Then came the news that we had been dreading - the northern border from Russia into Mongolia, which we had applied to enter, was still not open for Mongol Rally cars.
The rally organisers had an agreement with the Mongolian Government which should have allowed us to bypass normal vehicle importation rules, on the basis that we donated our cars to charity when we arrived in Ulan Bator.
No one knew why - perhaps because of recent elections and the ensuing turmoil - but the officials at the northern border were no longer honouring the agreement.
That left us with two options: We could drive to the northern border, as planned and abandon Oddy and the ambulance there.
The alternative was trying to enter the western border, which inexplicably was still allowing Mongol Rally cars in.
The decision was complicated. The reason we had opted for the northern border initially was that it was only 300 kilometres from Ulan Bator. We could drive right to the doorstep on relatively good Russian roads.
Relatively good in that they existed at all. Entering through the western border meant travelling 1800km across Mongolia "roads" - nothing more than boulder-covered dirt tracks, rivers, and sand dunes.
Or so we had heard. The other problem was that we had no idea what to expect from Mongolia, other than the recommendation only specialist 4x4 vehicles should attempt it.
The ambulance couldn't even drive along sealed roads without breaking down, let alone off-road. Oddy has less ground clearance than a shopping trolley. We had never even considered driving across it. It was lunacy on a grand scale.
"What do we do?" Chris asked, addressing the six of us.
"Go west" almost all of us replied, in unison.
There was never any doubt. Some even tried to mumble the rest of the song by the Village People. The Rally had finally begun!
Four days later, and the mood was not so jovial. What we thought was a 500km drive though Russia to the western border, had turned out to be 1200km (we didn't have a Russian map and the area was covered by a legend on our Kazakstan map).
Our progress was further hampered by corrupt police wanting bribes. (We were stopped four times in a 24 hour period, but managed never to pay a bribe.)
When we finally did reach the freezing, desolate, end-of-the-world border town, we found out that it was shut until the following morning.
And then our luck became really bad.
Instead of crossing the border from no man's land into Mongolia first, as we should have at the head of the queue, the border officials infuriatingly let everyone move past us.
After an hour we discovered that only that morning, a Mongolian government official had decided that no more rally cars could come through.
Apparently, until that morning, the country had been in the grip of their most successful Olympics campaign ever. Everyone had been in a great mood.
Now it was over, it was back to business, bribes and bureaucracy - as usual.
Oddy was stuck in No Man's Land. Chris and James ran inside the border gates to try and resolve the issue. But it was hopeless. No one cared. Instead they took two-hour lunches and shrugged their shoulders at us.
With only days to get to my flight, I had little choice. I would have to leave Oddy, Chris, Marta and the Spaniards, cross the border and try to hitch to the capital for my flight. But even this seemed impossible.
When I tried to walk through the gates, out of No Man's Land, the border official stopped me, saying something about a car in Russian.
Despondent, I sat on the side of the road, threw stones at the gophers on the barren hillside and ate our provisions.
About half an hour later Chris emerged from the building, his head down. I didn't even get up to talk to him.
"Hey guys" he said.
There was little reply, but he continued anyway.
"Who feels like driving 1800km across Mongolia?"
It was back on. We didn't know why the gods had smiled on us, but it didn't matter. It was after 6pm and light was fading, but into Mongolia we plunged, into the darkness.
Click here for the team's website and to donate to their charities.
