THE ROUTE

ROUTE CHANGE!!

As many of you already know, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran rejected our visa request as they didn´t seem to fond of the idea of two crazy western ralliers driving in a tiny car through their beloved country...

Therefore, we had to look for an urgent plan B! Instead of bordering the Caspian sea via Iran... we decided to go through it!! Not the easiest task as there is only one cargo-ship that goes from Baku to Turkmenbasy (and viceversa). The "fun" part is that this cargo does not have a schedule (while we do!) and it departs whenever it gets full, which can take one day or one week.... So, if it gets delayed we may face three challenging issues:

- We run out of visa time in Azerbaijan as we are only allowed to stay 1 week.

- We will not be admitted in Turkmenistan, as we have a visa allowing us to get in on an exact date.

- We may not finish the rally, as we only have 4 weeks and every day counts.

Our improvising skills may be put to the test, so stay tuned... :-)

CLICK ON THE MAP TO ENLARGE IT. IN BLUE YOU HAVE THE "NEW ROUTE". IN RED THE "OLD ROUTE"



-----------------------------------------


THE "OLD" ROUTE


Mongolia is not very close to Barcelona so the Mongol Rally explodes across 1/3 of the surface of the earth. Since the Mongol Rally is an adventure not a wimpy guided tour, each team can take any path they like to reach the finish line in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. There's a place to start and a place to finish, but where you go, and what happens in between is anyone's guess.

So here is the route we have planned for our little Fiat 600. Now it is only a matter of adapting our TomTom to these countries...ahum ;-)

CLICK ON THE MAP TO ENLARGE IT