After graduation this year, Elias Rothblatt ’12 and Mac Schneider ’12 plan on participating in the annual Mongol Rally. They will start in London and travel ten thousand miles across two continents before reaching their final destination in Mongolia—the entire journey will be made in an emergency vehicle. On Sunday, The Argus caught up with the intrepid explorers to ask them about their plan.

Argus: What do you have planned for the summer?
Elias Rothblatt ’12: Following graduation, we, along with three other friends from high school, are participating in the Mongol Rally, which is a yearly car race—I say race sort of in the very loosest sense—from London to Ulaanbaatar.

So five kids from our high school—Lakeside School in Seattle, Washington—including us on July 14, are going to set off from London and drive to the capitol of Mongolia. We’re planning on doing this in an emergency service vehicle, either a firetruck or an ambulance, both because of the spectacle and because there’s a shortage of emergency vehicles in Mongolia, and once we get there we’ll be donating it.

You either have to do it in a vehicle where there’s some sort of benefit to having that vehicle in Mongolia, or it has to be a really small car. There’s a price limit and an engine size limit. The point being the sporting merit of the event. It’s like, “Yeah we did this crazy drive in a tiny car that you would normally take grocery shopping, but instead we drove for thousands of miles.”

A: How old is the race?
Mac Schneider ’12: The first official rally was in 2004 and six teams competed, but only four made it all the way. Presently, anywhere between 250-300 teams compete each year.

A: Is there a prescribed route?
MS: You choose your own route.

A: Are you allowed to break traffic laws?
MS: I don’t really see us needing to break traffic laws. I think it’s not against the race guidelines, but it might be against the law.
ER: I think logistically our biggest challenges are going to be getting visas and taking good care of the vehicle.

A: Do you know how to take care of vehicles?
MS: We are looking into taking classes at a community college for autoshop next semester. Middlesex.

A: Are you in it to win it?
MS: Definitely.
ER: We’re in it to win it in a sense, although it’s not an ambition of mine to be the first team to arrive. I’d view it as a success if we make it all the way to Mongolia.
MS: And to have the most fun along the way.

A: When the teams arrive, do they convene?
MS: Yes. Unless you really miss the deadline.

A: So you’re expected to hang out in Ulaanbaatar until a lot of people arrive?
MS: Yeah, probably or a few days or a week. We’ll want to.
ER: It will be people from all over the world who will have just done the exact thing that we’ve done.

A: How long have you been planning or wanting to do this?
ER: One of the other team members and I have been talking about it since freshman year of college. Back then we were on a wait list and you had to apply to get in. We got into the race, but as freshmen in college we couldn’t really scrape together the resources, the time, the parental backing to make it a reality that year. But now that we’re graduating…

A: How are you fundraising? What do you need?
ER: It depends on whether or not we can solicit a donation for an emergency service vehicle. If we can solicit the donation, that’s a huge part of it, it will cut our fundraising needs to a fraction of what they would have been otherwise. Other than that, money will basically go to fuel, visa costs, charities, and food. What we’re doing is raising as much money as possible.

A: Have you started approaching people yet?
ER: We’re using what’s essentially a kickstarter on our blog, thelustyladies.blogspot.com, and you can donate via Paypal on the blog using credit card. The five of us are all also reaching out to our respective family and friend networks and trying to talk to people who might have a business that would want to align itself with this cause. Also, the more people we can get to follow us on Twitter (@TheLustyLadies) or like us on Facebook (www.facebook.com/thelustyladies), the easier it will be for us to convince potential sponsors to aid us.

A: Have you started applying for visas?
ER: No. Our general time frame we’re operating on is: route planning over Thanksgiving break, and we’ll start doing visas over winter break.
MS: For the route planning, as far as we’re concerned, we’re not going to go through Russia. We’d like to get the most variation, so we hope to go south of the Black Sea through Turkey and north of the Caspian Sea in order to avoid Iran—meaning we would pass through Turkey on our way to Georgia and Russia before we head south again to Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, etc. Since our route hasn’t been decided yet it’s hard to say where exactly we will be traveling, but we are fairly sure we want to take a route across Western Europe that will have us arriving in Turkey. From there we would like to see The Caucasus, a few ‘stans, and hopefully some China before our grand arrival in Mongolia.  Iran is the biggest question. We’re probably not going to be able to go through Iran, because we’re Americans. But, you know, they’re missing out.

A: It’s dangerous to go through Iran.
ER: Yes. People have actually died doing this before.
MS: People die doing most things though.

A: What do you do if you’re in a fire truck, for instance, and you break down in rural Belarus?
MS: We’re not going to go through Belarus. But we’d seek help from the people who were there. Hopefully we’ll have gained some mechanical knowledge.
ER: Several of us are experienced travelers. We’ve been in very difficult situations before. So we feel comfortable in foreign locations.

A: What are some of your travel experiences?
MS: I took a year off before college. For the first semester I was in India and a friend of mine broke his leg. Open fracture and his bone was out the middle of his shin. We were hiking up in the Himalayas at 16,000 feet, 50 miles away from the nearest trail head. But we had a satellite phone, and we got out of it. Called the Indian Air Force and they did an emergency evacuation.

A: How is your friend doing?
MS: He’s doing fine now. He had three surgeries in Delhi and five more when he got to the U.S., but he’s walking again. Along those lines, I’ve been trained as an EMT, so I have medical experience for the team, as a result of being in that situation.

A: What countries would you go through south of Russia?
MS: There are several options. I think we’re looking to go through Turkey.
ER: The organizers make it really clear that once you set off on the race, you’re on your own, so there’s no logistical support. It is really your responsibility to choose your route and to get yourself out of any problems that you might find yourself in. That’s part of the attraction of this challenge. Even though there are multiple teams competing, I’m sure that if some of us end up on the same route, we’ll share knowledge and tips and tricks. At the same time, you are really responsible for taking care of yourself.
MS: I think the countries we’ll be going through are Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, possibly Azerbaijan, Turkey.

A: Will you go through China?
ER: We’d like to go through China. When I was in high school I spent a year in China, and I spent about a third of that time traveling all over the country. I speak Chinese fluently, and another one of the team members also has a lot of experience with Chinese.
MS: If you think about it, all these countries get hundreds of visa applications a year saying Mongol Rally. So they’re used to it.

A: Don’t go to Iran.
ER: Yeah, I think the parents are leaning in that direction too.

A: How did the team get its name?
ER/MS: We wanted a Seattle theme. The Lusty Lady was a feminist-owned strip club, one of the first in the country, and it was designed to be a kind of safe place where women could work as strippers and not be subject to a number of the dangers or risks of mixed treatment present in other strip clubs. They had a sign, an iconic marquis in downtown Seattle, and there would be witty puns about popular culture. “Happy Nude Year,” or on Saint Patrick’s Day, “No one’s wearing green.” Everyone in Seattle knows what the Lusty Lady is.

 

Visit the Lusty Ladies at thelustyladies.blogspot.com