Budapest - Bamako Rally 2018

overlandsite

New member
I have recently finished the Budapest - Bamako rally. It is 'Bamako' only by name, The actual finish line was in Banjul, The Gambia.

If you have any questions, please let me know. It was an awesome experience!

I have also done the Mongolia Charity Rally in 2014. That one is also fantastic, but it is a completely different experience. I wouldn't be able to chose which one is best.
 

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MuleShoer

Adventurer
Great Job
We have entered the Baja 4000 rally for next January, 2019.
Since the Budapest-Bamako is a charity too how was that organized? there isn't much on the website.
Pete
 

lanceatm

Founder and CEO of EarthCruiser
We did the great African run in our EC, excellent fun. We loved it so much we have entered the Baja run with other EarthCruiser owners.
 

Christian P.

Expedition Leader
Staff member
I have recently finished the Budapest - Bamako rally. It is 'Bamako' only by name, The actual finish line was in Banjul, The Gambia.

If you have any questions, please let me know. It was an awesome experience!

I have also done the Mongolia Charity Rally in 2014. That one is also fantastic, but it is a completely different experience. I wouldn't be able to chose which one is best.

My friend Matt from Belgium also just did it with an Estate Benz. I am pretty sure it's the same rally you did.
 

overlandsite

New member
Right, so first of all the best part was to meet great people. We happened to meet really cool guys, obviously with similar interests. Western Africa is a tough place and on top of that some of the offroad stages were tough on their own right too. We helped each other constantly and it was like a mission accomplished when we arrived in the finish line.
Some trucks were sold or donated at the finish, in Banjul, The Gambia. Many people, including us, were driving back to Europe, but the drive back to Europe was independent overlanding. I was looking forward to the drive back more, than the actual rally, but ended up being quite sad when the rally ended. It was more fun than I expected it.
I have to also mention the bad parts. During the whole trip, you don't really have the feeling that it is organised by a charity. More like a very for-profit organisation, without the customer service that you'd expect. Pre-departure the organizers emails were chaotic, during personal interactions one of them was rude several times.
That is part of the whole picture, that I had to mention, but having said that, I would still recommend it, it is a great experience, especially because of the people you meet. Western-Africa was special because we travelled to places we would have never gone, due to real or non-real but perceived danger.
Driving in places like Mauritania is not the safest. The road is full of careless drivers.
As an adventure and experience, highly recommended.
 

MuleShoer

Adventurer
OK so did the promoter ask for the donations so they could distribute or did each participant donate directly?
My co driver is setting this up but we planned to donate directly to the main charity
thankk
pete
 

overlandsite

New member
Yes, that part is fine. The donations go to the right place. What we've done is gave donations directly to the charity and also brought some donations with us and handed them out ourselves.
There is no problems with handling the donations, it's only they customer services that is not so cool. Who knows, the US team might be better.
 

MuleShoer

Adventurer
I believe it's the same team. However since we start from los angeles and finsih in Los angeles we might not have those issues
thank for the info
How did your return trip go? did you take a different route
 

overlandsite

New member
It went great, thanks! You could spend months in Morocco alone, discovering new places every day. Unfortunately we didn't have that much time, but definitely going back.

I think the best time to visit North-West Africa would be around April. It's still not too hot, but you can enjoy camping. Sleeping in a rooftop-tent or similar would not be an issue from a temperature perspective.
 

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