Pajero is broken

Day: 10
Location: Kaur, the Gambia
Weather: hot
Kilometers: 175
Hours: 13
Health: dehydrated and greasy
Accomodation: the village
Price, room: 75 dalasi
Price, petrol: 28 dalasi
Price, water: 20 dalasi
Shower: no chance
Morale: 2
Total spend: 85K CFA
Song of the day: “Uncle Johnny Did Cocaine” - The Killers

AW: This ill fated day witnessed a series of catastrophes. It's kind of embarrassing. The problems started when we crossed the border into the Gambia. While formalities were fine, we realized that the insurance was for a Nissan Patrol, not for a Mitsubishi. Momo didn't seem to understand the problem. Anyway, we then found the insurance for the correct car buried in the armrest.

We were then stopped by every policeman in the Gambia as we tried to head west to Banjul. We sandbagged our way out of each situation, and apologized after we blew through a checkpoint where we couldn't see any police. The guy caught up to us on a motorbike, and he wasn't pleased with the lack of respect we had showed for his authority as a regional commander. They have police, immigration, and customs check points here, often just down the street from one another, but far enough apart that you have to stop three times to weasel out of three bribes. And this happens in each town. So that's one west African stereotype validated.

On the road out of Basse I drove onto the dirt shoulder of the ruined tarmac. As I did this, the steering gave out, and we almost went into the woods. I'm sure it was the kind of thing that builds character, but I would not want to do that again. Guillaume fetched a bush mechanic from the nearest village and he fixed the steering well enough to drive it to the village, and then he did it properly for 300 dalasi. However, he did forget one thing...

We took the ferry across the Gambia river at Georgetown because the northern road to Barra / Banjul was new tarmac, while the southern route was "one of the worst roads in west Africa". At 120kph the front left wheel fell off of the car, but remained in the well. We stopped safely but it messed up the car pretty good, all because the mechanic forgot to tighten down the bolts on the wheels.

Fix one thing and break another: Blown head gasket - Water in the engine - Hole in the overflow tube - Dirty radiator - Broken bearings - 4 missing wheel bolts.

We had no water in the car, and almost no money given the ATM situation described previously. Rob and I went into the village. It was tiny and they didn't have anything bottled or bagged, but we were so thirsty that we drank two big cups of untreated water - we'll see how that turns out.

We had a rope and got a tow to Kaur, the nearest village with a mechanic for 12K CFA. The mechanic agreed to fix the car for 15K CFA, and worked from 10PM to 2AM before quitting because we needed to go to Farafenni to get the gasket in the morning. Rob and I slept in the village, but Guillaume slept in the car and Momo, as usual, figured something out. Not a great day, but this should soon be hilarious in retrospect. We hope.

GB: The tow was quite nerve-wracking, as Rob put it. I was following a truck 6 feet ahead of me riding at an average 50kph in the middle of the night. And since our flashlight battery was getting drained pretty fast, I had to rely on the running lights to see the truck ahead. After 40km I was ready to collapse. We got some food, cleaned some water with Micro Pur tablets, and called the Kaur mechanic over. We then pushed the car under a street light so the guy could start working immediately. I stayed with the car while the guy got to work and started to tear the engine apart. And by ‘tear’ I am not exaggerating. At some point he actually pulled out a massive metal bar about my size and started to use it to try to pull out the top cylinder. I was half dosing at that point in the car (I had started on a blanket on the ground but decided against it after Momo told me there were snakes around). At 2:30AM the mechanic gave up on his attempt to get the head cylinder out at night and waited till he could get help in the morning. We joined the village and went to sleep.