atlas Mountains

From Spain to Morocco We did our fast drive through Europe and took the overnight ferry to Morocco where the rally really started.  The ferry came from Spain and into Spain on the Moroccan side. So right away we had to navigate out of Europe and into Morocco whose border wasn’t exactly well signed. I guess this was where the GPS exercise really started.  The roadbook gave a brief outline of the procedure at the Moroccan border but frankly, it was just a cluster with vehicles and people everywhere all trying to get the attention of an official to stamp

Read More +
Budapest to Bamako Rally

Budapest to Bamako and Back – Post Rally

Budapest to Bamako We’re on the plane home now from the Budapest to Bamako rally and we’ve had an amazing time.  It was a long couple of weeks -nearly 20,000 kms there and back. We didn’t have access to wifi, hence the lack of posts.  We did finish the race in Banjul and did really well considering we really didn’t know what we were getting into.  Initially, I thought this was a GPS charity event, which it was but it was also a very serious well-organized play for keeps rally. The teams that came in the top 3 positions had

Read More +
Blog

Time to Cross Some Borders and Catch a Ferry

Tips for Crossing Borders As we’ve been driving and crossing borders on major highways, some countries have a “rest stop” like areas where you can buy a vignette which seems to be a “pre-paid” toll card.  It doesn’t seem to be mandatory to buy one as you aren’t funneled into this area.  We did buy them but wondered if it really mattered as no one checked them.  We started the race and crossed into Slovenia, another vignette country and almost didn’t buy one.  But we did, this one was a nice sticker (we didn’t notice) while the others were just

Read More +
Blog

Pre-Race Day Scrutineering Activities

Preparing for the Race Thursday was scrutineering, race briefing, GPS collection and for ourselves laundry and reorganizing day.  It is becoming a reality and we’ll be on our way with a 3000 km – 3.5-day mad dash through Europe for the first Morocco stage in Midelt on January 16. Traps for Young Players We’re part of the race category which means we have certain tasks to perform each day based on a GPS waypoint.  We brought a tablet with us to be able to access the maps and waypoints but found it was incompatible.  Therefore we had to get a

Read More +
Blog

Budapest Here We Are!

Being Tourist in Budapest It’s been several years since we’ve been in Budapest and it is truly a really lovely city at night which is when we arrived.  We’re at a hotel somewhat on the outskirts (has a big carpark which is essential for a vehicle rally!) but we spent Wednesday doing a bit of well-deserved sightseeing. I am a keen fan of public transport systems and no matter how confusing or in a language I don’t understand, it’s always a challenge for me to figure it out.  Budapest’s was no exception and Lance and I spent several hours on

Read More +
On the road to Ikea
Blog

What’s a Road Trip Without a Stop at Ikea

Road Trip Preparation and Free Camping Before we left Fred’s to hit the road again I got an opportunity to do one of my favorite things…go to a grocery store in another country!  I was not disappointed as we were able to stock up on all those lovely sliced cheeses and cold cuts, beautiful loaves of bread, organic veggies and plenty of beer and wine.  We firmly believe that you should never ‘rough it’ in an EarthCruiser.  I think we’ll be pretty right for those times when things may be a bit sparse in some parts of Africa. Our drive

Read More +
EarthCruiser Community
International Travel
News From The Road
Tips & Tricks
Budapest to Bamako Rally

The Romantic Notion of the Desert

Desert, Desert, and More Desert Mauritania is not usually on anyone’s bucket list.  It is poor, the desert is taking over, it only abolished slavery in 2001 (and still has slaves) and really there is not very much there.  It is, however, hauntingly beautiful, desolate, diverse and in some ways scary.  It was where the Rally and so many others have their desert focused portion—the Paris Dakar spent a lot of time in Mauritania.  Our first real day in Mauritania we started off on a 530 km run from Bou Lanour to Atar along the longest train in the world

Read More +
Budapest to Bamako Rally

Observations about Morocco

Morocco 101 Morocco is a really nice, gentle introduction to Africa. It has been both a Spanish and French colony with both cultures reflected. That means baguettes are available everywhere!  The scenery is amazingly diverse with the desert, mountains and then these verdant valleys with olive ‘orchards’ and vegetables.  There’s beautiful architecture, bustling markets and medinas, fabulous restaurants and nice hotels and spas.  It is a place I would like to spend a lot more time and a lot more time in our EC.

Read More +
Budapest to Bamako Rally

The Start of the Desert

Mines in the Desert From the high Atlas Mountains, we came down to the beach and then into more of a desert area.  Much like Central Oregon, this wasn’t a sand dune desert but a more rocky, gravelly one.  This is where we entered Western Sahara, which is about 800 km of what was once disputed territory between Morocco and Mauritania.  Both sides used to mine it…land mines! So we pretty much had a transit stage from outside of Dahla to our first camp at Bou Lanour in Mauritania. It was suggested we didn’t venture too far from the road,

Read More +
Budapest to Bamako Rally

Up and Down The Atlas Mountains

From Spain to Morocco We did our fast drive through Europe and took the overnight ferry to Morocco where the rally really started.  The ferry came from Spain and into Spain on the Moroccan side. So right away we had to navigate out of Europe and into Morocco whose border wasn’t exactly well signed. I guess this was where the GPS exercise really started.  The roadbook gave a brief outline of the procedure at the Moroccan border but frankly, it was just a cluster with vehicles and people everywhere all trying to get the attention of an official to stamp

Read More +
Budapest to Bamako Rally

Budapest to Bamako and Back – Post Rally

Budapest to Bamako We’re on the plane home now from the Budapest to Bamako rally and we’ve had an amazing time.  It was a long couple of weeks -nearly 20,000 kms there and back. We didn’t have access to wifi, hence the lack of posts.  We did finish the race in Banjul and did really well considering we really didn’t know what we were getting into.  Initially, I thought this was a GPS charity event, which it was but it was also a very serious well-organized play for keeps rally. The teams that came in the top 3 positions had

Read More +
Blog

Time to Cross Some Borders and Catch a Ferry

Tips for Crossing Borders As we’ve been driving and crossing borders on major highways, some countries have a “rest stop” like areas where you can buy a vignette which seems to be a “pre-paid” toll card.  It doesn’t seem to be mandatory to buy one as you aren’t funneled into this area.  We did buy them but wondered if it really mattered as no one checked them.  We started the race and crossed into Slovenia, another vignette country and almost didn’t buy one.  But we did, this one was a nice sticker (we didn’t notice) while the others were just

Read More +
Blog

Pre-Race Day Scrutineering Activities

Preparing for the Race Thursday was scrutineering, race briefing, GPS collection and for ourselves laundry and reorganizing day.  It is becoming a reality and we’ll be on our way with a 3000 km – 3.5-day mad dash through Europe for the first Morocco stage in Midelt on January 16. Traps for Young Players We’re part of the race category which means we have certain tasks to perform each day based on a GPS waypoint.  We brought a tablet with us to be able to access the maps and waypoints but found it was incompatible.  Therefore we had to get a

Read More +
Blog

Budapest Here We Are!

Being Tourist in Budapest It’s been several years since we’ve been in Budapest and it is truly a really lovely city at night which is when we arrived.  We’re at a hotel somewhat on the outskirts (has a big carpark which is essential for a vehicle rally!) but we spent Wednesday doing a bit of well-deserved sightseeing. I am a keen fan of public transport systems and no matter how confusing or in a language I don’t understand, it’s always a challenge for me to figure it out.  Budapest’s was no exception and Lance and I spent several hours on

Read More +
On the road to Ikea
Blog

What’s a Road Trip Without a Stop at Ikea

Road Trip Preparation and Free Camping Before we left Fred’s to hit the road again I got an opportunity to do one of my favorite things…go to a grocery store in another country!  I was not disappointed as we were able to stock up on all those lovely sliced cheeses and cold cuts, beautiful loaves of bread, organic veggies and plenty of beer and wine.  We firmly believe that you should never ‘rough it’ in an EarthCruiser.  I think we’ll be pretty right for those times when things may be a bit sparse in some parts of Africa. Our drive

Read More +