Big Boo Boo!

So after spending another night in the Park with absolute camping exclusivity, and listening the roar of lions early in the morning, we set off for Kandi in Benin to refill with petrol (we had also given away to the Frenchies of course) and supplies. Hmm, well not quite the size of the dot as implied on the map and 3 petrol stations with not a drop of petrol, and petrol attendants waving us away from their dozes in the slithers of shade.

We did however find the Kandi Auberge and negotiated a camping fee for 2 nights and so spent a day dusting the contents of the car and getting the few supplies we could from the market, like pineapples, tomatos, onions and some random bottles of olives and tinned mushrooms in the sparsely stocked mud hut store.

We set off early the next morning before light for Nigeria, crossing in the North on a road clearly marked on the map as an ‘improved’ road. We asked for the route at the ‘Gendarmerie’ and luckily they happened to be going to the last village, ‘Segbana’ in Benin on the border so we followed them and had our own private police escort! Stamping out was easy as we directed the police on how to sign and stamp our Carnet and passports (so obliging when it’s actually a customs and immigration role!), and set off across the border anticipating a Nigerian immigration office on the other side. After reaching the first village, our GPS indicated that we had definitely crossed the border but there was no official station in sight. We pressed onto the next village and came across a stick boom and a police officer who said that we would need to continue to the next village, and even wrote down the villages we would pass through to our next point on the map, as they had no stamps available....and the ‘bush road’ as it’s called got smaller and smaller ending up with no visible tracks whatsoever, soil eroded motorbike paths and yet another tiny village that directed us onward.

Camels loaded to the gunnels with who knows what, plenty milling Moslem traders with dark sinister looks and sunglasses, although very friendly and no sign of immigration! Things were a little unsettling but we knew we were headed in the right direction.

Hmm, and then a few of our first water crossings, not my best! Sloosh through the first, skid and mud splatter through the next and freak through the next as water sloshed over our bonnet! Not a tree for a winch or a person in sight! Would have all been fine if I didn’t look across and even see that Andrew had misgivings in his expression! Anyway, we plunge on and the road comes to a dead halt with a massive expanse of water in front of us (at Rofia).....yes, we need to wait for the ferry to take us across the Niger Reservoir. I am by now comparing the fun of having a Thai massage on the beach versus the idea of putting Mo on a rickety ferry with a few other over laden trucks, whose engine is broken and therefore has two banana boats pushing it across from either side with a little motor boat engine, and of course, we have NO MONEY! Well, no Naira to pay, and too far a road to go all the way around. Now what?

Overladen truck loading onto ferry

Mo loading onto ferry

We hung around asking whether we could pay with dollars or a tin of beans but no luck! Eventually we asked a well dressed looking chap if he knew where we could exchange money and he literally pulled out his wallet and gave us the money for the ferry and waved us on our way. We wish you well Mr Saviour Nigerian man!

So Mo got loaded up and we put putted across to the other side! Whew! And on we went, still illegally in the country, desperately wanting to find some officials as opposed to holding thumbs we catch them off duty! We were stopped by an immigration hut on the side of the road and clapped our hands with glee which I think completely threw them. We were then asked to take a seat on the side of the road and explained our dilemma.....hmm, well we were supposed to go to Babana to get out stamps on the border (of course we were just supposed to know that) but they understood where we were coming from and directed us onto their offices in Kontagora, so off we went again, now well into the country as stowaways. We found customs as it was dusk, and the friendly officials were sitting outside washing their feet and enjoying Friday eve. Relief, as we had now been driving 12 hours and averaged a whole 22.5km/hr!!!!

After much banter and scrutinising of the map, they generously assisted us in stamping our Carnet for Mo and suggesting a motel to sleep at, suggesting we meet them in the morning to assist us with immigration. During the lengthy wait when you’re not actually too sure what’s going on, I was complimented on the fact that I had covered up (with my beach sarong) and was respectful as ‘those things’ are only for my husband! Andrew then got lectured on how he could possibly let a woman drive, although he thought it admirable and indicative of an independent woman, which we just giggled at as we weren’t too keen on rocking the boat admitting we actually had a right hand drive!

Hotel Safara was safe and clean and we even got to sit on the edge of a Moslem wedding that was held at the hotel, even as the power was unable to cope with all the eventualities and kept cutting! Next morning early, we met our customs officials as agreed and were escorted to the office using a separate car so that there was no thought by the next formality that we had perhaps paid a bribe to customs. What they did however explain to us is that we actually came along the smugglers route and would therefore be considered spies (aaah, so that’s what all the confused but cheerful dark glasses clan was all about!). And if we weren’t African, and American specifically, they would have definitely sent us on our way back to the border! Yay for Africa.

But not so successful, and after a long rehashing of our tale, they had no entry stamps and could only offer us illegal alien stamps for those that announce themselves when already in the country. Looong deliberations and much patience exercised, we were eventually told that we had to go back to the border escorted by an official! Not possible as we had to get to Abuja by Sunday to hit the Angolan embassy by Monday, the drop off day for the visa application.

A lot more hanging around and putting on a helpless quivery lip from myself, another solution was suggested whereby if we could instil enough trust, we would be allowed on our way to Abuja to head office (i.e. he was obliged to escort us to the border and if anything went wrong from us, he would lose his job). A colleague’s friend sent off into the market to buy airtime, a call to head office and we are allowed to go on our way on the promise that we would go to immigration first thing Monday morning in Abuja to meet Mr Kumle.

Our camping possie behind the Sheraton

Whew! So here we are, camping at the back of the Sheraton Hotel between the dump and the staff quarters washing line but all is good and if nothing else, we weren’t hassled once by officials along our unofficial road and have only encountered friendly, enthusiastic police and officials. Apparently the ‘official’ road just past the ‘official’ border has 20 stops within the first 20km all exercising their strategies of declaring right hand drive illegal or requesting papers or just directly asking for money. Perhaps ‘Mandela’ country has also been to our advantage as it’s usually the first question asked of us, and how is Mandela? Send our regards.

So we’re off to see Mr Kumle tomorrow, hold thumbs! If you haven’t heard from us in the next few days, at least you know of our last position! J

And of course the conclusion to anyone heading from Benin to Nigeria, rather go through the border via Nikki!

Our French cooks at the roadside truckers diner, R40 for 2 big beers, some yam, some goat (we think) and some liver wrapped in intestine (we think), some dragon slime (okra), chickpeas, rice and chill tomato sauce, all rather delicious :) and constitutions still strong

Bushveld Utopia

We have been in Benin’s Northern game park called Penjari, for two days now, it is the true outdoor experience. We are camping in very basic locations where we seem to be the only people around, actually we have only heard one car this morning and nothing since. The camp we are at overlooks a spectacular dam and the sun is about to set. The Fish Eagles are calling and there are flocks of Bee Eaters and Hamerkops flying around (yes flocks, amazing!).

We have spotted plenty Elephant, hippo and crocks along with a plethora of local buck all similar to our own but slightly different from Impala to Roan Antelope, I feel like I am back in Botswana when we were 4x4'ing around and you were simply allowed to camp out anywhere with nobody else around... absolute bliss.

We had a very awesome evening last night when we set up in a spot that we weren’t sure we were allowed to be and around 20h00 a vehicle pulled in with their headlights focussed on us (oh hell have we done something wrong and is there another bribe, fine luring??). It ended up being 5 folk living in Benin, (a family of 4 chilled Frenchies and a local Benin friend from the village where they are working for a year) TOTALLY LOST, no fuel and no water!! We helped them out and they spent the evening, a truly spectacular time under a tree with bats that would fly in from time to time to pollinate the buds, everytime the bats arrived it felt and sounded like rain fall as they swooped amongst the branches and then off to feed on another tree to conclude the cross pollination.

Camping in the school yard

We ended our time in Togo with a day tour of the Tata houses up North which are miniature castles built in mud. Their religion  is anamalism/ voodoo so there are fetishes outside the entrances for hunting, protection, curing of snake bites and fertility. Each mound has normally got blood and some sort of sacrifice (piece of a goats ear, guinea fowl parts etc.). We arrived late and were accommodated in a local school yard (what and awesome chilled out headmaster).

The Tata: You enter through a small door which can house chickens and a grinding mill, then through into a larger open area where the animals are kept at night and then upstairs to the living quarters and you can overlook the landscape for enemies from here. The round towers are silos for grain, nuts, and oil etc. We cant believe they still build the same fortresses and live in them. The initial design was based on a hollow Baobab tree and they then used the fortress to forge off predators and try to fight the westerners who wanted to take the strong males and females for slavery. A very informative and well worth visit. The main road through Togo is bad and very slow, plenty of potholes and trucks (Benin’s road structure seems to be in much better condition.

On a personal side we are loving the little villages and random places, however have had enough of the general understaning that the foreigner and specifically white man will provide and MUST provide... no mater what we are doing there is always a hand awaiting some sort of handout, even stopping on the side of the road in the most desolate of places we can find, we suddenly are encountered by one or two locals staring at us which eventually turns into a wanting hand... not happening on our side as it never ends...

Malaria? whats that?....

Its Tuesday the 19^th January and we have now been in Togo for a few days, internet contact is very scarce and we cannot link in with our 3G for some reason. The local keyboards are also different to ours back in SA so emailing takes an incredibly long time figuring out where certain buttons are.

We left Green Turtle last Thursday and headed back to Accra to make a few changes to our gear and get some additional supplies. On our last day at Green Turtle we headed off to Cape Three points, the furthest land point to 0;0 so we calibrated our watches to the GPS as this was about the most accurate time possible by land. It is a very cool spot with a lighthouse and we got a short private tour by Charles, the local guy looking after the lighthouse, he is quite inventive and has made stacks of maps and directional arrows pointing to New York, Cape Town etc. Very cool and well worth the drive.

The final hours were also spent at the local hospital at Dixcove where Clauds has managed to pick up the big M (Maleria), we spent a few hours in the hospital waiting for the test results, they had run out of the 15min tests so had to wait for the slide to manually dry. We both were allowed to take a peep down the microscope. Malaria’s gestation period takes around 7 – 10 days and we had only been in Africa for 6 days which meant Clauds was bitten in the airport as we landed... lucky girl. We were a bit slack on initiating our malaria cure in South America so can’t blame that... my dear wife is really testing out her tolerance for diseases, but a quick three day course of anti malaria cure and she is right as rain!! We however did end off our day back at camp with some Crayfish and Tuna we bought in the market... delicious (the folks from SA and Belgium all pitched in for a real feast!!)

We entered Togo on Saturday eve a bit later than hoped as whenever someone tells you a journey will be 2/3 hours we need to adjust it to 5/6 hours. The police are fascinated by our vehicle so there is no way of getting away fast. The border crossing at Lome was pretty easy apart from our shipping company importing our car fully and not filing in the Carne (a temporary import and export permit) which meant the clearing agents had to spend 1.5 hours convincing the Gharnaians that the car was cleared. Anyway all was cleared and we left the border after 18h00. The Togo side was straight forward and they signed us through.

We found a little spot called Chez Alice which is 12km outside of Lome (capital of Togo) along the beach road which has some basic camping facilities but perfect for our needs (a running shower is a luxury which they had), cost per evening was CFA 1000 per evening each which amounts to around R 15.00 each.

On Sunday the 16^th we walked down to the beach which is not for swimming but were met by Dan, a very cool old local chap who showed us around his beach house which he had decorated in shells  and other items off the beach, he also manufactures drums (some people are just born artists). Dan proceeded to spend the remainder of Sunday with us taking us off to the local market in Lome and took us out razzling in the evening to Gods Beach (we partied away with some locals just chilling in different nightclubs). He also found out the exact whereabouts of the Angola embassy for us and we all caught a taxi in on Monday morning (with slight hangovers).

Dan's House

The embassy was closed... DAMMIT!!! For no apparent reason however the guards tell us that they had a ministry meeting or something, sounds like absolute bull but we will try again on Tuesday. The Angola visa is very important for us to get as we cannot enter the DRC without it and there are very limited embassies. In the meantime our small camera has packed up but some locals believe they can fix it so we left it in town.

Tuesday 18^th and we head back to the bloody embassy by ourselves after the 35 min taxi ride and the usual 15min mortorbike ride (very fast and really great for the adrenaline rush) we skid into the embassy gates again... we get the same guards blankly looking at us stating they do not know why but the secretary general we needed to see had not come to work and we should come back tomorrow... NO WAY MUTHERS!! So we sat at the gates and said we would wait until someone arrived at work who could assist us... we were quickly given a telephone number of the head hancho and were informed that we could apply for our visa here but it would take 7 – 10 days as the visa needs to be sent off to Abuja in Nigeria, the same would need to be done if we went to the embassy in Benin which was our next stop as we do not want to spend too much time in Nigeria but alas it seems like we are off to Abuja to get our visas...

Dan the man found us on Tuesday evening and insisted we have a fish braai at his spot with some local Cusava/ Jam and a fantastic sauce. We had to buy all the ingredients and he would cook, we couldn’t say no and had a really superb evening feeding some locals who also pulled in (the whole community seems to really help one another out), we even had a drumming session under the full moon... The Togoliese have to be some of the most hospitable people we have met on our journey thus far including South America. (any one going to Chez Alice should definitely find Dan whom you will find straight down on  the beach, he has the last house on the right with the red doors, he is awaiting every ones arrival...)

This morning Wednesday 19^th, Clauds went to town with Dan to pick up the camera (which is still broken), i packed up the car and we started driving around lake Togo, we misunderstood the Lonely Planet and drove to a town called Togoville expecting some accommodation... NOT!! We were informed once we arrived in this small town that the resorts we were looking for were on the other side of the lake where we had just come from, there was however one “hotel’ in town... we negotiated a price for camping in their back yard and have set up camp next to a slightly green pool. We have everything we need including flushing toilets and showers so it has worked out fairly well. I must admit the best thing about our trip has been the total randomness in every aspect, from the people to accommodation to roads etc. Well we sit here on a small stretch of grass with a great dinner of chicken, tomatoes, onion, rice and chilli boiling away and you have to remind yourself how cool Africa can be!!

Tomorrow we head North in Togo looking at some waterfalls as we are wanting to go to one of the game parks in North Benin so we figured we would begin the Northerly route now as we need not go to the capital of Benin which is on the coast.

On our congrats list:

Ammy and Mark your new addition Mia is absolutely adorable congrats again!!!

Ed and Gail congrats on your wedding anniversary.

Later

Surfs Up!

Tuesday morning 07h00, surfs up so we head off down the beach to a little cove and spend the morning in the ocean (my surfing skills definitely need some serious work)... wow what an amazing way to spend Tuesday morning!!

We met up with some other Saffers that are heading home from the UK so joined them for a Tuna Braai last evening and we are heading off in a short while to go and try to catch some Crayfish for dinner this evening... rough life!! Hopefully tonight we will also see some turtles as this will be our third attempt at seeing them.

Things are going really well since we arrived in Ghana, our kit all seems to be working great and we have definitely made the right decision on all the gear we have bought along. MASSIVE THANKS to all our mates that supplied us with music, now that we are in the car we spend hours going through all your playlists, its freaking awesome. We got a bit nostalgic looking around the car the other day and identifying all the little gadgets and things that our family and friends have given us for this trip, everything we have been given seems to be in full use.

Tomorrow we are going to try and find a spot called “Cape Three Points” which is the closest land point to 0.0, even though we are about 5 degrees South no other land point is closer, should be interesting.

Its time for us to grab some dinner, so were off down the beach to test our skills at catching dinner...

Trouble with the Law

How is this spot we have just arrived at for a few nights? It’s called Green Turtle Lodge and it’s about 30km west of Takoradi (+/- 230km west of Accra).

As we mentioned before, we decided to go west a bit to test out our gear so we can pass through Accra again and get anything we need on our eastward bound route home. Also, we are getting a gauge on how far we can drive in a day – 200km in about 5 hours so we reckon we looking at 50 days of 200km (max) – so far……..

We stopped at Big Milly’s Backyard on the way for 2 nights, fantastic place and a Reggae party that rocked until 1:30 this morning – we jived til the end and wondered if the singer was really singing as it could have been Bob himself he was so good, but no valuables allowed on the beach, perhaps a little too close to Accra.

We got hit with our first and hopefully last unsuccessful police stop today as we didn’t take the curbed police lane past their hut and went straight – OOOPS!!!! With much whistle blowing and running out in front of us we were asked if we thought we were the president….apparently an enormous offense and after having the reckless driving law read out to him, Andrew managed to escape a court appearance tomorrow, a MASSIVE fine and handing in his license and credit card. I sat in the car waiting patiently as only he was summoned and when he eventually returned, Inspector Ken was giving him his personal cell number, just in case, told me that Andrew was such a good man, and with a spot fine, we were sent on our way, with much warning about being careful – just as the haggling started because he was wearing slip slops and something about a right hand drive car being illegal. I am already exhausted by the endless stops and the inevitable “what have you got for me for New Year?” but we were warned! Completely worth it when we get to paradise for a mere R22 each per night for camping (we get to use the ablutions).

And CONGRATS to our blog manager, Craig, and Carissa on their engagement – excellent choice you two!! Very happy for you, you make a brilliant couple!

It began in Africa....

Happy New Year everyone! May 2011 be as good as we started it.

Wow, what a bash! Gilly and Manuel took us to the Yacht Club which was a party and a half – the best New Year we can remember (sort of remember J!). Thanks guys for such an awesome time! What a pleasure to stay with you and have familiarity and luxury all in one! A seriously interesting day on the Favela tour watching (out the corners of our eyes, sunglasses pointed the other way) guys count out money, gun on belt surrounded by bags of marijuana!

Your apartment is awesome, and we could see Christ from our bedroom and didn’t feel the need to HAVE to go up there and do the touristy thing. Naughty naughty, and thanks to Gill for offering us pics of Christ that we could pretend we took J

So we left Rio, and flew to Sau Paulo and onto SA for a short stop over. We were met by the fogles who took us home for a home cooked meal and Daryl and Chris came over. What a lovely and random stop over – we could have had a week more to catch up. Was great to see our pooches who have been somewhat Wilsonified and after they eventually managed to heave themselves out of their new “baskies” they suddenly recognized Andrew and went berserk – it was very cute. But it was back to the airport after a few hours and onto Ghana. Minus one bag but safely there and making camp at Guy’s house – what a pleasure to have a base. And there was Mo, patiently waiting for us, what an awesome sight.

After a good sleep, we missioned out to Shoprite to gather supplies like a fire extinguisher and gas bottles which we weren’t allowed to ship but we came back with neither and a car full of everything else – over 4 hours later, getting lost and of course becoming accustomed to driving on the wrong side of the road with a right hand drive!!

6^th Jan

Today we missioned (notice second use of this non-existent word!) off to the Nigerian embassy to apply for a visa – and of course armed with all the docs we reckoned we needed, we still had to go back and gather another 5 docs – honestly ridiculous but there’s no arguing. We made it back late by 10 mins and a few less hairs as we don’t get another chance til next week and fingers crossed we get to collect Andrew’s bag and the visa tomorrow. We have decided to head west tomorrow to test our kit (we head East home) and then come back East thereafter on our big venture along the coast.

Very comforting to be able to open the window to an apple seller and ask him in English how much he is selling his fruit for and he answers in perfect English. Quite a difference to Kwanto Es? And then we don’t actually understand the response and just look at each other and hand over a big note and see how much change we get. Ghana and Nigeria are English speaking countries, Togo and Benin will be French and then a lot of French after that but at least it’s better than my Spanish!

Congrats to Abs and Neil on their new daughter Madeline, and we wait with baited breath for your daughter Am and Mark, hopefully she decides to make an appearance in the not too distant future!