We are back in Hungary where we are spending a couple of nights at Huba Kozma's place before heading up to Budapest.
This morning we got some time to upload a few photos, so do check out our gallery: http://picasaweb.google.com/pbnorway

We are back in Europe and have arrived at First Interactive's apartment in Albir, Spain. We will spend a couple of days here to reacharge our batteries before heading to Hungary.
We are naturally saddened that we won't be able to visit Dooni Dooni, and hope that all the teams that have decided to go to Bamako in spite of the rather scary propaganda thrown at us by B2 organizers will make it there safe and sound.

We also wait in excitement for news from Eric and Håkon that are stranded in northern Morocco after their car was stolen, last update was that the local police was giving them some trouble (if you enter Morocco by car you have to leave with the car).

A bit depressed that we won't be able to meet up with Dory Kanare and check out Dooni Dooni's work in Bamako we are on our way back home. Currently we are in Kenidra, Morrocco and plan to cross the border from Tanger to Tarifa tomorrow afternoon.

Yesterday we had a small incident with our rear-wheel, we had forgotten to tighten it properly, so the rough driving the last few days had shaken loose all the nuts and when we heard a strange noise only one nut remained and two of the bolts had sheared off. Faster than Copernica can change their light bulbs we had our trusty hi-lift jack out and made a make-shift solution before we limped into the next village to see le mechanique. After 45 minutes the skilled Moroccan mechanics had managed to source the right parts and replace the broken bolts.

As some of you might have heard the race administration of the Budapest-Bamako chose to cancel the Mauritania and Mali stages on this years rally.
The argument for this is the security situation in Mauritania and Mali, the rally will instead finish in Agadir, Morocco - effectively also canceling stages in Western-Sahara.
Since the start in Budapest we have followed the rally's official stages, but this intermediate solution from the organizers only seems to tend to the participants in the racing category. So after a few days of dune bashing in Merzuga (where families come to get the Sahara experience) we have decided that enough is enough. We are breaking away from the rally.

There are at least two different groups that are breaking away from the B2 and actually heading to Bamako, but since our vehicle requires daily maintenance we fear that we might have to part from a convoy for repairs leaving us traveling alone through the areas that several governments have told us to avoid. Since we cannot leave the vehicle in Morocco we have to drive it home and have started on our trip back. We will give you more updates and pictures in a short while.

Best regards,
Polar Bears

We found something resembling a hotel around 4 this morning and got in 5 hours of sleep before getting back on the road. The garden hose is holding up so far, and everything seems fine!
464km to go, and we'll be on the boat.

We left the fire hose alone.

Getting a replacement was an interesting challenge. We got up at 7 this morning and spoke to the receptionist. Her boyfriend didn't speak english, but managed to get us an assortment of old hoses. None of them worked, but his friend ran a "workshop" (emphasis on quotes).
Nothing here was usable either, but he had another friend! This one opened up his hardware store for us, and got us a few meters of garden hose. It's rated for 60 degrees, but seems to handle 107 degrees coolant pretty well. Sorted!

On the topic of hoses, our diesel flow is borked again. We found what we believe is a pressure relief hose which, after some suck/blow action, seemed to be clogged. (Diesel still tastes like crap, btw.)
We cut the hose, left it hanging inside the wheel well, and prayed. The car is still running!

Currently we're way behind schedule, but we'll be driving through the night and hopefully pass the others. This should buy us some margin for sleep tomorrow morning, after which we have a 1000km stage ahead of us. This is a critical stage, as the boat leaves from Almeria tomorrow night and we have to get there in time. Wish us luck!

We left Budapest around 11 today. By abusing a few taxi lanes and one way roads, we got out of the city in no time!
Austria welcomed us a little while ago. We stopped for lunch at the Gasthause Gibiser in Poppendorf, and are currently heading for Mantoba in Italy.
600 kilometers to go. Should get there around midnight!

It's 01:30 in the morning and we have just arrived at our hotel. Today has been an amazing day filled with all kinds of hazzles.
After a blazing start where we got out of Budapest in lightning speed things have gone seriously downhill. We have lost count of the number of pit stops, we got a huge ticket in Austria for neglecting to buy the high-way toll sticker, one of our radiator hoses is busted up and currently consists mainly of duct tape, we have some sort of strange problem that causes a vacuum in the fuel supply (causing the car to loose power and/or suddenly die).

BTW: Italian highway services are amazing, one of the times when the car suddenly died on the Autostrada we barely had time to open the bonnet before a tow truck arrived to get us to the closest safe place to repair.

Current status is that we need a replacement hose ASAP, and driving without the cap on the fuel tank seems to remedy the fuel supply problem. Tomorrow we need a new hose, about 1 meter long and around 10-12mm in inner diameter. If anyone knows where to get this in Mantova on a sunday please let us know. The fire hose in our hotel is currently in risk of being vandalized by polar bears.. b2-road@polar-bears.no

Bernard is currently in need of some serious TLC from a brutal and angry Italian mechanic (Bernard likes it rough). And we are currently wondering why we for the second time around  try to get to Africa in a car we don't even trust to take us to work in the morning...

From B2-2010 -- Budapest-Mantova

At 17:00 today we were called to a mandatory meeting at the Ice skating rink by hero's square. As this was the first time in Budapest-Bamako's history that a pre-race briefing has been called rumors about problems quickly started flying around. Today our worst thoughts were confirmed when the organizers informed us that the route has been changed and the 2010 rally will end in Agadir in Morocco on the 29th January. All stages in Mauritania and Mali are canceled due to pressure from Hungarian officials and security concerns.

Some racers will now branch off from the new official route on the 26th January and continue to Bamako following an unofficial road-book while the official race continues around in different parts on Morocco.

At present we are not sure what we want to do. If we after a several days of hard driving in Morocco feel that our cars are performing well without any problems we will probably branch off towards Bamako. But if we are not 100% confident in the cars we will probably will drive them back to Norway via Poland. We do not have any security concerns about crossing Mauritania and Mali, as the governments of both countries have approved the unofficial road-book and parts of the 5000 man military security force assembled for the official rally will be available for escorting those who chose to proceed.