December 29, 2011 00:12:00
Jeff GreenThe Loose Moose sits firmly atop the roof of the 1996 Toyota Carina as Ilya Pinassi and Jeff Urquhart sip overpriced coffees at a bar aboard their ferry.
They’re crossing from the southern tip of Spain with the moose as their mascot. They will get their first taste of North Africa when the boat arrives in Morocco.
It’s here that their journey will really begin. They’re putting their own spin on theBanjul Challenge, a three-week, 6,000-kilometre trek from Plymouth, England, to Banjul, Gambia, in Western Africa.
Pinassi, the general manager of the Upper James Toyota, has dubbed the trip theRace for Grace. The car costs less than a grand, and the pair is trying to raise $25,000 for the Juravinski Cancer Centre in honour of Grace Carr, a longtime employee of the dealership who died from breast cancer in 2006.
They left Hamilton Dec. 7 and have slowly made their way into Africa after logging some 3,000 kilometres from their starting point. They’ve blogged about their journey throughout, from their Dec. 8 start when they picked up the right-seat drive Toyota in England to their foray into Africa.
In their last post to raceforgrace.ca onDec. 27, 19 days into their journey, Pinassi and Urquhart, a longtime mechanic at the dealership, had made it to Marrakesh, some 650 kilometres from the northern tip of Africa.
They entered the country in a sea of confusion and disorder, fighting through lines that don’t exist as hundreds try to grab the attention of people at three wickets selling car insurance for Africa. As it turns out, most European insurance providers don’t cover the African part of their journey, and Pinassi and Urquhart soon find out it’s a case of survival of the fittest.
They’ve added a third to their car, a man named Dennis whom they’ve nicknamed the Grey-Ace. It’s another driver, and another person to split costs, blogs Pinassi. By the evening of Dec. 21, the car enters Rabat, a Moroccan city that would appear lawless by the style of driving.
By now, the GPS has been thrown into the glove compartment in frustration, questioning its accuracy, and the trio has spent a fair amount of time dealing with paperwork as they prepare visas for the next most southern country, Mauritania.
The Banjul Challenge is not so much a race as it is a journey. A two-day trek through the Sahara Desert is billed as a highlight, and cars are encouraged to travel in convoys.
Pinassi and Urquhart’s convoy is down to three as they climb the mountains around Marrakesh. A protest blocks their route and the locals deny any knowledge of an alternate. It’s Christmas Day and they’re being told their car windows will be smashed if the forge ahead.
They grab kebabs and drive around for an hour before they find another route. Pinassi blogs how great it was to find the new road and how they find a small apartment to rest on Christmas Day in Marrakesh, which he describes as the old seat of power in Morocco.
The blogs are two days behind, with his last posting on Dec. 27. They’ve raised $14,025 so far from 73 separate donors. It’s more than halfway to their goal and the pair has some 4,000 kilometres left in their journey.
You can follow their blog and make a donation at raceforgrace.ca. Pinassi has been tweeting the blog updates under the twitter handle @UpJamesToyota.
VIDEO: Traffic insanity at the Moroccan border
jgreen
905-526-3254 | @jgreengo
