mongol rally 2007 team 2008-03-07T21:23:35+01:00 admin http://www.mONgOLIATH.eu contact@mONgOLIATH.eu tag:mongoliathblog,2008:themONgOLIATHblog Pivot Copyright (c) 2008, Authors of the mONgOLIATH blog 2007-08-24T11:17:00+01:00 2007-08-24T11:17:00+01:00 tag:mongoliathblog,2008:themONgOLIATHblog.45

We made it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! With two cars and four team members To all those that did not believe in us (and we don't want to point in any direction, hint: Vienna)...

With two cars
and four team members

To all those that did not believe in us (and we don't want to point in any direction, hint: Vienna)......prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Summary, a piece of cake. We are now deliberating in front of a beer on whether we should book a flight or come back with the pandas....

Next year we will bring Clandestino from Leiden to UB following the rivers..... bets are opened ]]> Dario 2007-08-24T11:12:00+01:00 2007-08-24T11:12:00+01:00 tag:mongoliathblog,2008:themONgOLIATHblog.44

We did not, but now we do thanks to the mongolian rivers.....

switch off the engine
put a sock in the exhaust
push the panda into the current
let it drift away (do not worry, it floats for some time)
continue pushing till the other side
try to switch on the engine and pray

Result, some wet clothes, some gallons of water inside the cars, a lot of adrenaline and two working cars (kind of clean) on the other side of the river. Only after two hours of work and 5 rivers crossed.

PS: no pictures of his one, as you know the camera got stolen. Our MP3 players got also stolen in Altai..... but we still have the passports ]]> Dario 2007-08-24T11:00:00+01:00 2007-08-24T11:00:00+01:00 tag:mongoliathblog,2008:themONgOLIATHblog.43

As a result of our great organisation we got into the Gobi desert without a working compass, no GPS and of course we lost the map half an hour before. Result, non problema, we just did some extra km around the desert.

after some wondering around, some mirages, and plenty of dead carcasses of animals, we finally found what looked like a lake that also appeared in the lost map. So we were able to get some orientation and head towards north to the following blog post... ]]> Dario 2007-08-04T19:22:00+01:00 2007-08-04T19:22:00+01:00 tag:mongoliathblog,2008:themONgOLIATHblog.39

...maybe. We managed to convince a local mechanic to weld the piece and mount it back in the car.

Dario 2007-08-03T20:09:00+01:00 2007-08-03T20:09:00+01:00 tag:mongoliathblog,2008:themONgOLIATHblog.37

At 130 km from Baku, after having hit several stones, the engine structural support of one of the two cars (the unlucky one) broke into two pieces leaving the engine without support.

Dario 2007-08-03T20:12:00+01:00 2007-08-03T20:03:00+01:00 tag:mongoliathblog,2008:themONgOLIATHblog.36

At 2 a.m., after having driven for two hours in the worst roads ever, we finally got scorted to the Azero-Georgian border by the police (they were happy to get rid of us!!).

Dario 2007-07-29T13:16:00+01:00 2007-07-29T13:16:00+01:00 tag:mongoliathblog,2008:themONgOLIATHblog.32

In the first six hours of our stay in Istambul we were already tricked several times....

Dario 2007-07-29T13:07:00+01:00 2007-07-29T13:07:00+01:00 tag:mongoliathblog,2008:themONgOLIATHblog.30

... alla fine doveva succedere, l`ho sempre saputo... ma che dovesse essere proprio qui ad istambul non me lo sarei mai aspettato... ebbene avete letto la versione ufficiale del team...

lorenzonando 2007-07-29T12:57:00+01:00 2007-07-29T12:56:00+01:00 tag:mongoliathblog,2008:themONgOLIATHblog.29

Finally some relaxed night (we all thought)... and instead we had the up-to-now most pulp experience of the rally.

lorenzonando 2007-07-26T18:05:00+01:00 2007-07-26T18:05:00+01:00 tag:mongoliathblog,2008:themONgOLIATHblog.28

now writing this and my last entries from OUR MECHANIC. whom we were directed to by the also very nice bloke at the scrapyard who drove around with us for ages, whom we were directed to by excellent girl Gabriella at the Fiat garage. as you may have read before, we have dubbed him Super Mario, since we have no idea what his real name is but is in any case a proper dude. he has just gone off to buy us some transmission oil and even improved our brakes for us. more later. planning to drive to istanbul through the night so will probably be even more tired by the next blog.

Nicholas