nigeria

Nigeria

Thursday 17th January 2008: Bush Camp near Tchikandou, Benin

GPS Info: N09° 53' 37.0" E03° 17' 15.1"

Miles Today: 420 Total Miles: 10975

Up to an early and cold start to cross the border into Nigeria at Tchikandou. We got to the Benin Immigration barrier and after a quick chat got stamped out of Benin and drove on a short way to the Nigerian Immigration office. This man was very friendly, well educated and had recently got back from leave in Lagos. He was dressed like a warden dressed for the berg, or mountains - with a jersey, long trousers and thick socks and boots. He spoke perfect English and was a gentle introduction into Nigeria, which is also English speaking. From this efficient man we were stopped by the Medical/Health Officer who wanted to see our vaccination certificates. Next was the Fruit and Vegetable Inspector wanting to know if we had any fresh fruit or veg. Ross had to open the back and told him we had boxes of clothes, etc. Heids showed him the sealed bag of beans and carrots and bottles of water which seemed to be enough. The wors, at the bottom of the fridge, escaped his attention.

Next we drove a few metres to the tediously slow chatterbox Customs man to get the carnet stamped. Ross's patience was tested to the limits with this man who wanted to know every unnecessary detail about us and our trip, but lacked the focus to do his simple job of stamping the carnet. Eventually after about an hour and a half, and Ross very nearly pulling his hair out, we had all we needed and were in Nigeria on our way to Abuja. We bounced and twisted along a Voortrekker type non-existent road past Yashikera, Kosubosu, Kaiama and on to New Bussa. This stretch of 178km took us many many hours doing an average speed of about 20-25mph. Ross handled this challenging off-roading like a pro and could easily be a rally driver, but only on a slow careful track as he worries about the car too much, which is good for us and Duzi2.

Driving through northern Nigeria we were made to feel like real celebraties. The people and children came running out of their homes and classroom shouting something that sounded like 'La duney' and waving, smiling and laughing like crazy. We had no idea what they were saying, but they were all so happy to see us. Some of the more rural girls and women had brightly painted small dots on their faces with very bright pinky red lipstick. Some of them even had their faces smeared with a white paint of sorts.

We saw one wild monkey as we were leaving the Kainji Lake National Park, and it was little wonder as the Ghaanain trend to burn everything seems to have taken off in Nigeria too. At New Busa we passed the Kainji Dam with it's very impressive dam wall and saw a magnificent glimpse of the very wide Niger River. The road improved to tar with pot holes and this increased our speed and milage covered to Mokwa. We continued on to Bida and Lapai until finally reaching Abuja. We didn't want to bush camp along the way as there were too many people around everywhere, so we entered Abuja in the dark. With no map of Abuja, and their road system comprising of loads of criss-crossing highways we eventually picked our way to the Sheraton Hotel. We traipsed into the very larny foyer and met the night manager who agreed to let us camp around the back of the hotel. We were shown to the toilets and to a disgusting shower, near to where the mosque room was. The shower was the most disgusting thing we've seen, but had water which made us feel a bit better.

There was a cool wind blowing which meant the mozzies were kept at bay and we could sleep quite comfortably, after eventually giving 'management' the necessary forms and copies of things until 1.30am!

Happy Birthday Claire! We hope you had a very special day. We're sure Duan and baby Emily made you feel like a queen today.

Good luck to all of you doing the Dusi. We thought of you all day and hope the water is big, clean and that your boats are strong!

Friday 18th January 2008: Sheraton Hotel, Abuja, Nigeria

GPS Info: N09° 03' 49.1" E07° 29' 05.8"

Miles Today: 15 Total Miles: 10 990

We woke up before 7am to say good-bye to Bayo, who had been very helpful last night and was finishing his shift then. Ross went with him to change our first Nigerian Naira with the Muslims outside the front gate. We got into our smart Embassy clothes to meet the day manager to get his permission to camp and to get to the Angolan Embassy by 9.30am if not before. We found our way to the Angolan Embassy getting there early. We were told to wait until 9.30am for them to open. They are only open from 9.30am to 12noon. There were a whole lot of people waiting for the gates to open. At 9.40am we were all given pieces of paper to complete about whether we had appointments, the purpose of our visit etc. Then after pressure they opened the gate at 9.45am for us to go through individually as they metal-detected everyone as they entered, taking away mobile phones etc. Welcome to friendly Angola.

We all went to the office and were instructed to 'sit' by the fierce receptionist. Then one by one she managed to tell each of the 13 people sitting in his office it was 'not possible' to process their requests. Nobody even cracked the nod to receive a visa application form, as 'it's not possible to get a tourist visa for Angola!' snapped the grouchy sergeant major receptionist!!! She took one very brief look at our passports and told us it was not possible. We had to get it from South Africa. There were three men waiting with fully completed applications together with letters of invitation, and the criteria for each of them was totally different and 'not possible' for any of them. It was the most ridiculous set-up we've been in.

She made even the most calm and collected men lose their cool very quickly. We stayed around waiting for an explaineation as to why it's not possible. Eventually she picked up the phone and referred to us as 'the white people wont go away'. She totally ignored us from then on saying she had dealt wih us and wasn't going to spend her whole day talking to us.We managed to speak to another man who walked passed while she was away from her desk, who eventually called us into a room and explained that rules have changed and they are only issuing official and state visas to Nigerians, from Abuja and we need to apply in a country bordering onto Angola. So after much frustration and eventually meeting the consulate, we had an answer and left. We'll try in Libreville, Gabon.

We went on to the South African High Commission and met Dora, Musa and Hein, who were very interested in our trip and so lovely. Musa has such an incredible knowledge of Nigerian politics and made the complicated situation in Nigeria a lot clearer. Dora was flying out to SA so left early. Each of them said this placement is a very hard one and were not that keen to extend longer than they needed to be here for.

We bought a new Nigerian sim card and recharged it to text our number to Musa and Hein and to let our parents know where we were. On our way back to the hotel, we decided to fill up with diesel only to realise diesel is hard to come by here. Interesting that in a country so full of oil, diesel, petrol and kerosene are just about in shortage. We pulled into a Total garage to be told there was no diesel and within minutes were surrounded by a gang of black market diesel sellers all haggling us. A silver bakkie pulled up and told us to follow him to find good diesel. We followed him to about 7 different filling stations,but had no luck. Eventually we ended up at the NNPC, but they were also empty. He parked his bakkie and arranged a rate for us to get some diesel through the black market sellers on the street, NN120/litre. Amazingly he covered the extra cost of the over inflated diesel price. This was Dr. Obi, a really caring Nigerian man, who was like an angel who appeared, helped us and then disappeared again. With us sorted out, he drove off to his farm. We went back to the hotel and tried to cool off as it was so hot. Ross gave Duzi2 a good check over, topping up the transfer box oil, while Heids tried to catch up on diary updates.

Ross cooked an amazing dinner of boerewors, rice and veggies, followed by sweet and juicy queen pineapple. Ross enjoyed his Castle Stout, thanks to Kenneth.

Saturday 19th January: Sheraton Hotel, Abuja, Nigeria

GPS Info: N09° 03' 49.1" E07° 29' 05.8"

Miles Today: 486 Total Miles: 11 476

Up early this morning while it was still dark. We wanted to get on the road as early as possible so as to keep the driving in the dark this evening to a minimum. We left the Sheraton at about 6.45am and saw the red sun rising over Abuja's main mosque, which reminded Ross of Istanbul, in Turkey. We managed to pick our way out of Abuja's complicated highway road system and were on our way south east towards Makurdi.

Leaving Abuja was like driving through Ouagadougou with all the smoke and thick, low, pollution clouds. The tar roads were patchy with some pretty mean pot holes. We drove on the 'road' linking Aliade with Ogoja. This started off being a good tar road, then disintegrated through a forest into a narrow, eroded sand track, through very interesting and different rural villages. Some of these even had grass lawns. It was Heidi's inaugaration into African off-road driving, which she handled like a star. We met our first African bridge, made up of wooden planks loosely laid over a steel frame. Heids drove nervously over this...so much for Ross doing the bridge driving. Because of the long drive, we split the driving half half.

We arrived in Ikom mid-afternoon and began a long search for diesel - a real problem in Nigeria. It obviously has been a problem for a while as the fuel stations even have signs on the road advertising whether they have diesel, petrol or kerosene. This seemed completely ridiculous to us in a country with such huge off-shore oil reserves. There is also a very thriving black market of diesel sold in jerry cans and drums at very inflated prices along the road. Ross changed money in a dodgy Muslim run black market back room, pretty much the only option to change foreign money in Nigeria. With two full jerries, a full tank of diesel and some Nigerian Naira we set off on the route to Calabar via Ugep.

Wow, it's amazing how the infrastructure changes between each of the states in Nigeria. One state in particular, the Cross River State, had newly tarred, fantastic condition roads even with painted lines, something we hadn't seen in Nigerian non-city areas before. Nigeria is a bit like the United States in the way it's made up of so many different states, all needing representation, and managed independently. Some with obviously crooked, corrupt management.

We were anticipating many police checks along the roads today, but lucky didn't meet them as regularly as some previous overlanders have. In fact we only had three very friendly encounters all day. The first check was merely to chat and ask for a 'gift'. Sorry for that... The second, also a chat but they asked to check our brake lights, which weren't working at that moment in time, which surprised us. 'It must be due to the poor roads,' said the police officer letting us off. The last check tried to tell us 'right hand drive vehicles are illegal in Nigeria', hmmm not true, and then recommended we buy 'The Nigerian Rules of the Road Handbook', in case we might see a road sign and didn't know what it meant. Road signs are very scarce and hardly seen. They also let us go when they realised how far we had to go and how little daylight we had left. We did drive past a few other checks where they made a slow effort to flag us down, but when they saw we weren't slowing down, they turned and retired to their shaded chairs. Just before entering Calabar, we were stopped by the army who also just chatted. The army do the night checks, our first and hopefully last one we'll have as we don't plan to be in Nigeria for another night drive. We stopped where we saw guns or vehicles that could chase us, otherwise just waved and smiled. And we can't even go very fast!

We arrived in Calabar in the dark and went in search of places others have stayed in and which were recommended in the guide books, but to no avail. One, Elinnah Guest House, is no longer a guest house, but is now a private house. The Marian Hotel seemed nice enough, but had expensive rooms and couldn't provide a loo or shower for us if we camped. Eventually we desperately pulled into the very posh Metropolitan Hotel and asked if we could stay in the car park for a safe night's sleep. The night receptionist, Solomon, was SO amazing, kind and friendly. He said we needed to wait for the night manager to come on duty, at around 11pm, but could use the WIFI in the meantime. He recommended we make a very speedy dash for some food, as places close at 10pm. We managed to squeeze into a fast food spot, Mac Bite's Healthy Food, down the road, grabbing a hotdog dinner and buying a tub of real ice-cream to share. Heidi was SO happy to have something to cool down with.

Solomon came to say good-bye as he finished his shift at 10pm and then handed over to Paul, another extremely friendly and caring man. He introduced us to the PR Manager, who was the acting duty manager for the night, which we didn't realise until we asked at 11.45pm.

While we were waiting, we checked our emails and caught up with everyones news. So glad to hear Kimbo; Trix; Linds and Marius; Pauls, Si and Kaira; and Claire and Grant had such a fantastic time together at Kei Mouth. Lovely to hear distance doesn't change friendships. Thanks also for the Dusi results Brad, Gill, Nicole and Kirsty. What an amazing K2 pair Michael Mbanjwa and Martin Dreyer make! Can't wait to hear more Dusi results - Linds, Si and Marius, Lands, Pete and Jan, etc. We've been thinking and talking about the Dusi so much over the past few days.

We then had a shocking and distressing email from Jo telling us the tragic news that Gerhard, our very close Swiss overlanding friend travelling with his wife Theresa, had sadly passed away in Accra on Wednesday as a result of contracting cerebral malaria. Both very upset and shocked we tried to keep busy and eventually followed Paul, the receptionist's, wise advice of trying to get some rest. He was genuinely caring and so amazing in dealing with our shock and sadness. We are both absolutely devastated. Thank you for letting us know and for your concern for our safety, Jo. We're so thankful that you were in Accra to help and support Theresa in such a indescribably shocking situation. We are so sad and wish we could help Theresa in some way too.

Theresa and Gerhard had spent New Year with us at Green Turtle Lodge, in Ghana, and had celebrated their 41st wedding anniversary on the 7th Jan. We were shocked because we had seen them last Saturday when we were leaving Accra on our way to Wli Falls and Gerhard seemed fine. We were also definitely going to meet up with them in Namibia to enjoy Joe's Beerhouse and enjoy belina's in Outjo together. This is such a tragedy! Our thoughts and prayers are with Theresa and their family. We had the priviledge of knowing Gerhard for a month, but he has made such an impression on us that it seems we've known him for ages. He was such an intelligent, kind, friendly and giving man with a sensitive nature. The world needs more people like him. It actually feels like we have lost a member of our own family.

After hearing the circumstances surrounding his death, we know this whole tragedy needn't have ended like this if the medical and insurance team had carried out their respective jobs in the way that is expected of them. We both feel really angry about that, and will give details of which hospital and insurance company were involved, when we know them.

Sunday 20th January: Metropolitan Hotel, Calabar, Nigeria

GPS Info: N04° 58' 15.3" E08° 19' 42.3"

Miles Today: 0 Total Miles: 11 476

Both not sleeping well and with puffy teary eyes we got up and tried to make ourselves presentable to meet the General Manager to get the OK to be able to camp in the carpark for tonight again. We met Josephine and Patrick, the day receptionists and Fred & Jude, in the foyer. Wow, such fantastic, friendly and kind people. They were intrigued to meet 'real travellers' and to hear about our trip. The staff at the Metropolitan Hotel are truly special people, without exception. We explained our story to them and they said there was no Manager who would be in today, so gave us the go ahead to stay, even allowing us into their locker room area to shower and freshen up. We were SO grateful to them for this because we were both rather sticky and dusty from yesterday's drive, even though we tried to have a birdy bath last night.

Both still in shock and disbelief about last night's very sad news about Gerhard, we re-read Jo's email and did some research on malaria on the internet. While we were doing this a Greek man walked over to us to have a chat. He is an expat working for the company who has the biggest flour mill in the world in Lagos. Dimitris has been in Calabar for the past 6months managing the construction and commissioning of a flour mill here. He was so interesting to talk to. We enjoyed chatting over a 'Chapman', a very refreshing Nigerian fruit juice cocktail. After about an hour and a half he needed to return to work, but surprised us with an extremely generous offer of the hotel's magnificent buffet lunch, at his expense.

Both of us were gobsmacked and found it very difficult to accept his generosity. We dressed more respectably and went in to enjoy our delicious feast. Dimitris aims to do one good thing for someone else everyday, which is an amazing philosophy to live by and a real example for us. We hope we can do the same for others. One thing we've both learnt through this trip is that there are still so many VERY good people in Africa. It's been very refreshing and has restored our faith in humanity. We have experienced such incredible 'no strings attached' generosity and care on our trip.

We spent the day inside enjoying the aircon and trying to do our updates, but this wasn't hugely successful. We phoned our parents to tell them about Gerhard and to let them know we are on Doxy-cycline and have the anti-dotes, Coartem and Artesunate, Jo mentioned we needed, which she found out from the emergency rescue team.

Today, the lowest day of our trip, has been filled with the most comfort, care and friendship we could ever have hoped for. Only God could have arranged this! Thank you to all of you who are praying for us, we really appreciate your prayers. It was also good to speak to both parents this evening and feel a little of the home from home we're so far away from at this time.

We will be going to the Cameroonian Consulate in Calabar tomorrow to apply for our visas, and as soon as we have these we'll head to Cameroon on the road to Ekang. We've heard the roads in Cameroon are shocking so we'll be lucky to reach speeds of 25 mph.

Monday 21st January: Metropolitan Hotel, Calabar, Nigeria

GPS Info: N04° 58' 15.3" E08° 19' 42.3"

Miles Today: 0 Total Miles: 11 476

We had a lie in after only going to bed at about 3:00am catching up on compiling and submitting our updates. Hope everyone is appreciating them still or even still reading them, now that they have become more like a novel !!

Paul, on reception introduced us to the hotel's General Manager this morning, and we were able to express our deep gratitude to his hotel and highest praise for his amazing staff, who have looked after us so well. He acknowledged that he did indeed have an incredibly good team working with him and that the people of Calabar are highly motivated and willing to be trained.

With the Cameroon Consulate not being too far away, we walked through the streets to apply for our tourist visa. While we were walking we noticed that most motorcyclists in Calabar wear motorcycle helmets, which is unique within Nigeria. Calabar seems to have a very organised administration as we also noticed that the roads are all bordered by black and white painted concrete curbs, to prevent cars from driving into the trenches along the road-sides, which we've seen happen in other areas in West Africa. It's these small differences that you notice as someone travelling through a country or countries. The Cross River State has shown itself to be far ahead of most other Nigerian states. Wish everyone else would follow their example.

On arriving at the consulate we were met by a very enthusiastic and relieved fellow overlander named Raphael [www.motoadventure.com.br]. He is a Brazilian who is travelling around Africa by motorbike and is someone we had met briefly at Chez Alice in Lome, Togo. He is travelling through on his own and is finding it very lonely and difficult at the moment.

To apply, each person needs to write a letter to the Consul, requesting a visa to be granted and stating the purpose and duration of your visit. This needed to have a special stamp (available from the consulate) costing N270.00. We also needed to supply three passport photos along with two visa application forms each. Because we were driving we also needed to provide a copy of our Carte Brun car insurance. The cost of the visa is either CFA50 000 or N1350.00 or $130.00. The provide a very low rate of exchange if you pay for the visa in any currency other than CFA.

Because of the expense of the visa and the fact that it was far cheaper to pay by CFA, we decided to try and find somewhere to change dollars into CFA. Ross therefore had his first experience of riding on the back of a Nigerian motorbike. One of the policemen on guard at the consulate heard that Ross was off to try and change money for us and for Raphael and insisted on taking him on his motorbike to a bank which he thought would change money. He was concerned that Ross would have a problem if he approached black market money changers, as they might just steal the money and run off. The first bank wouldn't change money and neither did the second, but a lady at the second bank called someone she knew to come to the bank and change money unofficially, but at the least within the security of the bank building. This is what happened and we were able to get the correct cash. Twenty minutes after paying for the visa on Ross' return our passports were returned to us complete with a one month tourist visa for Cameroon. In doing all of this we learned a very important bit of info.......

.......West African CFA is not the same as Central African CFA.

(This is not made obvious in the travel guides!!)

We had saved a whole lot of CFA cash from our west African countries, thinking we could use it in Cameroon, Gabon, Congo and DRC. Sadly we now need to change this once we reach Cameroon. Apparently there is a one to one change over at certain banks for the two different CFA currencies. Lets hope this is true.

After all was completed we strolled down the road with Raphael to Mr.Fans, which is a fast food spot nearby, to get a quick bite to eat. We enjoyed a huge (NOT!!) chicken pie and jam doughnut, followed by ice-creams. Continuing on down the road we all popped into a chemist and bought 4 boxes of Artesunate, a recommended anti-dote for malaria. So now we are hopefully prepared with several boxes of Coartem and 5 boxes of Artesunate.

Now being very late in the afternoon, we decided to delay leaving for another day in favour of an early start tomorrow, and arranged to meet up with Raphael tomorrow morning somewhere along the Ekang road to the Cameroon border, with the intention of travelling together further south.

Walking back to the hotel, we arrived both feeling quite tired, especially after the lack of sleep over the last few nights, and both crashed for an extended afternoon nap in the tent which is the first time we have done this and was an unusual luxury.

Waking up at about 7:30pm we decided to sit in the cool lobby of the hotel and try to upload more photos to the web, as we don't know when we will next have decent internet communication in Central Africa.

Tuesday 22nd January: Metropolitan Hotel, Calabar, Nigeria

GPS Info: N04° 58' 15.3" E08° 19' 42.3"

Miles Today: 148 Total Miles: 11 624

After another very late night's computer catch up (til 3am) we overslept and only woke up around 6.45am instead of our planned 6am. We had a shower and were off to a, slightly later than expected, start. Worried we would be keeping Raphael waiting at the Nigerian border we tried to get there as quickly as we could. There was a bit of confusion leaving Calabar though, trying to find the road to Ekang (north at the Cameroon border) not Ikang (south on the Nigerian coast). As there are no clear road signs you rely on asking people for directions, who willingly direct you to where they think you want to go. After eventually getting on the right road, we were pleased there was decent tar, but this changed after about half an hour and then the potholes began, followed by some real off-road driving. This was our warm-up for the Cameroonian roads to come. Even though the driving was pretty hectic and very slow, Duzi2 roze to the challenge and did superbly, thanks to Ross's skillful driving. We drove through narrow remote tracks deep in the dense jungle dwarfed by huge trees and dense buzzing bush around us. It was really beautiful.

We arrived at the border at 11.30am, taking 3 hrs 45min to cover 164km, expecting to see a rather annoyed Raphael, but he wasn't there. The Immigration Officer was fast asleep on a bench snoring his head off, but luckily the Customs Officer was nearby and felt nothing to shake him awake. We had our carnet stamped and then our passports. This was all done with no problem, and lots of chatting as they were chuffed to have some work to do. We waited at the border chatting to some very interesting young men until about 1.45pm. The Nigerian Immigration Officer had previously invited us to wait in a room near his office, but then advised us to rather cross over into Cameroon as these young men could have quick hands. Four little children came running home from school giggling and singing a song about our car as they came down the road. After putting down their school bags they reappeared walking cautiously passed the car stopping and saying 'white man' and then they disappeared into the bushes towards the river below. When we crossed over the bridge to the Cameroon border, they shouted and waved from the water below us. They were naked and having a ball in the water. What a simple life for these cute little children.