Redheaded Steppe Children—Madrid to Mongolia, 2009

For those paying attention, you may have noticed some big changes to the site (and a few more to come soon). In a nutshell, Jacob and I have decided to scrap the official Mongol Rally and make the drive on our own.

Wait, what?! Yep, that’s right. As the race deadline approaches most team members have realized they won’t be able to make the race for one reason or another. And, between only myself and Jacob, we simply don’t think we’ll be able to afford the new and nicer car that Mongol Rally HQ requires of us. So we’re shifting gears a bit, turning our fundraising efforts to cover our trip expenses (while still donating 5% of what we raise), heading out of Madrid instead of London, and basically going rogue! Added benefits include more flexibility on start and end dates (especially since I [Alexis] will be starting graduate school in the fall); the ability to give all of our 5% to our preferred charity, Doctors without Borders; the ability to share stories and pictures and swear and talk dirty without besmirching the official Mongol Rally; and the chance to get a bitchin’ car like an older Niva or even a Citroen 2CV.

The trip is looking shaky at this point, so we would like to really, really encourage folks to pop on over to the giving page and help us out. And if (perish the thought) the trip falls through at the last minute, we will give 100% of the money that we raise to Doctors without Borders. So rest easy that your money will go to a good cause—whether booze and gas for us or to folks who need medical care in troubled regions—no matter what happens.

We’ve just got word in here at Team Redheaded Steppe Children that Penny will not be able to join us on the race, after all. Penny is scheduled to become a yia yia this August, and, as she puts it, “I can’t very well be off in Bumfuckistan when my first grandchild is being born.” We’re pretty broken up about it, as Penny is one hell of an excellent traveling companion—willing to eat anything and go anywhere, and with all sorts of salty tales—and we were looking forward to being crammed into a sardine can with her for a month.

Nonetheless, somewhere in here, I suspect, is a wee little message about me being the “bad child” because I have not provided Penny with grandchildren prior to this, instead delegating the task to my younger, hetero brother while I live a sinfully extravagent single life in New York and do crazy shit like drive halfway round the world. So, in keeping with my bad child, crazy spinster aunt reputation, I am happy to say that I will be off breaking Kazakh women’s hearts and driving across no man’s land while this whole messy “birth” thing will be taking place. Never fear, fans—I aim to please!

One of our fellow Ralliers recently made a joking(?) remark over his concern at a run-in with the terrifying Mongolian Death Worm. According to Wikipedia, “the local name is allghoi (or orghoi) khorkhoy (хорхой), which means ‘blood filled intestine worm’ because it is reported to look like the intestine of a cow. It is the subject of a number of extraordinary claims by Mongolian locals — such as the ability of the worm to spew forth sulfuric acid that, on contact, will turn anything it touches yellow and corroded (which would kill a human), and its purported ability to kill at a distance by means of electric discharge.”

It appears that, Bigfoot-like, the existence of the worm is unconfirmed. I hope to God it actually exists and we see it. I don’t know how a fellow Rallier could even pretend to not want to have a face-to-face with this thing.

We’re working furiously at identifying our target car here at Team Redheaded Steppe Children. It’s turned out to be a much harder undertaking than expected, because of the new and much maligned “10 year rule.”

Apparently, the Mongolian government got a little sick of their country being inundated with hundreds of truly abominable metal junk heaps every year, so they instituted a new rule saying that all the cars must be 10 years or younger. That means our valiant heap must have been first registered no earlier than December 1999. The original 1 liter rule has been upped to 1.2 liters, but the general idea is that now we have a weak new car instead of a weak old car.

Well, it turns out that new cars are fucking lame. Not only are they all grossly overpowered, but, frankly, they’re just ugly. Really, I must protest. What good is traveling to Mongolia if you must do it in some hideous monstrosity like a Subaru or a Nissan? Whatever happened to the good ol’ days when cars had curves and lines? Where are the gorgeous Citroen 2CVs and the Volkswagen Type 13s? Where are the mouth watering Barracudas?

So, my friends, keep an eye on this space over the next couple of weeks. Although we have our work cut out for us, we are hoping to announce a roster of contenders for the Steppe-mobile. Rest assured that whether they are new or old, they will be pimp-a-licious.

After a much needed vacation in which we did tons of traveling and adventuring, we’re back and ready to mostly not plan for the trip!

Several other US teams have attempted to contact me via e-mail and I regret that I have not yet been in touch with them. I believe they mostly wanted to discuss whether we will be shipping our car or purchasing one in Europe. The short answer is: we don’t know. On the one hand, Eastern European cars are such wonderful crap that I am rather romantically devoted to the idea of driving one of them 10,000 miles. Of course, it would also be an awful lot of fun to poke about ahead of time in the engine of one purchased here, and it would make me feel like a badass to learn how to strap together bits of the radiator with bailing wire and make the damn thing run like that. Really, such a tough decision.

Last night, Jacob and I met with a handful of fellow New York-based adventurers at Anyway Cafe, a divey little Eastern European joint in Soho that I’ve walked past a hundred times and never noticed. While waiting for folks to show up, I even made friends with Darie, a self-described “lone wolf” who wrote me a poem and drew me a picture for chatting with him as I waited for my companions. Once all arrived, we drank much Russian beer and listened to a Spanish classical guitarist. I felt like I was on the trip already.

At any rate, Jacob and I took away many useful hints and tips from our new companions from teams Yearning for Yurts (Rob and Stephanie) and Adventure’s Sum (Jordan, Brian, Eugene/Yevgeniy). In addition to being alerted to a blow-out map sale in town today, I also learned that panty hose make an excellent temporary replacement for broken timing belts and that maybe, just maybe, we should go to Turkmenistan after all, if only to see the Door to Hell.

All in all, a great time was had. Confronted with the lovely and exquisitely prepared Rob and Stephanie, and the equally spoonable* yet moderately prepared Jordan, Brian, and Eugene, Jacob and I both agreed that planning as little as possible was totally the way to go. Nonetheless, we did agree that there were probably a handful of things we needed to think about in advance, like getting 6 month long series of Hepatitis A and B shots, as well as wrangling with various government organizations for pesky things like visas.

* by Brian’s own statement of said spoonability.

From the Stick Figures in Peril group on Flickr come the following gems for the wary traveler:

Spotted in Turkey by Eldan

Spotted in Azerbaijan by Good Day.

Spotted in Russia by Kaloskagathos

Well, after my last pathetic post on the status of our fundraising, a few people got fired up to make donations of their own, and we’re now up to $61! The money is currently evenly split between the team and each charity. Folks currently seem to dig the 10000 mile page as the preferred method of giving. Now’s your chance to jump in on the action!

In other news, I think Will may have dropped out of the race, bringing the number of folks we have to cram into the car down to a mere 6. I’ve been debating throwing an extra scooter into the mix, just for laughs. I know Laura is a big motorcycle fan, and I’ve heard tell that Steven just bought a bike of his own. Penny, naturally, would rather no one drive on those terrible, dangerous things and is instead pushing for an extra supply car. Of course, what Penny won’t tell you is that it’s because she was in a motorcycle accident 100 years ago in her reckless youth.

Finally, I’m currently reading a fantastic tome called Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game And the Race for Empire in Central Asia. The title should give you a clue—it’s on the last 300 years of the world’s superpowers’ battle for India, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Great, easy, fun read, and it’s been putting a lot about that bit of the world into perspective for me. If you had the stellar American education I had, the only way you’d probably know most of these places even exist is by doing something preposterously stupid like driving across them in a mobile deathtrap. This book might save you the bother.

Stumbled across this link to the World’s Most Dangerous Roads today. Several of them (notably roads #2 and #3) are on potential routes.

By the way, did I mention that although the prospect of border guards and land mines does not really phase me, I am deathly afraid of heights?

It’s official! We raised our first dollar for the trip. Special shout out to a Mr. Scott Carlson, who purchased a square on the 10,000 mile page.

Now would perhaps be a good time to defend my otherwise lackluster fund raising skills by pointing out that the purpose of this journey is to get stranded in the desert after planning as little as possible. So it does seem a bit counterintuitive to require me to be good at preplanning. To that end, now is a great time for all of you to be wowed by Scott’s awesome generosity and just start clicking that donate button like crazy, thus sparing me from having to plan events or otherwise beg for money on the street (an event for which I have, in fact, already planned).