I’m in Altai, Mongolia at the first internet cafe I’ve seen since leaving Russia a week ago. Most of the towns here don’t have electricity reliably or at all. Even cell phone coverage is really spotty.  Mongolia has been amazing so far, in almost all ways.

The border experience was absolutely awful, to the point of some very serious talk of suing The Adventurists in to bankruptcy. Flatlanders, Rubikcrew, and I showed up at the border last Monday evening and got out of Russia in to no-man’s-land Tuesday morning. We drove about half an hour across the giant area between the borders and got in to a Mongolian holding area shortly thereafter. And that’s where we stayed for another full day with almost no information from the authorities about what was going on. Eventually we (39 teams) staged a sit-in protest in the customs office and were allowed to leave after paying $17 each.

Mongolian Border Complex

Then it took us a day and a half to reach Ulgii. There’s some craziness that happened in there that is probably better related by one of the other teams. Flatlanders Andrew and Mike abandoned their Citroen Saxo in Ulgii after basically everything broke on it. We spent another night there sorting that out. They’re now traveling with me in the Skoda.

Flatlanders' Saxo on its last day

Since leaving Ulgii we’ve spent two and a half days on the road to go about 400km to Altai. The unpaved “roads” are unbelievably bad. Huge washboard sprinkled with bowling-ball sized rocks. We’ve joined up in a convoy with some Spaniards Juan and Nuria and some Germans Karsten and Robert. Joe and Tim (Rubikcrew) left us yesterday to try to make better time to UB, and I think we may have to leave the convoy tomorrow as well. The convoy has been great but I feel it’s slowing everybody down to stick together.

Sorry the story is a bit disorganized. So much time has passed since the team left in Novosibirsk and I’ve just been driving the whole time. I’ll try to set aside a little time at night just to write down what’s happened that day so I can keep track of it all.

Time to see if the garage in town can pull the CV joints off a wrecked Felicia rally car here to put on mine.

Saturday night, when we tried to go through the border from Bulgaria to Turkey, we were informed that the plates on our car did not match the plates on the registration. Apparently we failed to acquire the new plates in France! The border guard suggested we might be able to get through at the Greek border, Ipsala. We backtracked and headed toward Greece. While waiting at the border line, literally 10 meters from Greece, our car suddenly began idling rough and puking white, anti-freeze-smelling smoke from the tailpipe. Uh-oh…

We turned around and headed for the nearest gas station which turned out to be Eurooil 2002 in Svilengrad, Bulgaria. We rolled up and pantomimed with the gas station attendants until they finally agreed to drag their auto-mechanic friend a.k.a “the Maestro” out of bed. The Maestro arrived and promptly shoved a water hose into our coolant overflow tank. After much massaging of hoses, he told Anand to start the car again. About a gallon of water flew out the tail pipe! This elicited much shaking of heads.

Maestro determined that he could fix it, but he wouldn’t get the part until Monday. Rather than spending the night in a field infested with gigantic jumping spiders and who knows what else, we decided to take the night train to Istanbul. This was hilarious on many levels. You can read more about it on the Outside blog (link fixed, thanks Mom Patil!). The team saw the sights around Istanbul for 2 days and then headed to Dikili, south along the Aegean coast, to visit Sarah’s music teacher, Husnu, Husnu’s mom Akile, and his son, Oral. After two more lovely days trying to figure out logistics from the stunning and sweaty beaches of the Aegean coast, we finally hit upon a plan:

Yet again, Camille proved an invaluable ally by getting her mother to make new a new plate for us and overnight it to Istanbul, where the ladies would pick it up from Cordial House Hostel, where we’re staying. With the help of Andrew’s Bulgarian friend Ina and another friend Matt, we have been able to locate the car at the Maestro’s place and the boys went to get the vehicle. Right now the boys are in Greece trying to get through the other border and the girls are in Istanbul and hopefully the car is soon to be united with its new plates (either at the border or in Istanbul) and then we can get the heck through Turkey and on to more Eastern destinations!

P.S. Anyone who’s heading to Istanbul soon should definitely check out our new favorite breakfast place, Erhan Cafe and Restaurant. It only opened a couple of weeks ago, but Erhan is so exceedingly nice that when we ordered breakfast the other day he said “of course, come in” and then had to send out some little messenger boys to buy the vegetables at the market! And when Anand wanted cream for his coffee, he went out and bought that too! Not only was it one of the cheapest meals we’ve had since arriving in Istanbul, it was by far the best, featuring home-made cherry jam and orange-peel marmalade. CBPG gives it 5 stars all the way!

We then hit the road to Goodwood, a renowned car racing track in the South of England (though you wouldn’t know it from the lack of signage). We drove around the English countryside for about an hour asking directions, rolling into Goodwood in typical CBPG style around 2:30pm (the launch was only scheduled until 3). We went to the Media tent, picked up Anand’s passport, stickers for our car, and T-shirts, and headed back to the car to give it a cleaning and apply the decals.

Jessie and Anand are excited

Half-way through applying our stickers, the marshal came over and let us know we’d missed our chance to take a lap at the track. Unfazed, we headed on to Dover for the ferry to France. We rolled through lovely English seaside villages like Brighton and Rye, saw the white cliffs of Dover, ate some Burger King, and hopped aboard the ferry across the channel to Calais.

It rained steadily on the night drive to Brussels and our plan was to find either a cheap hotel outside of Brussels or a field that didn’t look too damp to set up our tent. As we drove and drove along the E40 past Brussels and Liége there didn’t appear to be any obvious opportunities for lodging. On we drove, stopping at gas stations and bars, turning on dirt roads looking for a camp site, and observing fake cows that turned out to be real. Eventually, all the way back in Liége, we found a hotel, booked a room, and promptly passed out on the smallest single beds ever seen (one of which was miraculously shared by Jessie and Sarah). It was 3 AM.

Any suggestions of things to see here would be welcome!

Awesome day today! I don’t know where to start so we’ll just go chronologically. No, I can’t! The car passed the Contrôl Technique inspection! I’m so thrilled. It’s the first time I’m feeling like I’ve made some progress with the car.

So actually she didn’t pass the first time through. Camie and I took her in at about 10 in the morning and went for a coffee for an hour and a half while they did the inspection. It seems pretty thorough– there are about 100 “points of inspection” listed on the report.

So after our coffee we headed back and there was one main thing blocking our passing– the muffler had a hole in it, which in addition to being a failure on its own means that they also can’t do the emissions test. The guys at the Contrôle Technique place said that we would have to get a new muffler. So, back to Garage Nhevoit, my favorite place in Libourne!

At Garage Nhevoit I was told that, no, of course they don’t have the part and it would have to be ordered. But it seems Camie was able to soften his heart a little and he let us know that the big MaxAuto garage and auto parts store could probably take care of us. Off we went (this was straight back in the direction of the Contrôle Technique center– it and MaxAuto are in the same complex).

MaxAuto was closed now for lunch (2 hours, naturally). Now a brief interlude.

I must say that Camie’s family is comprised of some of the most welcoming and hospitable people I have had the fortune to meet, including not only Camie herself but her mother and father, her young cousin visiting from Paris, and even her dog (a Boxer who, at 6 months old, is already rather large and muscular).

They live in a beautiful home close to the Garage Nhevoit, with a perfectly-sized back yard for a dog, and a pool fenced in with grape vines. It was here we went while MaxAuto had lunch so we could do the same. Camie’s father, an opthomologist, was home from the hospital for lunch as it seems is normal. Her mother had set the table outside, where I learned at the conclusion of the pizza and salad courses that there would be an additional 3 courses. It was all washed down with a nice local wine from Fronsac, on the other side of Libourne from Pomerol and Saint Emilion where I was yesterday. Unforgettable.

This is getting too long so I will abbreviate. After lunch back to the garage MaxAuto. They sent us away for another couple hours so they could look at it and give us a quote. Went back to Camie’s to go swimming. At 4:30 returned to MaxAuto where they had decided they could just put some putty in the leaks and strap the exhaust pipe down and everything would be fine, no new muffler needed! And it was already done! Cheap! Awesome! Returned to the Contrôle Technique center just before closing time where they were able to run the smog check and pass us!

By the way, the reason we did all this Contrôle Technique today instead of going to the prefecture is because the prefecture was closed. As we found out when we showed up at 9, all the prefectures in all of Gironde were closed today, presumably because the employees wanted to make a 4-day weekend out of the 14th.

One good thing we learned from the Nhevoit guy is that the sous-prefecture they have here in Libourne can’t issue a carte grise (registration document) the same day– only the main prefecture in Bordeaux can do that. Good to know. So tomorrow we celebrate the storming of the Bastille, and then on Wednesday we head in to Bordeaux!

Next I returned to my hotel from the first two nights here since I’d left one of my bags there. I asked if they knew anyone who could assist me at the prefecture office. This is the equivalent of the DMV. Eventually I was told to meet someone at the hotel at 2.

At 2 a very nice French girl named Camie showed up and we walked together over to the prefecture (actually the sous-prefecture, or sub-prefecture, since Libourne is a small town). Well, the prefecture is only open 9-12:30, so clearly closed now. Seeing as it is Friday we will have to wait until Monday to try again. While I had Camie with me I decided to stop in at an insurance agent’s to see about insuring the car. This woman was very concerned about me not having the right paperwork and just generally not doing things right, but didn’t really offer anything concrete except for the names of a couple documents that I needed: the contrat d’achat (bill of sale), and the certificat non gage (something saying nobody owes money on the car to anyone, there are no liens, etc.).

All I had and thought I needed was the title/registration document, called the carte grise (grey card). On this, Sandra (who we bought the car from) had scrawled a great big “VENDU LE 25/04/09″ and a signature. The insurance woman really shook her head at this.

Back at the hotel, Camie helped me call Sandra to see if we could get these extra documents. Boy was she not happy to be hearing from me again. She asserted firmly that she had, in fact, given me (actually Anand) all the documents. Not wanting to anger her further in case we need her help at some point, I asked Camie to apologize for me and we hung up. Off we go back to the garage to see if the documents are in the car.

Camie gave me a ride in her Renault Twingo, and my first impression is that we really made the wrong choice with the Skoda. The roof on this thing rolls back like a sardine can! The whole roof! It’s awesome!

Sure enough, the documents were in the glove compartment. Of course, the certificat non gage is only valid for a month from the date of issue, which is long past. Also the contrat d’achat has Anand’s signature on it rather than mine (although not his name written out anywhere). I’m hoping that this will all just be fine at the prefecture. Wish me luck come Monday!

I took off for the garage to get them to tow it. After a lengthy conversation with the mechanic about:

• why I was there,
• what was wrong with the car,
• how I didn’t have insurance
• how insurance is mandatory,
• how I really didn’t have insurance anyway,
• how I would have to pay for the towing if I didn’t have insurance (wait– insurance covers towing in France?),
• how I don’t speak French very well,
• how he doesn’t speak Spanish,
• how I actually speak English, not Spanish,

we agreed that I would ride with his colleague in the tow truck over to the hotel to get the car. There the second mechanic agreed that it was the starter and together we got it push-started. I drove it back to the garage like that, being very careful not to stall. I’m hoping that saves us the 100+ euro towing charge.

I came back later in the afternoon after they looked it over and was told the part would have to be ordered and it would get here on Friday morning. I’m going to head back there tomorrow morning and see if they can do some of the other work I want done, like welding skid plates, while we’re waiting. All in all, I’m glad that we’re getting this out of the way now and not in the middle of Turkmenistan.

Tomorrow after the shop I’m off to Bordeaux to hang out and see if I can make any friends there to help me with my registration woes. If you know anyone there please let me know!

Yesterday I got in to Libourne with almost no trouble after flying to Paris, then taking trains to Bordeaux and then here. I walked out of the train station and wandered aimlessly until I found a gas station and got directions to the garage a short walk away.

At the garage they pulled the car up right away, I paid our 328 euro bill and left. I’d asked the guy for directions to the place where they do the inspection, called Controle Technique or CT, that you need for registration in France. I also noticed at this point that the garage and street are called Nhevoit, not Nehovite as I’ve been saying the whole time.

Now that I had the car I wanted to get a hold of Anand for some Libourne advice. I’d tried calling him a couple times from the train but it seemed that I had his number wrong in my phone so I wanted to find an internet cafe to double-check it. I drove the car a few blocks before I spotted one so I parked and went in. Sure enough I had a digit wrong in the number, but Anand didn’t pick up anyway when I called the right number.

Realizing that it was 4 in the afternoon and I was kind of groggy, I decided to leave the car parked where it was rather than try to do the CT immediately. I took off for a walk around the city to look for a place to stay. Libourne is actually a pretty charming city, which was not my first impression based on the walk from the train station to the garage. Eventually I stumbled to a long walking avenue of shops and then in to the town square, where there is a tourism office.

The nice girl at the tourism office pointed me to the cheapest hotel in Libourne and off I went. The hotel has parking, so after I checked in I went back to where I had parked the car to move it to the hotel’s parking lot.

So I start the car. This is actually the first time I have started the car– it was already running when I picked it up at the garage. The first thing I notice is a startling grinding noise that transitions in to a rattle. There is also an exclamation-point light on on the dashboard. Not good, but the car drives so I figure I might as well move it to the hotel since it’s not far.

At the hotel I park and turn the car off. For kicks I decide I’d start it again to see if it did the grinding noise. Click. Nothing. DAAAAAMMMMMNNNN YOOOOOOUUUUU SKOOOOODDDAAAAAA!!!!!

***Update***

The alternator is now on its way to the garage.  The moment of reckoning is upon us!

So I was driving from the hotel to the gas station in Libourne this morning and the car suddenly went dead. The battery seems fine but the starter doesn’t turn over when I turn the key, there’s just a click.

It’s been in a garage in Libourne for a day now, and last thing I heard was second-hand from Jessie that it was the alternator. I’ll update this post as we learn more.

UPDATE

Friend Guillaume kindly worked as translator and we called the garage this morning. They are quite certain that the alternator is the problem and gave us an €800 estimate. As Anand says, “boeuf!”