A car with an adventurous story

JEROEN VAN BERGEIJK

Jeroen Van Bergeijk drives from Morocco to Mauritania, one of the scariest parts of the trip where he managed to get lost and stuck in the sand.

Nika Rolczewski

SPECIAL TO THE STAR

Old cars never die, they go to Africa.

Hundreds of thousands are shipped each year to ports in Benin, Nigeria and Ghana, but Dutch journalist Jeroen Van Bergeijk drove his 1988 Mercedes 190D from Europe to the middle of the Sahara Desert to find it a buyer.

In his personal account of this crazy trek through impoverished yet culturally rich areas of the African Sahel, Van Bergeijk scatters tidbits about other explorers who tried to conquer the desert and its occupants. Only some survive to tell their tale, including Van Bergeijk. His story is a heart-warming, humorous account of a fish out of water that somehow endures.

His meticulous research into the history of his acquired Mercedes 190D gives insight into what stories a simple car can tell. Through the Mercedes' handful of owners, the vehicle gains personality even with an odometer that mysteriously loses hundreds of thousands of kilometres.

I spoke with the author and asked him a few questions about his adventure.

Q: Besides the obvious that you wanted to sell this car, what persuaded you to do this cross-country adventure?

A: Basically the thrill that you could step into an ordinary car – and a cheap old one at that – anywhere in Europe and start driving and end up in the middle of Africa. That to me is the ultimate adventure. Begin at home with something just anybody could afford and go to the complete unknown. No special training needed, no specially equipped car needed. Just that one car and some spunk, I guess.

Q: What were the best and worst moments of the drive through Africa?

A: Well, finding sand everywhere was certainly not one of the trip's pleasures. The stuff ends up getting everywhere, 24/7!

The worst moment about the driving came when I left the tarmac in Morocco and had to drive through that no-man's-land in order to get to the next country, Mauritania. I knew there was a minefield there, that it was dangerous to get lost there, and of course I managed to get myself lost and stuck in the sand.

That I found scary, because I had no idea what to do.

The best moments came when I was interacting with Africans, and I met plenty of great people.

Q: What is the one thing you wish you brought along but you didn't?

A: Somebody who knows about cars!

No, just kidding. Nothing really – to be honest, I wish I had brought less stuff. That is my goal: to be as low-tech, as low-maintenance as possible. In general, I feel that at home, in the West, I have too much stuff. You just get suckered into buying that next great thing, that nifty gadget etc, but it is quite liberating to find that you can do without all that stuff and not miss it.

Q: If you were to do this drive again or if a friend of yours was going to, what would you change and what advice would you give? Would you choose to sell a different car?

A: I wouldn't change much except for where I would be going. I did in fact go to Algeria with an old Renault cargo van. That was a big mistake. The car was too big, parts too hard to get. It quit on us in the middle of the desert. The transmission gave out and couldn't be fixed anymore, so we had to leave it there. That was not good. So don't take any Renaults.

The route I took wasn't especially pretty as far as the Sahara goes. Algeria is so much more beautiful. The big advantage of a Mercedes 190 is that you can sell it everywhere and that it can be fixed. But there are other cars you can take into the French-speaking part of Africa.

For instance, Peugeots will sell and can be fixed by most mechanics. Toyota Landcruisers are also very much in demand and will give you the freedom to go really off-road driving on sand dunes and stuff, and that is a lot of fun. That you can't do with an ordinary car.

The one piece of advice I would give people if they want to really go into the desert, meaning off-road, is get a satellite phone and bring plenty of water. But a satellite phone also gives you a false sense of security. You think you can do anything and somebody will come and rescue you if things go wrong, and they won't. There's no alarm number you can call in the Sahara.

Q: What emotion did you feel the most – anger for the corrupt officials, fear from the locals, or loneliness because of the remote countryside?

A: I felt all of that but also the opposite.

I could laugh with corrupt officials, I really didn't fear locals that much, and I enjoyed the loneliness.

I think that you get overwhelmed by so many different emotions. I would be sad one moment because I would meet people whose lives would be so hopeless, but really be uplifted the next because people have great lives without any of the materialistic stuff we hold so important.

When the author finally reaches his destination and decides to sell the car he is torn between selling to one in need or a person with money.

It is not an easy decision. The small African country of Burkina Faso has one of the smallest gross domestic products of any country – $1,200 as a yearly salary is the norm.

More than half a million cars are imported into Africa each year – a staggering amount of mostly cast-offs and has-beens. Although in this memoir, we find out even an old Mercedes is worth its weight in gold.

Today, in some African town, there's a 1988 Mercedes 190D taxi cab with an incredible history and a story to tell.

Nika Rolczewski reviews motoring books for Wheels. She can be contacted atracernika@rogers.com

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