Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25121
/' colu mn: deto ur 9 CROSSING TUNISIA'S CHOTT DJEND. A DRIED LAKE BED LARGER THAN THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT. STEPHENS SCOUTS THE HORIZON FOR WHAT APPEARS TO BE A PALM-FRINGED OASIS-AND LEARNS THAT A MIRAGE IS A MIRAGE EVEN WITH BINOCULARS. 10 A SIKH MAN IN WESTERN INDIA WATCHES OVER THE LAND CRUISER WHILE THE EXPEDITION MEM BERS CHECK IN WITH THE LOCAL POLICE. UMBRELLAS WERE UBIQUITOUS ON THE SUB CONTINENT. WARDING OFF POUNDING RAINS AND SCORCHING SUN. 11 ALMOST EVERY PLACE THE EXPEDITION STOPPED. IT WAS QUICKLY SURROUNDED BY INQUISITIVE LOCALS. THIS SCENE IS IN A VILLAGE IN NORTHERN INDIA. DURING A RARE BREAK IN THE MONSOON RAINS. ------------------------------------------------------------------- The story starts simply enough: two young guys decide they want to drive around the world. The only problem is they don't have any money. 50 they get the idea of trying to break the world record for driving the most miles in a latitudinal direction. Past trans world expeditions had traveled between 19,000 and 21,000 non repetitive miles by land, and all had gone by one of two routes across the northern temperate zones. Since the earth bulges at the Equator, Stephens and Podell reasoned that if they drove closer to the Equator, they could smash all past records. The route they chose beat all past marks by 3,000 miles and set a record for the longest non-repetitive automobile trip ever made around the earth. They pitched their Trans-World Record Expedition idea to about 300 companies and 30 of them hopped aboard and agreed to give them equipment and pay big bucks for the right to use the expedition name and photos in their ad campaigns. These companies included heavyweights such as Toyota (they donated a Land Cruiser), Firestone (special ti res), Dow Chemical (Glad Wrap and anti freeze/coolant), Thermos (tents, stoves, camping gear), Ben Pearson (bows and arrows) and the B Manishewitz Company (asked for, and received, photos of them sharing matzos with Arab camel drivers in front of the pyramids). They had a sponsor for everything they need ed except toi let paper; they couldn't figure out how to take photos of that product being used in exotic locations. Stephens and Podell assumed they could make the journey in six months, eight at most. It took them 19. Along the way they ran afoul of smugglers in Andorra and got caught in the Spanish block ade of Gibraltar. They had to blow their way out of a mine field in Morocco; shoot three robbers in Algeria and escape across the Sahara Desert; were robbed by police in Alexandria and by Pathan warriors on the Khyber Pass; got caught by Egyptian tanks while try ing to cross the Sinai Desert into Israel; were thrown in jail in 60 Baghdad; held captive in the war between India and Pakistan until res cued by the US Air Force; and were captured in Guatemala by machete wielding Indians and turned over to the police when they were mistak en for Castroista guerri llas. Of the five men who started the expedition, only two finished it: Stephens and Podell, the authors of this book. Their photographer was captured and killed by the Vietcong and the rigors of the journey forced the other two to drop out. Even Stephens barely made it: he con tracted hookworm, whipworm, pinworm, botulism, hepatitis, yellow jaundice, tuberculosis and a half-dozen cases of dysentery. The various fates of people they met along the way are also revealed in the epi logue of the new edition. Despite the mishaps, illnesses and breakdowns that accompa ny adventure travel-and a severely disrupted schedule that put them in the world's hottest deserts in the most brutal months of the year, in the Indian sub-continent in the middle of the monsoon, and in Central America at the height of the rainy season-these two intrepid travelers stayed true to their who-needs-a-road attitude, overcame every obsta cle and made it back to New York alive. Stephens and Podell set an unbeatable mileage record and, in the process, brought us this tale of ultimate adventure. The new edition of Who Needs a Road, by Harold Stephens and Albert Podell ($14.95), is available from Wolfenden Publishing, Miranda, California. To order call (707) 923-2455.