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Some facts about our van, Alexine
Alexine is made in 1976 Germany and her birthday is on the 18th of November. Exactly 39 years later I bought her. Because she is an oldtimer she has an old Dutch license plate; 52-YB-53.
She was originally blue (🤢) and is now a type of turquoise ( painted in the summer of 2020).
🚘 She’s actually not a camper but a proper van – a car. She has a 1600cc engine, 4 cilinders and 50 HP and is about 1500 kilos. And of course she is air cooled!
🚦 She is a Vw T2b, second generation (the first being the T1). Models before 1971 are often called the T2a (or “Early Bay”), while models after 1972 are called the T2b (or “Late Bay”).
🪲 Like the Beetle, from the beginning, the Type 2 earned many nicknames from its fans. Among the most popular at least in Germany, are VW-Bus and Bulli (or Bully) or Hippie-van or the bus.
🌼 These type of vans are called ‘hippie-van’ because it was a small car with lots of seats (three rows incl. the front row). Young people needed this to go with their friends to festivals like Woodstock, thus; the hippie-van was born.
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Why is she called Alexine?
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Like many vans also our van has a name and quite a special one.. She is called Alexine, named after the not-so-famous-but-should-be-famous explorer Alexandrine (Alexine) Tinne.
🧐 Who is Alexine Tinne?
Alexine was born on 17 October 1835 in The Hague. She was a very wealthy girl. Her father died when she was only ten years old, making her one of the richest women in the Netherlands. Besides that she was a photographer and made the first known panoramic photo on earth 😍
🌍 Alexine and travelling
Alexine’s interests in travelling were developed at an early age. As a young girl, she accompanied her father through France, Switzerland, and Italy. Her parents allowed her to travel extensively on her own which allowed her to spend many summers with friends in England and France where she became fluent in both languages.
🗺 Expedition to discover the source of the Nile
But besides Europe Alexine was in love with Africa, especially Egypt. Tinne was so intrigued by Africa, that in 1863 she launched an expedition to discover the source of the Nile. Though she didn’t find the source of the Nile, her adventures were still fruitful. Tinne documented her travels along the region’s waterways and settlements, compiling photographs and drawings now housed in museums.
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To a niece, Tinne wrote of her intention to travel beyond Bahr el Ghazal in South Sudan. “When you look at the map you will see there is at the SouthWest of the Equator, a large space empty of names, it’s there we want to go to.”
🗺 Expedition to discover the source of the Congo river
However, during the trip to search the source of the Nile, she lost her aunt and her dear mother. But going back to The Hague was not an option for her. She was an explorer in her heart and the undiscovered vastness of Africa was calling. So she prepared another expedition, this time to discover the source of the Congo river.
The last adventure she went on was crossing the Sahara desert from Egypt to Morocco, she would be the first European woman to try this and she was the first woman to get this far. In that day, her journey into that region was comparable with polar expeditions – it was considered nearly impossible, particularly so by a young female explorer. She died on August 1 in 1869, aged 34, killed by a touareg in the middle of the Sahara 😢
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🧔 Dr. Livingstone (explorer and missionary) said about Alexine “But none rises higher in my estimation than the Dutch lady, Miss Tinne, who after the severest domestic afflictions, nobly persevered in the teeth of every difficulty.”
Read more about Alexine Tinne here.
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