It is always difficult to decide what to read during my customary respite between Xmas and New Years. Leafing through the NYT Book Review, I found the perfect book: My Mercedes Is Not for Sale. The book is about a Dutchman who buys an old Mercedes in Amsterdam and drives it across the Sahara to Burkina Faso, with the goal of selling it. It's got everything I crave: an old Mercedes, an impossible drive through terra incognito, history, geopolitics, madness. Here is his route and some photos from the book's website.
Peugeot 504 in Niger
Ferry between Senegal and Mauritania
Family outing in Mauritania
Wrecked Mercedes in Mauritania
Benin PeugeotCKY