Czech Republic. My final faint memory of day three, Monday: in the depths of the night, in the fall-out from the Rally's Czechout party in a castle in the middle of lush Bohemian countryside. I'm back at the campsite, outside the Punto, and absynth has left Steve and Jeff too hammered to play the two chords required to perform De La Soul's Magic Number. I'm doing a similar job of murdering the verses, aiming most of my absynth-damaged raps directly at some drunk bloke's mankini-housed testicles. I then make several attempts at buffing his exposed arse cheeks with a Johnson's Baby Wipe. Yes, the sesh is definitely on.
The day started pedestrian enough. We made our first epic drive of the rally, leaving Dortmund after a hot shower in Alex and Moni's equally epic double-wash-basin bathroom, and cruising nine hours across Germany to Klatovy in the south west of the Czech Republic. All we knew was to expect a free G&T bar and generous lashings of pain, in the ruins of an old castle.
Castles turned out to be the order of the day. We drove through miles and miles of verdant Germanic forest, spotting schlosses.
'Sir, my wife tells me you have a particularly impressive schloss.'
'Your wife is a canny woman.'
'I really must come and have a nose around that schloss of yours some day.'
'You very well may.'
Bavaria. Lederhosen. Alpine horns. Die Autobahn. Shame I've done so little research into this trip. I have no idea where we are or what it means. Probably nothing. But Jeff and I did find ourselves in adjacent toilet cubicles at one point, in a motorway service station. It was piping some trippy Jean-Michel Jarre synths into the room, to ease you into a state of release. Jeff heard me laughing so much he had to check whether I'd been looking at myself in the huge polished silver toilet roll dispenser which, when I did notice it, I found to be reflecting my exposed groin. That made me laugh even more. Then I pressed a button on the back of the toilet that sent the seat spinning slowly round on an oddly eliptical whirry cleaning cycle. Exit bathroom in tears. Brits abroad.
And now I've just added that fact to the internet, so that Google can use it to tell companies that I find the sight of my own cock funny. Blogging is weird.
By the way, I'm writing this on day four. I have to just point out where we are, driving through more of these unbelievable vast Bohemian landscapes. Go to the Czech Republic, it's stunning. The sun's out and everything's ace, booting it round rolling country roads past lakes and forests, to Parliament and the Raconteurs. Then emerging into duffed up little towns built on Soviet concrete and big men squeezed into tiny Skodas.
Back to day three, we made it to the Czech border fairly peacefully - stopping to buy some token thing that lets you drive on the motorway. Unfortunately this gave us chance to develop a theory on a weird breed of Fellow Rallyer. Most are really friendly - you're in a foreign country, you see another bunch of idiots in a stupid car, and you beep your horn, and wave like gurning lunatics out the window. Ideal. But some people are a little weird - like the car that pulled in at the border, and the bloke comes out and just goes:' How much did that set you back?' Well hello to you too, you bell-end. Luckily the vast majority of people are way better than that and get it.
This trip has an interesting rhythm. There's hour after empty hour of absolutely nothing. Like this...
But you know at the end that things are guaranteed to turn incredibly weird. Coming to the end of that long drive, we started getting really excited when we pulled off the motorway, and began a long meander through all this amazing scenery. Miles of it. I can't explain it properly. Big. Green. Beautiful. I have to warm up to evocative prose. Then we pulled in up a lane to another weird oasis: a view across the valley, loads of rally cars dotted about, and people putting up tents and running around dressed as spacemen and Victorian gents in tophats and 'taches.
One guy was dressed as a breathalyser, and had designed his costume so the blowy tube bit was down by his winkie. Then our mate Dave treated us to a live pottery demo, on the roof of his Punto. Such scenes are becoming far too normal...
From then on, it turned into slow-burn carnage. Sipping on potent Czech spirits and waving our Tribute around, before heading up to this stunning old castle on the hill and queuing for hours to get a drink rocking the Stenalees Surf Club Finisterre uniforms (and Scott's genius Par Market cats and dogs t-shirt). Jeff waited for ages for a sausage. In the wrong line. Then he waiting in a scrum for hours to get us our free gins. Cheers Jeff. Absynth and tequila had us leading the charge on the dancefloor to a Belgian band of which I have no memory. But they were absolutely ridiculous (see the picture at the top of the blog).
One of the organisers, Andy, said he saw Jeff being asked on camera what he thought of the band: 'Fucking ideal' apparently. And he agreed that it was.
I wish I could remember more, but that is one of the downsides of an evening of tequila and absynthe. One of my few memories is of this little motorised trolley thing, which myself and Jeff were determined to drive around on. Only we couldn't get it started. And then we got told off.
A magical evening - great entertainment, full of people putting the effort in to have a good time, wandering in and out of the castle's myriad corners and everywhere discovering a genuine sense of camaraderie. All round aceness, and a welcome righting of the 'decent people to bell-ends' see-saw.
Then it was back to the car to carry on - Steve was wandering around with the remains of the Tribute slung over his shoulder, opening the tap and sending it pouring down people's throats. A group of local Czech musicians were sat on the back of the Punto, incredibly moved by our dedication to our local brewing heritage. 'I dunno, I just drink it,' says Steve.
Then there was the incident with the terrible gig and guy in the mankini. Party till light, then up for a fry-up. We said goodbye to Arthur, the sleeping bag-less dude who for me sums up the entire ethos of the trip better than anyone. 'Cheerio,' he said, in a way that couldn't have been more mellow. Apparently his dad read this blog the other day and identified his son from my description, despite the fact I didn't use his name. Hello Arthur's dad. I have a feeling we'll be seeing Arthur again. Arthur's team is called Cuddy Munters. Look out for him.
We rounded off what was close to the perfect party with a game of barefoot and intensely hungover international six-a-side football in the morning sun, with a load of Swedish and Irish guys, and tunes floating across the field from two speakers sitting on the roof of a Swedish dude's car (the lunatic has packed two massive stereo speakers and nothing else. Brilliant). It felt like a Vietnam flick, when they get a bit of downtime. Stenalees Surf Club combined sweetly for a perfectly-worked backheeled one-two corker.
And then it was a case of repacking the Punto and sodding off again into the sunshine. The potters suggested a town down the road that's a Unesco World Heritage site, so we headed in that direction. It looks amazing - we're checking it out tomorrow before heading to Bratislava, where we should be meeting up with the pottery team, Around The World In 80 Clays.
For today we were happy to find somewhere decent for a relaxing night's camping with good facilities. So we were intrigued to stumble upon a place called Paradijs. It came amazingly close - a long drive down a bumpy lane leads you to a few houses in a huge forest, next to a fast-flowing river, with the sound of goats in the background.
The site was empty when we arrived, save for two girls sunbathing in bikinis (they turned out to be about 15, but the image was a strong one). Later, while we sat and had dinner of tuna pasta, two more girls in bikinis came paddling past in a kayak. Followed by Sid James and that big goony bloke. Carry On To Paradise. Then a load of Aussies pulled up in canoes and gave us a hacky sack, which is ace. One told us about their mates cycling across all the -stan countries, so we'll be looking out for them. They're called Steppe by Steppe (www.steppebysteppe.com).
So that brings me to now. I'm in the car in the dark, under incredible stars, the others are asleep, and we're getting eaten alive by mozzies. I'm supposed to be repellant, but it's not working. If all goes to plan you'll be reading this on Wednesday morning. Ideal.
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