The first serious driving of the "Mater" - 2010.

You are casually browsing the web and suddenly you come across an interesting page. How many times has this happened to you? More than once, I bet!
The same thing happened to me in early 2010. But let's start one by one.
It's January 2010. I sit in front of the computer and stare at the screen like the proverbial hen. A few weeks earlier I bought my fifth Fiat 125p and I think I was looking for some parts.
Here you are! Somehow I found the website of Złombol and the information that in 2010 they were going to Asia; exactly to Istanbul. I think to myself, but it would be balls if we went there with the Boys. The idea grew a bit and sniff! Bolima, Spajki and I, known as the Chechen, had a team assembled.
Since the crew was there, the next step was to start preparing the car. Fiacik drove down to the garage.
The works mad him took a while - I prepared it myself, so I took my time and did everything thoroughly. In the case of a Big Fiat it always pays off.
The end of August was approaching, i.e. the start of Złombol! Emotions and tension grew.
This day is finally! I am leaving Toruń for Warsaw. As planned, on Saturday we met on Jagiellońska Street, in the garages of the FSOAUTOKLUB Association, and started preparations. Recent fixes, mounting a rack on the roof, oil change and valve adjustment. Finally, PACKING.

And here is the first surprise. We had not yet fully packed the car, and we were already rubbing the asphalt with mud flaps. It got interesting! Our Friends from FSOAK came to our aid. Bolima went to Ola for springs, which Olek had set somewhere in the sewer. Young lying under the Fiat, bent in Chinese eight, cut out the zip

We did other things, mentally praying to Bora Tuchola that the Young man would not cut his toes or stick a diaxe in his head. Fortunately, we succeeded and we were able to go to the start of Złombola in Katowice with a long delay. On the way, we also visited Wojtek and Kasia for a delicious coffee from the Classic Auto warehouse and we could start our escapade.

THE FIRST DAY

Eyes on the matches, we get to Katowice. A few crosswords, a few turns and we enter the starting square. All my fatigue splashes like a soap bubble! The veins are filled with adrenaline! Everyone is happy, ready to experience the adventures of their lives. We pick up the stickers, mark the car and wait for the signal.
In the end, there is a longed-for start! We pass the starting gate and are officially on the Złombola 2010 route, our most important automotive adventure at the time.

From Katowice, under the escort of Jula, we go to Kraków, and then to Bukowina Tatrzańska and the border crossing in Łysa Polana. The first frontier. So far everything is fine, the car didn't even stutter.
Slovakia is ahead of us. The weather doesn't spoil you. In retrospect, I can say that I have never run across Slovakia "dry" by car, neither before 2010 nor after 2010. It always rains there! Therefore, for our first dinner on the tour, we stopped at a covered bus stop. How nice it was to eat something hot! The weather is not spoiling, it is raining on the windows, and we still have a long way to go to our first campsite in Debrecen, Hungary. We wrap a ribbon of roads on the tires and break through the mountains. At times the road becomes steep and very winding. For this constant downpour. The wipers do not keep up to clean the glass.
Then, the first failure! Our wiper arm fell off. We've stopped and we're collecting our loot from the road. Then number 2! A speeding truck rolls out from around the bend, a glow of light, rain, pale fear and the roar of a mighty horn are falling on us - all together create a truly terrifying mixture. Fortunately, the truck driver limited himself to tapping his head and letting go of the bunch under his breath and it didn't blow us to a pulp. We've had a lesson - not to stand like a stake! Fast action, the wiper landed back in place, and we at Fiat and continued driving.

In the middle of the night, almost a thousand kilometers from Warsaw, we arrived in Debreczen. We put up tents at the campsite.
Imagine such a situation - all you dream about is to put up a tent, sit down and drink a cold beer. But, you still have to get to sleep! Your tent is a classic igloo, with poles, flysheet, pegs and the rest of it. You get tired, you tire and you tire again. Then your buddy takes the "quick ketchua" out of the trunk, tosses it, puts the mattress inside, unfolds the chair, sits down and opens the brewery. She's going to bite her butt, huh?

DAY TWO

At night it rains again. I think she caught up with us from Slovakia. We somehow survived. Our tents too. Some water trickled into the Fiat. As a result, the wallet is flooded and eurasy is wet. You had to dry on the dashboard. The night didn't really take its toll on us. Worse was a friend from another team, who fell in a tent after a hard party and failed to close him, because and how, since his legs were sticking out. Rado woke up in a tent flooded by several centimeters. Well - life itself.

We went from Hungary to Romania. We didn't have that far to the border, we got there without any problems. There is a real camping fashion show at the crossing. The colorful tents were probably dried by almost every team. It was also the first border crossing where our documents were checked - even though we were still in the European Union, we had to provide an identity card or passport.
We traveled to Dracula's country. Different world. Really. An impression as if we went back in time to the mid-90s in Poland. Vehicles in their forty-second youth, houses sticking to their word of honor, and roads are as full of holes as Swiss cheese.

We press, change behind the wheel and absorb as much as possible. We don't have much time, we have to be at the campsite at a fairly normal time to get some sleep. Of course, it would be too easy to get to the campsite easily. It turns out that in the "meantime", ie between the release of the scrap itinerary and the moment we arrived in Romania, the campsite we were supposed to go to was closed. To paraphrase - we kissed the padlock. It was time to go on. We got quite a large column, we reached the campsite together. But there was a party!

DAY THIRD

We wake up in Romania. The balanga was fine, but everyone woke up safe and sound. Romania likes to surprise. This time it fell on the loo. Oh, a hole in the floor, a paper basket and other such inventions.
We have a plan for this day. We are going to the Trasfogar Road. Building Nicolae Ceausescu's whim took the lives of several people. The road climbs serpentine over two thousand meters above sea level, accompanied by steep rocks, sheep, tunnels and holes.

The impression is electrifying! We pass Dracula's Castle, actually two castles. One is an ordinary tourist attraction, and the other is supposedly a real castle, where the amateur of human blood used to live.
We left the mountains and continue towards Bulgaria.
We crossed the border late in the evening. Getting to the crossing looked like playing a game of shit. A little here, a little there. A bit in accordance with the regulations, a bit against the flow. In the end, we finally got the check-in. A few questions, buying a vignette and we've already flashed around Bulgaria. It was already quite late and we still had a long way to go. Driving in Bulgaria at night is quite a lottery. An additional complication is the fact that Bulgaria "has a different alphabet", the Cyrillic alphabet. As for me - black magic. This is probably why we did not understand what the road signs "said" to us and we ran into the most potholed road in the world with full fire. Mountains and valleys twenty centimeters deep. One next to the other, it is impossible to avoid them. Fortunately, we didn't break anything. We were lucky. Unfortunately, other crews have an ugly face. There were bent rims, torn exhausts, towing hooks, and even a broken drive shaft in one of the accompanying cars. A real massacre.
Finally, in the morning we reached the finish line of the section, to Golden Sands. Eggs again when arranging the accommodation. All camp staff are drunk, trying to enforce additional fees, and some crews have their documents confiscated. To make it even more interesting, after a few hours these documents were found somewhere in the bushes. Real madness. We managed to sneak behind the drunken service guy and find a seat in the field.
When we went to sleep, our colleagues from Wrocław were going to the airport in Burgas. In Romania, it turned out that one of them took the vehicle card from the drawer instead of a passport ... A quick action was organized, people were plucked to their straight legs and somehow the right papers flew from Wrocław to Burgas. But the balls! At that time, we turned over to the other side.

FOURTH DAY

The sun is pounding in the eyes. It's hot in the tent, even though it's only early in the day. The day begins. Of course, you want to pee. So let's go to the toilet. And there ... a fungus halfway up the wall, muck on the floor, muck in open cabins. You had to find a water main and shoot yourself an open-air shower. Then the beach. It was great. The spell was broken when the Fiat 125p, together with all the luggage, documents and cash belonging to the befriended team, landed on a tow truck without the owners' knowledge and drove to the police parking lot. There was a motorcycle chase, there was action. In the end, it only ended up with a parking ticket.

And we are on our way. We threw some local roads along the way, regularly encountering gypsy enclaves and camps in the middle of the forest. Nice folklore. Suddenly, out of nowhere - the border. Folklore here too. Chickens are walking around, sometimes in Bulgaria, sometimes in Turkey, rubbish is piled up. It was not a large border crossing. Usually there was little traffic here, so when we fell down there with a whole group, the Customs were not very happy. They had to go to work. I don't think they were prepared for it. They rioted and so on. In the end, we went through the entire briefing and we were allowed to enter Turkey. We were surprised when fresh, even asphalt appeared under the wheels of the car. We were driving in groups of several cars.

We were gradually approaching Istanbul. Emotions grew, after all, in a few hours we were supposed to be at our destination, on a different continent. And that's all with the Fiat 125p! In front of us the entrance to the highway "commuting" to Istanbul. Goals as on our Polish "autobans". We were a little surprised when at some point all the barriers went up and the sea of cars moved towards the Turkish capital. Ramadan has begun. The highway was free. Another little thing! So that it was not too colorful - there were navigation problems. We didn't know exactly how to get to the meeting point. After smaller or bigger fights, it worked. We got to the collection point! We were at the finish line! The icing on the cake was to be a joint crossing of the bridge across the Bosphorus Strait to the Asian part of the city. I was so pumped out that I hardly remember anything about it. I was so fed up that I remember the ride through a fog. Fortunately, I was not behind the wheel. I think Spajk was behind the wheel. Or Bolima. There was no other way out! After the round we stopped in a parking lot, where we all celebrated reaching the finish line. There were chants, horns, "bombs". It was so loud that the police appeared. We had to keep going. At night, or maybe in the morning, we got to the campsite near Istanbul. I think we ended up there "at random". It is important that it worked. We could sleep off.

What happened next, you will find out soon - in the next post! Stay with us!