Meet Guglielmo Fontana-Rava, Benjamin Cremante, Alessio Puricelli and Andrew Brenta.
They have been friends ever since school and university, and although they are currently living in different places, their shared passion for travel and adventure brings them together every three years.
It all started in 2007 – they were all twenty-eight - when they decided to undertake their first road trip: The Mongol Rally. The Mongol Rally is an adventurous motor-trip across mountains and deserts between the UK and Mongolia. Small, but important detail, you can only participate with a small and inadequate vehicle. A what? A vehicle that is not fit for the trip, at all. Luckily they found a good-willed supplier in Andrew’s grandmother, who gave them her 1986 Subaru Justy 4x4. At that time it was the only car they could find. It proved to be the right one. They called the car Justine.
Their initial plan to leave Justine behind at the end of the rally was altered when more adventure tucked at their sleeves. The end of the Mongol Rally was actually a new beginning. The four friends wanted to take Justine back to Milan and decided that this would only be the first of many road trips.
Three years later, in 2009, they headed for Africa. The initial plan was to drive Justine from Milan to Cape Town! “You’re crazy, it’s impossible! With that car? And during the summer?” No one believed they could pull it off. Their pride and hunger for the adventure made them believe they could. And in fact, the only thing that turned out to be impossible in this trip was to do it all in one go. Once they had decided to split the trip up in two stretches, Justine was on its way.
They drove the car to Nairobi left it there and picked her up again in 2011 to finish the itinerary to Cape Town.
According to Guglielmo (Gas), Africa was the wildest of the road trips, especially the first part, where they drove through Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia. Two of the most challenging events took place here.
When they were trying to move from South-Egypt to Sudan they found out there were no roads. They had to cross the river Nile on a boat, a trip for one night. In the morning, when the loud sound of people shouting woke them up, they realized a passenger committed suicide during the night throwing himself into the water. Since they had left Egypt already - all passports stamped - they were in the middle of no man’s land and not allowed to leave the boat until the police arrived. Twelve hours they had to wait inside the boat in the middle of the chaos with people starting to be impatient and a bit violent.
The other event took place when they decided to go to Masai Mara, a national reserve in Kenya. During their trips they always carried all the necessary equipment to get Justine out of the sand or the mud, but this time they decided to leave all the heavy extra weight in the hotel and head to the national reserve. Luck was not with them that day and Justine got stuck in the mud in the middle of the reserve. With all the different wild species a national reserve can have, stepping out of the car was clearly not an option. So, the boys stayed inside the car waiting and after one hour they were found by a touristic bus passing buy. Apparently, they were lucky after all because the first thing the tourist guide asked them was for how many days they were stuck in there!
Justine stood parked in Cape Town until 2014 when it was shipped to Montevideo. From there they drove to Ushuaia, South-Argentina, and then all the way up to Colombia.
As a suggestion for a first road trip, Gas chooses South-America. For him this was the easiest one in terms of road condition, civilized atmosphere and easy communication with people. But, if you ask him for advice on any trip, he’ll say “Take advice, but don’t listen to anybody. The only way to do it is by doing it! Things change through the years, don’t rely on the advice from people who did it some years ago. Just do it! Nothing can happen and everything can happen…there in the wild or here at home!”
Now Justine rests in Bolivia, waiting for the next adventure in 2017.
