Original subtitles

The moment when I comprehend what it means to live,

in the here and now.

The moment in which I feel within my heart

that I am able to be a tiny part of this amazing world.

What a gift!

BREAK FREE

TWO PEOPLE, TWO YEARS, ONE DREAM

I have this dream to leave everything behind,

to squeeze into a car and to take off,

to just hit the road.

Burnout at 30?

Is this really my life?

Where did the fun, my smile, my light-heartedness go?

We set out on a journey from Hamburg to South Africa,

but we never get there.

Yet our journey brings us closer to ourselves.

"Once we get going it'll all be all right," I thought.

To be utterly free, to live,

to use the distance to rediscover ourselves,

individually and mutually.

It's been three weeks and I'm realizing

it's going to be very cramped and totally different than I thought.

Morocco, my first time in Africa.

I have mixed feelings. The Foreign Office has issued an alert.

Just drifting is hard for me.

I want a structured travel plan, quite the opposite of Lena.

We pick up Jamal,

a Berber who partied all night and wants to get back to his village.

He had already been walking towards home for an hour.

Do you have a dromedary?

- 25. - 25?

Yes.

How much does one dromedary cost?

- Depends, between 900 and 1,300 euros. - Wow!

Of course, he invites us in.

- Bisaha! - Cheers!

- Hand. - Uh-huh.

Hand.

Tuareg eyes.

Blue eyes, the Tuareg have blue eyes too.

Jamal's uncle is a merchant.

The men of the nomadic family still lead dromedaries

through the desert for weeks, trekking as far as Senegal to trade.

- You go live wherever you want? - We change locations, everywhere.

Independent. This is our symbol for that.

The symbol for independent.

Not this.

When there are problems, like in Mali, we stop.

- What problems? - Problems in Mali with Al-Qaeda.

Al-Qaeda, Timbuktu.

What a different world. Jamal invites us to get to know it.

We keep hearing about storm warnings throughout all of Morocco.

No rain in the desert.

"lnshallah" is what Jamal says to that.

Once there, I am overcome with a sense of freedom and gratitude.

It rained like crazy throughout the entire night.

The natural spectacle just barely missed our tent.

Jamal is calm. Wait and see with a cup of tea.

And anyhow, lnshallah.

I see why more people drown than die of thirst in the desert.

In case headlines in Germany right now say,

“Worst torrential rains in Morocco in 100 years,“ we're fine!

Everyone is trying to get out of here.

Bridges have collapsed, roads are flooded,

villages and towns are completely cut off.

More rain is coming.

- It's all black over there. - Black!

A little bit of rain.

Lots of rain, not a little bit.

We don't get far.

Our attempt to flee back to civilization is hopeless.

Awesome! An adventure!

- You can forget it! - Not happening?

Jamal refuses to accept that.

- Try! lnshallah! - lnshallah!

We've been on the move for nine hours straight

and we have made it maybe something like 15 km.

Wherever we go the road is blocked.

Water.

Water, water, water.

After 11 hours of driving in a circle we give up.

We're in luck, no additional rain.

The water level sank overnight.

- We did it! - We did it!

We did it.

Sadly, it also means saying goodbye to a friend we've grown very fond of.

My grandma says, "Rain washes everything clean."

Here, it washes into the sea

carelessly discarded waste from mountain villages.

I'm aghast and overwhelmed.

I've never seen so much garbage in my entire life.

We resolved to learn to surf on this trip

and to do other things we've had no time for in years.

My burnout early this year was a wakeup call

that lead us to take this trip.

But is simply going away enough?

Ulli annoys me more and more each day.

But I know how to drive the car and where his key is.

- But you don't know where your key is. - Yes I do!

But it doesn't work in every door.

Three months in Morocco.

I slowly begin to realize that we're living my dream.

Me and my boyfriend are really driving our car across West Africa.

I so want to show him everything,

to share with him what I experienced backpacking on my own.

That's it for real toilets.

Oh, man!

Into the wild blue yonder! Are you nervous?

- A little. - Yeah, sure.

I've read about Western Sahara,

about annexation and struggles for freedom.

Now I'm driving through this territory towards Mauritania.

My biggest adventure up to now was a six-week trip across the USA.

Apparently there are mines all over on the left and right.

A strange feeling.

Customs checks,

military checks,

police checks.

How are you?

- Good, thank god. - You speak Hassaniya?

A very, very little bit.

How many of you are there? Three?

- Two. - Two people.

- No one else? - No.

- No second woman? - No.

Is he your husband?

- No, my love. My boyfriend. - Your love.

- Oh! Your boyfriend. - Yes.

No second one?

Yesterday that guy asked me if I had a Hitler hat or something.

I mean, it's obvious that I don't have a Hitler hat.

Maybe Third Reich stuff stuck with them,

Hitler being the greatest and all.

Maybe that's what registers here

and they see us that way and not how we really are.

The same as it is with us, we don't know what's up here.

“It's all the evil lslamists."

And we live in a totally different situation.

From our first day in Mauritania we meet the most magnificent people.

Ziza is a musician and challenges the government with his lyrics.

He is now in hiding at a friend's.

His bandmate was arrested yesterday.

If Mauritania continues down this path, this is my opinion.

If Mauritania continues down this path

in ten or 16 years it will be destroyed.

That's my opinion.

Ziza international!

Mr. President

Pardon me for disturbing you

I don't believe you're the president of the poor

In reality, you're making us poor

Meeting Ziza, someone who risks being arrested to express his opinion,

something that is so self-evident to us, really makes me think.

We want to go into the desert, but can't find the way in.

When we finally get into it our tank is half empty.

I'm really scared we'll run out of gas and get stranded in the Sahara.

Here we are, stuck in the middle of the desert.

When you're digging and suddenly notice it's not dates you're digging up.

Stop!

So, what are we going to do now?

We can't go back a bit and get lots of momentum, can we?

Stop!

- It wasn't that bad. - I still don't want it to happen again.

I think it's your karma, Ulli. You've got bad sand karma.

You said you didn't like the desert much,

so now it keeps getting hold of our car.

The desert isn't my friend.

I don't think the desert wants to be anyone's friend.

It's making that pretty clear.

It's Christmas.

I couldn't imagine anything better than this,

spending it in the middle of nowhere, in the calm of the desert.

Ulli says he'd rather be skiing

and that he doesn't know why he's stressing himself out like this.

That hurts.

Getting your car buried in the sand isn't really my thing.

Lena gets a big kick out of it, but I don't know... being stuck sucks.

For some reason men and women have trouble communicating.

It's always difficult,

and then, when it comes down to it...

Well, if you're already annoyed as it is

and tired and stressed out...

then maybe you start to squabble a bit more.

But we'll make up.

But maybe not till tomorrow.

We heard it an hour before we could see it.

200 cars rumbling through the silent desert,

an iron ore train carrying the main export

of one of the world's poorest nations.

I get goose bumps.

Five days in the desert, stuck five times.

- We've got this. - Yes, we do!

No doubt.

I'm Kalbacher.

Pleased to meet you.

Like Ronaldo.

Ronaldo.

I'm Shakira.

Shakira!

We're searching for West Africa's best bread, lahtab.

- This is the bakery. - Is there another bakery here?

One that's open.

Come on.

The problem? Bakeries aren't always easy to spot.

How many?

Mauritania is nothing but sand.

All there is to eat is bread, dates and meat.

Amazing how families can live in the desert.

Here, in the desert,

we meet a woman as impressive as any we meet on our trip.

Mame Sy.

“Khilat and Mam...

arrive at school early."

I know the really poor families.

Families in which the men divorced

and left their wives alone with the children.

And there are many orphans.

Here, in Mauritania, it's become normal to divorce a woman,

marry again and to forget your old family.

I want to help women whose husbands have left them

and who don't know how to support their children.

Yes, a lack of food is a big problem.

Mame Sy's school allows kids like Toutou

to pass entrance exams and get into secondary schools.

Toutou says she'd rather die than not go to school.

Marne Sy, she works...

SO...

so we all can write and...

and read.

That's Marne Sy. My Mame Sy.

At the end of the day each child gets a meal, often their only one.

They then share it with their siblings outside.

I'm speechless and delighted to meet such great kids.

When I say goodbye they hug me tighter than I've ever been hugged in my life.

Drivers in Mauritania follow their instincts, not rules,

and a car is anything that still rolls.

Ours has stopped doing that. Our clutch conks out.

Sidatty says, "No problem." He just has to remove the engine.

This will take a while.

So cute.

What mechanic in Germany would say,

“Your car isn't done, want to sleep in my bed? That solves your problems."

We explore the area and immediately get another invitation,

this time to drink camel milk and tea.

Tasty.

But no one told us it takes three hours to drink tea here.

Leaving early is impolite.

Luckily, Hussein has a German-Arabic dictionary at home

that seems like it's 100 years old.

My name is Hussein Mulleisn.

"I arrived today

and I live at 7 Goethestrasse

with the Koch family."

"I arrived today

and live with Goethe..."

In Germany it would never cross my mind

to invite a complete stranger in for tea.

Now I wonder, why wouldn't I do that?

The guys work on our car into the night

while we watch a video of a cousin's wedding.

I dream about Mame Sy.

I'm sure she didn't go to her wedding dressed as a bedsheet.

Four weeks in Mauritania. Tomorrow our visa expires.

We will leave this wonderful country with heavy hearts.

How bad can what the internet calls West Africa's most corrupt border be?

Very!

We have to get a ferry to get to Senegal.

We have to shell out money for that and loads of other contrived nonsense.

The head of policeman just ripped us off.

We had to keep going back to this idiot

who said he was the top dog, "Mr. President.“

So I went in and sat down in his chair and said,

"I'm not leaving without my documents."

He flipped out and asked me why I was making such a fuss.

Of course I made a fuss, he had just pocketed 170 euros from us.

The receipt for Mauritania, the police kept it.

- Oh, okay. - It's for the police, not for you.

Once you pay the police take your receipt.

- Voilà! You understand? - Yes.

It was so obvious! Now they want money here too.

And they say the insurance we have isn't valid.

They want us to get new insurance, which we obviously won't do.

It's so annoying.

And, of course, after this terribly exhausting day

a minister and his entourage arrives where we had set up camp for the night.

A private sphere or even getting a little peace is impossible here.

Everyone's annoying the hell out of me.

I think he'd like to have more stability, more routine.

No one gets when you need your peace.

You have to communicate that clearly, but you can learn to do that.

And because everyone is so communicative you meet wonderful people

if you yourself are in a communicative mood.

I think we Europeans are different than Africans in that.

But we're here in Africa to be a part of that.

So we have to work on ourselves while we're here.

I'm eager to see how long Ulli will endure it,

if he'll stick this trip out to the end or not.

Yoo-hoo!

Africa, Africa! Finally!

I'm so happy I could die.

Since I was small Africans have captivated me.

It's like coming home.

Why can't I get this sense of freedom

that overcomes me on African soil when in Germany?

As hard as life is here, people really live it.

At home I'm stuck working myself sick,

comfort buying and insuring myself silly.

Compared to life here it seems like a bad joke, a very sad joke too.

- " Mangedem ." - Mangedem.

- "Wow?" - Yes.

" NO?"

Deideit .

"Deydeyt ," with a Y, I don't know how it's pronounced.

We keep practicing.

- One. - What are you getting?

- 500. - Yes. One.

One, yes.

- Okay? - Thanks.

Everything is sold in plastic, where it ends up is hard to miss.

A friend from East Germany who lives in Africa says

he grew up with it too and that you don't see it then.

But who am I to condemn someone who may not know any better?

Especially when I see the careless way

we destroy the environment at home and here, where we have no business,

robbing people of what they need to live.

While looking for waves we meet Dominique and friends

and learn first-hand what it's like to be a fisherman.

I have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven...

eight, nine, ten blisters.

For two hours we pull the endless, slimy net out of the water.

It's over 30 Celsius, they've pulled up three nets,

haven't had anything to drink and have two more nets left.

I get to choose a ray to set free.

I'm so naive I can hardly imagine anyone eating it.

What do I know?

There are no fridges, if there are they're usually warm.

They dry the majority of the catch.

Dominique tells us what each of them gets

after selling the catch and paying their expenses.

They earn no more than 1.50 euros a day.

I don't know how they can do it.

They should all die at 40 because they are physically wrecked

from doing such hard physical work every day of the week but Sunday.

They pull these nets out of the water six days a week, all day long,

and sometimes not even catching very much.

I love German.

It's...

- German was my favorite subject. - Yeah?

- Yes, when I went to school. - Isn't it difficult?

It's difficult, but that's how it is.

I really loved it.

They gave us loads of fish and we want to cook it at Dominique's.

Dominique is in his early 30s and single.

He says women want luxury, not a fisherman.

He is the sole earner for his father, stepmother and their four children.

His grandmother, who mines salt to earn extra money, is in the hospital.

My grandmother worked harvesting salt.

Yes.

The salt and the sun...

Caused her to go blind. Oh, shit.

Ebola in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Since arriving in Africa we've met almost no other tourists.

People who make a living from them have a real problem.

That doesn't keep Jabba, Assi, Roquel and other souvenir vendors from dancing.

These ladies say Senegal stands for Teranga, "hospitality."

And then they give us countless souvenirs.

It was cute when Jabba and Roquel up and took off after passing tourists.

They chased after them.

Each one of them grabbed a pack of necklaces and ran after them.

They were desperate to sell something.

I can understand both sides, the tourist who thinks,

"Oh, damn! Out of here fast, they're coming!"

And the women who just think, “At least have a look."

“It's really not expensive and if you buy one necklace

just to buy something, then you've already financed

a week's worth of food for us."

The next day they bring pots, vegetables and fish to cook for us.

Awesome! Now we're getting cooking lessons too.

It smells so good.

An inexplicable phenomenon, those with the least share everything.

They refuse to let us give them even a cent.

I have more food on my lap than anyone else.

I think I'm keeping up with you.

I'm so thankful. I've grown especially fond of Jabba.

Good luck, my Senegalese friend.

- And hopefully... - See you soon.

- See you soon. - Thank you, Lena.

Conclusion: I don't dance enough.

It's Carnival in Guinea-Bissau.

Everyone is drunk,

but the mood is upbeat and no one causes trouble.

You know that you're in Africa

when the police, or whoever that was just now,

do a two-hour drug search without finding anything

and then hula-hoop with you.

Then you're in Africa.

Welcome!

Unfortunately, we've hit a dead end.

The Ebola outbreak is still acute in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

We could enter those countries but not leave them.

And they have more pressing issues than tourists like us.

Not seeing Sierra Leone makes me immensely sad.

I was looking forward to that most.

Instead we decide to discover Gambia and to bypass Ebola via Mali.

- Do you have a present? - For you?

- Or do you have one for us? - For me.

I have a big present. You can be my friend.

- Is that a good present? - Yes.

Okay.

Now let someone tell me the police suck.

I just got an "I love Gambia" bracelet.

An “I love Gambia" bracelet to remind me of Gambia.

What? I'm so jealous!

Oops!

Five months on the road and something breaks every day.

I have to fix something every day.

That oh-so-familiar feeling of exhaustion creeps back up on me.

I'm torn between concern for Ulli and being annoyed with him.

I decided today will be Ulli-free, for the first time since we set out.

The misery of the street dogs affects me.

Feeding them and keeping some flea-free for a few weeks isn't enough for me.

Fatou is a vet's assistant who catches, neuters and vaccinates strays.

I think what she does is great and want to do my part by doing what I can do,

which is make a film to help the clinic get donations.

Sometimes you come early and find some and sometimes you don't see any.

What do you do if you don't see any?

I look in different places. I always find dogs.

But most of them aren't in a good condition.

You know me?

- Over there. - There he is.

He really hates you.

I've tried to catch him.

Since he was half a year old, I think.

I still haven't caught him.

See the other cars? He's fine with them. And with people.

But I'm sure if I walk he will attack me.

People with dogs often can't afford a vet.

Some don't want their dogs neutered.

Having offspring is seen as the natural course of life here.

Sometimes I wonder what I'm doing here. I hardly have any time to myself.

I feel like I'm responsible for everything while Lena has her fun.

Micha has been neutering five dogs a day for over 10 years.

Finding good homes for them afterwards has become an illusion.

In Gambia, whites in particular neglect their responsibility.

Normally a dog or a cat lets you know if there is something wrong with them.

But if you don't pay attention you miss it and then it's too late.

I often get an, "It died."

And then I ask, "Why? What happened?“

"Yeah, sorry. We found it dead one morning."

Micha says as long as they find food they're better off in their packs.

They can live with their parasites too

if their immune systems are strong enough.

- Then they come out? Wow! - From the bottom and out.

When will you be done with this job?

- When will you have it behind you? - When I...

I'll be done with it after my next nervous breakdown.

I admire Micha and Fatou for what they're doing here

and I understand that it isn't about saving the world

but about doing what you can do to improve the world outside your door.

Three puppies are living outside our door.

After four weeks it's clear A yo belongs to us.

Yeah, the first time always sucks. You're a bit louder than your sister.

A yo adds structure to our lives

and I feel like Ulli is really thriving.

Ayo, come on! Great!

Our responsibility for A yo brings Lena and me closer together.

I don't feel so alone anymore.

The three of us are becoming a real team.

We ask for directions and you puke on people.

That's not so nice, you know?

If you act like this we'll never get invited anywhere again.

Ayo makes us laugh. I'm much calmer with Ulli.

And I get the feeling he has opened up too.

We let Ranger El Hadj join us with his two chairs and his rifle.

- That's our German-French dictionary. - Great.

It's a real necessity.

I'd like to learn German.

After three months of work El Hadj has four weeks off.

His return is a celebration, we're the special guests.

We communicate any way we can and are quickly accepted.

Everyone lives around an inner courtyard.

I particularly love Mohammed.

After the first hello it's straight to the barber.

- We have the good music here. - Yeah.

We are fed spaghetti and given a mattress still covered in plastic.

Grandma won't let me go when we say bye.

She cries, I cry and El Hadj translates,

“She never dreamt we would spend time together."

We've been traveling at such a slow pace we hit the worst seasons everywhere.

On the Mali border, 49 degrees Celsius.

We've got a problem.

Trucks as far as the eye can see, definitely 100, 200 meters.

There are trucks behind us, we're stuck in the middle

because we didn't realize cars drive around on the right.

My boyfriend is really annoyed.

He doesn't like hitting limits, or African borders.

Division of labor,

Ulli does the paperwork, I maneuver the car out.

Works like a charm.

Mali!

Mali, Mali, Mali!

- Yeah. - Ulli's had enough of Mali.

Yeah, at the moment Mali can stuff it.

Ulli says Mali can stuff it.

Not having air conditioning means driving with open windows in this heat.

This bit of housekeeping

is quite a big problem.

And my husband agrees.

The people and landscape of Mali are incredible.

It's far too hot for me.

This climate isn't for me.

But the climate isn't going to change.

- What? - Here.

It's going to stay hot.

Yeah, then we have to get out of here fast.

You can't swim in most rivers because of worms.

A water bottle with holes in the cap works too.

The UN warned against entering Dogon country.

Islamic terrorist groups are moving ever further south in Mali.

Someone's hanging from our car.

I have to think of Jamal and his uncle, of terrorists taking people's freedom.

When we get to Dogon country we feel anything but uneasy.

Wherever we go people are glad to see us.

Smiles break down walls.

I'm realizing it's not about seeing loads of beautiful places

but about the people we meet and our time together.

Goodbye! Goodbye!

After four weeks in the baking hot beauty of Mali we continue on.

Move the leaves out of the way.

Careful, there's more behind you.

Elephants!

They're following us.

It took us a long time to figure out how to deal with begging kids.

Swapping is our solution. That keeps us on equal terms.

What's your name?

- Drissa. - Drissa. Please to meet you.

- Hello, madam. - Hello, sir. How are you?

I traded a boy a piece of candy for nuts.

But these look a little bit like balls of poo.

Dried balls of poo.

Curious people everywhere,

no peace, no respite.

Nobody notices when it's too much. My head is about to burst.

I want to see some nature and not just blab the entire time.

Always saying, "No, no, no, no."

Oh! Maybe that wasn't so smart.

Again, you were almost out.

Again! Almost.

Great! Now with some momentum.

Yay!

It just never ends.

I keep looking for somewhere we can sleep in peace

and after five minutes someone shows up from somewhere.

- She's five. - Five! Wow!

He's...

two and a half.

- Two and a half years old? - Yes.

' And Wu? " Me?

- 25. - 25!

I'm so glad someone just stops by to bring us eggs,

because we must be hungry.

That's cool.

Ulli's manner makes me sad.

Why is he even doing this if it annoys him so much?

I think, "What beautiful palm trees!"

That is, until I realize the whole country is full of them.

Oil palm tree after oil palm tree,

mixed with a few rubber tree and cocoa plantations.

It is hard to believe,

but almost no elephants remain in the Ivory Coast.

Nearly the entire rainforest has been cleared for monocropping.

In contrast to that, the world's largest basilica.

Supposedly a gift from the president to his people.

Christians and Catholics keep asking about German and European preachers,

who are clearly doing big business with faith.

It makes me so sick, everything I see and experience of religion

makes me see it is a curse,

for the world, and especially for Africa.

There is no money for roads.

Driving 200 km along the main coastal road

takes us eight and a half hours.

A few rubber gaskets are torn.

It's leaking water like crazy, from the motor, from the pump.

I'm adding like a liter of coolant daily.

I want to get that fixed before we drive on.

It's like if you were bleeding from 30 different wounds.

We wake up in the morning and the forest is full of weavers.

Her name is Ayo, she's Senegalese.

- Senegalese? - Yes.

She is cute.

Weaving is men's work here and is passed on from father to son.

The clothes we donate and cheap Chinese garments

are making it difficult for them to make a livelihood.

What song are you going to play?

- I don't know. - Is it a traditional song?

I'm a little shocked.

Bash wanted a present from me. We don't do that.

I said if you bring me something I'll give you something too.

And then he gave me...

this scarf.

They weave these here. He said I can wear it on my head.

Or around my shoulders.

He was ecstatic about the sunglasses and asked if he could come with us.

His father told him he should ask that.

And that's just so unreal.

It's not the first time someone has asked to come with us.

They have these great ideas that we can just take them to Europe.

But it's heavy stuff when a father tells his son to ask if he can go with us.

When I was little I always felt guilty if I didn't eat all my food.

My mom always said, "Children are starving in Africa."

Today I wonder, how parents are to feed their children

when we destroy markets and steal their natural resources?

I sometimes wish we would just leave Africa alone.

Once again we arrive in the crappiest season.

We're overjoyed it's finally raining

until we realize that it's just not stopping.

You go a bit crazy after a day in a tent.

The rain in Morocco wasn't anything compared to this.

Can't it be a nice day? Can't the sun shine in the daytime?

Then it can rain all night as far as I care.

But sunshine during the day, please!

Please, please, please!

But that's just the beginning.

For weeks we search for somewhere dry,

a place we can stand up straight without getting wet.

I won't complain about Hamburg's rain again.

No idea how people deal with this every year.

Some people say they can't sleep nights

because they have water under their beds.

In the center of Abidjan

you can jet-ski on the streets when the rain is really bad.

Today makes four weeks of constant rain. I'm so fed up!

Traveling is lots of things, but it's not vacation.

Everything is wet.

We have to get a hotel room

so we can try to dry our things using the air conditioning unit.

The room costs 100 dollars a night,

a fortune compared to what we spent in the weeks we slept outdoors.

But they gave us a discount out of pity.

But no break from the rain.

What do we learn from this? Keep calm.

Keep calm. It helps you grow as a person.

You grow more patient.

Your desperation grows too.

Six months ago today we looked for crocodiles in the desert of Mauritania.

They've survived there for millennia.

What would we have done for rain then?

What would we do now if we knew our hardest tests still lay ahead?

But then, after all the rain, we find the most beautiful spot on our trip.

The kids are great.

Grace bought hibiscus juice with her allowance so we could try it.

Every morning they sing and bring flowers.

Emma is building a new oven to smoke fish in

and I sort of try to help her.

I can't do it no-handed.

I'm realizing that to me happiness is being barefoot out in nature,

surfing, laughing and dancing as a community.

Africa may be poor money-wise, but it is all the richer at heart.

Stop! Stop. Grace!

Do you eat fish?

Me? I love fish.

A lot.

- And Ulu? - What is Ulu?

Him over there, your husband.

- Your husband. - Ulli eats lots of fish. He loves fish.

It couldn't be lovelier. It really couldn't be lovelier.

We'll just have to stay here forever. The journey ends here, I'd say.

All of the tension of the last weeks vanishes.

It is lovely to be here.

And then...

I get sick.

Oh, no idea...

Yesterday I saw the doctor because it wasn't better.

He said I have stomach parasites.

They call them amibes here.

He gave me something to help with diarrhea and my ailments.

He gave me loads of yummy anti-parasite meds.

I woke up this morning and puked right after I ate.

I went back to him and he said my system is so screwed up after the 12, 13 days.

This place is one big sickbed right now.

Princesso went to see the doc with me. She has malaria.

Really high fever.

Paradise is beautiful but it has its dark sides.

It's funny how bad these illnesses sounded in Germany.

Here they're part of everyday life.

School's out and we get to know the whole village in no time.

No matter what we do, the kids want to learn everything,

and not just them.

Very, very pretty!

- Are you happy? - Yes.

Yes.

Four weeks in paradise,

and then we head out.

There were tears as we said goodbye.

Everyone cried.

- We're crying too. - It really sucks.

Yes, it really does suck.

Crazy how fast people can become dear to you.

In exactly two years I'll be back here,

in the place I can't forget for even a day.

My name is Robert and I'm a drummer.

I have a poor family.

They appreciate when I drum.

And sometimes when I drum in the village they feel proud of me.

If I wasn't able to drum I would be nothing, you know?

Because I have nothing to do. I only have drumming.

We've been traveling for nine months

and have only reached Ghana.

- Can you eat this? Is it like caviar'? - Yes.

- It's a medicine. - But how do you catch it?

- With a net? - No, hands.

- With your hands? - We dive.

Today the police stopped us.

After seeing my license and residence permit they wanted to know

if I have a license to drive with the steering wheel on the right.

Of course I do.

My driver's license has a big “B" stamped on it for "both sides."

It was fine.

- What do we do now? - Nothing. What can we do?

We'll sleep inside. Should we throw it away? Buy new stuff?

Don't throw it away due to mold. You have parasites.

What harm can mold do to you?

It's super unhealthy. It can get into your lungs.

- So what do you want to do now? - I'm not sleeping in this tent.

The rainy season continues to affect us.

Our things are moldy. Everything is broken.

What would I give for a day that isn't exhausting?

Ulli is constantly annoyed.

I wonder if it would've been better to come with someone else.

The mood's been crappy the last few days.

We've talked to each other a lot.

And we're actually still trying to figure out

what it is we really want from the rest of this trip.

Things aren't working between us.

We're each doing our own thing. We're annoyed with each other.

I don't need to go any further south, to be perfectly honest.

The tropics are too rainy for me.

I thought I could share my passion for these countries,

for this part of the world, with him.

I can't do that.

He enjoys traveling,

but it's not as important to him as it is to me.

I don't know if that's enough.

We decide to take a break and work in a lodge,

to learn new things, to be part of something

and to do things separately again.

It does us good. Our plan is to stay for four weeks.

We end up staying on for six months.

Nobody gave lmma food.

Now Imma has to eat the electricity.

At first Jimmy has a hard time working with a white woman.

I'm shocked that some people kowtow to me at first,

as if my skin color made me better and they were inferior to me.

I use my hands. If I get to Europe, they have machines.

I could do better than I can here.

That's why I want to go and see that place.

I often wish everyone had every opportunity,

that everybody were as fortunate as I am now

to go where they want and experience things for themselves.

For Robert that would mean going where drumming is valued.

The first one is a G.

The second one is a C. The third one is an A.

For days Lena has been telling me to record a video diary entry.

If I'd done it yesterday or two days ago I could've said

how great we're doing here and what an awesome time were having.

But now Ayo is dead.

She was...

out with the other dogs.

Until it got dark.

And I guess she...

I'm sure she wanted to drink from the river again.

It flows towards the sea.

It's a freshwater river.

But crocodiles go there in the evening.

They got Ayo.

Up to the end I hoped that I was wrong, that it wasn't our dog.

I just hoped it wasn't our dog.

Now she's dead.

People in Ghana say they don't want to cry.

Death is ubiquitous and is celebrated, as an act of self-preservation.

No one understands our grief, especially not over a dog.

Ayo's death brings us closer together.

The first two days I just cried.

Now I'm just sad and...

bummed.

Things just aren't the same. We don't know what to do with ourselves.

Many locals eat turtles and their eggs, so the lodge has a conservation project.

If we find a nest the eggs are put in a sheltered enclosure.

Fucking assholes!

These fucking, fucking assholes.

If they want to kill her, why don't they?

- They half killed her. - I don't know.

There's still a chance she'll live.

Don't let her fall.

I mean, that turtle is probably older than the guy who wanted to kill her.

She came to the beach to lay eggs

and someone just takes a machete and bashes her head in.

It's really world's colliding.

I don't think you can create more understanding

for protecting an endangered species

because here it's about having food on your plate.

Every morning we find more looted nests. It's disheartening.

We look after the turtle, but it's clear she wants to go back into the sea.

We can't do anything else for her.

She laid one egg in the basin we were nursing her in.

We buried it.

With goose bumps and tears in our eyes we wish her the best of luck.

- Good morning! - Good morning.

- How was it with Fufu? - I'm proud of the little guy.

His first night in the car.

With no preparation at all. He did really well.

Six weeks after Ayo's death our friend Carlos gives us one of his puppies.

It's a strange feeling, but he brings back the good cheer.

We call him Fufu Carlos, to everyone's delight.

Fufu is a national dish and Carlos is as proud as a peacock.

Fufu! Come here!

- Great! - Go on!

Come on! Great! Yes, yes, yes!

- Great! - Great! Yes!

A few weeks after the turtle attack a baby turtle emerges from her egg.

It's amazing that this little being will always remember where it was born.

If it survives, it will come back here in 25 years to lay its eggs.

It's gone! It made it!

First turtle, baby! I just wonder where the others are.

Now every morning hundreds of turtles hatch and head to the sea.

Only about 10 percent survive.

The conservation project is well intended but poorly executed.

Nothing is labeled here.

I really have to force myself to stay calm.

In some ways it's really crappy.

I don't want to get worked up, but this whole project

is half-baked, like everything here.

One morning we catch dogs eating hundreds of newly hatched babies.

It's a horrendous sight.

I'm so incredibly angry.

I woke up at six to check on the baby turtles again,

to put them in the water if there were any around.

There were, but they had all been eaten.

Our night watchman was 200 meters away sweeping up leaves.

Man!

I'm so furious and I...

I'm really affected by all of this.

At first I thought, "if you go away, you'll be freed of your worries."

But that's not true.

I have to get out of here. Christmas is coming.

This time I'd like to spend it at home.

14 months, 24 hours a day with each other.

Ulli's trip home is so important to us both.

I hope he finds clarity.

- Welcome to my house. - Yes.

It's small but everyone fits.

Look, you can hold on here. There's a handle.

- Oh, okay. - And also hold on to lsee, okay?

- I'll drive carefully. - Okay. Let's go.

- Ciao! - God bless you. Thank you very much.

No problem!

Time to myself. I want to gain clarity about my feelings.

Where do I go from here?

It's incredibly liberating to be "me" and not "us,"

to realize that I still function just fine on my own.

Sooner or later it comes, you reach a point when it's time to go.

Goodbye is always both an end and a new beginning.

After six weeks at home I realize

nothing has changed here, but I've changed immensely.

Understanding that was important.

I want to go back and live the adventure to the fullest this time.

Ullijust landed. I got the car to the airport in one piece.

All alone.

That's right. And, well, it's going to be exciting.

Seeing Ulli after six weeks is weird,

but Fufu and I are looking forward to it.

He's coming!

Hello, Fufu! Hey!

Hello!

Hey, you! Do you have to pee or something?

Maybe. Actually, no. We haven't been on the road long.

The fact that Togo was a German colony

is obvious from how orderly it is.

The fetish market is particularly well ordered.

He's asking your name.

- Ulli. - Ulli.

- Lena. - Lena.

He wishes you luck, longevity and life with no hardships.

- Are you a couple? - Yes.

He wants your left hand.

- And the lady's, too. - The left one?

Yes, good.

That's very nice.

That's the love fetish.

The man says something, the woman says yes.

If the woman says something, the man says okay.

That's good for the couple.

We may not be able to travel on.

No one has gotten a visa for Nigeria while traveling in months.

When we're there I'll button these up. Better, right?

Yes.

A gold watch would be better than this chintzy watch.

We've gotten all dressed up. Look how snazzy we are.

Last night we had the impromptu idea to try to get to Nigeria after all.

- It's now or never. - Yes.

If we fail we'll have to go around Nigeria,

drive thousands of kilometers back to Mali to try to get a visa

or give up and turn around.

It won't be easy for us to get a visa because we're not Togolese citizens.

Apparently we can buy citizenship from the police.

But we can't do that so quickly. We need to research it.

We'll try to get our visas for Benin and then see what happens.

That's no problem, and we make a great friend too.

Noel is a social worker and invites us to visit one of his many projects.

A Togolese-run children's home funded with German money.

The kids learn to be proud of themselves,

proud of their origins and traditions.

Certain things that you do every day, I do them too.

That's natural.

But as far as culture

and tradition are concerned

we don't share the same realities.

Lots of people abandon their culture for reasons that you know.

Because they want to live like others.

But our traditions are not the same.

Because of that we risk losing everything.

- Odette sleeps here. - And there?

Delali.

- And you sleep there? - Yes.

That's very cool.

All of the six children here have lost both parents.

Their remaining family doesn't have money to raise them.

I love the children as if they were my own children.

I hope that they grow up with love

and that they grow up to be somebody great someday.

- Good morning, Papa. How are you? - Good. And you? Efua milia.

That means I woke up well.

Togo is nice. I love Togo.

- Okay, be seeing you. - Oh yes, Papa.

Lena and I were running late and we rushed.

The guy riding with us came at eight

and said, “I just had a talk with the pastor

it's going to be at least another hour later."

To put it mildly, that kind of makes me sick.

It's always the same story.

Ulli has decided. The hassle's too big. He wants to turn around.

I'm sad and torn.

We may never make it this far in a car again.

Just thinking about Europe causes me to panic.

I fear the cycle of productivity and security will swallow me up

and I'll lose the feeling of living life with all my senses.

I get the feeling Lena just can't get used to the idea of it

or somehow just can't live with a definite decision.

There are always doubts and that gnaws at her.

And she exudes that and that just spreads a negative mood.

I definitely can't just turn around.

I've always wanted to do this.

I have to see it through to the end.

We do what we learned from Jamal.

We decide to wait and see while we explore Benin.

Where are your wives? What are they doing?

They're at church.

Sunday is the day the men do the laundry!

- That's right. - Well, that's very practical.

This village is so remote

that some of the kids have never seen a photo of themselves.

They live on the edge of the national park, like Sonday.

He isn't an official guide, but is very nice.

He knows his way around and urgently needs the money.

And have the kids from the village seen the park?

- No, the kids from the village haven't. - Why not?

They don't have the means to see it.

- What means do you mean? - A car.

Sonday asks if we have children. I point to Fufu and laugh.

He says all three of his died.

They all began foaming at the mouth

when they got to the hospital an hour later it was too late.

His village is right outside the gates of the gigantic national park

that lives off trophy hunting.

They themselves have neither power nor a health clinic.

Outside the park nature looks different.

They burn everything to make hunting easier.

We're heading south.

It is burning hot, but I'm suddenly ice cold.

My temperature is 40 Celsius.

I am certain I've made a new acquaintance, malaria.

That needle looks pretty big. I can't wait. I don't like needles.

Oh well, I have to be tough now.

Okay?

He's just not doing well at all. His fever is rising.

But I can imagine he caught something due to overexertion.

Something always crops up and we can't get any down time.

I'm sure he's got the flu.

The test says it isn't malaria, but I'm not well.

No one knows what I have, so they give me a mixture of meds.

I want to continue on.

A new surprise every half an hour.

The shock absorber.

What is it good for?

- Absorbing... - shocks. That's right.

What do we have a lot of right now?

Shocks.

What a day!

We want to get our car fixed, but we have no luck with that in Benin.

We find a mechanic but he has no parts.

The big gas stations that used to provide them have all shut down

because of black market fuel from Nigeria.

So we head back to Togo.

Everything is spinning.

I'm trying to take off the shock absorber.

To loosen it from below, but I can't get the nut loose.

That's because the whole thing turns with the nut.

Oh, Fufu, yeah.

Yeah. Oh!

Hold still please.

I've pulled out at least 20 of them.

Oh, Fufu! I know.

I pull over 80 mango fly larvae out of Fufu.

After 10 it's not too gross.

I'm worried about Ulli. He can't even keep water down.

Our car is jacked up without wheels on the beach.

Strangers again become friends by driving us to the hospital.

The doctor jokes,

"Shake a white man's hand and he gets sick."

This malaria test is negative too. It turns out he has parasites again.

I'm slowly realizing it makes no sense to continue on to South Africa.

Everything is breaking down. Our car, ourselves.

Everything works out again.

This time thanks to Micha. He knows about cars. He even built one.

The wiring harness coming from the control unit

going to the injection nozzle...

We'll open that up and try to hold it up

and remove the screw without breaking the absorber.

While we're at it we replace our tires as well.

These are going to the port.

And the next time someone is looking for new tires,

like us, just like us,

they'll take the good tires off some car that's been delivered for sale

and put our crappy tires on it, then they'll sell the car.

After nearly 18 months we turn back.

We agree to drive through Sierra Leone and Liberia.

I really want to go! And the Ebola scare has just ended.

We cross 25 borders on this trip, this one for the second time.

Crossing the Ghana-Ivory Coast border

always takes a long time.

The lady who has the stamp for our Carnet de Passages

is once again, just like last time, having lunch.

I think all she does is eat.

Later, we're grateful for the two-hour wait.

Without it we would've got caught in an attack.

We are now driving through a country

where an Islamic terrorist attack actually happened for the first time.

Everyone's panicking, but I'm sure they took off.

That's what I'd do if I carried out an attack.

No idea if it's over.

In France it wasn't over. They did a lot more damage afterwards.

We're on our way to the Liberian border. No idea if they'll let us cross it.

No idea if our car will run tomorrow, but some good waves would be nice.

And a nice new country.

Our first try to get into Liberia failed 40 km shy of the border.

The Liberian side is open, but the Ivory Coast won't let us out.

I'm going nuts.

Taking a huge detour via Mali and Guinea to get to Liberia will be tough.

There was a new suspected case of Ebola.

Yep.

It sucks. Everything sucks right now.

We still want to try.

We quickly get visas for Mali and Guinea.

Now we have 2,600 km of road ahead of us

to get to Liberia and catch the best wave in West Africa.

But we get waved down to stop.

We see armed police and anxious people. No idea what's going on here.

A few trucks have driven by.

They waved to signal that we couldn't drive on.

That was the gendarmerie.

No idea what they're doing.

Everyone just says, “Wait." Wait, wait, wait.

Out of this world!

30 km further on, at the Mali border.

The cop asked if we were scared to go to Mali, because of the jihadists.

But there's a terrorist attack on our way into the Ivory Coast

and a gunfight on our way out of the Ivory Coast.

After three days we're going a bit crazy and are in a fantastic mood.

Hungry!

But there's no street food due to measures taken because of Ebola.

How will people receive us after such an epidemic?

- How are you? - Fine. Bon appétit!

- How's the road? - Yes, it's good.

Where are we going?

We just went through our first military checkpoint in Guinea.

In the middle of the jungle.

- And they gave us bananas. - They didn't check anything.

No, they didn't check anything. He came and said, "How are you doing..."

Some small talk, where are you from, etc.

“Our country needs you," he said.

The trip went so differently than planned.

18 months ago I was crying and burnt out in Hamburg.

Now I'm here, and all thanks to Lena and her adventurous spirit.

Five days driving 12 to 14 hours a day, every day.

It was worth it.

Liberia!

A crazy mix of America and Africa.

“We Liberians forget quickly,“ a friend says.

People eat bushmeat on every corner.

Driver's license? Hers, she's driving.

My dad's a ranger and rants about what gets dumped in German forests.

A ship!

Word gets out fast and everything I think has no value

but that can be dragged off, beaten or welded is cleared out.

Out of this world!

- Lena. - Yes?

" Eat! - Huh?

I just ate, thank you. I just ate lunch.

Did you buy the wood here?

So the boat is from Ghana, but you can repair it here?

I didn't know that it's so difficult to get a boat.

The wood in Liberia isn't so strong.

This fish is bigger than you. It's long! What is it?

A shovelnose.

- What? - Shovelnose.

- Does it taste good? - Yeah.

Wow! I've never seen one.

The Liberians seem very introverted to us.

A friend tells us what they've been through,

how restrictions were the worst thing about Ebola,

schools shut, no more playing soccer,

something done all over Africa every evening.

They had curfews, had to avoid public transport,

and keep away from others

on a continent where people constantly touch each other.

Arms together like I showed you.

Nice! Good, but slowly.

Liberia is amazing!

It's crazy, without Ulli I may never have made it here.

The rainy season is coming again.

We now know what that means, so we hurry on northwards.

People always ask where my love for Africa comes from.

Maybe from a previous life or the cuddly chimps I got from my mom.

I didn't know that chimpanzees are endangered

because people eat them and kill whole families to get to the young.

Luckily there are now people who are working to protect them.

Sierra Leoneans, united we stand

Sierra Leoneans, divided we fall

Let us come together For the sake of peace and love

Come together for the sake of unity

Sierra Leoneans, united we stand

Sierra Leoneans, divided we fall

No more fighting, no more shooting

No more killing, no more corruption

No more cartelism, no more nepotism

United we stand, divided we fall

Come together for the sake of unity

Sierra Leone is our own We come together and make Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone is our own We come together and make Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone!

We will make it fine

Bureh Beach, the boys and girls of the surf club are awesome.

We interact as equals from the outset.

We share, trade and find real friends here.

_ Are you guys cool? - Yes.

- Are you super cool? - Yes!

Perfect!

Is it good?

What's better, mango or pineapple?

Spider-Man.

- Spider-Man? - Spider-Man?

Spider-Man is the best?

Spider clothes.

Spider clothes, uh-huh!

I thought you were a poet.

You're a poet and a cook?

- Many talents. - Yeah, I cook a lot.

When we ask people their greatest wish

they reply, a job, health, family and something to eat.

“The West is so rich people crap in drinking water,"

is a phrase a friend told me that I can't forget.

I vow to stop getting upset about so many unimportant things.

Amazing what I've learned

by leaving my comfort zone and just doing things.

- After having the door open for days... - Weeks!

After weeks of having it open our money is gone now.

If we don't get it back by four today then a man is going to come by

to do some black magic.

He'll try to get the money back somehow. I can't wait to see how that works.

But they're really taking it to heart.

They say it's never happened before. Well, that was pretty stupid of me.

I counted the money and took some of it into town to shop.

I left the rest on the driver's seat.

It was Sunday and the beach was full of people.

They aren't questioned.

The witch-hunt begins.

It's just crazy to see this.

Somehow it feels like we're in the Middle Ages.

Because, yeah, the culprit was found using magic.

And now she's guilty.

The headman, in yellow, tried to arbitrate, in his office.

He tried to settle where to get the money

or it'll reflect poorly on the camp and community.

We won't get out of this all too quickly.

We stupidly left our car open.

Now all hell has broken loose here.

But I think the bad blood here has been brewing for a while,

the dispute between the community and the surf camp.

I feel really sorry for the market lady. She doesn't have the money.

She's supposed to pay 500,000 to that guy over there

for being found guilty, and then she has to pay us back.

I doubt she even took it. She didn't look like it.

She looked like a poor devil. They needed to blame someone.

Maybe they blamed her because she's not pan of the community.

I don't believe in this bunkum, but we can't say, “Just forget it."

if we did that we wouldn't be respecting all their efforts and their culture.

No idea, we'll see.

It's quite a predicament.

A stupid, nasty predicament.

The spirits show their rage in no uncertain terms.

The whole car is shaking.

Tired?

Everything is laid to waste.

The guys finished the house just two days ago.

No one gets excited, they just start cleaning up.

It is what it is, getting upset won't get anyone anywhere.

I'd like to do something crazy, like buy land in Sierra Leone

or do something to anchor myself in Africa.

Ulli can't wait to get home. I'm scared to death.

After 43,000 km, more than once around the world,

we arrive in Guinea, our final new country.

Man, what a crappy trail!

I'm never going off-road again on this trip.

Ulli is irritated.

I'd say

we write it off to not having to repair what we repair here in Germany.

I don't feel like repairing anything else.

All I want to do is go home.

We'll mount it and then lower it down.

After two whole years of traveling I still get in my own way.

But, hey, that's me, and that's okay.

The villagers help us once again. No one is left on their own here.

They said it's still rough, but not as bad as before.

I hope the car survives this.

What a load of crap!

Our shock absorber is gone.

Wherever you go,

whatever you do, you take your fears with you.

Accept that and just do it and you'll grow as a person.

They repaired our car for free.

Why?

No idea, that's Africa.

If this trip taught me one thing

it's that everything turns out fine.

Trust yourself and the world, it is good.

Lean back, take a deep breath and enjoy the ride.

Live!

TO LIFE AND THE FREEDOM TO TRAVEL