By Charlie Grosso

13025km, 14 countries, 38 days.

Longest time without a shower: 4-5 days… But who’s counting, anyway?

Camp shower administered: 2.

Flat tires: 3, Mechanical failures: 0 (That’s for all of those who made fun of my Romanian made car!)

Bribes paid: 0 (no booze, no cigarettes, nothing given).

Times pulled over: 5.

Tickets: 1 (Prague).

Hours spent driving a stick shift before the start of the rally: 1.5 (IKEA parking lot in Romania).

Status of clutch at the end of the rally: Excellent!

Navigated through Istanbul traffic like a pro, shifted up and down gears on steep hills with the precision of a racecar driver. Yes, I want to be a racecar driver!

Vodka consumed: Hard to say when everyone just passes the bottle around.

Goats captured: 1.

Longest border crossing: 44 hrs

Shortest border crossing: 1.5 hrs

Altercation with a skinny Mongolian man to purchase a spare tire: Almost.

Nearly took out the eye of a Canadian with a rock: Check.

Bottomed out and needed to dig the car out: 2.

Days spent in the middle of nowhere: 14+.

Some in the rally say that it was quite a feat that I made it. The odds were against me from the get go, they say. One teammate dropped out before the launch. Didn’t know how to drive a stick shift. Have zero practical mechanical car repair knowledge. Bought a Romanian made vehicle. Only had one full size spare tire and no tools. Visa issues. Another teammate dropped out. Physically driving the entire 13000km. You should have never made it, they say, but I did. I arrived at the finish line with the reputation of driving like a mad woman and being the only woman this year to have made it on her own.

I have been a solo traveler for many years now. I love traveling alone, meeting myself, life, the road. The Mongol Rally was not traveling, but an incredible adventure, one that I am still digesting and re-living after all these months.

“For me, travel has rarely been about escape; it’s often not even about a particular destination… There is something in the act of setting out that renews me, that fills me with a feeling of possibility. On the road, I’m forced to reply on instinct and intuition, on the kindness of strangers, in ways that illuminate who I am, ways that shed light on my motivations, my fears… Often, the farther afield I go, the more at home I feel.” – Andrew MacCarthy, The Longest Way Home.

The rally, and its successful completion, removed the last ounce of fear I had about what is possible. I close my eyes and think back on those days and nights in the middle of nowhere and I smile from ear to ear. I am ready for the next thing. I might love the act of solitary travel, but I am even gladder to have found like-minded adventurers.