Story by: Ferenc Elekes (OverlandSite.com)
Photos by: Ferenc from Budapest-Bamako Rally
Whether you choose to overland on your own, with your buddy or family in the truck, with another one or two trucks in a convoy, or in an organized group can deliver totally different experiences. Some people prefer doing it only one way or another, but every single type of overlanding has its fun factors as well as its disadvantages.
If and when you decide to overland independently, you can pretty much plan and make a decision on every aspect of the adventure – budget, rules and security concerns permitting. Start time and length of travel as well as the itinerary will all be up to you. An organized overlanding adventure takes all that freedom away from you, but it comes with other advantages that off-set the lack of freedom.
Organized Overlanding Events and Tours
There are several organized overland events and tours around. Overland Bound made it even easier. Using their interactive map, you can arrange a meetup or a tour yourself.
However, if someone is looking for an organized overland adventure further away, there are several options to choose from. One example would be the Mongolia Charity Rally (not to be confused with the Mongol Rally by the Adventurists), which starts in London, UK and finishes in Ulanbataar, Mongolia. It’s an epic journey where overlanders are pretty much on their own, but with a set start date and a start and finishing point. Within reason, you can take as long as you like to arrive to Mongolia and visit fascinating towns and amazing landscapes along the ancient Silk Road.
A bit more of a coordinated overland adventure is the Budapest-Bamako Rally that leaves from Budapest, Hungary and usually finishes in Bamako, Mali.
Let’s have a closer look at the B2 Rally – as veteran Budapest-Bamako ralliers call it.
The Budapest-Bamako Rally
The word “rally” might be a bit misleading if you’re only looking for an overland trip. It’s a rally in the sense that stages have to be completed each day and there is a race category for off-road navigation enthusiasts, but the majority of the entrants sign up for the tour and 4×4 tour categories. That means you don’t have to collect points and are not evaluated every day, so you can just enjoy the journey with the additional peace of mind that comes from the security of driving with a group. On top of this, two medical teams also drive with the group of 150 vehicles, should any help be needed. If you want the whole experience, your only job is to get from A to B every day.
The Budapest-Bamako Rally was first organized in 2005, and there have been a growing number of participants every year since. A different off-road itinerary is announced each year and finalized by a scout team a few months before the rally start date.
Most years, the finish line was in Mali’s capital city, Bamako. However, due to security concerns, the finish line had been moved to Banjul for the second time in the rally’s history.
Naturally, the event is very popular in its home country of Hungary, but about two thirds of the folks who sign up are from all over the world, including the U.S. Important to note is that the rally is only organized for the one-way trip to the finish line; on the way back, you’re on your own. Most teams sell or donate their vehicle at the final destination. Alternatively, they ship it back home or just drive back.
Given that the itinerary goes through a number of very poor countries, teams often bring donations to hand out along the way, and the rally organizers this year arranged for two wells to be built for villages in The Gambia.
When you sign up, there are different categories to choose from: Race, 4×4 Touring, Touring and Spirit. As I mentioned before, teams signing up for the race category have to complete navigational and off-road tasks. Some of the stages are quite challenging from a navigational point of view. The 4×4 Touring teams receive the same GPS coordinates that the race category receives, so participants in both categories follow the same, usually spectacular, route. The Touring and Spirit categories drive on normal, sometimes maybe gravel roads, but basically, taking part in this category doesn’t require you to have the latest, upgraded Rubicon with 33s. You can pretty much do it in any car. The Spirit category encourages people to sign up with any old banger.
In terms of accommodation, the event is a true overlanding adventure. There are some recommended hotels on the way, but mostly organized camps were lined up. Up to 100 overland rigs together with all their gear set up for the camp is a great view.
The 2018 B2
This year’s rally left Budapest on the 12th of January and the first stage was very long. The next stage only started 4 days later in Midelt, Morocco. Until then, ralliers were driving across the whole of Europe, taking the ferry from southern Spain over to Morocco. At the end of this stage, participants could catch a glimpse on what was coming in terms of scenery and challenge.
However, the real experience started on the 16th of January. Midelt was the starting point on that day, with 440 mostly off-road or rough gravel miles assigned for the day. Provided GPS points were leading the vehicles across some scenic mountain passes through the Atlas. As the group headed south over the following days, the scenery and the essence of the stages changed for a flatter and hotter environment as the Sahara desert grew closer. Throughout the country, snowy and rocky mountain roads, oases and sand dunes, and rough and smooth roads make the overlanders’ life both varied and wonderful.
After Morocco, stages continued through Western Sahara, which for the rest of the world is a separate country. Not for Morocco, though. Morocco de-facto occupied the territory at the end of the 70s, calling it their Southern Provinces. This means there is no border control or different currency, but due to the civil war that lasted 15 years there are land mines in the desert, so there are no off-road stages here organized by the Budapest-Bamako Rally.
Western Sahara was followed by Mauritania, which is a challenging place for an overlander. If you stay in the western region close to the coast, there isn’t much to worry about. However, pockets of the eastern part of the country are controlled by terrorist and criminal groups. In fact, on one stage in Mauritania from BouLanoar to Atar through the Sahara Desert (the exact same stage used to be a Dakar Rally Stage too), the participants were guarded by the Mauritanian military overnight in the camps, as well as during the day in the desert.
The poverty that is evident in Mauritania is overwhelming, and convoys of overlanders certainly attract a lot of attention in a poor country.
In this year’s rally, Mauritania was followed by Senegal – a much easier country from an overlander’s perspective. This is where the savannah starts, and even though the country is still very poor, entering from a much poorer country somehow masks that fact. The stages on the savannah provided navigational challenges even for the 4×4 touring category, as dirt tracks fork a million times and ditches and hedges make incorrect decisions a lot worse. You can end up in a dead-end dirt track and only realize it after driving for several minutes. That can be a long distance on the very enjoyable bendy and dusty savannah trails.
Arriving in The Gambia after Senegal gave the teams quite a relaxing feeling that, having travelled that far, they were in the final country with the finish line ahead. The Gambia is a very narrow country with the Gambia River snaking through the middle of it. The country lacks bridges, so teams had to use ferry crossings a couple of times to get to Banjul, the destination of the 2018 Budapest-Bamako Rally. Ferries can only take a few vehicles at a time, so a river crossing took hours when all the teams showed up at the same time.
What the country doesn’t lack are checkpoints. Constant military as well as police check points make progress very slow.
The finish line was in an empty soccer field in the touristy town of Serrekunda just outside Banjul. The arrival of the rally was a big event in the town, with spectators as well as used cars salesmen turning up with cash, ready to buy vehicles from teams who were planning to fly rather than drive back home.
In general, the event provides a great sense of adventure. The downside is that the pace can remind you of an actual rally, with driving over three to four hundred miles for several days each day. You can’t really have a relaxing day and stop to look around in a beautiful area if you want to stay with all the other teams.
West African countries, except Morocco perhaps, are not easy to overland through, relatively speaking. While it’s safe enough to do on your own, an organized trip like the Budapest-Bamako Rally gives you the opportunity to get to places you wouldn’t otherwise have visited or probably even known about. In the process, you can meet likeminded people and bond through driving the challenging stages together, not to mention the great evenings in overland camps.
The Baja 4000
If you’re not quite ready for an African trip, you might consider signing up for the 2019 Baja 4000, which is organized by the same team as the B2.
Given the difficulties that authorities in Western African countries impose on the organizers (as well as due to general security issues), they have decided that the B2 will only run every other year and will organize a rally for Baja in the years between. If you’re looking for an adventure that’s more than just a peaceful camping trip, that one is probably worth checking out.
(