My Mercedes is Not for Sale: From Amsterdam to Ouagadougou...An Auto-Misadventure Across the Sahara
by Jeroen Van Bergeijk
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jeroen Van BergeijkEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-07-15
ISBN: 0767928695
Number of pages: 224
Publisher: Broadway
Book Reviews of My Mercedes is Not for Sale: From Amsterdam to Ouagadougou...An Auto-Misadventure Across the Sahara
Book Review: Great Adventure Which Teaches the Reader a Bit of African Culture and History Along the Way!
Summary: 4 Stars
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. The author is a brilliant commentator, who writes very 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. 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! He also provides a few photographs in the middle of the book as well. Along Bergeijk's journey he experiences the best and worst that Western African countries have to offer. 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!
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.
My Mercedes is Not For Sale is a very interesting read. 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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