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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.
Jeroen Van Bergeijk's adventure across Western Africa in an old 1988 Mercedes 190 D is both thoroughly entertaining, as well as educational, and as an added bonus, throws in a bit of ethical debate along the way. My Mercedes is Not For Sale is a very interesting read. He also provides a few photographs in the middle of the book as well.
This adventure was in fact two road trips with two 190's as you find out if you read the acknowledgement pages after the tale, but the story is written so well that you just can't tell it's not one adventure. From having to outrun car loads of robbers in Morocco, dealing with corrupt border guards demanding their 'gifts' at each country's border, corrupt police, eccentric travellers, putting a loud rude American in his place for complaining about having to pay $10 because he forgot to get a visa by pointing out no one from that African country could turn up at American immigration without a visa, produce $10 and be waved in, and of course there's a nice twist to that story, to breaking down in the middle of the Sahara, Bergeijk had one big road trip. The author is a brilliant commentator, who writes very well.
Along Bergeijk's journey he experiences the best and worst that Western African countries have to offer. Basic goal of Bergeijk's adventure was to buy an old car in Holland and drive it through the Sahara Desert and the African countries along the way, and sell it for a nice profit to an African who would greatly benefit from owning a Mercedes in the coastal city of Ouagadougou. Don't know where that is, doesn't matter, Bergeijk provides a map.
Along the way the reader will also learn a fair bit out the Mercedes company, African history and the tales of the misfortunes of those who, shipwrecked, explored it or were sent by European government's to plan Railways between their colonies. Bergeijk's a journalist and not a comedian so it doesn't have the humour of writers like Dave Gorman or Danny Wallace, but it does share the same trait of travelling for a unique and bizarre reason that their book's do.Check this book out.
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