Here’s a general update for everyone:
Thursday night I took a direct flight from San Francisco to London. At about 3pm I was picked up by our (still nameless) Fiat Punto and the rest of the Basic Cruising Team. For the first time since we became a team we were actually in close physical proximity, having planned most of the trip while Enrique was in Ithaca, Andrés in Palo Alto, and myself in San Francisco. It felt good to be able to have conversations where Skype and cellphones weren’t cutting off.
We had to shuffle the things around the car a bit to fit all the stuff I was taking and I asked to drive the car. It was my first time in a right-hand side car but it was all good… I had gotten a bit of training from my English boss on how to handle English roundabouts but I must admit that it still got to me the first time around, getting a mad honk and screams from the driver behind me, oh well.
After about 15 minutes, Enrique asks “where did we leave the thinner?” I honestly didn’t even know we had a jerry can of thinner but soon realized after hearing the incessant screaming from both of them that something was up. Enrique climbed out of the window only to find the jerry can completely loose on the top of the car. I carefully made my way to the left most lane, stopped, we got the thinner in the car and kept driving general direction south – no time for London.
Halfway through we stopped at Halfords to buy some material to install our spotlights and “La Cucaracha” horn. The lads at Halfords were quite nice and lent us a bunch of tools. Unfortunately it was getting late and dark and we still were far from our hotel room so we decided to stop the installation service to continue it at our hotel. We packed our things, I handed Mon a box with our halogen spotlights, and took the driver’s seat again. After about a minute of driving I saw the box I had just handed to Mon fly out – he had left it on the roof. We stopped the car and try to salvage as many parts. As we were making our way to the box, a car drove right over it, destroying practically everything.
So now we have a strict routing of checking the roof for loose parts. Lesson learned, we hope.
We were up until about 3:30AM on Friday finishing off the installation of the electrical installation for the spotlights and painting the car. The next day we woke up at 9AM, drove to the nearest Halfords, bought a new set of spotlights, finished off the electrical wiring for them, installed our “La Cucaracha” horn, and finished the paint job. It was 1:05PM. The deadline to arrive at Goodwood for registration, passport pickup, and launch was 2:00PM – we still had to clean up the car and paste the decals from all of our sponsors.
We arrived to the Festival of Slow, were the last team to register (most teams had gotten to Goodwood at 10AM), picked up my passport now with visas to Iran and Kyrgyzstan, and started pasting the decals. We got the job done, were ready just in time for our lap around Goodwood (were “La Cucaracha” horn was a complete sensation!), and took off to Dover to cross the English Channel.
After almost running out of fuel on France, we successfully managed to glide our way to a gas station, implemented a new policy for refuels, and took of to Belgium where we are now. After two long days, we slept in late and will make our way to München now.
We want to thank everyone who has made contributions to our charity. We can’t begin to explain how great it feels to receive them and we want to thank you all from the bottom of our hearts.
Alright, off then! We’ll try to post more pictures soon, but in the meantime, check our Twitter feed where we’ve posted some!