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World AIDS Awareness ExpeditionBall supports the World AIDS Awareness Expedition 17.06.2011 Heinrich Geuther From Colombia to Argentina – vertigo in the realm of the condor Three steps to the left. Stop. Four steps to the right. Stop. It is hard to struggle through the black undergrowth. Then a humid hill, which offers the chance to come out of the thicket. The first languid step upwards. Silence. Then the second step upwards. The third. Suddenly, an enormous dark shadow approaches. With the last of its strength, it manages to escape the hand – it takes off, the buzz disturbs the silence. Then it lands a metre away on the white wall – the fly.
The sun is burning relentlessly into the patio of the “Villa Michelle”. The heat of Cartagena paralyzes everything. The fly, too, remains motionless. Silence reigns again. Only the old-fashioned wall clock appears to be impervious to the heat. Its monotonous ticking hurts the ears of the expedition members. It has been like this for two long days. Two days on which the expedition was supposed to be already making its way through the jungle of Columbia. But the Columbian customs authorities have crossed their plans. For two days now, some team members have gone to the port of Cartagena early in the morning to try and accelerate the clearing of the containers with the cars. They have no eyes for the most beautiful colonial city of South America.
Walking past the old cathedral, they reach the busy port with the huge protective wall and 29 forts. Then, as now, the port was much coveted. 300 years ago it was the buccaneers and pirates who were attracted by the enormous treasures stored there and the steady flow of ships coming and going. Today, Cartagena is one of the largest container transhipment ports of South America. Every day, 5000 of these containers are cleared. And 5 of these containers contain the Amaroks. But which ones, and when will it finally be their turn? The third day of waiting begins.
Once more on the way to the port. The evening before, the nice customs officer promised: First thing tomorrow morning you will get your Amaroks, tomorrow morning things will go quickly!
Quickly? The truth is somewhat different. 25 signatures and 4 finger prints per vehicle, which adds up to 125 and 20 respectively, in addition to 7 waiting rooms, 14 hours, until the miracle finally happens: the Amaroks actually leave the harbour!
Columbia – One hundred years of solitude – a country is awakening! Desperation gives way to wild determination. It is still possible to reach the agreed round table in Medellin in time. And now things really do happen quickly: packing bags, filling up the cars and waiting for the promised heavily armed police escort. They arrive on time in the evening, and they are really necessary. For decades, Columbia has been ruled by the armed conflict between leftist guerrilla troops, rightist paramilitaries and the regular Columbian army. The borders between good and evil are blurred. One motorcycle with blue light flashing and two men in front and one behind. It is 10 o’clock in the evening, and the race against time begins once more: 13 hours remain until the large press conference in Medellin. 13 hours for a distance of almost 700 kilometres – it should be feasible.
A speedy drive through the rain forest. The road is in good condition. But suddenly the rain forest to the left and right of the street is bathed in a mysterious light, on and off for a few seconds. It is still very sultry, around 30 degrees, with the intensive smells of the jungle emanating from the humid air. Shortly afterwards, the tropical storm sets in. It is pouring with rain, the street turns into another torrent, leaves and torn-off branches cover the road, sometimes a tree trunk falls across the street. The heavily armed motorcycle escort is replaced with a heavily armed car escort. As the expedition crosses the Andes Mountains for the first times, it has reached a height of 2800 metres and the weather clears.
It is early in the morning. Wonderingly, the shivering team look down onto the high plateau of Medellin. The thermometer indicates a mere 13 degrees. From here, the road winds down boldly to the 3.3-million metropolis. The tiny shacks of the slum areas eat into the green of the slopes, while the city with its mixture of history and modernity fits the pattern of any large Spanish city also architectonically. Things have worked out – one hour before the agreed time the escort delivers the expedition at the event centre. Media representatives from the press, radio and TV attend the press conference, among them one of the two national TV stations. Soon after, the national police once again take charge. Like hornets, the four motorcycles buzz around the convoy, relentlessly forcing trucks aside, unceremoniously stopping the oncoming traffic at sharp turns and uncompromisingly blocking road junctions.
Up again through the green Andes, up onto the breath-taking mountain crest. Steep slopes both to the right and the left – driving almost turns into flying. And again the landscape changes – banana and coffee plantations now dominate the picture. It is a bit of a mystery why a large part of the inhabitants welcome the expedition like friends at the entrance of each village. The mystery is solved – there has already been a TV programme about the expedition, and the people are now waiting.
From Cali it is only about 200 kilometres to the border with Ecuador. But these 200 kilometres are dangerous – the complete area is a stronghold of the FARC guerrilla and should not be passed at night because of the risk of raids and kidnapping. At first, the national police decide to go on, then – 100 kilometres away from the border - they decide that it’s too risky after all. The expedition is stopped, the roof tents are erected for a few hours. The next morning, a vertiginous slalom begins. Vertiginous because of the innumerable turns in the road, the potholes to be avoided and the landslides covering one half of the lane, the overtaking of heavy trucks and rickety busses. But vertiginous also because of the wonderful nature. The street winds mostly like a ribbon half way up along the mighty crest and offers a fabulous view of deep valleys winding seemingly endlessly between the mountains. Of murmuring streams, lazy rivers and majestic waterfalls. Of hundreds of green tops billowing like waves in a troubled sea towards the horizon.
Ecuador – through the lonely world of the Indians In the early afternoon, the border is reached, and two hours later the team cross into Ecuador.
The expedition members are a bit sad, though, because there won’t be an official meeting due to the next day’s referendum on important constitutional changes and the attendant ban on public meetings. This is all the more regrettable as the German Embassy in Quito had not only prepared a large round table, but also a complete day of action with children. The expedition is fighting through the dense and stifling traffic of Quito, crossing the equator on the way. In the southern hemisphere, they are welcomed by the notorious Avenue of the Volcanos. Cotopaxi, Chimborazo and Tungurahua are only a few of them. The latter spews fire by way of a greeting. Again, the vehicles climb up the steep slopes of the Andes to almost 4000 metres, only to wind down again just as steeply on the other side. Up here in the mountains live almost only Indians. The descendants of the once so mighty Incas are completely impoverished, living off meagre cultivations and sparse livestock farming on the slopes of their beloved mountains. The team stop in the tiny Indian village of Palliatanga to send off data via satellite.
A handful of children watch curiously and are given a few of the inflatable globe-style beach balls. And then it takes less than two minutes for the whole village to come to life: Suddenly, women and children are arriving from everywhere, innumerable hands of children are reaching for the few balls – after which anything that is within reach and not buried in the material boxes under the soft tops of the Amaroks is given away to the children. It is hard to say goodbye to the radiant faces.
The landscape is changing, the thermometer is rising steadily. A sultry heat is in the air, engulfing the coffee plantations in a diffuse haze. After the coffee plantations, there are the banana plantations – seemingly endless. The population is again mainly of Spanish extraction, there are larger villages – but here, too, there is poverty everywhere.
Encounters on the fringe of the desert – Pele of Peru That same afternoon, the expedition has left Huaguillas, the last Ecuadorian village, and reached the border with Peru. Customs clearance is fast this time – because of the referendum in Ecuador the customs officials don’t have much to do. As the expedition leaves for the Pacific coast, the customs officials roll in their flags and call it a day. No sooner is the Pacific coast reached than darkness is falling all of a sudden. The wide sea appears to be a black nothingness, only the foaming surf on the beach betraying the gnawing sea. The starlit sky of the south covers the corral of the World AIDS Awareness Expedition and the monotonous sound of the sea lulls everyone into sleep. It will take another day for the suburbs of Lima to appear on the horizon. A day of white, yellow, russet and ochre sand. It is a day in the desert, and the sea of sand, which seamlessly merges with the sea of water, is interrupted only by black and grey stones. The few green spots of sugar cane look like strangers in this sea of sand. But there is another distraction in the desert – a sad distraction: numerous crosses along the roadside commemorating the victims of the desert, mostly truck drivers who lost the battle against fatigue.
The „Country Club Hotel“ in Lima drives the desert thoughts away. As the expedition members arrive there, they are overwhelmed. The press conference has been prepared meticulously and is well-attended. Many media representatives stay for the round table. Apart from the media representatives, there are also politicians and experts. There are speeches about the connection between HIV/AIDS and poverty, the stigmatization of HIV-positive people by society, and the school scheme, which has been in place for five years and addresses the issue of HIV/Aids already in elementary school. Representatives of the organisation Via Libre report about the contemptuous treatment of homosexuals by institutions and society, and Jose Fedora, a catholic priest, is confident that the Catholic Church’s attitude towards the use of condoms will change in the foreseeable future.
Finally, football legend Teofilo Cubillas speaks. “Pele of Peru”, who even led Peru’s national team to the famous win of the South America championship in the 1970ies, is toady a UNICEF ambassador, who uses his unbroken popularity among youngsters to openly address the HIV/AIDS issue: “You can change things only if you talk openly about them.”
Elated by the great success in Lima, the 5 expedition cars disappear again in the clouds of dust of the desert. After another 700 kilometres of desert sand, night falls, and in front of the team lies ... the desert. The fringes of the legendary Atacama desert have been reached. Chile – a dearth of fuel in the world’s driest desert Vast unpopulated plains in grey, brown or russet, karstic rocks in black, precipitous escarpments and deep gullies, a valley here and there with sparse growth – all day long.
Then the border with Chile comes into sight, customs clearance is done in record time (just under two hours!) Night falls, and the needle of the fuel gauge hovers on empty. Petrol stations in the Atacama? In the middle of the night? About midnight, the cars leave the Panamericana, drive into a village called Maria Elena – and prematurely believe that their prayers have been answered: A typical village filling station, with only two pumps, but the attendant is still awake, chatting with a truck driver. Then the disillusionment: The diesel fuel tank is empty, and there won’t be any new supplies until 9 o’clock the next morning. By then, it will be too late! The time schedule to Buenos Aires is tight ... The last spare fuel tanks are emptied into the cars, and then they finally appear on the night horizon – the long-awaited fuel stations. The team relaxes, and then it’s up the Andes once again – one last time. Climbing the heights continues throughout the next day. The higher the expedition climbs up the winding strip of tarmac, the thinner gets the air. And since combustion engines require air for an igniting mixture, the turbodiesel engines are increasingly losing power. The Amaroks are creeping at a snail’s pace for several hours at a height of more than 4000 metres. At the highest point of the way the team is 4830 metres above sea level. The temperature sinks to minus three degrees. To the right and left of the road, a powdery blanket of snow covers the rocky landscape, in places there is a thin layer of ice on the tarmac. But it is not only the cars that are fighting for breath, the humans are suffering from the thin air, too: headaches, a slight dizziness, some are complaining about slight nausea. About noon, the border with Argentina is reached, and the landscape is changing. Here, on the eastern side of the Andes, sparse grass and scrub are suddenly growing again. And where there is something growing, there is always someone nibbling at it: Llamas and wild donkeys suspiciously eye the colourful convoy.
At first slowly, then gathering speed while negotiating the switchbacks, the expedition is winding downwards. Vast high plains with salt lakes, narrow canyons, on whose rocky walls cactuses grow – a primitive landscape accompanies the lonely vehicles on their way down. The canyons widen into valleys, sparse grass turns into meadows, shrubs become trees. The slopes virtually explode into a fireworks of colours: russet, crimson, coppery, brown, orange, yellow, green, turquoise, sea grey, anthracite– and sometimes you see almost all these colours like veins in one and the same rock, adding up to a striped miracle of nature. It is as if a giant’s child had simply poured his watercolours over the cliffs.
The first continent is done – down into the land of the Gauchos The valleys are widening. Livestock farming and agriculture, pieces of woodland, riverscapes, over 20 degrees air temperature – it is almost evocative of Europe. Almost 16,000 kilometres covered by the expedition, another 1,000 kilometres to Buenos Aires, the last stop on the American continents. 1,000 kilometres through flat land with livestock farming and agriculture as far as the eye can see. Santiago de Estero, Rafaela and Rosario are passed through on the way to Buenos Aires. Since time, as usual, is a sparse commodity, a meadow near Rafaela is used to make the cars ready for the flight: sort out hazardous materials, arrange boxes, draw up packing lists.
Buenos Aires – it is Friday the 13th. A day of bad luck? Anything but! The press conference in the upscale restaurant “Clo Clo” is attended by roughly fifty local media representatives. Customs clearance and transfer of the vehicles at the airport go off without a hitch, and shortly afterwards the Amaroks start their jump across the Atlantic on board a cargo plane. The team will follow soon after.
But before it is time to embark on the flight to their home continent, one last mountain needs to be surmounted – the mountain of more than 800 receipts, most of them for diesel fuel and toll. E-mail messages and reports are written, photos are sorted, film clips are edited. Finally, it is time to tackle the mountain of dirty laundry. And unfortunately, another change of plan is due because of the uncertain situation in the Arabic region. Egypt is cancelled, and the German diplomats and VW are working hard to make it possible for the expedition to pass through Saudi Arabia. Syria is off-limits. The detour via Israel is impossible because of the closed border with Lebanon. Ferries across the Mediterranean cannot be organized at such short notice. There remains only the way through Iran, for who could possibly take the responsibility for travelling through Iraq. The beautiful W irreversibly degenerates into a child’s scrawl.
04.05.2011 Heinrich Geuther From Canada to Panama - The wild race against time through the jungle of Central America Suddenly, darkness falls in the noon heat of the mountain rain forest of Costa Rica. An eerie darkness. Bolts of lightning flash in the darkness, the steep mountain faces lining the narrow street boost the thunder to an infernal level. Radio communication between the vehicles of the WAAE convoy is almost impossible. Just a few minutes later, the sky opens its floodgates.
The solitary expedition is making its way over the mountain road turned into a torrential stream. Visibility in this tropical thunderstorm is so poor that the drivers only hear strange crashes somewhat different from the continuous thunder. Suddenly, Sandra, the driver of one of the 5 Amaroks, sees a shadow above her and reacts immediately: She slams on the brakes, yanks the steering wheel around on the flooded road – and the cartwheel-size boulder hits the road a few metres beside her, bounces off from the opposite embankment, breaks into two and, finally spent, comes to rest beside the car. That was a close miss. Sandra has little time to collect herself, though, for time is of the essence: Only 24 hours remain to catch the ferry to Cartagena. A mere 24 hours for the long way through Costa Rica to Port Colón in Panama. The border crossing to Panama must be reached by midnight. With a heavy heart, the team decide to cancel the planned round table in San José, the capital of Costa Rica. Later, they will learn that it took place anyway – even without them: The aim of discussing the AIDS problem has after all been achieved. The convoy fights its way through the rush hour traffic of San José. Rush hour in San José effectively means a standstill.
Centimetre by centimetre, the expedition is losing more time. A delay hard to catch up on, since the “death ramp” comes after San José – a break-neck serpentine road leading up into the Cordilleras. And down again on the other side. If you look down the steep faces of the serpentine roads from the car, you see the remains of innumerable trucks and cars. The death ramp is notorious and feared in all Central America. Fog patches waft across the street and leave a lot of room for speculation about when the next switchback begins. Driving fast is out of the question. No sooner have the team braved the death ramp – darkness is falling in Costa Rica – than a mad drive through the night to the border begins. Speed limits are ignored, luckily there is no police around. At 23: 30 hrs the team reaches the border crossing to Panama. In vain – the border crossing is already closed. 30 minutes too late. 30 minutes can now ruin the whole planning for South America – if the vehicles don’t arrive in Colón in time. But all the gloomy thoughts are useless, the roof tents are erected and the exhausted expedition members look into the starlit sky and cast back their thoughts. They remember the adventures of the past 11 days. 11 days for the way from Vancouver to the no man’s land between Costa Rica and Panama.
Ride into the spring: Canada - USA Actually, they started losing time from the beginning. In hailstorms and at a cold 3° C, the expedition embarks in Vancouver / Canada on its long way around the world. Early, at 9 o’clock, they arrive at the border to the USA. The Canadians don’t seem particularly keen to control passports or even inspect export certificates for the cars. So they roll on in the line of vehicles. Suddenly, they are in the USA, they have entered the country. But you just can’t do it this way, without export documents or anything. So they leave the USA again and enter Canada, to again leave Canada so that they can again enter the USA – are you still with me? Dear readers in Europe, don’t you ever again complain about the EU and Schengen! Interestingly, every US customs official firstly wears a uniform and secondly carries a gun – even though he does nothing but stack files or stamp documents all day long. Oh well, different countries, different customs.
The border crossing action took them 4 hours, which is why sleeping in the roof tent is called off for today. The way leads along the Interstate 5 South in a southern direction. First they drive through cosy wood and meadow landscapes, past Seattle and Portland, then over the Klamath Mountains. Sacramento is given the go-by. Mile by mile, they are driving into the spring. The first 1500 kilometres of their long way have been a non-stop ride for the team. The first round table of the expedition in the German Consulate General in San Francisco is a complete success. High-ranking politicians, representatives of the industry, the University of California and NGO’s discuss local AIDS issues, but also the general outlook. This includes the stigmatization of HIV positive people, but also the urgently required AIDS education of youngsters at schools, which is difficult because of the general taboo on sexuality, and the complex interweaving of drug, alcohol and HIV problems. The results of the round table talks will be included in the manifesto to be prepared after the end of the expedition. They are pressed for time. Mexico is calling. As the convoy of 5 Amaroks leaves the premises, they drive through the rows of hundreds of private photographers and cameramen hoping to snatch a picture of the expedition. Rush hour in San Francisco is terrible – moreover US President Obama is in the town today – many roads are blocked.
(Drug) war zone: Through Mexico Is it really that easy? As the expedition reaches the US-Mexican border near Tijuana in the early hours of the morning, the US border guard says that the Mexicans are responsible for the checking out procedure. But the Mexicans only look perfunctorily in the car boots and ask to be shown how the roof tents work. That’s it, good bye. At eight o’clock sharp they arrive in Puebla. The local VW dealer has rolled out the red carpet. Numerous journalists, radio and TV teams welcome the expedition and turn this round table, too, into a great success.
If the people of Puebla had got their will, the subsequent party would have gone on for days. But notwithstanding all the hospitality, the expedition must go on. Rodolfo Calixto Mendoza, the boss of the VW dealership, first personally leads the expedition via secret paths back to the border and then helps us order our entry documents: Naturally, the border guards were either unable or unwilling to do their job early in the morning. The team would have risked getting into trouble because of the lacking documents in one of the numerous police or military checks. This takes until the early afternoon, and a marathon ride through the night towards Mexcali follows. The expedition must try to get as close to Ciudad Obregon as possible before the morning: The almost 800 kilometre long way from there to Mazatlan is extremely unsafe and should be negotiated only by daylight because of possible ambushes. In Mexico, there has been a drug war going on for years. Large parts of the country are in the hands of drug cartels. 40,000 troops and 5,000 policemen fight 300,000 members of the Mexican drug cartels and their paramilitary units. A near-hopeless fight, for the drug cartels use ultramodern firearms, mortars and hand grenades. But the expedition team have asked for advice, chosen the right roads and crossed the drug cartel ground almost unmolested. In the night, they pass the MG nest at the heavily armed border of the town of Tepics, form a corral and can stretch their legs while sleeping at least during a part of the night, protected by their own night watches.
Next morning, the convoy is slowly making its way up into the highlands of Mexico. The sun is burning relentlessly at a height of more than 3000 metres, and in the evening the expedition reaches Mexico City. The ring motorway is blocked, and the team must fight the heavy traffic of the giant city of 20 million people. Outside the capital is the VW plant. The team form again a corral on the closely guarded premises, thus being able to snatch a few hours’ sleep. After that – silence from the WAAE expedition. For 3 days, the bloggers, colleagues and families in Europe desperately wait for news. Nothing, absolutely nothing...
Surprises in Central America – Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua When, to everyone’s relief, the first message finally arrives in Europe, the team have already passed through Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and reached Nicaragua. It is Easter time. Stefan Hippler, the catholic priest of the expedition and initiator of the aid project Hope Cape Town, has held a makeshift mass.
Unfortunately, the expedition has lost more time. One of the reasons was the border with Guatemala. After the innumerable military checks in the unsettled Mexican region Chiapas have upset the plan, things have come to a complete standstill at the border. A sign at the nocturnal border reads in large letters “Welcome to Guatemala”. On the right, a sign reads “No corruption!” On the left stands the border guard, incorruptible. Thus, he has a plain-clothes clerk explain that there are two possibilities to get past him: The one is the official version, which means that the expedition needs to wait until 8 o’clock. The other is not quite so official and means that they may pass immediately – against payment of a hefty fee, naturally. And this applies both to now and also to later, when they logically leave the country quite as illegally. The team want to stay clean. And thus they wait in their neatly lined-up cars in the no man’s land between Mexico and Guatemala. Next morning’s press meeting in Guatemala City is thus off. Before 7 o’clock the next morning, No Man’s Land comes to life. Stalls with snacks and sweetened coffee open their doors, clothes shops and pot shops peddle their goods. The customs officials sleep longer. And then they are in no hurry, either. In spite of everything, the expedition reaches the border with El Salvador in the evening. Here, the security chief of the German embassy in San Salvador already awaits them. He has arranged for a heavily armed police escort, for El Salvador is one of the most dangerous countries in the world after nightfall. They start at about 7 o’clock p.m., the police car with sirens wailing and a blue flashing light leads the convoy, clearing a way through the traffic.
One hour later, they reach the capital, which gives the team an enthusiastic welcome. In spite of the delay, two dozen journalists are still there. Many NGO representatives have also waited, among them naturally representatives of the foundation Fundacion Inocencia, which has received a donation of 17,500 Euro for the work with children and adolescents from the association “be your own hero”. El Salvador has made great achievements in the fight against HIV/AIDS. This was possible because several interest groups from a range of socially deprived areas joined to make a five-year plan and politicians openly encounter the HIV/AIDS issue.
Before dawn, the armed life guards are ready and escort the convoy to the Honduran border. Honduras is a land of contrasts. After the overwhelming hospitality at the round table in Tegucigalpa the team now gets to know the other, infamous side of Honduras. At hourly intervals, the police or military stop and check the vehicles, thereby increasing their income. Worst of all – time is flying by, and the ferry in Panama won’t wait for them. Nicaragua is the complete opposite: Not a single (!) military or police checkpoint along the way, people are waving in a friendly way at the convoy. The good atmosphere abruptly ends at the border crossing to Costa Rica: unravelling the red tape takes almost 5 hours. And then the horror trip through the mountain rain forest starts. This is what the team members are thinking about in their roof tents in the no man’s land between Costa Rica and Panama before they fall into a restless slumber. The next day, the moment of truth will come. They will know whether or not they reach the ferry to Columbia in time.
The race across the Panama Canal - Panama Early in the morning, it is the WAAE vehicles which are cleared first, and the race against the clock reaches its climax. Refuelling stops and changes of driver are optimized, meal breaks are dropped, the mutual radioed warnings about the presence of police work perfectly. It is on days like this that you see the worth of a team. In the afternoon, the Panama Canal is crossed, and the port terminal of Colón appears on the horizon. They have done it!!! Compared to what lies behind the expedition, the chaos, the throng of people, the cacophony of car horns, the pushing crowds in the port of Colón are a piece of cake. The cars are loaded in containers accurate to the millimetre and travel alone to Cartagena. The team will follow shortly after and start the next leg – the long way through South America.
However, no sooner have the members of the expedition come to rest, sent reports, e-mail messages and photos than the bad news comes rolling in: The Columbian police informs them that most of the roads they planned to take were destroyed by once-in-a-century rains, hundreds of people have died, and to make matters worse the volcano Tungurahua has erupted. Plans need to be changed once more.
15.04.2011 Heinrich Geuther The countdown is on! „Move the World“ – but it was not meant like this … Only a few hours remain until the start of one of the most spectacular tours around the world of the past decades. And the task which 2 women and 12 men face is just as enormous as it is spectacular: 100 days for 50 countries. Only 100 days for more than 65,000 kilometres through deserts, steppes and jungle, through rich countries and through areas where people live whose poverty is ignored by the world. Whether poor or rich, whether America, Europe, Africa, Asia or Australia – one thing unites them: Almost one year ago, an idea was born – the idea to draw a gigantic “W” on the globe. “W” like World.
And while the “W” is inexorably making its way, there will be round tables in the countries crossed on 5 continents. Politicians, representatives of the industry, culture, religion and tradition will discuss how to encounter the problem of AIDS. Whether in San Francisco, Medellin, Buenos Aires, whether in Paris and Hannover, in Ouagadougou, Kinshasa, Cape Town, whether in Damascus, Vladivostok, Sydney and all the other stopovers of the worldwide expedition – everywhere people join hands and try to work out together how to overcome this human scourge. Our company supports this action. The Ball logo will write the “W” on the globe together with the 2 women and 12 men.
Drug wars, guerrilla fighting, terror, revolutions and nuclear disasters turn the painstaking preparations into nothing. Plans are changed, the course is modified, new visas are applied for, new round tables are agreed. And no sooner is this done than a new travel warning is issued. Plans need to be changed once more – up to the last minute – for one thing is clear: the expedition has the objective to save as many lives at possible, but not by risking the lives of the expedition members. We are used to horror news from the African continent, but who is aware of the fact that certain areas in Mexico are now among the most dangerous places of the world. Drug lords engage in open fights with the police and the army. Columbia was quiet at the time the plans were made. Now there is again heavy fighting between FARC guerilla and government forces. The Columbian drug cartels, too, have resumed their fight against the government. In Ecuador a date for a referendum about the constitution has been set – at exactly the time the expedition team is due to pass through the country. Unrest is expected, and the planned round table in Quito is at risk – the government has imposed a ban on public meetings. At least the governments of these countries have promised the expedition team a military escort. The German embassies of these countries have done excellent preparatory work! North Africa has become almost impassable. The revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, the political powder keg Algeria, the civil war in Libya are only a few examples. For the remainder of the Sahara countries drastic travel warnings have been issued because of al-Qaeda in the Maghreb. The kidnapping risk for people from Western countries is extremely high in the Sahara. At the moment the team are planning to make a detour via Mauretania, Mali, Burkina Faso and Nigeria, but that’s not exactly relaxed travelling, either. Al-Qaeda and numerous militias are turning the route into an extreme challenge. It is true that the expedition is carrying life insurance in the form of a small black box, which will immediately emit an emergency signal via satellite including the GPS data if there is an accident. But even this technical marvel needs to be used with caution. The position for the normal tour is sent out with a time delay for security reasons. For the wrong people might easily intercept the signal. 10 weeks will pass until the expedition arrives in Sudan according to the plan. But in 10 weeks’ time Sudan will split. A new state will be born. Will it still be peaceful then? And what will things look like in Jordan and Syria? Will it still be possible to pass through these countries by then? Nobody is able to predict this. The plan for Japan has already been changed because of the nuclear disaster, for it is impossible to spontaneously change the transfer to Australia. The risk is too high. And thus the last hours before the start are passed making plan B, plan C; and these plan-making activities will not be interrupted until the team is officially seen off on Saturday at the Bundesliga game VfL Wolfsburg against FC St. Pauli. The cars will then already be ready in Vancouver. On the plane to Canada, plan D will probably be finalized – just in case, and only so as not to endanger the overall aim of the expedition. 100 days during which the world press will share the thrill with the team, 100 days during which the unloved subject of AIDS cannot be ignored, 100 days during which people the world over will also look at the Ball logo, the logo of a company which has made the fight for this good thing its own.
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