Customer Reviews

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

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A road trip across the Sahara in a battered 17-year-old Mercedes with 136,000 (at least) miles on it doesn't seem like the kind of trip to undertake alone. Particularly if you don't know the first thing about car repair.

Nevertheless, Dutch journalist Bergeijk can't get the idea out of his head after attending a friend's wedding in Ougadougou in West Africa. Falling into the back of a clapped-out wreck of a Mercedes, held together with rust and baling wire, he discovers the car was originally from Holland.

He's always wanted to drive a Mercedes, so why not across the desert? Determined to have an adventure and make a profit - determined being the operative word - Bergeik sets out with copies of "Sahara Overland," a "Lonely Planet" guide and a Mercedes repair manual that might as well be in Greek.

He encounters lost souls, con men, thieves, low lifes, cut throats and tourists. Little is as he expects it to be. "Or, to put it another way, wherever you go in the world, sooner or later you run into other people and then the party's over."

Entering the desert, he refuses a guide. Within minutes, of course, he's lost and bogged in sand to the axles in a minefield. Yes, a literal mine field. After being rescued, he gets a plate fixed to the bottom of his car to keep sand out of delicate parts and hires a guide.

The guide is a supercilious, chain-smoking, 20-something rap fan. And the road turns to smooth, impeccable asphalt - the new Trans-Sahara Highway. Which is being swallowed by sand almost as quickly as it can be built. "The problem, of course, is maintenance - like everywhere in Africa."

Bergeijk punctuates his narrative with riffs on life in Africa - his take on the African attitude toward the future, poverty, the wealth of the West. The mechanic who installs the plate on the bottom of his car owns only a rickety, inadequate jack. Bergeijk has a good one, which he offers to trade for the work. "No deal. Amadou preferred money." Rather than invest in equipment for his business tomorrow, he needed to pay bills today.

"Now that was one thing. I could follow his reasoning. But then he asked: Can't you give me that jack? Here was someone who could take care of himself, who had mastered a trade, had his own business, and who shamelessly asked: Won't you give it to me? Like a little kid." Annoyed, Bergeijk threw the jack back in his trunk and went on his way.

The narrative makes side trips onto the history of travel in the Sahara, from the horrific experience of shipwrecked merchants in the early 19th century (retraced in Dean King's excellent "Skeletons on the Zahara") to the first motorized Saharan crossing in 1922. He also explores the history of his own vehicle, tracing and interviewing its previous owners, even visiting the factory where it was made.

Funny, sharp and reckless (though he probably wouldn't describe himself that way), Bergeijk has no patience for boors or whiners. His descriptions of the sand-blasted African towns along his route are unlikely to increase tourism while his encounters with people - many of them adventurers like himself - are hilarious, eccentric and occasionally terrifying. The map at the front of the book is useful for following along.

Eye-opening and entertaining, Bergeijk's debut will have readers hoping he travels again.

I find that travel writing is one of the best ways to attune to one's inner gonzo. Perhaps it's best explained by the saying truth is stranger than fiction. Indeed, the mere experience of finding yourself in sand-swept Nouakchott, Mauritania, just after leaving a comfy flat in Amsterdam can hammer home said reality is a fine feeling to savor.

Especially from the comfort of a good book, which is what My Mercedes is Not for Sale: From Amsterdam to Ouagadougou...an Auto Mis-adventure across the Sahara delivers. Jeroen van Bergeijk tells the story of his seemingly innocuous quest to deliver his car, a Mercedes-Benz 190 D through Saharan Africa in a grand quest to...wait for it...sell it.

But it is so much more than that. After a brief introduction to the culture of Mercedes-Benz as well as his own car, he immediately takes the reader to the dust, deception, poverty, corruption and overall culture of Western Africa and its obsession with the automotive throwaways of Europe. Peppered with the historical outlook of various historical/literary visitors such as James Riley, Mungo Park, and Antoine de Saint-Exupery, the culture becomes more engrossing. It's a comedic, frightening, even meaningful romp through countries like Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal, Ghana, Mali, Togo and Burkina Faso in search of some adventure as well as a quick sale.

The great thing about this book is that it's not geared toward the hardcore car enthusiast, but rather the culture of someplace deemed exotic or authentic; the car is merely the vehicle, ahem, of such authenticity. Which is, he states, in the spirit of Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (to which he often refers), the act of trying to grasp the essence of a place. As the book progresses, he seems to get a whole lot of it, perhaps more than he bargains for.

Africa's authentic essence is timelessness. "Things in Africa come in two forms," he states, "broken and not broken". With the insistence that life is thus lived according to the phrase "god willing" or "inshallah", time really has no place here. He states that for these people, there is no future; everything, every decision is done for the moment for survival.

This sentiment is evident through all characters encountered along the way, from the ever-predictable corrupt border officials (regardless of country), to roving bands of car thieves and drug traffickers, desert guides, car merchants/repairmen, to everyday citizens looking to employ the fine art of finagling or chep-chep, just to make their daily ends meet.

But aside from the corruption, poverty and lawlessness, van Bergeijk also finds a sense of serenity and exquisite freedom in his journey. Meeting colorful tourists and expats along the way he realizes how Africa is a destination for people running away from something, that it has comfort to offer.

In the end, this is an extremely fast and engaging read about an often overlooked area of the world in which is found an essence that's worth deeper examination. It truly is an authentic work, well worth reading.

While this travelogue may not have the "laugh out loud" humor factor like others in the genre, Van Bergeijk provides a vivid and brutally honest account of his hair-raising and oftentimes tragic voyage through a region even the most seasoned world travelers rarely visit. Complete with historical and geopolitical tidbits, this book is stands out as a fine piece of travel journalism.

If your idea of a great vacation is getting into a car and driving somewhere new and exciting, you will enjoy this book. This is one of the best travel/road trip books I have read in a long time.

As pointed out in a previous review, the book is not intended to be very funny, like books by Maarten Troost or Bill Bryson, but I really enjoy the author's writing style. He does an excellent job of describing the many interesting characters he encounters on the way and weaves in many interesting facts and history about Western Africa. I also enjoyed the author's forays into the philosophical aspects of automobiles and his discussions of "Zenn and the Art of Motorcycle Repair." As an interesting side note, the author includes several chapters that detail his attempts to locate previous owners of his Mercedes, which I found interesting and entertaining.

I loved the book, it really spoke to me! The book is an adventure story masquerading as a travel essay. It's a fun and easy read, I knocked it off in a few nights and really it was inspiring. In the book the author buys a 190D in Holland and drives it through the Sahara dessert to the country of Burkina Faso to sell it. The book even has pictures. As a 190E owner I really appreciate what this man went through. While it is a travel story, it's a lot more, there is a technical journal side to it, a philosophical side to it, an introspect and a retrospect. I am a fan of "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance", and the author speaks a bit about that in the book too. It is more of an examination of what Persig was getting at when he spoke about quality.

Taking guidance from Robert Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," Alain de Botton, Paul
Bowles and Saint Exupery, the author drives from Amsterdam to Burkina Faso in his Mercedes 190;
his intent to sell the car in Africa. Along the way, he captured the essence of West Africa, its used car trade, rampant bribery and an engrossing wanderlust. A quick, fun read for the transcontinental plane ride.

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!

Having lived in West Africa, I recognized many of the types he writes about. I think this is a very fine way to take a casual trip through the area with a clever fellow as your companion. Some of the experiences are hair raising, some of the people are decidedly not nice. But all of it rang true with me. The custom officals he met, the hustlers he encountered and the genuinely nice folk along the way make this an ineresting and charming read. Well worth the money

In this travelogue meets history lesson, Jeroen Van Bergeijk tells the tale of his Mercedes' journey from his native Holland to Burkina Faso, a little-known landlocked country in West Africa. It's almost an autobiography of his 190 D, which he bought just to drive the Burkina Faso capital, Ouagadougou. The author describes his vehicle's birthplace, a factory in Bremen, Germany, and traces its adolescence and golden years with owners across Europe.

The trip to Burkina Faso was an adventure to say the least. The car and its owner were threatened by sandstorms, desert raiders, break downs, and corrupt government bureaucrats. Along the way, Van Bergeijk describes in an entertaining way the sights, sounds, and feels along the Trans-Sahara highway. It was fun to learn some history, too, like the ill fate of the Trans-Sahara Railroad and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's doings in Africa.

My Mercedes is NOT for Sale was an interesting, educational, and fun read.

I had no idea that there was (still is) such a demand for used cars in Western Africa.
Half a million a year from Europe!

At any rate, Jeroen Van Bergeijk's bold undertakings to make money on his old Mercedes Benz by driving it from Amsterdam to the Sahara is an entertaining journey.

Through the author's pen, we feel the relentless and abrasive desert sand blasting our face, getting stuck in the middle of nowhere, sense the muck of border towns and customs officials, witness corruption first-hand, observe numerous colorful characters along the way, not to forget the kindness, poverty and simple life of Africa.
They live for the moment, not for tomorrow.

Well written with revealing insight of western Africa.