Day 18 | 17.05.2016: Team Judo goes Orient Has a New Opponent

The skin colour of our team members seemed a little paler that evening, the stubble on their faces a shade darker than usual. We had day 18 behind us when we pulled into camp at around 8:30 in the evening.

For two full weeks now we’ve been travelling together and have experienced a great deal: bad roads, fatigue, an accident, and most recently flat tyres and scorching temperatures inside the cars. But in the final week of the rally, an adversary we’d mostly only known from other teams began to show up more and more: disagreement. For two weeks we had each tolerated — and at best even accepted — quite a lot from one another. We tried not to dwell on incidents and hoped things would soon sort themselves out. The truth is: lately we kept taking little digs, remarks aimed at specific people. Often until the person on the receiving end walked away, hurt and rattled. Now, for the first time, we had a proper argument.

That alone is hardly earth-shattering news for a team of very different characters living this closely together and having to function as one. Some of us have known each other for at least 40 years. At least. But even they have never lived this close to one another for more than a week. On this trip it was different. That much is certain. Yet everything else is actually clear too. The longer you’re together, the more likely you are to get irritated by small things. That evening we sat down together and aired our grievances. What was said didn’t please everyone: one person felt patronised, another felt that more initiative should have been shown so fewer instructions would have been necessary. And yet another said, really, that we simply needed to make sure we could finish the rally together as well as possible. In concrete terms: instead of soft words, clear words were chosen; instead of everyone talking over each other, people listened.

Getting into each other’s hair at least once is probably part and parcel of a rally like this. Possibly so thoroughly that you avoid each other forever afterwards. That’s a worst-case scenario nobody wants to think about in advance. But the likelihood is that six judokas who have already been through various extreme situations together won’t find the rally a particular challenge in that regard.

Yet now, on this evening, our spirits were clearly rebelling. Less than two weeks ago we said we were the best team. And after this discussion, we say it again. We left the round not with weakened backs but with strengthened morale. Maybe that evening was simply what was needed.

What else we experienced:

• After our argument we found a restaurant. The dinner tasted good.

• On this Tuesday we reached kilometre 7777. We stopped and took a photo of ourselves in our kimonos (judo attire).

• We had to print out photos for our roadbook. We had this done at a Turkish photo shop. While the printer was running, the owner offered us Turkish pastries. And chai.

• In the morning we were allowed to drive a lap on a dam in a salt lake. The original plan had been a lap on the salt lake itself. But the rain over the preceding days had softened the ground too much. We wouldn’t have made it ten metres.