My Mercedes is Not for Sale: From Amsterdam to Ouagadougou...An Auto-Misadventure Across the Sahara

My Mercedes is Not for Sale: From Amsterdam to Ouagadougou...An Auto-Misadventure Across the Sahara Features

Additional My Mercedes is Not for Sale: From Amsterdam to Ouagadougou...An Auto-Misadventure Across the Sahara Information

“Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?”
—Janis Joplin

A journalist’s intrepid endeavor to sell his used car abroad results in a high-spirited and revealing look at West Africa.

“Look, there’s my car,” I say, pointing at my Mercedes in the parking lot.
“Where?” a fellow desert traveler asks.
“There, that Mercedes,” I say.
He looks at me, questioning. “You want to drive that through the Sahara?”
 
Jeroen van Bergeijk came up with what seemed like a great scheme for making a quick profit: buy a clunker of a car in his native Amsterdam and resell it in the Third World, where a market even for jalopies still thrives. His chariot of choice is a rusted-out 1988 Mercedes 190D with 220,000 kilometers on its odometer; his route will take him from Holland through Morocco, across the Sahara, and into some of the least trodden parts of Africa.
My Mercedes Is Not for Sale is a rollicking tale of an innocent abroad. The author finds himself facing a driving challenge akin to the Dakar Rally but encounters obstacles never dreamed of by race-car drivers: active minefields, occasional banditry—mostly by the border guards—and a teenage, chain-smoking desert guide with a fondness for Tupac lyrics. Food and water are scarce, sandstorms are frequent, and all he has to patch up his many car breakdowns thousands of miles from civilization is a bar of soap, some duct tape, and a pair of women’s nylons. Then there’s the coup he survived.
My Mercedes Is Not for Sale captures more than the adventure—it vividly portrays the impact of globalization on Africa through a surprise-filled journey into its thriving car culture, while asking the question: is the white man’s burden really a used car?

What Customers Say About My Mercedes is Not for Sale: From Amsterdam to Ouagadougou...An Auto-Misadventure Across the Sahara:

While I enjoyed this book overall, it was a bit "thin".The general story was entertaining. However, Bergeijk doesn't seem to do his own adventure justice. Old cars are worth more in Africa than in Europe (& other 1st World countries) because of the difference in labor costs to keep them running. The author decides to buy a beater Mercedes in Amsterdam, then drive it across the Sahara and sell it in Africa at a profit.You get some sense of African cultures from reading the book, and a bit of a flavor for the trip. He doesn't go into much detail even on the handful of the more significant events he decides to highlight. Personally, I'd have liked more of a day-to-day travelog.

If you took the author's own experience and removed all the filler about Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance or accounts of other travelers in West Africa then this book would be a short story at best. The author spends too much time recounting other stories instead of his own. He doesn't give the reader any sense of how mundane and long the distances are while driving through the Western Sahara and Mauritania. If you're looking for a good West African travelogue, this is not it. If you're looking for something slightly more than a news article about selling old cars in West Africa then maybe this book is for you.

All-in-all, Jeroen gives a well done descriptive of the people he meets and events which take place. He must deal with the hardships of travelling through third-world countries which are more often than not in the midst of civil wars. Dutch traveller turned writer Jeroen van Bergeijk has come across the seemingly lucrative idea and venture of purchasing a car, a 1988 Mercedes 190, in Holland and driving it to Sub-Saharan Africa for a larger amount of money. The well-read Jeroen gives history lessons on previous travellers into Africa and the hardships they dealt with in much tougher times. Through in the excessive need to supplement your journey with well received "gifts" to shady border guards, rude travellers, and the massive car graveyards/parts suppling locals. He also presents the kindness in the face of hardships of many of the locals. Jeroen goes armed with the philosophy that the car is not just a machine or a means to an end as he relies on the influence of Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It's a well written travelogue and has made me seek out Captain James Riley's Sufferings in Africa: The Incredible True Story of a Shipwreck, Enslavement, and Survival on the Sahara.

The trip of driving from Amsterdam to Ouagadougou would have been interested enough, but the author does a great job of weaving in historical aspects of the areas that he drives through. These history lessons are so interesting in summary that I am going to read additional books mentioned by the author. He gets a little carried away with Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, but overall this was a great, entertaining, and quick read. The author also traces all the previous owners of his Mercedes.

You truly feel like you have some insight into their personality as a reader. The author has come up with a fascinating idea for a book. My only regret is that his world view comes across as slightly condescending, and even though he has travelled to these places multiple times (which indicates that he must have had some enjoyment), I found myself less interested in going there myself. I learned a lot about Saharan Africa and the countries he visited in West Africa. It took me awhile to finish the book because his digressions are sometimes a little too lengthy for me (he discusses a Mercedes factory at length and retells the Zen of Motorcycle Maintenance).There are a number of interesting characters that he meets along the way and he does a good job of describing them. I liked this book. Some other travel books I liked even more are Learning to Bow, The Ridiculous Race, Hitching Rides With Buddha, and an old classic, Iron and Silk.