A story of one of the legendary W123's of Mercedes on vegetable oil
Archive for the ‘travel’ Category.
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| Early in the morning while everyone is still asleep |
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| Breakfast on our own in the Sahara |
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Extra weight  |
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| Driving back from Tombouctou |
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| Sweet donkeys |
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| Happy free donkeys. Finally some donkeys which aren’t in custody and hit with sticks and carrying huge payloads. That’s good to see after those months. |
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| 300TD driving on the dirt road |
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| 300TD approaching |
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| Drinking strong tea |
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| The nomad daughter, she just came back from a 3 days walk with their cattle through the Sahara |
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| The pretty daughter of the family. |
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| Living a primitive and sometimes hard life, but they like it all the best |
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| Beautiful young lady in the Sahara, north of Tombouctou |
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| 2wd in soft sand in the Sahara |
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| Unbelievable, going upwards in soft sand! I couldn’t imagine so much is possible with only a rear wheel drive by deflating the tyres a bit (to 1 bar) |
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| Driving the Saharagelber through the Sahara |
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| Hooaaay! |
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| Tombouctou town |
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| Tombouctou library |
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| Mosque |
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| Isn’t she sweet? |
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| Beautiful door in Tombouctou town |
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| Sandy streets in Tombouctou |
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| How a Land Rover ends up sometimes |
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| Market stall in Tombouctou |
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| Entrance gate of Tombouctou |
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| The trustworthy W123 |
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| Ploughing through deep sand |
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| Ploughing through deep sand.. Coming from Tombouctou you have to drive on this dyke, where deep tracks of other vehicles make it hard to cross. People around were amazed this ‘petite voiture’ made it through the terrain. |
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| Gaining enough speed is the trick to go through it as is deflating the tyres a bit |
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| Lost some speed but the Benz still goes on |
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| The last metres and… We did it! |
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| I think it can’t get dirtier |
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| Sweet and healthy donkeys in the Sahara |
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| Tombouctou town |
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| Sandy Tombouctou |
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| D(r)iving into the Sahara Our german friends stayed behind en we went into the sahara with the good old Benz |
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| Staying the night with saharan nomads |
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| Feeling utterly relaxed, drinking tea with the nomads under the stars |
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| Our stay with the nomads in the desert |
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| Waking up with the camels. Our friends from Switzerland slept in the chairs of the germans and hung a mosquito net over it. Looks pretty cool |
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| Sahara sunrise with the camels |
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| Waking up at 6am, time to go on again |
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| Camel with blue eyes |
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| Ready to go to Tombouctou today |
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| Direction Tombouctou |
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| Taking the side of the dyk was a bad idea |
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| The Ferry to cross the Niger |
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| All cars stuffed on the ferryboat |
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| Yes!!! Tombouctou!!! |
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| Driving through the town Tombouctou |
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| 300TD monster reached Tombouctou |
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| Dirt looks cool |
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| Strong W123 |
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| Driving up north, Mali |
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| Helping some locals with a broken tyre. As we could fix it one of them took a ride with us. Two on the passengers seat, the african way |
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| Huge rocky mountains, Douentza |
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| Direction Tombouctou. People often use the rivers for washing, bathing and cleaning things |
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| Amazing rock formations. On the road from Douentza to Tombouctou, Mali |
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| Heading to Tombouctou |
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| Road from Douentza to Tombouctou |
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| This night we stayed with camel traders in the Sahara |
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| Camels of the camel traders, close to Tombouctou |
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| Having dinner |
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| Mopti is a great place in Mali, it’s also the starting point to visit the stilt villages and the tribe on the tiny island villages. |
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| Hundreds of boats in Mopti, Mali |
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| Fisherman boats and equipment |
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| Fisherman boats and equipment |
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| Local way of transport to go to the various villages situated in the Niger delta |
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| Small mud mosque on one of the islands around Mopti |
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| Sweet little malian girl |
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| Malian girl next to their village mosque |
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| Enthousiastic kids in Mali. Everytime I took a shot, I showed the image to them of themselves. They were amazed and wanted me to take another picture all the time. |
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| Villages in the water in the Mopti region |
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| Huge pelicans pay the village a visit. |
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| Mopti sunset |
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| The Great Mosque, Djenne Mali. Yes, it’s completely built from mud (the building, not the Benz) |
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| village supplies are stored in these nice clay constructions. |
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| Bushcamping close to Mopti |
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| Everything made from mud in Djenne |
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| Woman in Djenne |
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| Great pattern, full of fossils |
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| Side entrance of the Great Mosque in Djenne |
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| The front side of the Great Mosque |
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| The lively monday market in Djenne |
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| The Great Mosque, Djenne |
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| The mud walls need a new cover every year. 4000 volunteers help with this process each time. |
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| Market place in Djenne |
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| Pretty lady sitting with her family in the living room |
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| Cloth mill |
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| Bad situation: They don’t have a refuse dump and they use the shores for that. |
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| And a bit further away they’re doing the laundry and bathing |
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| People leaving Djenne by boat |
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| Traders of the region leaving Djenne after the market day |
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| At the end of the day, the women start doing the laundry |
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| Sunset in Djenne, Mali |
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| Djenne, Mali Trucks are loaded after a busy market monday |
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| The Great Mosque while the sun is setting |
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| Morning ritual: a real cup of coffee. Very important. |
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| The dirty W123 nose |
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| Mud on the 300TD |
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| Driving the W123 |
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| Whoops, belly’s stuck! |
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| Mud castle, on our way to Segou |
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| The Niger delta often shows fairytale-like scenery. |
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| Waiting for the boat to Djenne |
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| Waiting for the boat to Djenne, Mali |
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| Pushed down Mercedes star. |
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| Campsite in Djenne. Look at my heavy mosquito protection |
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| Driving out of Bamako, Mali |
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| Foot destroyed by the mosquitos |
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| Interesting place to be I guess: Centre de Bla |
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| Get out the rope. Well, this was just not possible, we gave it a shot but having a 4×4 is a real pro here |
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| The Niger river in Bamako |
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| Our place, one of the few place you can camp in Bamako |
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| Getting new tyres and having the car aligned |
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| Aligning with a wire, works great |
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| Bamako after heavy rainfall |
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| Mercedes-Benz dealer in Bamako |
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| Tiny sandy streets in Bamako |
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| Street in Bamako |
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| Finding shelter for the rainfall |
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| After a good night sleep in a cosy place, Bamako |
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| Quite a good W123 wagon in Bamako, Mali. Probably just arrived |
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| W123 in Bamako, Mali |
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| Check-up in Bamako at official Mercedes dealer Mercedes and Citroen dealer, to be exact. Nice combination, eh? The interim score: engine rubbers need to bee replaced and a small stabilization shock absorber. I had a tyre and filters replaced too. No failures of anything whatsoever! Unbelievable! |
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| Street repairs, Bamako (Mali) |
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| Old trucks in Bamako |
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| Streets in Bamako when the evening falls |
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| Our bushcamp close to the Malian border |
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| The first Mali miles |
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| Rocky mountains in Western Mali |
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| Amazing rock pillar |
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| Terrific scenery |
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| Trying to approach the falls |
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| Red sand roads in Mali |
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If you look closely, you see a cyclist under that ‘bush’  |
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| W123 taxi in Bamako, Mali |
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| We finally found a place, nice and cosy, or so we thought… That night we were attacked and they shot at us. First we thought this was the end of our happy lives, we were afraid there was a riot going on between rebels and the army. I saw the army earlier that day. It was dark and we heard them walking through the bushes. Pretty close and at some point they shot at us and the bullet hit the Landcruiser, I was freaking scared and thought I’d die here. We started screaming that we were tourists, hoping they would stop shooting. When they had pionted their lights at us they came towards us and it turned out these fellows were the villagers, looking for thieves who stole some of their cattle. I explained in french we were just bush camping here and we didn’t steal no cattle. It ended up all right and we talked for some time with them. I never was so scared and happy in just one minute. |
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| A night to remember. We’re still alive! |
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| The Landcruiser was indeed hit by the bullit |
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| Peugeot 504 fully loaded |
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| Red sand roads in Guinea |
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| The same species shows differences in fading |
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| Nice view over the Niger floating through the landscape of the Fouta Djalon |
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| After heavy rains the roads were flooded |
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| Roads become rivers in the rainy season in West Africa |
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| Yeeehaaa! |
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| The nice N6 road to Mali |
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| Eastern Guinea-Conakry |
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| Typical African villages in Guinea-Conakry |
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| pieces of land with self-made fences. |
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| Stony mountain |
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| Old man pushing cart. Life can be very hard towards older people who don’t have family who can take care of him. They literally have to work til death. |
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| Inland road |
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| Traversing the bush |
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Aliens on the market place These people on this market place never had seen white people, or at least it looked like that. It was really something. When we walked over the market place and after a while stopped turned around, we saw a whole group of people stopping too, staring at us as if some aliens had landed and were now finding out how planet earth looked like. As Rolf tends to be very big, and Heike is very blond they were maybe even more amazed. I felt it wouldn’t make a difference when I would put that pumpkin half on my head, getting more attention just wasn’t possible |
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| The market place. This is what we saw when we stopped walking and turned around |
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| There is quite some stuff on offer at this stall. |
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| Colourful people on the market place |
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| Albino girl on market in Guinea-Conakry |
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| Trying our best to find a great spot to bushcamp |
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| Bush camping in the Fouta Djalon, Guinea-Conakry |
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| The engine score so far: No technical problems.. zero, zip. The red sand-coloured engine of the 300td. The reservoir of the hydraulic system is quite clean, the leveling system had a hard time the last couple of days and that’s probably why it overflowed. I think there’s a problem for the leveling system to keep the car at its height (as the Benz is elevated quite a bit). Up until now, some 11k kilometers later, no technical problems at all, after some heavy trips, with rivers, rocks, stony surfaces, huge potholes, soft sand, pools, mud, corrugated pavings and steep climbs. |
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| Saharagelb with sandy splashes |
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| “Car wash” in Guinea-Conakry. They drive the cars in to the water or nearby and start washing them with a wet cloth. To the right there’s a 504 break without headlights and loads of rust. |
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| Peugeot 504 and 504 break in Guinea-Conakry. They live tough lives out here. |
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| Great place in West-Africa, the Fouta Djalon of Guinea-Conakry |
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| Another 505 break, close to the local ‘gas station’. You can buy the fuel in liter bottles. I guess this is only used for the mopeds. |
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| Drinking a coke at one of these small ‘shops’ along the road. |
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| The smallest ‘Mobil’ gas station |
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| M or W? |
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| Huge crash between a truck and a taxi. Unfortunately 6 persons died in this crash, there were 2 children among them. Unfortunately 6 persons died in this crash, 2 children among them. The traffic accident rate is very high in West-Africa. There are many wreckless drivers and often they drive way too fast. When you drive over here, you’re constantly reminded of this fact, as all the crashed vehicles are still lying along the road. |
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| The taxi with 5 or 6 people in it who all died, as I was told. |
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| Another terrible crash happened here and I don’t want to know the details.. |
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| Our private camping place We found ourselves a good camping spot I can say. A guy who saw us came towards us and decided to observe us for a while, not able to exchange at least one word with us. As we were quite used to this (though still bothering us, after a long exhaustive day ) we made a bit fun of him by started talking complete jibberish to him and to each other. He smiled a bit not knowing what to say or do. |
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| Our pleasant stay in the motel in Labe, 2 guards included . After our heavy trip, all the freaking paperwork and border madness we enjoyed our time to relax at the motel and the city itself. |
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| Heavily devaluated money. Hundreds of thousands Guinea Francs, worth only about 100 Euro’s or something. |
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| Much used in Guinea-Conakry: The 505 break. Most of the time, various sayings are painted on these cars. |
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| Map of Guinea-Conakry. Today we would continue our trip and head into the direction of the beautiful Fouta Djalon |
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| Crossing a river (this time using the bridge). |
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| Long and deep pools |
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| Unreadable sign. You have to get out of the car so you can have a close look at what it says (and then have to conclude you still can’t read it). |
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| Waterfall, Fouta Djalon |
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| High waterfall in the stunning Fouta Djalon |
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| Nightclub Kinkon must be THE place to be around here. |
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| Market in Labe. We felt like aliens, really. Everyone was staring at us and buying bread resulted in all these boys standing around us observing how a white man orders his bread |
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Ha! And I was worried about my maximum payload before departure…  |
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| Hotel du Tourisme (Guinea, Labe). It must have been a great place at the time. It’s now inhabited by a huge amount of vultures. |
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| Peugeot 504 pick-up |
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| Labe, Guinea-Conakry |
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| Bushcamped in a small village near an old house |
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| On our way to Labe |
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| Huge, huge vultures! |
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| After a tough day of driving, Rolf made a small steering failure, and hop! The landy was stuck, leaning against the side of the road. |
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| Crossing a small river (Senegal) |
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| Getting water from the river |
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| I think I need a boat. |
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| Putting the W123 to the test. This was steep (you can’t see that on the image though) and full of rocks. This track was described as ‘very difficult, even with a 4×4. It was difficult, but possible. The trickiest part is to not hit the sump. |
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| Offroading in Senegal, On our way to a small border Senegal-Guinea. |
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| Inspecting if all is okay. This is crazy! |
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| Believe it or not, but it IS possible (click on the image to enlarge to get a better view). How to do this? Drive very cautiously, nose against the windshield and try to estimate if you need to steer a bit right or left, or turn the wheel as fast as you can because that stone is too big to drive over. The trick is get a feeling which stone you can drive over and which one you need to avoid (And eh, avoiding all of them results in going back |
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| Unbelievable, the Saharagelber did it! |
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| Removing stones which may be too big. Better safe then sorry. |
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| Crossing the river in the bush, Guinea-Conakry |
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| Broken bridge, so taking the river itself (Taken from the Landcruiser) |
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| Yesterday we found ourselves a good spot, right after the border. It appeared this camping in the border area Gambia-Senegal was a good place to rest. |
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| The waterpools from yesterday reached the airfilter. |
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| Colourful Senegal |
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| Senegal. The good road again, heading towards Kedougou. We try to get to Mali from there. |
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| Heavy mud, Bassari country (Senegal) |
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| Our own instant camping in Gambia. We found a great spot, a bit of driving from the road. We managed to find a great place to spend the night. We talked a lot about our interesting day, we had experienced local life and the great hospitality from Pa and his family. |
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| Going through the pool. North side of the river Gambia |
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| That was fun! Coming out of this deep pool was questionable, or so I thought… The Benz did the job easily. |
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| Pure fun driving on (or in?) these roads! |
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| Friendly and colourful women” |
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| Waiting for the ferry. |
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| And it does fit on the ferry! Honk honk! |
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| This one was tricky |
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| Tough one! |
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| The rainy season makes the drive a lot more exciting. |
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| The 504 has ‘seats’ on the roof too |
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| A friendly local invited us to his family’s home. |
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| The smaller members of ‘Pa’ his family. |
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| The colourful gambian people. |
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| Pa’s family |
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| A well decorated Gambian home |
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| African (Gambian) women in doorway |
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| The next Gambian national soccer team |
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| African children (The Gambia) |
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| Invited for dinner! |
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| Lots of dirt roads when driving from west to east Gambia |
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| Wet lands, North side of Gambian river |
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| Time to clean up the Mercedes. Now that I’m alone, it’s easy to make a mess. I’ve got some cleaning up to do tomorrow. I feel like a real wanderer. |
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| W123 Taxi, The Gambia |
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| W123 Taxi, The Gambia |
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| Switching a wheel, using the airjack. |
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| Waiting for the boat in Banjul. And hell did we waste some time here! We had the ‘luck’ that the president was coming and was taking the ferry today. around 50 vehicles had to pass with the ferry. Everytime we thought they had a place for us, we had to wait again because all these government vehicles were given priority. |
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| Preparing for the upcoming trip through Gambia. The coming part would be heavy, they told us here. As the road along the north side of the Gambia river is pretty bad. |