SPONSOR ME HERE

At last, the mad pixies behind the exciting new fundraising site Will We Make It? have managed to let my challenge go up on their site. You can sponsor me here , and all the money raised by me goes straight to the British arm of FundeCruz, Friends of FundeCruz.

You can pay by credit or debit card, or via PayPal, and you can also have a vote - for a pound (which adds to my fundraising pot) - as to whether or not we'll make it (hence the cunning name of the web site). It's more fun than justgiving.com, the charity benefits directly, and they have the UK taxpayer's Gift Aid scheme in place too.

So go on, click here and help save some lives!

Will I make it?

.......I'm really not sure. I've found a car in Quito, a 1974 German-built shiny orange Beetle. It has allegedly been just been repaired, including the engine, and will also be checked over by VW Ecuador. The organisers, Ruta Del Sol, are dealing with a geezer on the ground in Quito, who's scouting around for suitably knackered and cheap vehicles to do the rally in, and this one came in the first six available.

The engine is a whopping 1.6 litre powerhouse, and it's only apparently done 4000 miles since overhaul. There's even a radio, and new seats.

Now all I need to do is sell my ass for a few weeks to raise a deposit, and the Beetle is mine!

The owner has kindly dropped the price from 1590 to 1450, but I'm hoping to get it for 1400, despite the fact s/he said all I have to do is fill it with fuel and beer and point it towards Rio.

A bit of fame...........

Once again, the lovely Friday cities people have come up trumps, interviewing me here about the trip. Annoyingly, I can't set up a sponsorship page yet. And I can't even walk properly at the moment. I've injured my back. Bodes well for pushing a Beetle out of thick mud in a few short weeks..............

Failing to plan is planning to have a laugh

I finally caught that 'Long Way Down' show on TV tonight, and was bowled over by the amount of organisation, back-up and general planning that those people put into the show. And it seems they do an awful lot of things purely to make for better TV. Like bungee jumping, surprise visits from family members, and stuff. Three bikes, two back-up, souped-up, state-of-the-art Land Cruisers, some sort of doctor and a security expert - I mean, where's the fun in that?

What I most enjoyed about the Mongol Rally, and now this challenge, the Ruta del Sol, is the air of confusion. I could spend every waking hour from now until February meticulously planning the route, and all eventualities, only to discover a giant-and-hitherto-before-unknown sea beastie has leapt out of the ocean and eaten the whole of South America the day before we're due to set off.

I mean, you have to take these things a bit seriously - I've already asked for some sturdy new pants and a torch for Christmas, after all - but planning simply doesn't work when it comes to true adventure.

After all, most of the planet was 'discovered' by accident, by mad seafarers who were busy looking for treasure, or cod, or nutmeg, and accidentally bumped into America, for instance. And I'm still not certain it's round, anyway.

I'm just hoping there's an Amazonian pygmy tribe somewhere on the trip waiting, just waiting, to worship a huge hairy fat bloke in a broken down Beetle.

And I discovered earlier that human life is not sustainable above 5,000ft, as unborn children are starved of oxygen. I might have to look into whether Tesco's Value range includes oxygen.

Hitler's shit turtle

If you want an authoratitive source of information on anything, why not turn to Wikipedia? It's sort of in the spirit of the Ruta Del Sol, in that 90% of the information could be made-up, wrong, or just plain lies. With this in mind, I decided to do a bit of research on the fantastically unsuitable vehicle I'm supposed to be traversing one of the highest mountain ranges in the world and some of the densest jungle in - the VW Beetle.

Here is the link to everything you never knew you wanted to know about these vehicles.

Invented By Hitler when he was tired of all the murdering and world domination malarkey, the Beetle is a bit rubbish, in my humble opinion. And, I'm sure, in a lot of other peoples' opinions.

It seems in Brazil, they're known as 'Fusquinha'. That sounds like some sort of fungal infection to me, but apparently it means 'Fusquinha' in English, according to the ever-useful Babelfish translation tool at Altavista.

In Ecuador, where we will buy our Beetle, they are known less enigmatically as 'Escarabajo'. Which means beetle. Clever, eh? Meanwhile those imaginative Bolivians have bucked the global trend and call these comical vehicles 'peta' - turtle. Oh, the hours of creature-related taxonomic japes we will have!

The idea is, some bloke in Ecuador is gathering up a bunch of Beetles. They are then listed on the Ruta del Sol web site, and we choose one, buy it and then drive it about a bit through jungle and stuff. A bit like buying a bride on line, I suppose, but we get our money back on this purchase if, and when, we complete the journey. And the Beetle won't make you meet its mother or demand shoes.

I suppose the one reassuring thing is that they carried on making Beetles in Mexico and Brazil until 2003 or something, after the rest of the world had long realised they were pants, so the chances of finding one that, (while still desperately unsuitable and pretty rubbish), might have a sound-ish engine with less than 100,000 on the clock is higher than it would be in the UK.

But, is there a correlation between Beetle manufacturing and the fact that all the Nazi war criminals ran away to South America? We should be told. They can't all be making corned beef and drugs, after all.

*Pictures are from this lovely site

Well I would raise 500 pounds, and I would raise 500 more

That's me singing that annoying karaoke classic by the Proclaimers. "Why, weirdo?" I hear you ask. Because 500 pounds is all I need to raise in order to take part in the Ruta del Sol. The journey my 'cahones del acero' are positively aching to undertake. And I will happily try and raise 500 more, if there's any way I can.

For those of you who don't know, Lord Tom Morgan, the evil overlord of the adventurists, is a philanthropist of the highest order. He cunningly crafts adventures designed to push human endurance to the limits of stupidity, but ensures every trip raises tonnes of money for some excellent causes.

The Ruta del Sol will be predominantly raising money for an Ecuadorian charity called "Fundecruz." Sadly, nothing to do with Penelope.


Fundecruz is actually a social development foundation established by Ulises De la Cruz, the Aston Villa/ Reading/Ecuadorian international footballer. It was set up to help the children of Afro-Ecuadorian communities in De la Cruz's village, Piquiucho, one of the poorest and most deprived regions of Ecuador.


This organisation focuses on children's nutrition, health, education and sports development. It provides daily meals for more than 100 primary school children, running water for a whole village, has founded a hospital, a school and is funding the construction of a community sports centre.


How great is that? I get to go on the adventure of a lifetime, (well, my third or fouth, actually, especially if you include Legoland, and the Bodyshoppe in LA), happy in the knowledge that even if I fail horribly, the future of English football will be assured, thanks to the money we raised going towards buying little Pablo his first pair of football boots and a Man United strip.


The charity is undeniably worthy, I therefore implore you to sponsor me - when I sort out another page where you can go and spunk your cash all over these deserving children's hungry little faces.


Meanwhile, have a look here (http://ulisesdelacruz.org/contactus.aspx). What really touches me is that when we read such a lot of bad press about Premier league footballers and their wives wasting money, Ulises has used the money gained from his skill to make a real difference to the community he grew up in. Good man. I feel belittled.

A modern day fairytale

The quest begins...for a driving partner. Ideally, a lady. Someone beautiful, blonde, intelligent, funny, adept at driving through jungle/mountains/gun-toting maniacs, proficient in Spanish, good with people, an excellent roadside mechanic, good with spiky piss fish paranoia, and capable of sleeping in the same cramped conditions as an angsty fat bloke who snores like a bear with a cork up its nose. You know you're out there. In fact, I know you're out there. You have only days to make a decision. Otherwise, those poor Amazonian orphans may not survive.