United Consult in the sand dunes of Africa

Why was the “first stage” of the Budapest-Bamako Rally only sixty kilometers? How did Louis de Funès and the gendarmerie come into being? Why was it necessary to evict him from the Spanish underground garage at the entrance? And why did visiting an African market end in little short of lynching? Among other things, Roland Gaál and Ádám Balogh, who recently embarked on the adventure of their lives with the support of our company, will also answer them.

Roland Gaál, a member of the United Consult ownership team, and his friend and fellow African touring partner, Ádám Balogh, was not at all new and not without any precedent, the idea of participating in the rally was not at all new and not without any precedent. More than ten years ago, already equipped with SUVs, quads and crossovers, they set off for Africa, although then they only got to the sand dunes of Tunisia. Already there, they decided that sooner or later they would embark on a more serious tour, which finally became the Budapest-Bamako 2020.

Roland and Ádám revealed that after the entry deadline they managed to register for the rally, and after that the preparation began immediately. The latter mainly meant donations to Africa and, of course, the purchase of the car. Beautifully emblazoned with the United Consult logo, the Range Rover, which was originally destined for demolition, managed to get ready for the race in adventurous conditions, almost in the last hours; for example, the night before the start, it still had to change gears. As it turned out soon after, despite all their efforts, this machine was not the luckiest choice for covering the more than nine thousand kilometers of coastal and sandy and rocky desert roads.

Bamako challenge accepted

Nothing is certain in Bamako. You start at the beginning, and at the end, in a couple of days, they wait for the finish line. It's all about solving it for yourself, making friends, trying to ask for help if you don't get along with something, no matter how, but get from A to B, summed up Roland Gaál.

The couple, who embarked on an unusual adventure, revealed that the race immediately began for them in the spirit of this: the 2002 3000 cc car lasted for sixty kilometers after the start, so in essence they did not manage to leave Europe, but also Pest County smoothly. Already at the rear of the M7, the newly purchased jamming triangle had to be removed after the Range Rover issued an error message and then stopped with noble simplicity. A young man from the area rushed to their aid, who, after being shocked that Bamako was not a village in Baranya, but an African city, waved goodbye in disbelief to the boys. Treated with due care, the Range Rover did eventually get out of the country and criss-cross Europe.

An interesting and important stop for them was Saint-Tropez, famous for its gendarmerie, in addition to its yacht and sailing port. The small French town, which was made famous worldwide by Louis de Funès's films, was visited for an earlier story, also linked to the United Consult, and during the rally, the spirit of the legendary comedian was evoked for a few minutes. The road led from France to Spain. The night caught them in Valencia, where they decided to go to rest in an underground garage. The next morning it started off on an adventure: it turned out that although the car fit smoothly at the entrance, the exit was much lower, so the Range Rover certainly did not get out of the underground parking in the usual way. Many people marveled at the Hungarian couple and looked at them as fools when they pushed the SUV through the underground garage and left in a daze through the entrance.

African Stage

They left Spain by ferry after a last hearty European stage, and in Morocco they were greeted by a completely different world and, of course, different terrain conditions. On the other hand, this day was an excellent opportunity for the participating Hungarians to get to know each other better and to get a little closer before the more turbulent stages.

Before embarking on the real African adventure of sand and stone deserts, dunes, traffic jams and technical problems, Roland and Adam visited another classic of film history in the evening, one of the cult locations of Casablanca. They just managed to drop in for coffee and a beer at the elegant Rick's Cafe just before closing. After Morocco, the road led through Mauritania, Senegal and Guinea to the capital of Sierra Leone, where the president of the country himself was waiting for the runners in a stadium.

By the way, it has not been long before we did not have friends among those who have traveled the distance. Navigation took them right in the middle of Saturday's market, where they managed to cover eight hundred meters in an hour and a half while the Africans hit and beat their cars. There was a real lynching noise when they had to dodge the dukes spread out on the roadway from meter to meter. Although there were dangerous, indeed physically challenging stretches of road, the boys report that this was the only part of the nine-thousand-kilometer trek where their physical integrity was truly compromised.

Still, it could have been an experience

Despite all this, the rally ended with a happy ending, and not only because of the distance covered and the many adventures we had together, but also because it will remain in them as an eternal memory of how happy they were received at the school where the vitamin preparations they took as gifts were distributed to the children.

It was one of the greatest experiences of my life. We will go back in two years and we would be very happy if another UC team would join us,” concluded Roland Gaál.