As I type this, we are north of Munich and cruising through Germany. Lots of distance has been covered over the last two days. Tonight's destination: the Czechout Party. Mongol Rally teams from all three starting points will converge on an isolated castle in western Bohemia. From what I gathered, it's quite the event. It begins around seven tonight and ends around 4 in the morning.
We abandoned our initial route through central France and Germany. The wind was pretty savage and the Jimny just wasn't capable of handling the high speeds on the French Autopistes, so we headed east for Switzerland. The scenery was quite beautiful. Flipping through the road atlas gave me an idea: why not head for Lichtenstein? Neither of us had ever been there before.
As we passed headed north-east through Switzerland, the scenery became more and more rugged. It looks quite different from the Rockies. We were driving through pastoral green valleys and mountains jutted straight up from the left and right. The roads were also excellent.
We entered Lichtenstein around 7 PM. It was a ghost town. The entire population of the country is only 35,000 and apparently they were all out of town. We drove through the winding streets attempting to find an open restaurant. We finally found a woman who indicated that we should turn around and head to the town centre. Dinner was secured.
Lichtenstein just didn't seem right for us, so we drove 15 minutes down the road and entered Feldkirch, Austria. It was the opposite of LIchtenstein: lots of activity and we could even see other people! Unfortunately, this proved to be a blessing and a curse. Just about every reasonably priced hotel was booked. Scott and I made the decision to avoid camping and stay in a hotel after realizing how close we were to exhaustion. After a search, a hotel with an empty room was found but we paid dearly.
Today began with a beautiful drive through the mountains of Austria. One of the most interesting things: a 10 KM long tunnel we drove through. Crazy stuff. The temperature was quite cool, which I thought was terrific. I had more or less been sweating since I landed in Spain.
The mountainous scenery continued briefly in Germany, but we quickly found ourselves on the autobahn. The Jimny achieved the previously unheard-of speed of 130 km/h. 130 km/h is maybe 80 miles an hour. The truck is happiest at speeds of 100-110 km/h.
That's it. We're a couple of hours from the Czech Republic and the Czechout Party. It should be absolutely, completely ridiculous.
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