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Welcome to episode 5 of our biggest adventure ever. Every year around a 100 teams set off to drive over 5,000 miles from Europe to Asia in tiny cars that were never designed to make it that far. But we needed something a little bigger for our team of nine. Meet Big Bertha. We bought this retired school bus off a government auction website in Colorado. We're just bus owners now. Roadt tripped it all the way across the US. Shipped it across the Atlantic to Germany. then finally drove it to the start line in Prague. Then the real adventure began.
I cannot believe this moment is finally here. This is actually what the Mongol Rally is about. So, there's no official route for the Mongol Rally. And it's not a race. I don't know where we're going. I don't know when we're going to get there. I don't know what country we're going to today. Just a massive challenge to make it to the finish line party in 6 weeks and have as much fun as possible along the way. Oh, but it's completely unsupported, which means once you leave the start line, you're on your own to navigate unpredictable border crossings. So, where do how do we get to Kazakhstan? Fix anything that breaks and whatever else that will definitely go wrong along the way.
Got our first casualty of the trip. The crazy people who decided to join us on this adventure are Nate's brother Dusty and his wife Sarah. the whole KN family who we've done some of our craziest adventures with, including riding this ridiculous three-seater bike all the way across the US a couple years ago and our best friend Charlie from Australia who we've already traveled to 14 countries with. Somebody asked me for a dude and I censored and we haven't heard back. 9 days ago, we started this crazy road trip in Prague. And since then, we've traveled through Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Muldova, and even the self-declared country of Transnistria.
In this episode, we pick up our first hitchhiker. Visit a salt lake in Bulgaria that claims to have healing powers. Do those microbes go inside like holes? Cuz I think some have got in. Attempt our most intimidating border crossing to date. We're pulling out to the border patrol station. Here we go. Drive our massive bus into one of the busiest cities in Europe and eventually cross into Asia where we find the most epic campsite of the entire rally. What did you do? I had some of the smoke. How did it taste? But for now, we're just relieved to be waking up safe and sound on the coast of the Black Sea.
We are attempting to wild camp for the first time. Charlie found a beach on Google Maps. The road looks like this. All right. The last time I let you guys come down the campsite. So that's right. So those will expand. Good morning. How are you? How' you sleep? Pretty good. Rick went for a run this morning. Where'd you go? I was down by the water and three guys in like camouflage and military outfits came running out yelling, yelling, yelling and I was like, "What?" Oh god. They were pretty cool about it, but they were just like, "You got to go the other way." But there's a red sign that says like militar objectives. So there must be some kind of military base right there. But I have my head down
just running along the sand. Straight into a military zone. I just kind of remind you like how close we are to an active war zone right now. Going for a swim. Uh yeah, let's do it. It is ice cold. And it's not warm outside either. I got to go under. [screaming] Oh, what a good way to wake up. First time ever swimming in the Black Sea. I think it's actually a pretty beautiful sea, but with all the clouds this morning, it actually looks black.
right, we have a huge driving day ahead. The goal is to continue south and cross the Bulgarian border. And in a perfect world, we make it all the way to Turkey today. Fingers crossed. All right, breakfast of champions. Just living the life. Something beautiful just happened. We had about 15 Romanian dollars left and we tried to stop at two different gas stations. Didn't work out with the bus. Charlie was like, I'm just going to give it to somebody. So he just stops the van in the middle of the road, opens the door, and there's a guy walking by with his bike wearing a security vest. And he just holds it out, and the guy comes
over and like looks at it, and then steps onto the bus and proceeds to go down the aisle, kiss every girl's hand, and shake every guy's hand. His lip was quivering like he was beginning to cry, and just was so thankful. It was just the first guy Charlie saw and stopped. It was the perfect person. That's what we do with all our money from now on. I know. We forgot that Bulgaria was part of the shenan zone. So, we just got to drive straight through. Yeah. Come on. We'll drop you off somewhere.
Yes. Right there. Yeah. Have a seat. It's okay. No money. Thank you. We'll take him to the next town then. Neat. So, we've just had our first bus stop pick up. Our first hitchhikers on board from America from Colorado. Good. Nice to meet you. See you, mate. Take care. Bye. Have a nice trip home. All right, we're off. I feel like today we're building back up the good karma that we used when Don took us across the border in Malddova. We took him about 20 minutes in the direction that he needed to go. Gave him a Coke and it was so fun cuz he was just smiling so big the whole time.
Bulgaria has been full of beauty. First, we had to pull over on the side of the road and take photos in front of the sunflowers. That is something we have not captured enough on this trip. There have been sunflower fields all through Malddova, Romania, and Bulgaria, but I think these are the best. And now, we just drove by this insane looking cliff that has a tunnel going through it. So, naturally, we're turned around and we're going to see if we can fit. There's no sign that says how tall it is, so shouldn't [screaming] be up here all the time. Woo! This is awesome. Hey. Okay, we have just stopped a little north of the town of Burgess because if you look at this place on Google Maps, it has these crazy red
pools and they're supposed to be filled with mud that's really good for your skin. You can rub it all over yourself and if we're lucky, we might see flamingos. Everyone seems to be secondg guessing this experience except for me. It doesn't look as romantic as it did online. It doesn't look red at all. It just looks like dirt and poop that's wet. It says it's healing. Riding no more than 20 to 30 minutes to avoid overloading the heart. Put your hand up if you want to do it. We got to do it. We were here. We came this way. It just looks so filthy. There's airport just there and it's just still water with birds sitting in it. It's like having a dirty pond at the back of an
airport and they're like, "What can we do with this space?" Get tourists to come. They It's 5. They'll come and they'll cover themselves in this fish. I'm normally a really positive person. Just can't quite compute to make sense. Wait, this is where all the flamingos are having their bowel movements every day? Yes. I don't know how to feel a bird. I'm just going to believe that this is healing for my body. Okay, it actually does look a little red now that we're closer to it. Oh, you're not going to have to try very hard to get money.
Oh, you're going for it back there. The water is about 3 in deep and my foot is just sunk 2 ft down. I'm not even lying. It's not like poop. No, but why would they have a traction where you rub poop on yourself like this? It's not traction. It's healing. One thing this camera cannot capture is the odor coming off this stuff. It smells like poop. Charlie's right. We're rubbing ourselves in poop. We're committing. Oh, it kind of burns. Oh wow. Wo. It's like the Dead Sea. I'm floating for the first time in my life. Wo. You're so buoyant.
Zero effort and I'm just floating. Look, my feet are sticking out of the water. You can You don't hit the bottom. Yes. I love this feeling. Eevee, lay on your back and commit. Relax, [screaming] relax. Do you feel it? How cool is that? 200 lb. Just like one inch of me is going under right now. This is crazy. So, I was reading online that the reason the water here is red is because there's this micro algae that lives here and it gets a red tint to protect itself from the UV light. And that same red micro algae is why flamingos are pink. They eat like the flies and the shrimp that are feeding on the micro algae. If I
grab a handful of the bottom and then I shake it around a little bit, there's just pure salt and mud on the bottom. Oh, it's burning my wee now. Those microbes go inside my holes cuz I think some have got in. I think I'd given it a one in my head. Said that it was all bird poo. Said it looked awful. There were planes overhead. Now you're in the water. It's warm. We're floating. It's ridiculous. Oh, there's like tar mud in this bucket. Wo, that is black. I was enjoying the experience until now. What is this? Is Oh. Oh, okay. Where do you get the mud from? Uh over there.
Mhm. Ah, I see. Uh, so the good mud's over here. Oh god, it smells. Do you don't you think it smells like poop a little bit? Like or maybe it's just like that sulfur poopy smell. Smells like dead organic matter. Definitely. If I found this pit myself, I wouldn't think like, "Let's rub this all over my body." Like, there's something. All right, come on out here. I'll get your back for you. All right, true friends. Oh, I like that. Lower. I guess uh I guess I'm the only one they did my face. I didn't know. We have no idea. There's no instructions in English. We're just guessing. We were
using the wrong mud apparently. And I don't know why you wouldn't use the face. You're covering every other part of your body in this stuff. I got to find a way to get this off. I'm so happy we're here. I packed my black bathing suit for this trip just because I thought there was a chance we were coming here. Me, too. So, this is amazing. We're primarily the OG birthday model. How's it feel, Dusty? I just want it off. Feel like I'm the giant sandpaper.
Charlie, why are you walking like that? I went for a run this morning and I'm chafed and it's the most sensitive. Oh, goodness. Also, it looks like he pooches. Ah, it's all like I can feel it cracking when I move my skin. We just walked 15 minutes back down the beach. The bus is parked right back there and now we're going to go wash it all off. Woo! I forgot how cold the Black Sea was. Oh, wow. My skin feels so good. I love it. Unfortunately, I smell like poop. There's a lot of chatter going on in the back of the bus. We're trying to decide whether or not we're going to try to
cross over into Turkey tonight. From here, we still have an hour drive to the border. We've heard it could take as long as 4 hours. I'm not being dramatic. The whole bus. Real quick, we want to say a big thank you to the sponsor of today's video, Chime. They are America's number one choice for banking. We recently partnered together and filmed a video for their YouTube channel where we documented flying from Colorado to Germany to show you how Chime Prime can make travel more rewarding. I'll give you the quick highlights, but you should definitely go watch the full video which we will link down below. So, with Chime Prime, you can earn 5% back in the
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you go to the link in the description below, you can get up to a $350 bonus. Or just go to chime.com/carenate. And again, that's up to a $350 bonus. Okay, we've decided as a group that we are going to attempt to cross the border into Turkey tonight. Our expectations are about 50/50 with our track record. Plus, we've heard some questionable stuff online. So, even though we won't get there until 10:00 and we all smell like poop, we're going to give it our best shot.
Okay, here's what the internet says about the border that we're about to cross. This is from Stan from 4 months ago. Warning to all travelers crossing this checkpoint. We were held for 3 hours while Bulgarian officers conducted the most aggressive search I've ever experienced at any border in my life. They dismantled the entire vehicle, film everything, photograph your belongings, don't leave the checkpoint till you've verified every item. It can be quite a hostile experience. And that's the Bulgarian side. That's the Bulgarian. We haven't even That's when we haven't even gone to Turkey. These border crossings are always questionable and like adrenaline filled because like if they turn us away, we
just don't have a lot of options. And it's like we have to come back and try again. That's our only option. like we're not just going to stop. But in the past, the people here don't tend to like our registration. So, we've got it printed on some different paper this time, hoping we'll get a different response with that. I'm feeling very confident. The one thing they seem to look for all the time is they hold it up into the light looking for something they can see through our house. It's like thick cardboard. Yeah. Have you done your face, Nate? Fix yourself up. Yep. Fix your eyebrows.
Comb your hair. Good. I put some essential oils on so we don't smell as bad. Oh gosh. Okay, we're pulling up to the border patrol station. There's only two lanes and there's only two cars here. Here we go. Give me the documents. Okay. Hey, uh, everybody can come out with their passport. We're getting out. Hello. Uh, from the other side. Okay. And, uh, when I check your documents, you go there. Make a line. We send the women and children first. We just left Bulgaria, no problem. They didn't search the bus.
They didn't take the wheels off. All that stuff that was in the review. These guys were lovely. They loved the bus. They were friendly. They smiled a lot. Now we're driving the no man's land all the way to the Turkish border where things could be a little more interesting. It was a good call to try tonight. There's no line at all. Moments later.
[screaming] 36 MINUTES AND 11 RECORD FOR a border. That was nuts. We pull up. We're like the only car there. They stamp all of our passports before we even hand over our documents for the car. So, I'm already getting nervous. Like, they have no idea what they're getting into with this. And it just kind of seemed like they were bored and all just wanted to like hang out in the bus. There were like five or six of them in the bus at one point. Somebody was using the disco ball as a punching bag. Seriously, the quickest and easiest border crossing of the whole trip. And the one we were most nervous about. Except for Charlie. He wasn't nervous.
Not for a second. Except when I thought we needed visas. Not only did we find a hotel that would accept us at Oh, my watch is dead. It's late. But they have a gravel parking lot right next door that fits the bus. The night has gone so well. Way to go. Thank you. After Malddova, I know this has all been said before, but I think we were just all prepared to get here at 2:00 a.m. if we were lucky. Just the fact that we're here is amazing. And much less at 11:25 and we have a hotel. We've just already had so much border drama and the WhatsApp group for the Mongol Rally was just going nuts with people having problems here. So to be here before midnight feels like we saved a whole day if not more.
It's day 11 of the Rally. You want to tell everybody what just happened? Well, I'm 7 weeks as of yesterday and I just had my first morning vomit. Congrats. I um felt terrible this morning. Felt pretty terrible the last two days. I've hardly eaten, but this morning was like another level. And then all of a sudden it happened and now I feel great. Better than I have in 48 hours. Fun times. Pregnant. Last night we slept about an hour past the border. And the plan today is to drive 2 hours into Istanbul and then spend the day exploring the city.
It's still like plenty long. Like it doesn't It looks good. We're making some uniform modifications. Shirts are a bit long, so we decided to chop them off. It's more ventilation for the We don't know where we're staying tonight, but we're going to focus on this for a while first. Sun's out, guns out. Is it good? It's good. It is actually great. Do we think it's too long? Cuz you know how Rick's got it raised above his peach. That's it. That's a snug fit right there. As Charlie would say, tighter than a mouse's ear hole. Like a mouse's ear hole. All right, fact check. Istanbul is the only major city in the world on two continents. The European and Asian sides are separated by the Bosphorus straight.
Approximately 15 to 16 million people live here, making it one of Europe's largest cities. It has had three major names in the past. The Zantium, Constantinople, and Istanbul. The bus has made it to Istanbul. This feels like the craziest place we've been. Turkey is just so much more foreign feeling than everywhere we've been so far. And this city is huge. Parking should be interesting. Okay, this has been the most stressful parking job yet in Big Ba. Turkey has a lot of traffic, a lot of cars, a lot of lanes.
This is really great tour. We've been looking for parking for a really, really, really long time. All the lots are full. And then just getting from A to B is a little scary, but it is actually crazy that we're driving a bus. Woo! We uh thought that was going to take 2 hours. It ended up taking 4 and 1/2 by the time we sat in traffic and then got turned away from four different parking spots. But we made it. We are starting our night in Istanbul off with Turkish pday, one of our favorite Turkish dishes. It's basically like a Turkish pizza, but they make it in this big oven and they're so hot and fresh. They brought us these two dipping
sauces. One of them is like cucumber and tomatoes and this chili oil with all of these spices. I'm so happy we're here. It's good to be back. Baby Car and Nate were here back in 2018, and we definitely could not afford to eat at this restaurant. So, me and Cara, Charlie, and Rick and Beck have been to Istanbul before, but it's the girls and Dusty and Sarah's first time here. So, we're heading to the Grand Bazaar because you can't come to Istanbul without seeing the Grand Bazaar. Unfortunately, we were also hungry by the time we got here. We didn't take to check when it closed and we have 25 minutes.
The whole crew takes over the Grand Bazaar. And this might be the best time to come. A lot of the shops are starting to shut down, but normally, or at least last time I was here, you can't even find space to walk around in here. This is so fun. So, I was doing a little research before we came, and the Grand Bazaar dates back to the 1500s. There's over 4,000 shops, but the thing I found most fascinating is there's 61 streets. So, this place is massive. It is one of the largest covered markets in the entire world. It would be so easy to get lost here. The best part about this market is how many people loved our t-shirts. Like, the way a lot of these operate is the guys at the shops are really smooth talkers. They'll ask you a little
question. They'll rope you in. But this time it's like they didn't even try. They just be like, "Nice t-shirt." And then they see that there's like 10 of us. We just stick out so much. It's hilarious. Like more here than anywhere else that we've been. Kid you not. A guy offered to trade Nate his shirt for a rug. I was honestly tempted, but I can't give up the Jean uniform. Wow. Cara, do you remember last time you were right here? Um, I remember wearing a beautiful black dress with a yellow scarf.
Yeah, I think we were in our Instagram era and now I'm in a tie-dye t-shirt. You've changed. The Blue Mosque is unique cuz it has six minetses which competes with the Great Mosque of Mecca. Uh, there's 20,000 tiles that are internal that are blue and turquoise and then it has a gray exterior and it only took 7 years to build. Oh, we should hit the button. Oh. Ah. Uh-oh. Ah. I don't like that at all. It's day 12. Feels like it's been my entire life. I'm just kidding. I'm acting like I'm complaining, but I love it.
Got our first casualty of the trip. Oh, just hitting the shisha too hard. Yeah, just throwing up. Going to the bathroom all night last night. He's rallying so we can all drive today. Oh, I think several people's stomachs are feeling a little funny. So, the rest of the team is on pins and needles wondering if we're about to all go down. I think it's sympathy nausea for me. [clears throat] People have gone too far with this. Right now, we're trying to make sure we can get on this bridge.
You're good. It's definitely been a logistical challenge just getting in and out of Ismo. There's uh a bunch of height restrictions. I think that's the main one that we're concerned about, but we're also very wide, so we're kind of squeezing through a lot of laneways. It's been uh bit of a stressful morning getting out of Istanbul, but I think we're through the worst of it. Just remember, we all feel the safest with you, Rick.
Last night, the team had a vote of uh who they felt was the most unsafe driver. And uh yours truly won the award, which means uh I might not be in the driver's seat very much. So, I'm disappointed by that. Been doing it on purpose. Just waiting for them to vote me out like when I do dishes at home. So, Istanbul is the only city in the world that sits on two separate continents. And as soon as we pass over the Bosphorus, we will officially be in Asia. This is awesome. EUROPE. We've driven an American school bus from Europe to Asia. We just have to remind ourselves that this bus started in Denver, Colorado. And like it's really easy to get caught up in the dayto-day, but I think like every once in a while, we all step back
and think about like how crazy this is big picture. So you take the house. I'll take the car. I'm leaving town. I'm going far away from you. You go your way, I'll take the highway. 8 hours later, we have made it to T's Lake. It was an absolutely beautiful driving day. Turkey has the best roads that we've encountered the whole trip. We drove through these beautiful green mountains. And we drove by the capital city of Ankra. And then we've just been driving down all these beautiful back roads to get to the second largest lake in all of Turkey. And it's a salt lake.
Twos actually translates to salt in Turkish. It looks like we're on another planet. Totally different landscape from where we came from. This is crazy. 70% of Turkey salt comes from this lake. Wow. This is crazy. This is all salt. So apparently this lake during the rainy season is actually full of water, but it only gets like one or two feet deep and then during the summer it dries out. So what we're standing on right now would all be underwater at one point in the year. It looks like we're in Antarctica. Behind the scenes we've got the photographer Rick doing that backpack there. Just hold it a little bit longer. Rick,
look at my little miniature wife. Oh, so cute. That's hilarious. It's pretty good. That mama, you're tiny. This place is just absolutely unreal. The only other place we've been that looked anything like this was the salt flats in Bolivia. And we could not have arrived at a more beautiful time of day. I'm not sure if the tips are going to blow away tonight, but it'll be worth it. It is so close to sunset. It's just getting more and more beautiful. And there's what looks like a layer of water out there. So, we've started
walking closer to it, but it seems like it's getting further away. So, we're questioning if it's a mirage. Maybe there's no water. Oh my gosh, the sun is so orange. Oh, it looks like the Lion King. What did you do? I had some of the salt. How did it taste? Good. Best I've ever had. You look like you're just floating on another planet. So, besides that little wind drama we just had, this tent setup has been the best we've ever had. Genuinely, camping has never been so comfortable. I feel like normally we're trying to go like super lightweight and minimal. This time we went for comfort. So, first the tent like obviously sets up super quick. You've seen us do that.
It's a little more challenging taking it down. But what I really love about this tent is the inside is black. And normally in a tent, you just wake up at sunrise because it's light, it's hot, but the white on top keeps it cool. And then the black inside keeps it dark. We slept till 9:00 some mornings. And then this is a double air mattress. So Car and I can both share instead of having to sleep on our own separate sleeping pad. And then the best part is it's self-inflating. So all you do is open this. Boom. It's blowing itself up. And then last but not least, this is our double sleeping bag. So instead of like the single mummy bags that we normally sleep in when we camp, we share this
one. We went 0° because we thought we might be up in the high mountains during some of this trip. And that was a terrible decision. It's been so hot. Most nights I don't even lay under it. I just lay on top of it. And then we've got some comfy pillows. And uh that's the camp setup. It actually feels like we're just lying in a bed together. I love it so much. Oh, and I just love waking up outside, especially when it looks like this. Well, you guys are over here with your self-inflating pads. We're over here doing it the oldfashioned way with our mouths.
You have a little bitterness, Amy. You're still young. You have to earn the self-inflating. Are you complaining about blowing up mattress? Do a little salty ignition. That'll get it going real time. Yeah. Look at this. It's the saltiest thing you've ever No, don't taste it. No. I mean, I didn't like drink it. I licked my lips. Just It was that piece of wood. Three, two, one, go. Nah, it was very different.
What's going on, Anton? America. Hair problems. You're not used to this. Wouldn't have to deal with this if you let me cut it. How long ago did the gas light come on? Uh, it's probably been about 20 minutes ago. Normally, that wouldn't be too concerning, but this thing definitely feels like every time you accelerate really hard for a minute or so, you can like watch the needle just slowly work its way down. What we haven't had much of is mountain. So, now we're kind of going upwards on this climb, and it does feel like we're going to cut it pretty close. This will be our biggest fill up
by a long shot. That is definitely the closest we've been to running out of gas. The gauge was below the E. Wow. Did you come from here? I think a baby here.
