The goals change, the love remains

Day 9: There are cars and cars. Some are there to get from A to B. You ride with the others, you're on the move. Some you know, others you love. It's the same with mobile homes. With some you drive and sleep in them, with others you travel. Some you value, others you are married to.

Just like Kalle with his IVECO. In 1990 he took part in the Munich - Marrakech desert rally in a Toyota Hilux and came 119th out of 120 starters. That wasn't a shame, because as always the field of participants was great. No wonder: the winner received 30,000 DM. Kalle won nothing, but he lost his heart: to Morocco and the desert.

A year later, he packed up his wife Andrea and the roof tent and drove back to Morocco in his Hilux for two months. “That was just exciting. All things new. Pure thrill,” remembers Kalle. “There was no internet back then. If we wanted to call home, we had to look for a phone booth for a week,” adds Andrea.

But in the roof tent with their dog, the couple from Bodenwerder, who worked and still work for the same gardening company, soon reached their limits. A new car had to be found. Kalle looked around and by chance saw a semi-trailer truck with four Belgian police IVECOS. It was love at first sight. He bought one of the team cars and began converting it - which continues to this day. “Every summer I sit and think about what I can do differently and better,” he says. And when he can't think of anything, Andrea jumps into the breach and asks for a coffee machine or other essential things...

For ten years I always went to Morocco in the winter. In the summer, for example, Norway, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland were on the program. “We have time off in the summer and vacation in the winter,” says Kalle with a smile. He has a good laugh because he has been retired for a long time while Andrea is still working. Your travel goals have changed. Today the destination is no longer Morocco, but Sagunto. “We have been here at this campsite for the sixth winter,” says Andrea. She could never have imagined spending the winter on a campsite before, “but here, right by the sea, and a little bit away from the hustle and bustle in the front row, it’s very comfortable.”

As comfortable as Kalle and Andrea are on the road in their IVECO. “We drive 80 to 90 kilometers an hour,” says Kalle. It couldn't be much faster with the 2.5 liter engine and its 107 hp. Kalle got his IVECO with 17,000 kilometers. It now has a good 150,000 kilometers on the clock. With this care it's peanuts, because with Kalle's love - including for his Andrea - nothing will rust.

And we're not rusting either, because we had a long walk on the beach today where we hardly met anyone. We passed housing developments, shops, parking lots and homes that were empty and abandoned. It was almost a little spooky. On the way back we found a nice, typically Spanish restaurant where, luckily, we weren't the only guests. The food was great. Icke took a photo of the menu. She says she has been working on the translation for hours. I think she's already choosing what she's going to order tomorrow...