My "Saharagelber" 300TD

After freshing up and a breakfast this old man made for us, we started to pack the car again. Meanwhile Ramon’s friend paid us a visit again, he slept with us in the tent but apparently had left the tent somewhere early in the morning.

A real saharatent! We decided to stay in this tent to experience this.

But the Saharagelber was nearby

And another camping friend

It was a very sweet friend too, look at me, I’m cute!

Ramon was playing with the dog and we rearranged the stuff in the Benz. Then the old man was standing nearby. I offered this man 75 dirham, which is around 8 euro’s, which would seem reasonable in comparison what we’ve paid for places like this.
The man got another look, he wasn’t the silly old man anymore and said we need to pay 250DH without blushing. WHAT?!!? I told Melissa what was happening, and that we are INDEED tricked again. ‘NO FREAKING WAY!’ This man is crazy.
I threw everything in the car and told him that HE did not want to tell us a pice, that they made it all obscure by continuously saying that they did not want any money. I gave him the 75DH and told him this was it. He started to protest heavily and told us we had to wait for the owner, we had to call the owner again and tell HIM that we would not want to pay 250DH. One can sleep in a big hotel for that amount of money. I told him I am NOT calling this owner again, and that we do not care if it’s enough or not and we sure won’t wait for this owner to drop by.
So much for the nice and romantic atmosphere, this fellow knew how to ruin it. I told Ramon to get in the car and we literally threw the rest of the stuff in the car and I started it, the man god mad and screamed ‘Fuck you!’ to us.
I had enough of this guy and did not react. Melissa explained to him we would inform all travel guides about his practices. His face changed a bit, he probably understood her english.
We left the place and thought it was very disturbing, the way it often goes with the people over here. Ramon was shocked, and did see how thing sometimes work around here.

The cool combination of Sand and water, on the peninsula of Dahkla.

At the beginning of the evening we entered Mauritania. At the border we had some trouble finding out where we had to be, Three counters and it wasn’t clear where we needed to be first. This costed us some time but in the end we did all the paperwork and the car check was easy.
Now we would find out how they were in Mauritania, taking alcohol into Mauritania is forbidden and we brought sime wine with us. But at first, there was another issue, we had to drive over a very bad road to get to the border of Mauritania, in fact it’s not a road but sand and stones and it was not easy to see which track we needed to have. I paid 50 euro’s for some guy to guide us, I read in the Sahara overland that this part could be tricky because of landmines. After we arranged this with these guys who made us this offer we only drove 500 meters and there we saw the border post! No kidding! This was 50 euro’s just flushed into the toilet! How stupid could we be? A bit more investigation would have helped us enough. We approached a ilttle hut built of mud and canee, where a man was sitting inside, accompanied by his co-worker. This had to be the border post.
Inside a man was writing in a big book, wich constisted of lots of names and the registration of plates.
At this border post there was a not too cosy atmosphere, the guy inside sat there and seemed to be very arrogant, and waved us away when we did one step into his office. We did, and stood there for some time, nog knowing if he would help us or not. Melissa got grummy about his attitude but it’s best to act as if you’re not too interested either, and don’t look hurried! This always is gonna cost you money. After they were done we were called inside and then it went fast, he wrote down our names, asked about our car and if we were planning to sell it.
‘No way, I’ll never sell it’ I told them. We’re not golddiggers and we drive the car back. We could go on to the next post. There we had to pay 20 Euro’s each, I asked a receipt for that, but it indeed seemed to be right. Some friendly guys hanging around there
I brought my book with me because I expected to wait here for quite some time. It was a dutch book ‘Mijn Mercedes is niet te koop’ from Jeroen Bergeijk, they asked about the book and asked (again) if I was planning to sell it. I think from now on, I will be asked all the time

We had to arrange a vehicle insurance for Mauritanie but in fact wanted to continue to Nouackchott. We decided to take the risk and go on. Then at a control post they asked about our insurance for the vehicle, I showed him my default green insurance card where all kind of countries are listed but only with the first character. I showed it to him but he said it’s not what he meant. I played stupid and pointed at the M character, and told him ‘Mauritania’. He let us through, probably thinking ‘never mind’ and so we could go on. It was completely dark.
Sometimes the dunes around us extended on the road, and this was not too easy to see on time when you drive 100km/h on the tarred road. We discussed the fact that we were uninsured now and decided to go back, this wasn’t a real smart thing to. Also, at another checkpoint they would probably not let us through and give us a fine. So we drove back to Nouadhibou, 150kms back Well, we ended up at a nice camping which had exactly one place left. It was completely full with Renaults from people who were participating in a rally or something.
The friendly owner of Camping Baie du Levrier welcomed us and we had a pretty good place over here.

On to Mauritania

Another road image.

The rough road between Morocco and Mauritania.

A big group of Camels, just after passing the border of Mauritania

Very sandy in Mauritania too

Camels in the beginning of the evening

I went to the embassy very early and took a freezing cold shower, so I immediately woke up completely.
When we I came the man from yesterday told us to come back at 2pm. I felt miserable, I saw ourselves sitting and wait here for days, everytime another story. I told him we were promised to pick the visa up today at 8 am. This man told me to wait and called someone else.
The man from yesterday came towards me and was friendly. I decide to play fair and gave them the receipt, and just told them sorry. I had to be honest. He was very friendly and accepted my excuses. 2 minutes later I was outside again with the visa, Yes!
Ramon felt better today and we went off into the direction of the Sahara! During a stop we sat down next to a river and ate a good lunch. Some guy walked towards us and started kissing and hugging us. Melissa told hem to go away but he decided to stay and beg for our water.
It looked like he was drunk or something but we did not smell any alcohol. With some hassle we pushed him away, because clearly he did not understand that his company was not wanted. Finally he left us and crossed this river by just walking through it.

There are many shipwrecks along the coast.

Road to Essaouira, along the moroccon west coast.

Salt winning

We continued to Essaouira which was a very nice route to drive. A nice coast line, salt winnings and nice farmlands. With 100743km on the meter we arrived at the camping. There were quite some overlanders over there, among them were some pretty big trucks.
I think there was one of those trucks from Klaus Darr, a big 4wd MAN truck, comlete with bathroom, living room and kitchen. I think it’s way too big, you can only drive on the bigger roads and it’s not so easy to just go into the bush. It would be nice though, to have some comfort when you depart for a couple of years. There was an old fire truck too, the well known Mercedes truck from the sixties which is still manufactured in South Africa. It probably costed 1/80 of the price of these big overlander trucks and will probably do too for a trip of a couple of years.

On our way to the Sahara

As you probably know, I take through-the-wind-shield pictures every now and then.

A short stop for a picnic

In the morning we departed at approximately 10:00. We first drove through Budva to see if we could get some foord for the Benz: vegetable oil for our route back. We also had to find some food for ourselves too
We found a supermarket and I saw they had vegetable oil too. I walked towards an employee and asked if they had 150 bottles for me? After that awkward look, they told me they had this in stock and they started collecting them from the stockroom. I paid at the cashier and outside they were already waiting with 15 boxes of bottles. I started putting them in the car and drove to a parking lot where I started to fill her up. Melissa checked out the neighbourhood to see if the coast was clear, cause we had no idea what the police had to say about this. An inhabitant from the flat who passed by stopped and stared at what I was throwing in that old yellow Mercedes from the Netherlands.
We started talking. He is perplex about the fact that I am just filling her up with straight vegetable oil. He wanted to know everything about it, and this was easy as he was a good german speaker because he had worked in Germany for a couple of years.
After filling up we started our journey back. We drove along the coastline of Croatia, after the first half we decided to take the tolroute for the second part. We drove through Croatia today and 150km south of Zagreb (Slovenia) we stopped to have a break.
I calculated what we had driven today but that was not much, only 550km. Because of the coastal route, which is in fact very slow. I filled the Benz up again and a bit later we entered Slovenia. Melissa was tired and went to bed (read: pushing the seat backwards). I kept on driving and driving and it all went very well, after another 400kms we were in Stuttgart. It was already 7:15u, I had driven the whole night. I drove another hour and decided to get some sleep, I had done 23 hours of driving today.
We were around Karlsruhe, and drove 1400km today, despite three border crossings and the all the back roads we had and the coastal route in Croatia, not bad at all.

Today Henk and Esther and I took the car and planned to have a look how Rhodes looked like. Melissa decided to stay in the room. So we went for a nice tour and we decided to start with the inland in the southern part from Rhodes. Soon we forked from the main road and drove over smaller gravel and sandy roads. After a while we wanted to cross a bridge but this one was close, so we branched off again and came across a river. So we had to find out if the Benz was able to do this, after some investigation I thought I would be able to cross. Esther was curious and Henk thought it wasn’t too smart. But there we went and it all went fine! We were all proud on the Saharagelber. Then the road went through the hills and mountains and we got some great views. We were all alone over there and found out that the inland of southern Rhodes is very, very beautiful! Now and then we had some hard parts, with a lot of mud, and all the time the W123 managed to go through it. Henk and Esther were amazed, about what this car is able to go through, a lot of parts looked impossible but all the time we got through it.
We saw lots of butterflies, great mountain views, a wild river, nice birds and a beautiful green environment.
Then we came across a very muddy part, which was pretty long too. Henk and Esther knew it for sure, “This is way too tricky!” . This looked indeed a bit hard for the car, furthermore we had a problem if we got stock, because noone was driving here, we didn’t see a car around here. We stood there but I did not want to go back. I walked back and forth over the part and tried to think how I should go, via the left or right side, or even the middle. Adrenalin was running through my body, “I -think- it should be possible” I thought, but yeah, -wat if- I get stuck? What are my options then? Well, we’re in the woods, so in that case it will be a lot of work but it should be possible.
I told them I wanted to try, they were surprised and curious what would happen. It was time to give it a shot, and so I did. I drove a bit back and tried to drive exactly as I planned, because there were stones I had to be careful for these too. It went all okay, the Benz just kept going, the Saharagelber kept on slogging through the mud until she was on firmer ground again.
Henk and Esther roard enthusiastically. Happy and excited we got in the the car again and drove further. Sometimes we had some more difficult mud parts but it all went okay.
This was fun! As we continued we saw a snake crossing the dirt road. We stopped to try to find it but we didn’t see it anymore. Then we decided to continue to the south and sit somewhere and relax, having something to eat. We continued the path but our road let to an dead end, a steep slope of sand and stones made us stop. Again, I was thinking if it would be possible or not, Henk and Esther didn’t know but now trusted me that I probably know what’s possible or not. Together with Henk I removed some big stones because I thought it would be possible to drive over it, but at least we had to remove the nasty big stones. After that, I gave it a shot, it was quite spectacular, at least from the inside, the start on the hood had risen in the sky at the moment I took the slope, the Benz continued with enough grip on the rear tyres and pushed us up untill we were on the flat part again. Again we cheered, we did the trick again!
Then we were on a tarred road again and drove to the next little village where we parked the car and had something to eat. Henk and Esther loved the W123 from now on, the Mercedes gained a lot of respect from them today. They were even talking about getting one too
After that we drove a bit more around and then back. We had to pay a visit to the office for checking in on the boat on tuesday in Rhodes City. It was not easy to find and we drove a bit around, I dropped Melissa when we saw where it was and then I had to park the car somewhere. In Rhodes city there is a lot of traffic at the end of the day. When I finally was able and got back Melissa told me the boat broke down. We were not able to go back to Turkey, and the fun part was that they couldn’t tell us when it would be fixed again, it could take one day, but two weeks might also be possible they told us. Great, there we are, not able to continue our trip through Turkey. So we sat down on a terrace thinking about our options. Waiting was not a smart thing to do, it could take weeks… The travel agency offered us to go with their otherferry line, which goes to Athens. That option was probably the best one, but also meant we were not able to go back to Turkey. We thought about the option to spend some more time in Albania which made us very happy too, because we were so curious about Albania. We did not know about what we needed for Albania but then we will find out when we’re at the border. So, we agreed to go to Athens tomorrow night, that’s the first possibility we have. We didn’t have to pay anything extra because of the broken ferry, so that’s done properly.

Today we had a day of rest. In the afternoon we went to Marmaris, checking if boats were going to Rhodos which were able to take the car. In the centre of Marmaris we heard some strange things, at different places they told us it was not possible anymore to take your car on the boat to Rhodos, this ferry wasn’t going. I had to find a place where I could park the car and go without it. This was a very bad idea, we wouldn’t leave the car here with all the stuff in it, and also it is very impractical. We also brought a lot of medicine (three or four plastic bags) for DAPS, the foundation we were planning to help the coming week. We had to try other agencies, see if it was really true, we suspected them to just offer us what they could and desperately wanted to have customers even when they had to tell us we couldn’t bring our car. After a while we found an agency which told us that it was possible, although very expensive.
I had to pay 350 Euro’s only for the car, round-trip! For this very small distance! But, then, we were lucky because we could take the boat the next day. So we booked, bummer that it costed so much for an distance of practically nothing, but so be it. We went back to our private campsite and relaxed for the rest of the day. In the evening the owner gave us some fresh milk and salad. I think this man tried to live from all his own supply, gardening and the cow which was walking around here. This cow broke loose earlier today and walked over the campsite
Melissa was able to get enough rest now. We spend most of the time relaxing and reading.

After a good 10 hours of sleep we woke up. Finally we had some good sleep, the W123 seats are a very good sleep! We only had to drive for half an hour today, because we were already close to Marmaris. Early in the morning were driving around looking for a campsite. In a short while we found a sign along the road. We started to follow it but it seemed to be far away, we didn’t see a sign for a long time. But, especially that we wanted to find it even more, because it might be not too crowded then. After a while we had to go off the road over a stony track.
Driving over this route took another 10 minutes or something, but then we arrived at a place where they were building some rooms, and there was some building material outside.
I stepped out of the car and walked towards the freshly build appartment rooms. Someone was walking towards me and asked what he could do for me. I told him we would like to stay here for a while, but if that would be possible. He called the owner of this place. He told me we were the first visitors of this place and we were very welcome, he told us one of the rooms was ready to use but that they are still building and fixing the other rooms. I told them that was no problem fo rme and I asked if we could stay between the trees with our own car.
This was no problem, so I parked the car and there we were, finally some rest. This place is really awesome. We had our private beach and were standing quite relaxed between the trees, overlooking the bay which was wonderful, we’re all alone and have this great view. Melissa could get some rest now and we will spend some time here.
The rest of the day we rested here, reading, walking around and I checked up the car, because the waterheater refused to work lately. That night we slept in the back of the car, with the liftback open

After our great breakfast at the pension, which was included we were about to explore the environment together. After my orientation yesterday I knew a bit already to start with today.

Based on tips in the Loneley planet and on the map we had received from our friendly pension owner we had quite a full program for today. We took more than one hundred pictures today, this illustrates how stunningly beautiful Cappadocia is, at least according to us. In fact one cannot describe it really, I’ll show pictures of it, they can illustrate Cappadocia way better then my words.
We planned to explore at least the various cave valleys, like the yellow, rose and the red valley and the cave houses. There was also a church with various images carved in the volcanic stone. We’ve put the Benz away and walked through this area for quite some time, enjoying it, we were alone all the time, I wonder how it is in the high season.

After our exploration in these valleys we went to an ancient city which was carved out of a very big rock. When we got there some guy started to talk to us and wanted to know if we would climb that rock and he offered to guide us. We didn’t, and we also didn’t want to buy his turtle carved out of stone, and went on, this guy following us. Melis wanted to stay down and relaxing on a terrace with a cup of coffee.
I ended up with this guide, climbing on the rock It was not an official guide, I know, but he was so persistent and I felt really sorry for him actually. Usually I’m quite difficult with this, persistent in saying that I don’t want it He told me there was much to see and I wouldn’t be able to find it all by myself.
“Yeah, right”. Disappointedly he walked back.
I walked upwards on the huge rock trying to check out the things to see myself. This fake guide, did tell us that the inhabitants left this city after an earthquake some 600 years ago. He also told me there were nice fresco’s to see in the church.
After I paid the city a visit and walked downwards to Melissa I met our friend again. He asked me if I saw everything and I had to admit thta I didn’t. Thus, we went up again.
He showed me indeed a lot more and couldn’t tell me very much, but he was able to show things I didn’t see. I ended up paying some Ytls and bought his turtle of stone too.
I felt sorry for this guy, that he had to to go through so much hassle, for just a few coins.

After all this, we continued the tour through the area. On our way we saw a turtle crossing the road, a tour bus coming from the other side had stopped and the tour operator was already busy to speed the turtle’s process to cross the road. After that we visited another small village, which also had an old part with houses carved out of rock, as a lot of villages have in Cappadocia. At the end of the day we went back to the valleys around Goreme and drove on a couple of dirt roads, twisted through the landscape of fairy chimneys.
This way we had to drive between the walls of the chimneys and it became smaller and smaller, and after a while we were driving with our wheels completely on the walls, it was exciting to do this, but sometimes a bit scary, then Melissa had to get out of the car and check the space between the car and the walls and see if everything worked out.
The path had become deep in the middle and the curves in it made it even more difficult. After investigating a very difficult part, measuring, considering, thinking, thinking again, I decided this was not save enough to do this, and go back. The problem was if I would give it a shot, I couldn’t go backwards because it was really small and there was a curve in it too. The Benz was too wide to go through this tiny part and I wouldn’t take the risk. I was able to turn around and we drove our same route back, without any problems.
After the sunset it was getting dark so we drove back to our cosy cave. It was a very special day today, lots of beautiful things we saw and the adventure of driving here. We didn’t have the time to go to the Ihlara valley anymore, it was too much. Tomorrow we are leaving again and drive to the East of Turkey.
This night we went out for dinner in a restaurant in Goreme. We had a very good vegetarian pizza and after that we talked with the waiter, who spoke very good english. We had a very good conversation about life and our home countries. It was a pleasant evening and a perfect seclusion of our time in Cappadocia.

Cappadocia

Valley, Goreme

Odd shapes again

View from a cave

Ancient carvings

Ancient city in the rocks

Strange shapes by erosion

Me, driving through Cappadocia

Another W123 T-modell, you don’t see the W123 in Turkey too often.

Urgup, Cappadocia

Heavy steering

More exciting steering

Ballooning in Cappadocia

When it’s getting late in the afternoon, the light becomes very colourful

Sunset

Sunset

Today we decided to rest a bit and do nothing. Melis liked to read today and I wanted to do some stuff to the car.

Having breakfast @ the Antalya Cave Pension

This was the right moment to investigate the Saharagelber, see if everything is all right. Everything was quite okay, hardly any oil usage, and all other fluids were okay. I also fixed the pot meter of the dashboard light, we didn’t have any when it was dark until now. I didn’t have time to fix this before departure so I did this today. I’ve brought a lot of tools with me and some small materials, so with that I was able to fix it. I’ve checked all the connections, tubes and lubrication points. I’ve replaced one fuse and until now nothing more happened since the 4600km we’ve driven. I also glued the Zebrano wood to the dash.
At the end of the afternoon I decided to drive around on my own, Melissa kept reading.
I was longing to drive around in the Saharagelber again So, I took my camera and drove around Goreme, stopped at every place where I wanted to take a picture.

Goreme overview

As a result, most of the time I was stopping, taking a picture, driving and stopping again, taking a picture, driving and so on. It’s great to drive around here, there are loads of small winding dirt roads which are a great to drive on, some are a bit difficult so I had a lot of fun today. The Benz is in its element here, it’s great to see with how much ease she is able do these things. Driving here is a real pleasure and you can get everywhere and stop at very nice spots, being alone nearly all the time. And everytime when I stopped and looked around, I was magicked by this stunning volcanic stone environment created by previous volcanic explosions, with all these strange caves and fairy chimneys, morphed by erosion. After sunset I went back to our cosy little cave where Melissa was (still ) reading

Volcanic environment

The ‘Chimney valley’

The W123 in the volcanic landscape of Cappadocia

Odd shaped, but recognizable…

The Saharagelber in the Goreme valley, the sun was setting, still shining a bit on the car and the trees around.

W123 Sunset

Driving in Cappadocia

Driving in Cappadocia

Did I tell you that the turkish put the word Turk in front of everything? A turkish cellphone company called Turkcell, a gas station brand is called turkpetrol, some hotels called turkhotel and so on, ah well

After we woke up this morning and tried to clean the remnants of our rice fighting yesterday, we continued the coastal route. This route is indeed beautiful, if you happen to go to Turkey and you are somewhere around here, definitely check this out. After driving a while we took a small path along the rough line of the rocky coast and found ourselves a very nice place where we took the time to clean things up and for me to fill the jerrycans again and fill the car up with PPO. This cost us quite some time and it was getting dark already. Only 30km before Anamur we already had to stop, we were lucky and found a nice old hotel which was very simple and run by a turkish family. This place was very relaxed, with a view on a small beach. We went inside and a friendly turkish man offered us some turkish tea and by sign language we were able to arrange things. I parked the Benz next to his old W114 Mercedes, which was in the family for all its time, something like 32 years if I remember correctly. It seemed we were the only guests. We had our tea in their restaurant in front, and he and his family were watching TV. We were sitting under the TL lights on plastic chairs and tables with white-red blocked patterns, really cosy There was also a shower in their restaurant, for roadtravellers stopping by and need to refresh. The rooms were okay, he told us the showers were hot, ah yeah, we heard that before

Taken by Fedde, after our Termessos ruins visit

74062km on the clock, travelled 4094km so far.