Friday night was pretty uneventful. Basically, watching a poor reception of CNN but enough to watch the unfolding events in Mumbai. I got some cheap (400 CFA (US$0.80)) Cave Royal wine in a mylar bag from a store at the end of the street. Unfortunately, this road closes really early and when I went out the second time just after dark, it was already closed. I returned to the hotel and pulled on the door--it didn't open. I tried to put my key into the lock. It wouldn't fit. I heard some laughter and turned around. A bunch of women told me I have to push to the door, not pull it. I pushed and it opened. I smiled and we all had a good laugh at my expense. :-) It's only fair. After all, when a person travels, the encounters with the locals often end up with one side unwittingly providing some comic relief for the other side. I have received and written about so much comic relief so I certainly need to be a good sport when I am the one whose goofiness makes the locals laugh.
Saturday was a day without many plans. After all, there really isn't much to do or see in Douala. However, that is certainly not to say that Douala is boring. It isn't. Douala is a wonderful city--a sort of more prosperous Conakry. There are only a few people trying to get my attention to sell something and it's typically only money exchange, just like in Conakry. Aside from that, the Akwa district is full of great restaurants, bars, and cafes. I tried to buy The Economist. They had an old one some brand new ones. A new was was CFA 4000 (US$8). I walked away but got called back. OK, CFA 3000. I agreed, but he wouldn't take CFA 2000 for the old one. Oh well. His loss. I read it at a cafe.
I interneted for a while. Then as I passed the SGBC, I entered the ATM. The last 2 times, the SGBC ATM gave me error messages. What would happen this time? I plunked my card in. I asked from CFA 130000 (US$260) and voilà! I got money this time. Whew! Money is available outside Douala. Not that I needed it anymore. After all, now I was flush with cash. I decided to have pizza at The Mediterranée again where I had another pizza and bought Le Point. Then I had a nice nap and in the evening went to the German Foyer du Marin for a sausage dinner.
Sunday, November 30, 2008 22:33 Cameroon local time
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Friday, November 28, 2008
Breathing In Douala
The evening of the day I arrived in Douala, I ate a late dinner of a salty chewy steak with salty fries. At least I had a 1.5 liter of water as well. The lobby of the Hotel Hila has a WiFi label but when I wandered around the hotel with my laptop, I got nothing. Back in my room, I turned on the AC and had a nice refreshing sleep.
I woke up refreshed and headed out. My goal today--to use the SGBC bank's ATM since that is the only bank with ATMs in multiple cities. I tried two SGBC branches, but in both cases I got the "could not contact your bank" error message which at least made sense compared to the SGBC error message from the previous day which was basically nonsense.
I was a bit nervous and tried the Ecobank ATM again. Insufficient funds. Hmmm.... I hope that just means that the day hasn't cycled and reset the amount I can take out. I ate a chausson aux pommes with a good strong coffee at Delice while reading the Lonely Planet and making my game plan. Then I got some post cards and got them stamped, and then I worked a couple of hours on the internet.
Back to the Ecobank ATM. Whew! This time it worked. So I have some breathing room. However, I'm not sure if I can make it out of Douala for long stretches of time. I found the Virgin Nigeria office and I will try to get my flight changed to an earlier date. I know I can use the ATMs in Ghana and even it takes a day or so once I arrive there, I have a stash of Ghana cedis.
Then I went to African Saga, a restaurant on the main drag. A lot of French people were there. And the waitresses are hot. I'll be back. ;-) I had a salad, spaghetti, and a couple of beers to cool off.
After that, just sat in my hotel room with CNN and AC (air conditioner, not Anderson Cooper) on to pass the hot part of the day. Everyone thinks my African trip is dangerous, but when I watch the news and see attacks in India and airport shut down die to demonstrations in Thailand, I wonder if Elena isn't having the riskier trip.
Friday, November 28, 2008 17:00 Cameroon local time
I woke up refreshed and headed out. My goal today--to use the SGBC bank's ATM since that is the only bank with ATMs in multiple cities. I tried two SGBC branches, but in both cases I got the "could not contact your bank" error message which at least made sense compared to the SGBC error message from the previous day which was basically nonsense.
I was a bit nervous and tried the Ecobank ATM again. Insufficient funds. Hmmm.... I hope that just means that the day hasn't cycled and reset the amount I can take out. I ate a chausson aux pommes with a good strong coffee at Delice while reading the Lonely Planet and making my game plan. Then I got some post cards and got them stamped, and then I worked a couple of hours on the internet.
Back to the Ecobank ATM. Whew! This time it worked. So I have some breathing room. However, I'm not sure if I can make it out of Douala for long stretches of time. I found the Virgin Nigeria office and I will try to get my flight changed to an earlier date. I know I can use the ATMs in Ghana and even it takes a day or so once I arrive there, I have a stash of Ghana cedis.
Then I went to African Saga, a restaurant on the main drag. A lot of French people were there. And the waitresses are hot. I'll be back. ;-) I had a salad, spaghetti, and a couple of beers to cool off.
After that, just sat in my hotel room with CNN and AC (air conditioner, not Anderson Cooper) on to pass the hot part of the day. Everyone thinks my African trip is dangerous, but when I watch the news and see attacks in India and airport shut down die to demonstrations in Thailand, I wonder if Elena isn't having the riskier trip.
Friday, November 28, 2008 17:00 Cameroon local time
Thanksgiving
While all of you (Americans) think about Thanksgiving and the food you'll eat, I'm thinking about food, too. When you are away from the food you like, thoughts turn to food. And on stressful journeys, thoughts turn to food. And when you approach the end of your journey, thoughts turn to the food you may soon be eating.
So here is some of my food thoughts:
1) Supreme pizza from Pizza Hut with a Traditional Hand Tossed or Deep Dish crust. Oh, I can't wait.
2) Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. Either just by itself or maybe I'll brown some hamburger and add it to the mix and have a Kraft dinner with meat. Maybe even add some broccoli to it.
3) Sloppy Jacques. Yes, Hunt's Manwich sauce with ground beef on a meter long French baguette. Oh it will be so good. I just wish baguettes didn't cost so damn much in Seattle. They were cheap at the Safeway in Vancouver, BC, but for some reason, Seattle seeks to rip off the consumers of French baguettes. I'll spread the sloppy joe mix all down the baguette and eat the whole thing. Yummy!
4) Casseroles. Mashed potato, cream of mushroom soup, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, ground beef, chicken, noodles. However you mix them and bake them in a toaster oven at 350°, it'll be good. As long as you sprinkle cheese on top.
5) Whoppers. I confess to loving the BK Whopper. It's the reason I used to weigh 235 lbs, after all.
6) Just a nice steak. I get pretty good steaks in the Francophone countries where there are a lot of French restaurants, but I still want a good ole American steak with a baked potato or mashed potatoes and a nice salad, maybe a Caesar salad.
7) Since the holidays are coming up, I feel the need for egg nog. Not the rum laced egg nog, but the pure virgin egg nog of my youth. Perhaps I can get a nutmeg and one of those scraper thingies to draw fresh nutmeg into my eggnog. Mmmmm.... Nothing says Christmas like a cardboard milk container of egg nog.
8) If there is a McDonalds at the Detroit airport on my way back from Accra, I'm totally having a Sausage McMuffin with Egg, that Hashbrown thing, and a coffee. If all of McDonalds were to disappear except for those items, I'd be OK with it.
Of course my worst fear is that once reaching the land I know, that my weight will go back to what it was. I'm probably at 150 lbs now and I sure would like to stay this way. When I look at myself in the mirror, I like what I see. But if I eat like a pig when I return, I won't look this good when I return to Seattle. Hopefully, I have some setpoint where if I eat too much I'll stop being hungry. But who knows. I'll need discipline. Fortunately, along with all these indulgent dishes I crave, I also want to eat healthy foods. I want to eat 4664 tomatoes and bags of lettuce with a light dusting of dressing. Note that I don't eat low-fat or diet dressing. Just the real thing. Low fat and diet foods trick you and beguile you and make you fatter. Better to eat the real thing and control the portions yourself. Sometimes I slice up some green pepper on my salad. Sometimes even some red onion. As long as I put quality ingredients into my body, I don't worry about much else. That's how I got from 235lbs to 170 lbs. Travel took off the last 20 pounds to get me down to the approximately 150 lbs I am now. Now I am where I want to be. I want to stay at this weight. It shouldn't be too hard. I'll return to my yoga in Seattle--which should also keep me out of Smith, 22 Doors, and Liberty where I would just consume calories.
I look forward to my return to Seattle. If I can stay at this weight, I'll be in good shape. I have a sort of perpetual smile on my face from my experiences that should intrigue the people there. I have entered the hardcore travelers' elite. I earned my bonafides in the travel arena. In Vancouver, when you meet a new person, your place in the pecking order is soon established by your travel experiences. Not as much in Seattle, but certainly in Vancouver. This puts me near the top. And I have stories to back it all up. You can't travel in West Africa without getting a lot of good stories. Sadly, most of the best stories require a pretty bad hardship that has to be endured, but I have already endured them. I can talk about my boat trip from Mopti to Timbuktu and my sept-place trip from Koundara to Labé in Guinea-Conakry. I can talk about the hotels and hostels I stayed at with no running water, no electricity, no furniture. I can talk about my experiences trying to speak French and even getting myself understood.
So here is some of my food thoughts:
1) Supreme pizza from Pizza Hut with a Traditional Hand Tossed or Deep Dish crust. Oh, I can't wait.
2) Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. Either just by itself or maybe I'll brown some hamburger and add it to the mix and have a Kraft dinner with meat. Maybe even add some broccoli to it.
3) Sloppy Jacques. Yes, Hunt's Manwich sauce with ground beef on a meter long French baguette. Oh it will be so good. I just wish baguettes didn't cost so damn much in Seattle. They were cheap at the Safeway in Vancouver, BC, but for some reason, Seattle seeks to rip off the consumers of French baguettes. I'll spread the sloppy joe mix all down the baguette and eat the whole thing. Yummy!
4) Casseroles. Mashed potato, cream of mushroom soup, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, ground beef, chicken, noodles. However you mix them and bake them in a toaster oven at 350°, it'll be good. As long as you sprinkle cheese on top.
5) Whoppers. I confess to loving the BK Whopper. It's the reason I used to weigh 235 lbs, after all.
6) Just a nice steak. I get pretty good steaks in the Francophone countries where there are a lot of French restaurants, but I still want a good ole American steak with a baked potato or mashed potatoes and a nice salad, maybe a Caesar salad.
7) Since the holidays are coming up, I feel the need for egg nog. Not the rum laced egg nog, but the pure virgin egg nog of my youth. Perhaps I can get a nutmeg and one of those scraper thingies to draw fresh nutmeg into my eggnog. Mmmmm.... Nothing says Christmas like a cardboard milk container of egg nog.
8) If there is a McDonalds at the Detroit airport on my way back from Accra, I'm totally having a Sausage McMuffin with Egg, that Hashbrown thing, and a coffee. If all of McDonalds were to disappear except for those items, I'd be OK with it.
Of course my worst fear is that once reaching the land I know, that my weight will go back to what it was. I'm probably at 150 lbs now and I sure would like to stay this way. When I look at myself in the mirror, I like what I see. But if I eat like a pig when I return, I won't look this good when I return to Seattle. Hopefully, I have some setpoint where if I eat too much I'll stop being hungry. But who knows. I'll need discipline. Fortunately, along with all these indulgent dishes I crave, I also want to eat healthy foods. I want to eat 4664 tomatoes and bags of lettuce with a light dusting of dressing. Note that I don't eat low-fat or diet dressing. Just the real thing. Low fat and diet foods trick you and beguile you and make you fatter. Better to eat the real thing and control the portions yourself. Sometimes I slice up some green pepper on my salad. Sometimes even some red onion. As long as I put quality ingredients into my body, I don't worry about much else. That's how I got from 235lbs to 170 lbs. Travel took off the last 20 pounds to get me down to the approximately 150 lbs I am now. Now I am where I want to be. I want to stay at this weight. It shouldn't be too hard. I'll return to my yoga in Seattle--which should also keep me out of Smith, 22 Doors, and Liberty where I would just consume calories.
I look forward to my return to Seattle. If I can stay at this weight, I'll be in good shape. I have a sort of perpetual smile on my face from my experiences that should intrigue the people there. I have entered the hardcore travelers' elite. I earned my bonafides in the travel arena. In Vancouver, when you meet a new person, your place in the pecking order is soon established by your travel experiences. Not as much in Seattle, but certainly in Vancouver. This puts me near the top. And I have stories to back it all up. You can't travel in West Africa without getting a lot of good stories. Sadly, most of the best stories require a pretty bad hardship that has to be endured, but I have already endured them. I can talk about my boat trip from Mopti to Timbuktu and my sept-place trip from Koundara to Labé in Guinea-Conakry. I can talk about the hotels and hostels I stayed at with no running water, no electricity, no furniture. I can talk about my experiences trying to speak French and even getting myself understood.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Kumba To Douala: Stressed Over ATMs
I got up at about 7:30 and headed out to find the SGBC or the Cameroonian branch of the Societe General. I asked the receptionist but she didn't know. I walked down the main drag and didn't see it. A moto-taxi guy asked me where I was going and I told him I was looking for the SGBC bank and he sent me down further. It wasn't there. No banks seemed to have an ATM. I walked back the the moto-taxi driver was still there. He asked if I found it and I said no. He told me to hop and he'd take me someone who would know. We went there and he gave some directions, but when we arrived, it was not the SGBC. He asked another guy and finally this guy said there is no SGBC in Kumba--only in Limbe. They seemed to never have heard of this huge French bank here and maybe this guy thought it was a Limbe bank and not one of the biggest banks in the world. I got off the bike, thanked them, and headed back to the hotel. Along the way I say the Mondiale Express bus station and I stopped in to get a ticket to Douala. CFA 2000 (US$4). I got a ticket and went back to get my luggage.
When I arrived at the bus station, the bus was being loaded. I got my stuff on and found a seat in the back. This is a 5-across bus. That means about 6 rows of people carrying 5 people per row. There was a lot of confusion but after a short prayer and sermon, we took off. The first fifteen minutes of the bus ride was dedicated to getting people change because there wasn't enough change when they bought the tickets. It seems like Kumba sized cities in Cameroon have a bit of liquidity crisis as well.
Then things got fun. The conductor, once he got the change handed out, started telling us he has products for sale and he would use the next two hours talking about his products. But to get us into the mood of listening to him, he hand a buch of candies (he called the bon-bons though he was speaking in English) and he would ask trivia questions. The first one to call out an answer would get a bon-bon. I resolved to get one but no more than one bon-bon. The first question: who is the President of America. Half the bus shouted Bush and half shouted Obama. I'm not sure which he regarded at the correct answer. Then it went into Cameroonian geography and politics so I had no chance. Then to history. I figured I'd count to 4 after each question and if nobody had an answer, I'd shout out my answer. What was the immediate cause of WWI? A kid shouted out "the assassination of Arch-duke Franz Ferdinand". He got a bon-bon. Where? Sarajevo. Bon-bons were flying all over. The crowd was having a rollicking good time. Who ended slavery? Apparently they think the answer is William Wilberforce who was certainly influential in British abolition, but cannot be said to have ended slavery. Next category--arithmetic. What is seven and a half divided by a half? I counted--4...3...2...1... and the shouted out fifteen. Yay! I got a bon-bon. I was happy and done. The next question got no bon-bon--what is the square root of 1? Nobody answered plus or minus one. So no bon-bons. A few simple arithmetic problems and then to biology. I had thought biology would be pretty easy too, but it was all scientific names of Cameroonian cash crops. In chemistry I was pretty impressed that someone knew the formula for hydrogen peroxide. After a few seconds I was about to shout out "H two O two" when a local beat me to it. A few other chemical formulae for Cameroonian exports. Then onto religion. I didn't stand a chance on this. The shortest verse in the Bible? Who knows? Jesus's last words on the cross? Who knows? Now into general knowledge. The first question was pretty interesting. What is the weight of a bag of cement? 50kg? No. Lots of guesses. I guessed his trick. He asked for weight which is force and they were giving mass. He wanted an answer in Newtons, not kilograms. Eventually he said no bon-bons and explained what he was after and I was right. But he used 10 m/s² instead of 9.81 m/s² to say 500N. Next question: name of the only persons to reject the law of gravity? This one had me stumped. Not the astronauts--they didn't reject or violate it. I came up with the answer just as he said it though--Jesus Christ. One man disputed that. He said it wasn't scientifically proven. The conductor said it was the General Knowledge category and not the Science category.
Finally, the bon-bons were gone. Then he whipped out some toothpaste and started talking about it. After that, some soap that causes you to lose weight, then some oil and some tea, and some crystals of something. The woman next to me was buying everything. This guy made a killing selling this overpriced Chinese stuff doing his home-shopping show.
A couple time he got interrupted by police check points. The guy next to me looked Tuareg or something. He showed his ID card to the first police and got hauled off the bus--not an easy feat when the corridor is filled with fold-down seats all filled. After several minutes he came back. The second checkpoint was worse for this guy and some of the other passengers. This time, the police took everyone who papers weren't in order and made them get their bags. The only exception was a mute woman who looked really panicked and could make sounds but couldn't talk. The officer threatened to arrest her because her papers were expired but she tried to explain in sign language and sounds her situation. The officer finally told her to get back on the bus, but they kept a few people back which meant we got finish up the journey in relative comfort.
At about 1:30pm we arrived in the Bonabéri motor park about 5km north of Douala. I hired a moto-taxi to take me to the Hotel Hila for CFA 1000 (US$2). It was along trip. When we arrived, the lobby was packed. Holy crap--I don't need this. But they had a room. Whew! I shelled out 3 of my last 4 CFA 500 notes and deposited my stuff. Then I hailed a moto-taxi for CFA 300 (US$0.60) to the SGBC in the main drag. We got there. I tried my ATM card. My heart was pounding. I was out of money and I don't even know if my parents are reachable. They'll be going to Egypt pretty soon and I don't know when. Already? If I need cash through Western Union, can I get it?
My card didn't work. Dammit! OK, all is not lost. Lonely Planet says SGBC is the most reliable but also mentions Ecobank which never works for me. But it was a block away. I entered my card. Made a selection. My heart was pounding. Then the sound. The beautiful magical sound of a machine counting money. I can breath again.
I had not only money, but source of money. Relieved, I headed another block to the Mediterranean Restaurant where I got 2 draft beers and a pizza. The best meal I've had in days and days. I got a copy of Newsweek and just relaxed. It was nice to relax. I really need some relaxation after the past few days.
Thursday, November 27, 17:30 Cameroon local time
Ekok To Kumba: Yes, It Is As Bad As You Think With Names Like That
As I wind up my trip, I wonder if I'll have any experiences to match the grueling journey from Koundara to Labé in Guinea-Conakry. This day, I got my answer. If you want hardship, West Africa rarely fails to disappoint.
I got up just before the first light and packed everything up so it would be easy to grab and go. Then I headed from the Boston Complex Resort Inn to the transportation area. No cars to Kumba this morning--just to Mamfe which is closer. I was the first guy and since there was time, we just drove down to the Boston and I got my stuff and we loaded it into the trunk. Then we returned and waited.
And waited. The way it seems to work is that once they get 2 people, they leave because they know that there are people along the way who need rides and they want some empty spots for them as well. But there seemed to be little prospect of a second person. At 7am, the driver said that if I pay for 2 seats, we'll go now. I said I'd wait until 8am. If no one showed up by then I'd bite the bullet and buy 2 CFA 7000 (US$14) tickets so we could start. I wanted to get to Douala this day and we can't wait until 10 or 11 or noon. I was a bit worried about the car. There was a tire with a sort of aneurysm or bubble and the steel threads were showing already. I watched as the Africans all ate their meaty breakfast and I got some cookies in a tube. I haven't eaten properly in a long time and as soon as I get to an ATM that works, I plan to have a good proper meal.
Well, 8am came. So I kept my word. I paid CFA 14000 (US$28) to go to Mamfe. We left at 8. As soon as we left Ekok, there was a checkpoint--one of many many. The man looked at my passport. Again, he could not believe that I was the person in the picture. I explained that the picture in 8 years old and I weighed 107 kg back then. He was a bit pudgy himself and asked what I did to lose all that weight. I changed my diet. Sorry, no magic bullet. He finally convinced himself that it was me and we went on our way.
Wow! The roads in Cameroon are by far the most rutted roads I've been on in West Africa. Some of the ruts are like 10 feet deep. It feels like being in the first car of a rollercoaster going over that first drop in some places. It's pretty hilly too. Just amazing. However, as bad as the road is, it was not at all unpleasant. The road has never been paved so all the ruts are smooth. It's a sort of undulating rutted road. No sharp angles. Just smoothness. At some places the road was so bad that they had side roads through the forest. At one point a guy with a toll stopped us and demanded CFA 500 (US$1). The driver apparently pays him CFA 500 every day. I have no idea what the guy's authority is to collect a toll.
We had to drop off a foam mattress and then we picked up some people. But the road never let up. It was just fantastically undulating for the four solid hours it took to traverse the 61 km (36 miles)--an average speed of 9 mph.
But we made it to Mamfe at noon. As soon as we got there, there was a minibus ready to go to Douala via Kumba. Perfect! It is CFA 8000 (US$16) to Douala. They said it would take about 6 or 7 hours putting me there in early evening--possibly even with some daylight. That's 4 or 5 to Kumba and 2 to Duoala from Kumba. And I was the last one in the minibus--the whose arrival meant we could leave. And at 12:20, we started out. Our first stop was to put some air into the driver side rear tire. A man with an air compressor tried to fill it, but the compressor conked out on him so he had to jack up the mini-bus to fill the tire.
The road was much better than the previous road, but still pretty bad. It is unpaved so there are no hard concrete or blacktop edges, but lots of rocks and grooves created by rain. So it's not a fast trip. About forty minutes into the ride, we stopped. The minibus would not go forward. We were broken down.
Some of us got off and went and sat on the porch of this family that gave us oranges and chairs. I sat with a geography teacher who kept flagging down school kids and asking them if they had work books and the names of their geography teachers to find out if he could sell his geography workbooks here.
Some people were unhappy about the breakdown. One old guy said it is the exact same bus that brought him to Mamfe and it broke down then as well. They called for a mechanic who showed up an hour later around 2pm. He replaced a disc in the clutch and an hour later, at 3pm, we all piled back in.
At the bottom of one hill we all had to pile out again and walk up the hill because it's too steep for a loaded bus. I was first to top even with my heavy laptop. One old woman took really long and even went to the bathroom after and the driver yelled at her for delaying us.
Between 4 and 5 pm we had two 20 minute breakdowns. The first was some problem with the engine. It required that they take out the passenger's side seat to get at the engine. They also filled the radiator with water from a local stream. The second one was to tie or bins something near where the driver's side axle meets the tire. These three breakdowns added 2:40 to our trip. So instead of reaching Kumba at approximately 4:20 or 5:20, I expected to get there between 7:00 and 8:00.
The nice thing about the breakdowns is that my butt doesn't get so sore. I was on a hard fold down bench. There were 4 across but it wasn't super tight. Still I had my laptop case in my lap and that also restricted my movement. We let one guy off. Then at 7pm, we stopped at a village--I suppose for a food and bathroom break. Not Kumba. We picked up a passenger. It was now dark. I don't like being on the road after dark. The geography teacher said we weren't even close to Kumba. Oh man. This isn't good. But, twenty minutes later we got back in.
Eight pm rolled around and we found ourselves no just in dark, but in fog. But it only lasted about 10 minutes and soon we were in clear air again.
Nine pm? Still on the road and boy was my butt hurting. Fortunately, we stopped to unload some bags of green oranges and I got to stand for a while.
Ten pm. Man, will this trip never end? Finally at about 10:30, we pulled into Kumba. A ten hour trip for approximately 200 km or 120 miles of road. The geography teacher told me there was a bank with an ATM in Kumba and he tried to get a moto-taxi for 100 CFA (US$0.20) to the Kanton Hotel. The moto-taxi guy said CFA 200. I'm not about to quibble over a damn quarter at 10:30 at night so I took it. Once we were on the road he pretended like he didn't know where it was exactly and then just realized where it was and asked for CFA 100 more. He said it's a little bit far. I rolled my eyes and said OK. Whitey can take another 20 cent hit to his fraud budget. We got there about 90 seconds after we left the station. "This is a far?" "A little bit far." "Really?!?! Your concept of a little bit far is very different from mine" I told him as I handed over the 60 cents in CFA coins.
I approached the hotel and a man ran out to tell me it was full already. But I could stay across the street at the Tavern Hotel. No problem. I walked across the street. (I should have asked the taxi-moto if he would take me to the Tavern Hotel and how much it would cost--200 francs?) They had AC and fan rooms. I just needed a fan. CFA 7000 (US$14). She filled out the form and asked me how many nights. I said it depends. If there is an SGBC bank in Kumba with an ATM I would stay two nights. I asked if there was one. She said yes. I asked if it had an ATM. She said yes. So I told her two nights. I stashed my stuff and came down and got a beer to take up to my room (it IS the Tavern Hotel, after all). Then I typed for a couple of hours until I died from exhaustion.
Thursday, November 27, 16:45 Cameroon local time
I got up just before the first light and packed everything up so it would be easy to grab and go. Then I headed from the Boston Complex Resort Inn to the transportation area. No cars to Kumba this morning--just to Mamfe which is closer. I was the first guy and since there was time, we just drove down to the Boston and I got my stuff and we loaded it into the trunk. Then we returned and waited.
And waited. The way it seems to work is that once they get 2 people, they leave because they know that there are people along the way who need rides and they want some empty spots for them as well. But there seemed to be little prospect of a second person. At 7am, the driver said that if I pay for 2 seats, we'll go now. I said I'd wait until 8am. If no one showed up by then I'd bite the bullet and buy 2 CFA 7000 (US$14) tickets so we could start. I wanted to get to Douala this day and we can't wait until 10 or 11 or noon. I was a bit worried about the car. There was a tire with a sort of aneurysm or bubble and the steel threads were showing already. I watched as the Africans all ate their meaty breakfast and I got some cookies in a tube. I haven't eaten properly in a long time and as soon as I get to an ATM that works, I plan to have a good proper meal.
Well, 8am came. So I kept my word. I paid CFA 14000 (US$28) to go to Mamfe. We left at 8. As soon as we left Ekok, there was a checkpoint--one of many many. The man looked at my passport. Again, he could not believe that I was the person in the picture. I explained that the picture in 8 years old and I weighed 107 kg back then. He was a bit pudgy himself and asked what I did to lose all that weight. I changed my diet. Sorry, no magic bullet. He finally convinced himself that it was me and we went on our way.
Wow! The roads in Cameroon are by far the most rutted roads I've been on in West Africa. Some of the ruts are like 10 feet deep. It feels like being in the first car of a rollercoaster going over that first drop in some places. It's pretty hilly too. Just amazing. However, as bad as the road is, it was not at all unpleasant. The road has never been paved so all the ruts are smooth. It's a sort of undulating rutted road. No sharp angles. Just smoothness. At some places the road was so bad that they had side roads through the forest. At one point a guy with a toll stopped us and demanded CFA 500 (US$1). The driver apparently pays him CFA 500 every day. I have no idea what the guy's authority is to collect a toll.
We had to drop off a foam mattress and then we picked up some people. But the road never let up. It was just fantastically undulating for the four solid hours it took to traverse the 61 km (36 miles)--an average speed of 9 mph.
But we made it to Mamfe at noon. As soon as we got there, there was a minibus ready to go to Douala via Kumba. Perfect! It is CFA 8000 (US$16) to Douala. They said it would take about 6 or 7 hours putting me there in early evening--possibly even with some daylight. That's 4 or 5 to Kumba and 2 to Duoala from Kumba. And I was the last one in the minibus--the whose arrival meant we could leave. And at 12:20, we started out. Our first stop was to put some air into the driver side rear tire. A man with an air compressor tried to fill it, but the compressor conked out on him so he had to jack up the mini-bus to fill the tire.
The road was much better than the previous road, but still pretty bad. It is unpaved so there are no hard concrete or blacktop edges, but lots of rocks and grooves created by rain. So it's not a fast trip. About forty minutes into the ride, we stopped. The minibus would not go forward. We were broken down.
Some of us got off and went and sat on the porch of this family that gave us oranges and chairs. I sat with a geography teacher who kept flagging down school kids and asking them if they had work books and the names of their geography teachers to find out if he could sell his geography workbooks here.
Some people were unhappy about the breakdown. One old guy said it is the exact same bus that brought him to Mamfe and it broke down then as well. They called for a mechanic who showed up an hour later around 2pm. He replaced a disc in the clutch and an hour later, at 3pm, we all piled back in.
At the bottom of one hill we all had to pile out again and walk up the hill because it's too steep for a loaded bus. I was first to top even with my heavy laptop. One old woman took really long and even went to the bathroom after and the driver yelled at her for delaying us.
Between 4 and 5 pm we had two 20 minute breakdowns. The first was some problem with the engine. It required that they take out the passenger's side seat to get at the engine. They also filled the radiator with water from a local stream. The second one was to tie or bins something near where the driver's side axle meets the tire. These three breakdowns added 2:40 to our trip. So instead of reaching Kumba at approximately 4:20 or 5:20, I expected to get there between 7:00 and 8:00.
The nice thing about the breakdowns is that my butt doesn't get so sore. I was on a hard fold down bench. There were 4 across but it wasn't super tight. Still I had my laptop case in my lap and that also restricted my movement. We let one guy off. Then at 7pm, we stopped at a village--I suppose for a food and bathroom break. Not Kumba. We picked up a passenger. It was now dark. I don't like being on the road after dark. The geography teacher said we weren't even close to Kumba. Oh man. This isn't good. But, twenty minutes later we got back in.
Eight pm rolled around and we found ourselves no just in dark, but in fog. But it only lasted about 10 minutes and soon we were in clear air again.
Nine pm? Still on the road and boy was my butt hurting. Fortunately, we stopped to unload some bags of green oranges and I got to stand for a while.
Ten pm. Man, will this trip never end? Finally at about 10:30, we pulled into Kumba. A ten hour trip for approximately 200 km or 120 miles of road. The geography teacher told me there was a bank with an ATM in Kumba and he tried to get a moto-taxi for 100 CFA (US$0.20) to the Kanton Hotel. The moto-taxi guy said CFA 200. I'm not about to quibble over a damn quarter at 10:30 at night so I took it. Once we were on the road he pretended like he didn't know where it was exactly and then just realized where it was and asked for CFA 100 more. He said it's a little bit far. I rolled my eyes and said OK. Whitey can take another 20 cent hit to his fraud budget. We got there about 90 seconds after we left the station. "This is a far?" "A little bit far." "Really?!?! Your concept of a little bit far is very different from mine" I told him as I handed over the 60 cents in CFA coins.
I approached the hotel and a man ran out to tell me it was full already. But I could stay across the street at the Tavern Hotel. No problem. I walked across the street. (I should have asked the taxi-moto if he would take me to the Tavern Hotel and how much it would cost--200 francs?) They had AC and fan rooms. I just needed a fan. CFA 7000 (US$14). She filled out the form and asked me how many nights. I said it depends. If there is an SGBC bank in Kumba with an ATM I would stay two nights. I asked if there was one. She said yes. I asked if it had an ATM. She said yes. So I told her two nights. I stashed my stuff and came down and got a beer to take up to my room (it IS the Tavern Hotel, after all). Then I typed for a couple of hours until I died from exhaustion.
Thursday, November 27, 16:45 Cameroon local time
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Calabar, Nigeria To Ekok, Cameroon
Morning came and I hadn't packed. Fortunately, I never really unpacked, so recovery wasn't too hard. Besides, they turned on the generator at 6am. So I was out the door at about 6:20. At 6:30 I reached the motor park and headed to the taxis bound for Ikom. The previous taxi had just left. Dammit! I just missed it. Oh well. It was just a 6 seater and it was still early so it would probably fill up pretty fast and it did. A bunch of drivers were gathered around a man in a tie preaching. It was just Jesus this, Jesus that over and over and over. A little after 7am, we were on the road. This is supposed to be a 3 hours trip. I was in the back seat with three women. It was the first time with three women. It was hard because they all had big butts, so there wasn't much room in the seats. I had to sort of scooch forward. It was uncomfortable, but what else is new?
We stopped for gas when we were all fueled up, the driver began to pray. This was the first time in my entire time in Africa that a driver stopped the car to pray. I looked down while he prayed. He kept going on and on. Every time he ended with "In Jesus' name" and the other passengers said Amen, I thought it was over, but then he's start another prayer. He did this over and over and the whole thing took close to five minutes. I don't know if all drivers in Nigeria pray like this or if he is a preacher in training. Finally, we were on the road. But the preaching didn't stop. Oh no, he kept going while he was driving as if he was rehearsing for a part time preacher spot.
The road is not wide and the people on the road pass when they shouldn't. They are almost suicidal. They may pray to the heavens, but they drive suicidally. Jesus doesn't save passengers from bad judgement of the driver and I would rather have a cautious driver than a pious one. I had more close calls from vehicles passing vehicles on this trip than any other trip in West Africa. It was downright scary.
But we made it to Ikom whole. We parked in the motor park and on the way in, I saw the signs on the cars saying they went to the border. So I knew just where to go.
I guy saw me and I told him I was going to Cameroon. He probably guessed that since not many white people show in Ikom with another destination in mind, unless they are going the other way, of course. He tried to take one of my bags but even when I tried to explain to him that I would rather carry 2 heavy bags for balance than one heavy bag requiring my back to work, he didn't listen. He said he would take me to the border for N500 (US$4). OK. But he led me to a private car near the taxis to the border, but there were other taxis to the border. I figured I would be better off with a taxi that already had people lined up than one with nobody lined up, so I asked them. But they said it would be N1000. Nope, I'll stick with the N500 guy. I put my bags into his car. They asked if I needed CFA and I said I did. They took me to a money changer and he was too busy with the previous client so I left. Then they took me to another money changer. We bargained a bit but he didn't offer a good rate. He said his rate would be better if I had larger bills, but €20 bills didn't bring a good rate. I was ripped off (what else is new?) but I accepted CFA 62000 for €100 in 5 €20 bills. Not a good deal--10% off the spot rate of 68800--but I would at least control my destiny for a while. Besides, I expect to lose 3% and this is only 7% more. Oh well. C'est la vie.
The man who agreed to take me into Cameroon said he would wait for 20 minutes and take me alone if nobody came, but when push came to shove, he just shunted me off to another car. I got into this old decrepit car and we headed to Cameroon. It's a few km to Cameroon. But we had to stop for fuel as is often the case.
We soon reached the first Nigerian checkpoint. I got out and gave my passport to the officers. They inspected the passport thoroughly. They asked for my yellow card. The officer said my vaccinations all expired in February and asked why I didn't renew my vaccinations. I explained that I received the shots in February and showed him that the expiration date was in another location. He bought that, but I'm sure he was just looking for a reason to give me a hard time and knew what was what. The only point of asking for your yellow book on your way out is to find an excuse to extract a bribe. He asked more questions about my visas and my trip and I provided all the answers he needed. He asked about Barack Obama and I told him that I voted for him through the mail. It was taking a long time and the other passengers in the car finally came over and watched. Finally, since all my paperwork was completely in order, he had no choice but to enter all my information into a ledger (which took a long time) and send me, and the other occupants, on out way. The main passenger in the car told me I was causing his schedule to slip, but I said it was Nigerian immigration--no other African country takes so long to process people at the border. No, he said, it was me. I figured he was angling for more money at the end of the trip.
Then a few minutes later, we stopped at another fuel station and backed up to a pump. The man in the passenger seat said he needed to pick up some petrol. OK, no problem. Can't take that long. But it did. The gas station attendant kept fishing empty 10 gallon jerricans out of the trunk and filling them and putting them back. There was like a neverending stream of these jerricans. Hmmm... Am I involved in some sort of gasoline smuggling operation? After about a half hour, we left. It still only about 11am.
We reached the second Nigerian checkpoint and again, I had to get out and show my passport. The first time it was 4 men armed with machine guns, but now it was a just a guy. He inspected my passport pages more with a longing than anything else. He stopped for 30 seconds looking at my Japanese entry sticker from a few years ago and rubbed his fingers across it lost in some dream world where he gets to do what I do. He looked at all my stamps and in the end, smiled and gave me my passport and wished me a good trip. I smiled and thanked him and went back to the car.
We drove some more and eventually got to within view of the gated bridge of the river that forms the border. I was almost out of this country. But we stopped short at some sort of post. The passenger guy got into an argument with what I guess was some plainclothed customs officer or something. They argued for about 10 minutes, then the passenger paid the officer N5 (US$4).
We went on a little further--like 20 meters--and came to the third of four Nigerian official stops. This is the one where I would receive my exit stamp. They asked me a bunch of questions about where I was and where I entered while I filled out a paper form with many of these same questions. One question made no sense to me. I was to provide "Evidence as Tourist". What the hell does that mean? Is it even English? I asked and the man said I should write the phone number of my travel agent and gave me the yellow book I got when I got my vaccinations. He pointed at the phone number of the Vancouver Coastal Travel Clinic and told me to enter that phone number. It was crazy, but I figured the best thing to do was to just comply. Finally after several minutes, the man gave my passport to a woman to enter all my information into a ledger. Then they gave me my passport back and I went across the street to the other side.
There, a man asked more of the same questions that I had been answering all along and entered my passport information into a ledger for the third time today. Then when he was done with that ledger, he got out another ledger and entered the information into that second ledger. Holy cow, the Nigerians make border crossings...interesting. That done, all that was left was to cross the bridge over the river. On the way to the car, the gas smuggler informed me that when we reached Ekok, I would buy him a beer. I could use one myself.
Immediately on the other side was Cameroonian immigration. The Cameroonians were a friendlier and chattier group. We talked about my trip, how Cameroon and Canada are the only countries with English and French both being official languages, and, of course, Barack Obama. One of the men then got a ledger. But instead of having columns for the information, he just writes it out longhand as a prose paragraph. He listed all the places I said I planned to visit and basically wrote out, in prose, a description of my passport information. It took quite a while. The gas smuggler was there watching the whole thing.
Finally, one last step--customs. They had already put all my stuff by the customs office. They interrupted a game of cards and asked me what was in each bag and I explained and they had me open each one and show the first few items. They were pretty satisfied and, frankly, anxious to return to their card game. And I was done.
Ekok is a pretty small place. Everything is pretty close. The ticket office for the cars to Mamfe and Kumba is right across the street. I went over. They wanted CFA 15000 (US$30) to take me to Kumba. Whoa! That seems high. How many people lined up for the car? One guy told me just 2 more and then another one corrected him and said I was the first. The first? This can take all day. It was noon and they said the trip to Kumba was about 6 hours. I don't like it at all. So I called an audible. I asked if there was a hotel. Yep. I left and headed down to the Boston Complex Resort Inn whose name sounds much more impressive than the CFA 3000 (US$6) rooms would suggest. There is a bare mattress with a pillow, no running water and the generator would only run from about 8:30 to 11--Ekok doesn't seem to have electricity. I took the room. I gave the guy CFA 5000 and we walked really slowly to another place where he could break the CFA 5000 note into change. What I could have walked in 60 seconds took about 3 minutes. Once at the place with the change, that guy had to go off and get change. Gee, these small towns are bad with liquidity.
Then off to find the gas smuggler. I entered the local bar whose name seems to be Risk Assurance--or is that the name of the previous business? We went to the back where there is a fan, but they had no juice. The gas smuggler offered a liter of gas to run the generator to turn the fan. The man brought me a beer and the smuggler a fruit juice. The beer was room temperature and I tried to stop him but he already opened the bottle. The smuggler and another guy yelled at the bartender and told him it was his error, but I agreed to drink it. It was warm, but still had some refreshing power. I got the whole lowdown on the smuggling operation which was kind of neat.
Then I headed off to my room to rest. The smuggler said he'd meet me at my hotel and have another beer.
I rested in my room until about 6pm. The smuggler didn't come so I figured I'd go out and arrange my transportation. I had, in the interim, asked random people about the cost to get to Kumba and the CFA 15000 is what it costs. So I headed over and asked what time I should arrive in the morning. They said about 7am--I should just come and leave my bags in the Boston Hotel and we'd get them on the way out. Now I was feeling a little easier. I headed back to the hotel to await the generator.
It got dark and no generator. I went out and asked. They said it would started at about 8 or 8:30. Man, that's a lot of time in the dark. I headed down the street and got a mylar bag with 25cl of red table wine. Then headed back to my room and read Veronika Décide de Mourir by my rechargeable lantern. Finally, after an hour, the generator came on and I tried to plug in my laptop. But no luck--the outlet wasn't powered. They said the outlets aren't connected. So I had to move my laptop to the lobby/bar where I typed up my blogs for 3 solid hours in front of an enraptured audience of three who were reading as I was typing.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008 23:50 Cameroon local time
We stopped for gas when we were all fueled up, the driver began to pray. This was the first time in my entire time in Africa that a driver stopped the car to pray. I looked down while he prayed. He kept going on and on. Every time he ended with "In Jesus' name" and the other passengers said Amen, I thought it was over, but then he's start another prayer. He did this over and over and the whole thing took close to five minutes. I don't know if all drivers in Nigeria pray like this or if he is a preacher in training. Finally, we were on the road. But the preaching didn't stop. Oh no, he kept going while he was driving as if he was rehearsing for a part time preacher spot.
The road is not wide and the people on the road pass when they shouldn't. They are almost suicidal. They may pray to the heavens, but they drive suicidally. Jesus doesn't save passengers from bad judgement of the driver and I would rather have a cautious driver than a pious one. I had more close calls from vehicles passing vehicles on this trip than any other trip in West Africa. It was downright scary.
But we made it to Ikom whole. We parked in the motor park and on the way in, I saw the signs on the cars saying they went to the border. So I knew just where to go.
I guy saw me and I told him I was going to Cameroon. He probably guessed that since not many white people show in Ikom with another destination in mind, unless they are going the other way, of course. He tried to take one of my bags but even when I tried to explain to him that I would rather carry 2 heavy bags for balance than one heavy bag requiring my back to work, he didn't listen. He said he would take me to the border for N500 (US$4). OK. But he led me to a private car near the taxis to the border, but there were other taxis to the border. I figured I would be better off with a taxi that already had people lined up than one with nobody lined up, so I asked them. But they said it would be N1000. Nope, I'll stick with the N500 guy. I put my bags into his car. They asked if I needed CFA and I said I did. They took me to a money changer and he was too busy with the previous client so I left. Then they took me to another money changer. We bargained a bit but he didn't offer a good rate. He said his rate would be better if I had larger bills, but €20 bills didn't bring a good rate. I was ripped off (what else is new?) but I accepted CFA 62000 for €100 in 5 €20 bills. Not a good deal--10% off the spot rate of 68800--but I would at least control my destiny for a while. Besides, I expect to lose 3% and this is only 7% more. Oh well. C'est la vie.
The man who agreed to take me into Cameroon said he would wait for 20 minutes and take me alone if nobody came, but when push came to shove, he just shunted me off to another car. I got into this old decrepit car and we headed to Cameroon. It's a few km to Cameroon. But we had to stop for fuel as is often the case.
We soon reached the first Nigerian checkpoint. I got out and gave my passport to the officers. They inspected the passport thoroughly. They asked for my yellow card. The officer said my vaccinations all expired in February and asked why I didn't renew my vaccinations. I explained that I received the shots in February and showed him that the expiration date was in another location. He bought that, but I'm sure he was just looking for a reason to give me a hard time and knew what was what. The only point of asking for your yellow book on your way out is to find an excuse to extract a bribe. He asked more questions about my visas and my trip and I provided all the answers he needed. He asked about Barack Obama and I told him that I voted for him through the mail. It was taking a long time and the other passengers in the car finally came over and watched. Finally, since all my paperwork was completely in order, he had no choice but to enter all my information into a ledger (which took a long time) and send me, and the other occupants, on out way. The main passenger in the car told me I was causing his schedule to slip, but I said it was Nigerian immigration--no other African country takes so long to process people at the border. No, he said, it was me. I figured he was angling for more money at the end of the trip.
Then a few minutes later, we stopped at another fuel station and backed up to a pump. The man in the passenger seat said he needed to pick up some petrol. OK, no problem. Can't take that long. But it did. The gas station attendant kept fishing empty 10 gallon jerricans out of the trunk and filling them and putting them back. There was like a neverending stream of these jerricans. Hmmm... Am I involved in some sort of gasoline smuggling operation? After about a half hour, we left. It still only about 11am.
We reached the second Nigerian checkpoint and again, I had to get out and show my passport. The first time it was 4 men armed with machine guns, but now it was a just a guy. He inspected my passport pages more with a longing than anything else. He stopped for 30 seconds looking at my Japanese entry sticker from a few years ago and rubbed his fingers across it lost in some dream world where he gets to do what I do. He looked at all my stamps and in the end, smiled and gave me my passport and wished me a good trip. I smiled and thanked him and went back to the car.
We drove some more and eventually got to within view of the gated bridge of the river that forms the border. I was almost out of this country. But we stopped short at some sort of post. The passenger guy got into an argument with what I guess was some plainclothed customs officer or something. They argued for about 10 minutes, then the passenger paid the officer N5 (US$4).
We went on a little further--like 20 meters--and came to the third of four Nigerian official stops. This is the one where I would receive my exit stamp. They asked me a bunch of questions about where I was and where I entered while I filled out a paper form with many of these same questions. One question made no sense to me. I was to provide "Evidence as Tourist". What the hell does that mean? Is it even English? I asked and the man said I should write the phone number of my travel agent and gave me the yellow book I got when I got my vaccinations. He pointed at the phone number of the Vancouver Coastal Travel Clinic and told me to enter that phone number. It was crazy, but I figured the best thing to do was to just comply. Finally after several minutes, the man gave my passport to a woman to enter all my information into a ledger. Then they gave me my passport back and I went across the street to the other side.
There, a man asked more of the same questions that I had been answering all along and entered my passport information into a ledger for the third time today. Then when he was done with that ledger, he got out another ledger and entered the information into that second ledger. Holy cow, the Nigerians make border crossings...interesting. That done, all that was left was to cross the bridge over the river. On the way to the car, the gas smuggler informed me that when we reached Ekok, I would buy him a beer. I could use one myself.
Immediately on the other side was Cameroonian immigration. The Cameroonians were a friendlier and chattier group. We talked about my trip, how Cameroon and Canada are the only countries with English and French both being official languages, and, of course, Barack Obama. One of the men then got a ledger. But instead of having columns for the information, he just writes it out longhand as a prose paragraph. He listed all the places I said I planned to visit and basically wrote out, in prose, a description of my passport information. It took quite a while. The gas smuggler was there watching the whole thing.
Finally, one last step--customs. They had already put all my stuff by the customs office. They interrupted a game of cards and asked me what was in each bag and I explained and they had me open each one and show the first few items. They were pretty satisfied and, frankly, anxious to return to their card game. And I was done.
Ekok is a pretty small place. Everything is pretty close. The ticket office for the cars to Mamfe and Kumba is right across the street. I went over. They wanted CFA 15000 (US$30) to take me to Kumba. Whoa! That seems high. How many people lined up for the car? One guy told me just 2 more and then another one corrected him and said I was the first. The first? This can take all day. It was noon and they said the trip to Kumba was about 6 hours. I don't like it at all. So I called an audible. I asked if there was a hotel. Yep. I left and headed down to the Boston Complex Resort Inn whose name sounds much more impressive than the CFA 3000 (US$6) rooms would suggest. There is a bare mattress with a pillow, no running water and the generator would only run from about 8:30 to 11--Ekok doesn't seem to have electricity. I took the room. I gave the guy CFA 5000 and we walked really slowly to another place where he could break the CFA 5000 note into change. What I could have walked in 60 seconds took about 3 minutes. Once at the place with the change, that guy had to go off and get change. Gee, these small towns are bad with liquidity.
Then off to find the gas smuggler. I entered the local bar whose name seems to be Risk Assurance--or is that the name of the previous business? We went to the back where there is a fan, but they had no juice. The gas smuggler offered a liter of gas to run the generator to turn the fan. The man brought me a beer and the smuggler a fruit juice. The beer was room temperature and I tried to stop him but he already opened the bottle. The smuggler and another guy yelled at the bartender and told him it was his error, but I agreed to drink it. It was warm, but still had some refreshing power. I got the whole lowdown on the smuggling operation which was kind of neat.
Then I headed off to my room to rest. The smuggler said he'd meet me at my hotel and have another beer.
I rested in my room until about 6pm. The smuggler didn't come so I figured I'd go out and arrange my transportation. I had, in the interim, asked random people about the cost to get to Kumba and the CFA 15000 is what it costs. So I headed over and asked what time I should arrive in the morning. They said about 7am--I should just come and leave my bags in the Boston Hotel and we'd get them on the way out. Now I was feeling a little easier. I headed back to the hotel to await the generator.
It got dark and no generator. I went out and asked. They said it would started at about 8 or 8:30. Man, that's a lot of time in the dark. I headed down the street and got a mylar bag with 25cl of red table wine. Then headed back to my room and read Veronika Décide de Mourir by my rechargeable lantern. Finally, after an hour, the generator came on and I tried to plug in my laptop. But no luck--the outlet wasn't powered. They said the outlets aren't connected. So I had to move my laptop to the lobby/bar where I typed up my blogs for 3 solid hours in front of an enraptured audience of three who were reading as I was typing.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008 23:50 Cameroon local time
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Third Full Day In Calabar
My third full day in Calabar. Yes, my money is dwindling and I'm still stuck in Calabar. It seems that I get my timing all wrong in Nigeria. I wind up doing everything on the weekends when things are closed and not on weekdays when stuff is open. Oh well. C'est le vie.
I headed out and when I gave my key to the receptionist, she waxed Jesusy on me. She asked me if I love Jesus. I assured her that I did. She said that day of judgement would come soon and anyone not right with Jesus would be in deep doo-doo--not those words exactly. I assured her that Jesus and I are like two peas in a pod. She said she would have a tract for me when I returned. I thanked her and left. This Jesus stuff is driving me crazy here. But she has my key so I can't exactly tell her that I think Jesus is dead and gone and won't be there when I die--that when I die, I'll simply cease to exist. And there will be no judgement--those who have been wronged and look forward to some cosmic comeuppance should just face reality that bad people get away with bad stuff and there will be no compensation in heaven.
I headed toward the Cameroonian consulate and on the way I passed the Intercontental Bank. In Kano, they had currency exchange and the man at the motor park had told me that the Banks in Nigeria can exchange any currency so I was hoping I would be able to get some CFA for my visa. But they didn't have any CFA. This was bad because the visa costs N17800 (US$140) when paying in Naira but CFA 61000 (US$120) when paying in CFA. So naturally I wanted to get some CFA, but no go. So I headed on. I still needed passport photos. The visa requires three photos. Just south of the consulate, there is a place called Mr. Fan which has ice cream, fast food, and a photographer. I sat there and waited while a woman processed the pictures of a previous customer, a sailor who wanted his picture put on a more romantic background. When she was done with him, she took a few snaps of me and then used a program called Photo Désirée to remove the shadows. Soon I had 8 new passport photos, though I was pretty sweaty and certainly didn't look my best.
Those in hand, I headed to the consulate where I waited for the vice-consul to arrive. He did and we started the application. It was a new experience for me. Until now, all my applications were just forms to fill out. But Cameroon requires a handwritten letter requesting a visa to avoid abuse. So I had to write out a handwritten letter requesting a visa. I wasn't sure what to write and I asked if he had a model for me to copy. He got out a sheet of paper and wrote out a model for me. The English was very different from American English. It went something like this--though I'm not exactly sure since the grammar is not correct in America and I can't necessarily remember what is essentially nonsense. "Dear Sir, I humbly submit my application for a visa to enter your country as a tourist as I request an entry clearance into your country. While waiting my application, please receive my sincerest greetings."
He was surprised my expected date of entry. Wouldn't I rather take a boat? No, I prefer to go by land. He said the boat was much better. I asked if the land crossing was closed due to rain? No, but he predicted I would find it...stressful.
Then I counted out my N17800 and headed out. He told me to return at 3pm. I went to the Molay internet cafe but it was full, so I had a beer at Freddy's and when I returned, there was an empty spot. It was a very slow connection. Enough to do my blog but way underpowered for even talkingpointsmemo.com which is not too bandwidth intensive. Forget about email or facebook. I spent an hour watching the browser gradually load all the pages and accomplished nothing more than uploading my blogs. Quite a feat.
After that, I headed back to the hotel and rested. At 2:45 I planned to head out to the Cameroon consulate and then head to the museum where I figured they might have postcards. Lonely Planet recommends bringing a flashlight when there is no power and there hadn't been any power other than local generators the whole time in Calabar. So I brought my Freeplay Indigo lantern--one of my most precious possesions--to the Cameroonian consulate. I got there just at 3pm, paying N80 for a mototaxi, and waited. There were a number of people there in the waiting area. They naturally noticed my lantern. I showed them all the features--the work light, the lantern, the crank to recharge it. One guy told me to dash him the lantern. I told him I brought it with me because I needed it and couldn't dash it. He left and another guy told me to dash him the lantern and he would buy me a local one, but again I refused. I need my lantern. People in Calabar are used to not having power, but I need my lantern where I know where it is in my backpack and can find it, and if it is out of juice, I can just crank it and get light. It it essential for me. I'm happy that they liked it and I can certainly see a huge market for the Freeplay Indigo in Nigeria. Maybe someday they will be common there.
The vice-consul came and as is often the case, he said I requested less than 30 days so he gave me extra days. I thanked him and told him I looked forward to visiting Cameroon. Then I hailed a moto-taxi to the National Museum for N70.
It is a pretty good museum. I was pretty tired as I was fighting a cold and regret that I blew by some pretty interesting looking exhibits. Of course, take that with a grain of salt as my favorite channel in the US is C-SPAN. There is an extensive history of the area from slavery to the transition to the palm oil exports. The British rule takes quite a role. A very nice museum. However, they didn't have postcards. Dammit! I headed back to the market where almost nobody in the stationary stores even ever heard of this odd concept--the post card. I gave up and headed back to my room and ripped apart some cards I got suckered into buying by a super-persistent merchant in Ouagaodougou to make some makeshift postcards.
I decided to head to the Metropolitan for another air conditioned stay with ice cold Stars. I wrote out my post cards and then read Veronika Décide de Mourir while the British guy finished up his Robert Ludlum novel. After a while the FIFA girls soccer match came on. Japan vs. Germany. Japan is my second home so I rooted for them and after a while they scored. But it was only half time and time for me to leave to I don't know how the match turned out. I went to the reception at the Metropolitan and asked where their outgoing mail was. Thay have no outgoing mail. They acted as if the idea that I (or anybody) would want to send outgoing mail is totally insane. I was shocked. The major business hotel in Calabar does NOT have a way to send outgoing mail from the hotel? Shocking! I headed home.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008 21:45 Cameroon local time
I headed out and when I gave my key to the receptionist, she waxed Jesusy on me. She asked me if I love Jesus. I assured her that I did. She said that day of judgement would come soon and anyone not right with Jesus would be in deep doo-doo--not those words exactly. I assured her that Jesus and I are like two peas in a pod. She said she would have a tract for me when I returned. I thanked her and left. This Jesus stuff is driving me crazy here. But she has my key so I can't exactly tell her that I think Jesus is dead and gone and won't be there when I die--that when I die, I'll simply cease to exist. And there will be no judgement--those who have been wronged and look forward to some cosmic comeuppance should just face reality that bad people get away with bad stuff and there will be no compensation in heaven.
I headed toward the Cameroonian consulate and on the way I passed the Intercontental Bank. In Kano, they had currency exchange and the man at the motor park had told me that the Banks in Nigeria can exchange any currency so I was hoping I would be able to get some CFA for my visa. But they didn't have any CFA. This was bad because the visa costs N17800 (US$140) when paying in Naira but CFA 61000 (US$120) when paying in CFA. So naturally I wanted to get some CFA, but no go. So I headed on. I still needed passport photos. The visa requires three photos. Just south of the consulate, there is a place called Mr. Fan which has ice cream, fast food, and a photographer. I sat there and waited while a woman processed the pictures of a previous customer, a sailor who wanted his picture put on a more romantic background. When she was done with him, she took a few snaps of me and then used a program called Photo Désirée to remove the shadows. Soon I had 8 new passport photos, though I was pretty sweaty and certainly didn't look my best.
Those in hand, I headed to the consulate where I waited for the vice-consul to arrive. He did and we started the application. It was a new experience for me. Until now, all my applications were just forms to fill out. But Cameroon requires a handwritten letter requesting a visa to avoid abuse. So I had to write out a handwritten letter requesting a visa. I wasn't sure what to write and I asked if he had a model for me to copy. He got out a sheet of paper and wrote out a model for me. The English was very different from American English. It went something like this--though I'm not exactly sure since the grammar is not correct in America and I can't necessarily remember what is essentially nonsense. "Dear Sir, I humbly submit my application for a visa to enter your country as a tourist as I request an entry clearance into your country. While waiting my application, please receive my sincerest greetings."
He was surprised my expected date of entry. Wouldn't I rather take a boat? No, I prefer to go by land. He said the boat was much better. I asked if the land crossing was closed due to rain? No, but he predicted I would find it...stressful.
Then I counted out my N17800 and headed out. He told me to return at 3pm. I went to the Molay internet cafe but it was full, so I had a beer at Freddy's and when I returned, there was an empty spot. It was a very slow connection. Enough to do my blog but way underpowered for even talkingpointsmemo.com which is not too bandwidth intensive. Forget about email or facebook. I spent an hour watching the browser gradually load all the pages and accomplished nothing more than uploading my blogs. Quite a feat.
After that, I headed back to the hotel and rested. At 2:45 I planned to head out to the Cameroon consulate and then head to the museum where I figured they might have postcards. Lonely Planet recommends bringing a flashlight when there is no power and there hadn't been any power other than local generators the whole time in Calabar. So I brought my Freeplay Indigo lantern--one of my most precious possesions--to the Cameroonian consulate. I got there just at 3pm, paying N80 for a mototaxi, and waited. There were a number of people there in the waiting area. They naturally noticed my lantern. I showed them all the features--the work light, the lantern, the crank to recharge it. One guy told me to dash him the lantern. I told him I brought it with me because I needed it and couldn't dash it. He left and another guy told me to dash him the lantern and he would buy me a local one, but again I refused. I need my lantern. People in Calabar are used to not having power, but I need my lantern where I know where it is in my backpack and can find it, and if it is out of juice, I can just crank it and get light. It it essential for me. I'm happy that they liked it and I can certainly see a huge market for the Freeplay Indigo in Nigeria. Maybe someday they will be common there.
The vice-consul came and as is often the case, he said I requested less than 30 days so he gave me extra days. I thanked him and told him I looked forward to visiting Cameroon. Then I hailed a moto-taxi to the National Museum for N70.
It is a pretty good museum. I was pretty tired as I was fighting a cold and regret that I blew by some pretty interesting looking exhibits. Of course, take that with a grain of salt as my favorite channel in the US is C-SPAN. There is an extensive history of the area from slavery to the transition to the palm oil exports. The British rule takes quite a role. A very nice museum. However, they didn't have postcards. Dammit! I headed back to the market where almost nobody in the stationary stores even ever heard of this odd concept--the post card. I gave up and headed back to my room and ripped apart some cards I got suckered into buying by a super-persistent merchant in Ouagaodougou to make some makeshift postcards.
I decided to head to the Metropolitan for another air conditioned stay with ice cold Stars. I wrote out my post cards and then read Veronika Décide de Mourir while the British guy finished up his Robert Ludlum novel. After a while the FIFA girls soccer match came on. Japan vs. Germany. Japan is my second home so I rooted for them and after a while they scored. But it was only half time and time for me to leave to I don't know how the match turned out. I went to the reception at the Metropolitan and asked where their outgoing mail was. Thay have no outgoing mail. They acted as if the idea that I (or anybody) would want to send outgoing mail is totally insane. I was shocked. The major business hotel in Calabar does NOT have a way to send outgoing mail from the hotel? Shocking! I headed home.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008 21:45 Cameroon local time
Second Full Day In Calabar
I didn't have much planned for Sunday--just hopefully find an internet cafe. My parents are probably starting to worry a little bit and a blog update would help them sleep a bit better. So I headed out. There is an internet cafe up by Freddy's and the Paradise City and other hotels on the way to the airport. Also, I wanted to see how much the car to Ikom would cost and the motor park is on the way. So off I went. I had to get through this parade of people going to church. Man, Calabar is religious. Insanely religious. If the Africans spent as much time educating themselves in science and math as in God and Jesus, they'd be G7. Though I must say, all religious talk here centers on the same few themes--God loves you, Jesus loves you--not much else really. Listening to these preachers--and they are everywhere so you can't not listen--is really tedious. It's the same thing over and over and over just with slight differences. Tell a preacher here that he can't talk about how much Jesus and God love you, and he'll be speechless.
I got to the motor park and entered. There were tons of cars all with wooden signs on their roofs saying "Calabar to ...". I found the Ikom one without much effort. It costs N1200 (US$10) for the 3 hour trip. I asked if there was a person there who could change money to Central African CFA. They said the bank could do it. Hmm... Really? OK. Anyway, I knew what it would cost to get to Ikom near the Cameroonian border. I went passed the mosque hoping a Muslim Hausa money changer would ask if I needed change, but nobody did. Then I just headed up toward the internet cafe.
Unfortunately, since I left the hotel, one thing was becoming obvious. Calabar shuts down on Sunday morning so people can drink their Jesus juice. I made it pretty far north and turned around and came back. I was out for a few hours in the hot sun and needed a rest. I rested a good while back in my room and then in the late afternoon headed out to the Chester Bar in the Metropolitan Hotel. IT was so delightfully cool and the beer was so delightfully refreshing. I read my French version of Veronika Décide à Mourir. A British sounding guy was reading a Robert Ludlum novel--not of the Bourne Identity ones but another one. So there were 2 white guys sitting at a bar reading in Nigeria.
After 2 beers it was starting to get late and I headed back toward the Nelbee. I stopped in Mac Bite, the local fast food place. I got in the "line" at the register and watched as an electric wire on one of their pieces of equipment started to spark and smoke. That was cool. Then I ordered an order of fries and 2 egg rolls. After I got that I went outside to their shawarma stand and got a beef shawarma. While I was waiting, the girl cooking the chicken sneezed on the beef laying out there, so I was happy that she already put my beef into the pita and was warming it up now.
I was extremely tired when I got back and it took all my effort to eat as much of the cold fries and the beef shawarma as possible. I didn't finish it all. Then I just layed there like a beached whale until the generator came on a little after 6 and I could feel some AC. Once I had a little energy, I rigged up my rope and mosquito net since the Nelbee has mosquitoes.
Then I drifted off to sleep.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008 14:54 Cameroon local time
I got to the motor park and entered. There were tons of cars all with wooden signs on their roofs saying "Calabar to ...". I found the Ikom one without much effort. It costs N1200 (US$10) for the 3 hour trip. I asked if there was a person there who could change money to Central African CFA. They said the bank could do it. Hmm... Really? OK. Anyway, I knew what it would cost to get to Ikom near the Cameroonian border. I went passed the mosque hoping a Muslim Hausa money changer would ask if I needed change, but nobody did. Then I just headed up toward the internet cafe.
Unfortunately, since I left the hotel, one thing was becoming obvious. Calabar shuts down on Sunday morning so people can drink their Jesus juice. I made it pretty far north and turned around and came back. I was out for a few hours in the hot sun and needed a rest. I rested a good while back in my room and then in the late afternoon headed out to the Chester Bar in the Metropolitan Hotel. IT was so delightfully cool and the beer was so delightfully refreshing. I read my French version of Veronika Décide à Mourir. A British sounding guy was reading a Robert Ludlum novel--not of the Bourne Identity ones but another one. So there were 2 white guys sitting at a bar reading in Nigeria.
After 2 beers it was starting to get late and I headed back toward the Nelbee. I stopped in Mac Bite, the local fast food place. I got in the "line" at the register and watched as an electric wire on one of their pieces of equipment started to spark and smoke. That was cool. Then I ordered an order of fries and 2 egg rolls. After I got that I went outside to their shawarma stand and got a beef shawarma. While I was waiting, the girl cooking the chicken sneezed on the beef laying out there, so I was happy that she already put my beef into the pita and was warming it up now.
I was extremely tired when I got back and it took all my effort to eat as much of the cold fries and the beef shawarma as possible. I didn't finish it all. Then I just layed there like a beached whale until the generator came on a little after 6 and I could feel some AC. Once I had a little energy, I rigged up my rope and mosquito net since the Nelbee has mosquitoes.
Then I drifted off to sleep.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008 14:54 Cameroon local time
Sunday, November 23, 2008
First Full Day In Calabar
I got up and was tired. My sleep wasn't good at all. I was paying N4000 for this room and I was suffering. At least I didn't pay for the whole 4 days. It was already past 9:30am, though, and if I'm going to move today, I'm going to have act fast. I got dresses and headed out. The woman at the desk asked me how we were going to settle the payment. I asked her if she was aware that the air conditioner didn't work. She acted as if she didn't know and said they would look into it when the manager arrives. I told her that I wasn't sure if I would stay or not but I'd be back before noon either way. She didn't seem happy that I was dissatisfied and was planning to leave.
I headed up to toward the Paradise City hotel which has rooms that are more expensive that the original Nelbee prices in Lonely Planet but cheaper than their new gouging prices. I stopped at the Zoo Garden hotel the first of 2 hotels at the statue of Mary Slessor. The price was posted N5500. Too much. I explain to the desk man what I was doing and he started dropping the price. He came down to N3500 which is less than I was paying, but still more than I wanted to pay.
I went next door to the Palladium and asked about their rooms N3000 per night. Now we're talking. I said I might be back and headed up to the Paradise City. The Paradise City looked abandoned but I went in and it is open. But it didn't look like they have any customers. No stuff at the desk, no furniture in the lobby or common areas. And the rooms were N4000, but when I explained what I was doing and said I got a room for N3000 at the Palladium already lined up, He dropped to N3000 and they showed a very nice room.
So now I was set. I had two options at N3000. I headed back and told the woman I'd be checking out. The manager still wasn't there. I packed my stuff and loaded it up on my back and took my key out. Now the manager was there. I told her I was leaving because the air conditioner doesn't work and I need to find a place with AC. She said I could change rooms. Then I told her that I wouldn't mind switching rooms, but since I found 2 places that would give me rooms for N3000, I wouldn't be willing to go over that price. She was impressed by my legwork as I told her all the prices and how they all came down. The room they switched me to was normally N3600 but she gave it to me for N3000.
So I took my stuff and went back into the Nelbee and settled in a new room with a brand new air conditioner.
Then I slept for a while. I hadn't had a good sleep in a while. After a good nap, I was hot and thirsty. There was still no electricity so I decided to head to the Hotel Metropolitan. This hotel is the most expensive hotel in Calabar and I figured it would have and air conditioned bar with a TV and super-cold beers. I was right. They the Discovery Channel on for a while. Apparently in the African version of the Discovery Channel, according to the ads, Mythbusters and Survivorman are new series. The beer was only N400 plus taxes and tips that bring it up to N500. But for a large Star it isn't bad. And they have a happy hour from 6pm to 7pm where it's half price. After a while, all the employees came in and they switched the TV to Manchester City vs. Arsenal. They were a bit unhappy because the Chelsea vs. Newcastle was on at the same time and they would rather watch them both than choose one. A couple guys had N1000 riding on the results.
I headed home and rested a bit. Then I headed back up to a fast food place. They didn't have hamburgers or hot dogs yet, but they had a takeout shawarma place outside on their premises and I got a chicken shawarma for N500 which was OK, but not great. By the time I got back, the generator had started and my room was delightfully cool. I just stayed in and relaxed the rest of the night.
Sunday, November 23, 2008 8:42 Nigerian local time
I headed up to toward the Paradise City hotel which has rooms that are more expensive that the original Nelbee prices in Lonely Planet but cheaper than their new gouging prices. I stopped at the Zoo Garden hotel the first of 2 hotels at the statue of Mary Slessor. The price was posted N5500. Too much. I explain to the desk man what I was doing and he started dropping the price. He came down to N3500 which is less than I was paying, but still more than I wanted to pay.
I went next door to the Palladium and asked about their rooms N3000 per night. Now we're talking. I said I might be back and headed up to the Paradise City. The Paradise City looked abandoned but I went in and it is open. But it didn't look like they have any customers. No stuff at the desk, no furniture in the lobby or common areas. And the rooms were N4000, but when I explained what I was doing and said I got a room for N3000 at the Palladium already lined up, He dropped to N3000 and they showed a very nice room.
So now I was set. I had two options at N3000. I headed back and told the woman I'd be checking out. The manager still wasn't there. I packed my stuff and loaded it up on my back and took my key out. Now the manager was there. I told her I was leaving because the air conditioner doesn't work and I need to find a place with AC. She said I could change rooms. Then I told her that I wouldn't mind switching rooms, but since I found 2 places that would give me rooms for N3000, I wouldn't be willing to go over that price. She was impressed by my legwork as I told her all the prices and how they all came down. The room they switched me to was normally N3600 but she gave it to me for N3000.
So I took my stuff and went back into the Nelbee and settled in a new room with a brand new air conditioner.
Then I slept for a while. I hadn't had a good sleep in a while. After a good nap, I was hot and thirsty. There was still no electricity so I decided to head to the Hotel Metropolitan. This hotel is the most expensive hotel in Calabar and I figured it would have and air conditioned bar with a TV and super-cold beers. I was right. They the Discovery Channel on for a while. Apparently in the African version of the Discovery Channel, according to the ads, Mythbusters and Survivorman are new series. The beer was only N400 plus taxes and tips that bring it up to N500. But for a large Star it isn't bad. And they have a happy hour from 6pm to 7pm where it's half price. After a while, all the employees came in and they switched the TV to Manchester City vs. Arsenal. They were a bit unhappy because the Chelsea vs. Newcastle was on at the same time and they would rather watch them both than choose one. A couple guys had N1000 riding on the results.
I headed home and rested a bit. Then I headed back up to a fast food place. They didn't have hamburgers or hot dogs yet, but they had a takeout shawarma place outside on their premises and I got a chicken shawarma for N500 which was OK, but not great. By the time I got back, the generator had started and my room was delightfully cool. I just stayed in and relaxed the rest of the night.
Sunday, November 23, 2008 8:42 Nigerian local time
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Lagos To Calabar Via Virgin Nigeria
I hung out in the downstairs area of the Lagos domestic terminal at a table outside Mr. Biggs. There were about 1 dozen or so sleeping people on the benches there. I took tiny little cat naps, but mostly stayed up. Finally, at about 5am things started to wake up. The stores still weren't opening, but I made it through the long night. I just sort of hung around until 7 when I checked in. Then I went through security and headed to the somewhat disorganized restaurant Things Remembered where three people all asked me what I wanted.
Finally it was time to board and we all got on a bus. Then it was off to Calabar. The plane wasn't full and that was a relief. After about an hour we arrived in Calabar. I had a lock on one of my cheap bags purchased for the purpose of this trip and it was missing from the bag. Oh well. I'm about done with that lock anyway. It was actually there more for ID than to protect anything. I should have put it on the thicker handles rather than the zippers.
I headed out. The airport is 2 or 3 km from Calabar. I asked a guy how much for a cab. N3000 (US$24). Huh! I must have misheard. I asked again. He again said N3000. I asked if Calabar wasn't just 2km away. He said it's a little more than that (he's right--it's closer to 3km.) He asked how much I'd be willing to pay. I said N250. I shook his head. I can't believe these guys actually get away with this. Eventually I paid N300 to get in on a motorcycle.
I went to the Nelbee Executive Guest House which is one of the budget options in Lonely Planet. LP lists it as N2300-N2500. But when I got there, the price had increased considerably. I would up paying N4000 for my first night. They wanted me to pay for my entire stay but I told them I needed to visit the ATM and could only pay for tonight. My real plans were to do a little shopping around, though.
It was a little before noon and I was tired and dirty. I can't even remember the last time I did laundry. I hadn't showered in a few days. I needed some major cleanup. First I did laundry. My pants, 2 shirts, and 2 socks. With just that, the water looked like Hershey's chocolate syrup when I was done. Even the first rinse water looked like chocolate milk. But soon enough, the water was clear enough that I felt my clothes were clean. Clothes done, time to wash me. The Nelbee has hot and cold running water and a shower curtain, but no shower head. You still have to fill a bucket (@N4000 I expect more) and I didn't even want the hot water. Maybe you need it at other times of the year but right now, the cold water is perfect. Actually the power in Calabar is really unreliable and the water won't be hot unless there is power which there wasn't when I arrived. I gave my hair a couple washings. Finally, I dried off and put on all new clothes. Whew! I felt so much better.
I headed off to the Cameroonian consulate. It's about a 40 minute walk but it's easy to find. I noticed a couple of hotels along the way. At the consulate, I signed in and talked with the consul guy. The price is N17000 or 61000 CFA But not the kind of CFA I've been using. There are two regions in Africa that have currencies called the franc CFA. One is West Africa and one is Central Africa. Cameroon uses the Central African franc CFA. Confusing, eh? The value is almost the same, the Central African CFA being a smidgen less than the West African franc CFA. Anyway, it's about a US$20 difference between the prices with the CFA price being better. I also need not one but 3 passport photos. I was worried about that but noticed several passport photo places on my walk. I got the forms but told the guy that I'd need to get more money before I could pay and I'd be back on Monday at 10. Then I headed back. I stopped at a place in LP and had a beer but it wasn't that cold. I guess because there is no power. I walked some more and it started to rain so I stopped in another place and had another warmish beer. Then the rain mostly stopped and I got a motor-taxi for N50. The moto-taxis in Calabar actually make you wear a helmet. I suppose it's optional since I see about 20% of the passengers on taxis without one, but it's nice that they make you do that. I'm not sure if it saves lives. The helmet isn't exactly fitted to your head.
Then I came back to the room and slept. The hotel runs a generator from a little after 6pm to about 2am if there is no electricity. Unfortunately for me, the AC didn't work and the fan only worked well on the low speed. So I never really got cool and then when the power went off, I woke up and was kept awake by mosquitoes the rest of the night.
Saturday, November 22, 2008 19:10 Nigerian local time
Finally it was time to board and we all got on a bus. Then it was off to Calabar. The plane wasn't full and that was a relief. After about an hour we arrived in Calabar. I had a lock on one of my cheap bags purchased for the purpose of this trip and it was missing from the bag. Oh well. I'm about done with that lock anyway. It was actually there more for ID than to protect anything. I should have put it on the thicker handles rather than the zippers.
I headed out. The airport is 2 or 3 km from Calabar. I asked a guy how much for a cab. N3000 (US$24). Huh! I must have misheard. I asked again. He again said N3000. I asked if Calabar wasn't just 2km away. He said it's a little more than that (he's right--it's closer to 3km.) He asked how much I'd be willing to pay. I said N250. I shook his head. I can't believe these guys actually get away with this. Eventually I paid N300 to get in on a motorcycle.
I went to the Nelbee Executive Guest House which is one of the budget options in Lonely Planet. LP lists it as N2300-N2500. But when I got there, the price had increased considerably. I would up paying N4000 for my first night. They wanted me to pay for my entire stay but I told them I needed to visit the ATM and could only pay for tonight. My real plans were to do a little shopping around, though.
It was a little before noon and I was tired and dirty. I can't even remember the last time I did laundry. I hadn't showered in a few days. I needed some major cleanup. First I did laundry. My pants, 2 shirts, and 2 socks. With just that, the water looked like Hershey's chocolate syrup when I was done. Even the first rinse water looked like chocolate milk. But soon enough, the water was clear enough that I felt my clothes were clean. Clothes done, time to wash me. The Nelbee has hot and cold running water and a shower curtain, but no shower head. You still have to fill a bucket (@N4000 I expect more) and I didn't even want the hot water. Maybe you need it at other times of the year but right now, the cold water is perfect. Actually the power in Calabar is really unreliable and the water won't be hot unless there is power which there wasn't when I arrived. I gave my hair a couple washings. Finally, I dried off and put on all new clothes. Whew! I felt so much better.
I headed off to the Cameroonian consulate. It's about a 40 minute walk but it's easy to find. I noticed a couple of hotels along the way. At the consulate, I signed in and talked with the consul guy. The price is N17000 or 61000 CFA But not the kind of CFA I've been using. There are two regions in Africa that have currencies called the franc CFA. One is West Africa and one is Central Africa. Cameroon uses the Central African franc CFA. Confusing, eh? The value is almost the same, the Central African CFA being a smidgen less than the West African franc CFA. Anyway, it's about a US$20 difference between the prices with the CFA price being better. I also need not one but 3 passport photos. I was worried about that but noticed several passport photo places on my walk. I got the forms but told the guy that I'd need to get more money before I could pay and I'd be back on Monday at 10. Then I headed back. I stopped at a place in LP and had a beer but it wasn't that cold. I guess because there is no power. I walked some more and it started to rain so I stopped in another place and had another warmish beer. Then the rain mostly stopped and I got a motor-taxi for N50. The moto-taxis in Calabar actually make you wear a helmet. I suppose it's optional since I see about 20% of the passengers on taxis without one, but it's nice that they make you do that. I'm not sure if it saves lives. The helmet isn't exactly fitted to your head.
Then I came back to the room and slept. The hotel runs a generator from a little after 6pm to about 2am if there is no electricity. Unfortunately for me, the AC didn't work and the fan only worked well on the low speed. So I never really got cool and then when the power went off, I woke up and was kept awake by mosquitoes the rest of the night.
Saturday, November 22, 2008 19:10 Nigerian local time
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Lagos Airport: Maybe Sort Of A Liveblog?
Well, it's 7:50 PM and here I am in the Lagos domestic terminal. It is the new MMA2 terminal that replaced a terminal that burned down many years ago. It is pretty nice and pretty modern. There are 2 small food courts--one in departures and one in arrivals. There are a few small stores--one selling magazines and stationery (but not The Economist or postcards) and one selling soccer merchandise. There is a restaurant which is rather pricey which I satin frm 4:17 to 7:39 called Double Four. I had hot chicken wings for N1100 (US$9) though having seen another woman get the cheeseburger I regret I didn't get that, 3 Star beers--the big kind (60cl) which were N500 (US$4) each which is better than the place next store which sells 33cl cans for N400 (US$3.20) , and a double shot machiato (I got charged for 2 N600 machiatos instead of 1 machiato and a N400 shot of espresso). So my total bill there was N3800. Since they charged me for 2 machiatos, I only tipped them by paying N4000 (US$32.00) which is high for what I got but probably not too excessive for airport captive audience food.
I chatted with the employees for a while. The tourist American coming through Nigeria is rather uncommon so they were quite interested in my story. Nigeria is not exactly the most welcoming country. And their lack of reliable connection to the Visa network helps that prickliness. But done right, it would be a fun place to visit. I look forward to another opportunity to visit Nigeria. Once I know they have ATMs that reliably dispense money from Visa or perhaps if I can bring enough money or prearrange some Western Union transfers, I'd like to see more. It is an interesting country. I really think they have done a lot to address the sources of their unattractive image. When I entered Nigeria, I certainly had a lot of questions to answer and a lot of forms to fill out, but I paid not one Naira in bribes (to government officials) so far the whole time I was here. Maybe the south is different from the north. I don't know. Also, I googled a bit and found a website dedicated to--believe it or not--how to sleep in airports. The consensus was that Lagos used to be one of the absolute worst places to even think about sleeping, but the new domestic terminal seems really nice and I think it is perfectly safe to spend the night here, though I have no intention of sleeping. I intend to stay up all night. The new MMA2 domestic terminal feels like a small US city airport security-wise. Maybe like Madison, WI. There are still empty storefronts here because it opened so recently. Anyway, anyone needing to spend a night in Lagos would definitely find the security situation in the MMA2 terminal to be quite satisfactory. And given the high cost of taxing into Lagos and taxing back the airport, it's a backer's dream even if the food and drinks are on the high side. Of course it is just a little past 8pm right now, and that may change, but so far, so good.
My day started out pretty good. I woke up at 5:30 am since I know that for some reason the International Hotel turns off the generator about an hour before daylight. Why not just run the damn thing until the sun comes out and we can see in our rooms? Who knows. But they don't so I made sure I was up in time to do all my last minute packing. At first light I left and checked out. In fact, I wish I waited about 20 minutes because I got a taxi which was waiting right outside the hotel (they wait outside hotels when people are likely to leave). It was still a bit dark and the route to the airport took us on potholed bumpy dirt roads and over rickety wooden ditch covers. It's the kind of trip you want 20 minutes more sun. It was a bit chilly too which was sort of nice. We made the airport in 10 minutes and it only cost me N200 (US$1.60) which was less than the highest price I was willing to pay (N300) and only N50 more than the Lonely Planet price. In general, the Lonely Planet prices for transportation are low since it was published before gasoline went way up.
So I got to the airport and waited a while and watch the Virgin Nigeria people set up their rolling counters. Exactly 90 minutes before the departure, they opened the gates and we all went up. I got my boarding pass and went through security which was harrowing because I kept having to enter areas where the signage indicated they were restricted areas open only to authorized persons.
At the screening I didn't have to take off my shoes or remove my laptop. In fact, I only had to show my ID when I got my passport. The security was not exactly encouraging. I could get a boarding pass and then hand it over to Osama bin Laden and he could board the plane after that. But I survived the first flight to Abuja with no problem in the aisle seat. They served a drink and a sandwich which was beef (or tuna) but which colored more like ham. A Virgin trick on the Muslims?
The Abuja to Lagos leg a couple with a baby came. They asked if I could take the window seat. Sure, I prefer the window. :-) The baby cried a bit. At the end, I found out the woman was from Washington DC and her mother was there, too and it was their first time in Nigeria. I asked the mother if she would be in DC for the inauguration and she said she wouldn't be and she already rented out her house for the trip. Nice. I hear there is a big demand. Smart move.
I headed for the various food courts and found my way around the airport. There are a bunch of banks. There is a Skye bank whose ATM still does the cool music but whose error message on my ATM cards is still "No Useful App". But then I tried the Access Bank ATM and voila! It gave me money. Yay! So there is a bank in Nigeria that gives money. The system still has a long way to go and I certainly wouldn't ever expect to use ATMs here until they get a little better connected, but there is at least one machine in Nigeria that works.
After that, it was wait. I tried the meat pies at Mr. Biggs (good) and the meat pies at the bakery on the second floor (not as good). I'll try the meat pies at TP tomorrow.
Other than that, it was wait. Hurry up and wait. Wait, wait wait. After my hellish trip from Mopti to Timbuktu, I can endure any wait less than 4 hours. If I can stand up and walk rather than being confined to the area of a bag of sugar, I can endure it.
So that's where I am. Waiting until morning. I have 1.50 liters of Star beer competing with 2 shots of espresso. They'll team up to get me into the bathroom, but hopefully the espresso with beat the beer in helping me stay awake.
At 10:44, an employee asked me if I intended to stay here all night. I said I did. He asked why and I told him it was because I had a flight in the morning. He asked where and I told him Calabar. He said they don't normally allow passengers to sleep there overnight. I told him I didn't intend to sleep but to stay up. I pointed to my stuff and said I didn't want to sleep and leave it all unattended. He looked a bit askance at me but seemed to acquiesce. He walked off. Then he returned. "The environment is safe enough, but if some funny men approach, you can always talk to a person with a blue shirt and with a badge like this" he said showing me his badge around his neck. So so far so good. He didn't kick me out. Which at quarter to 11 would not be good since I have no idea what I would do in that circumstance.
At 11:54, another employee came by and asked the same questions. He said passengers can't stay here. I told him the other guy said it was OK. He started to walk away and then came back. He said there was a place downstairs with a policeman where passengers needing to stay the night should stay. I told him I would be happy to go anywhere he needed me to go. He told me to stay where I was and right now I'm not sure if he'll come back and move me or if he'll just let me stay. I figure the airport will essentially reopen at in less than 6 hours and I can survive until then. Just so long as I look like the kind of guy they don't want to throw to nocturnal Lagos they should let me stay in the airport and not expect me to take a cab into the city where I'm vulnerable to whatever.
At 12:51, two more employees came by and asked more or less the same things. She asked if I missed my flight and I said I didn't--I was just waiting for a flight in the morning. She asked why I didn't stay in hotel and come in the morning. I told her that I sometimes stay in airports when I have connections between flights and I didn't think it would be a problem. She said that they don't encourage it. She suggested I head to the place downstairs where the people who miss their flights stay. I said I would and it's no problem.
Thursday, November 20, 2008 24:55 Nigerian local time
I chatted with the employees for a while. The tourist American coming through Nigeria is rather uncommon so they were quite interested in my story. Nigeria is not exactly the most welcoming country. And their lack of reliable connection to the Visa network helps that prickliness. But done right, it would be a fun place to visit. I look forward to another opportunity to visit Nigeria. Once I know they have ATMs that reliably dispense money from Visa or perhaps if I can bring enough money or prearrange some Western Union transfers, I'd like to see more. It is an interesting country. I really think they have done a lot to address the sources of their unattractive image. When I entered Nigeria, I certainly had a lot of questions to answer and a lot of forms to fill out, but I paid not one Naira in bribes (to government officials) so far the whole time I was here. Maybe the south is different from the north. I don't know. Also, I googled a bit and found a website dedicated to--believe it or not--how to sleep in airports. The consensus was that Lagos used to be one of the absolute worst places to even think about sleeping, but the new domestic terminal seems really nice and I think it is perfectly safe to spend the night here, though I have no intention of sleeping. I intend to stay up all night. The new MMA2 domestic terminal feels like a small US city airport security-wise. Maybe like Madison, WI. There are still empty storefronts here because it opened so recently. Anyway, anyone needing to spend a night in Lagos would definitely find the security situation in the MMA2 terminal to be quite satisfactory. And given the high cost of taxing into Lagos and taxing back the airport, it's a backer's dream even if the food and drinks are on the high side. Of course it is just a little past 8pm right now, and that may change, but so far, so good.
My day started out pretty good. I woke up at 5:30 am since I know that for some reason the International Hotel turns off the generator about an hour before daylight. Why not just run the damn thing until the sun comes out and we can see in our rooms? Who knows. But they don't so I made sure I was up in time to do all my last minute packing. At first light I left and checked out. In fact, I wish I waited about 20 minutes because I got a taxi which was waiting right outside the hotel (they wait outside hotels when people are likely to leave). It was still a bit dark and the route to the airport took us on potholed bumpy dirt roads and over rickety wooden ditch covers. It's the kind of trip you want 20 minutes more sun. It was a bit chilly too which was sort of nice. We made the airport in 10 minutes and it only cost me N200 (US$1.60) which was less than the highest price I was willing to pay (N300) and only N50 more than the Lonely Planet price. In general, the Lonely Planet prices for transportation are low since it was published before gasoline went way up.
So I got to the airport and waited a while and watch the Virgin Nigeria people set up their rolling counters. Exactly 90 minutes before the departure, they opened the gates and we all went up. I got my boarding pass and went through security which was harrowing because I kept having to enter areas where the signage indicated they were restricted areas open only to authorized persons.
At the screening I didn't have to take off my shoes or remove my laptop. In fact, I only had to show my ID when I got my passport. The security was not exactly encouraging. I could get a boarding pass and then hand it over to Osama bin Laden and he could board the plane after that. But I survived the first flight to Abuja with no problem in the aisle seat. They served a drink and a sandwich which was beef (or tuna) but which colored more like ham. A Virgin trick on the Muslims?
The Abuja to Lagos leg a couple with a baby came. They asked if I could take the window seat. Sure, I prefer the window. :-) The baby cried a bit. At the end, I found out the woman was from Washington DC and her mother was there, too and it was their first time in Nigeria. I asked the mother if she would be in DC for the inauguration and she said she wouldn't be and she already rented out her house for the trip. Nice. I hear there is a big demand. Smart move.
I headed for the various food courts and found my way around the airport. There are a bunch of banks. There is a Skye bank whose ATM still does the cool music but whose error message on my ATM cards is still "No Useful App". But then I tried the Access Bank ATM and voila! It gave me money. Yay! So there is a bank in Nigeria that gives money. The system still has a long way to go and I certainly wouldn't ever expect to use ATMs here until they get a little better connected, but there is at least one machine in Nigeria that works.
After that, it was wait. I tried the meat pies at Mr. Biggs (good) and the meat pies at the bakery on the second floor (not as good). I'll try the meat pies at TP tomorrow.
Other than that, it was wait. Hurry up and wait. Wait, wait wait. After my hellish trip from Mopti to Timbuktu, I can endure any wait less than 4 hours. If I can stand up and walk rather than being confined to the area of a bag of sugar, I can endure it.
So that's where I am. Waiting until morning. I have 1.50 liters of Star beer competing with 2 shots of espresso. They'll team up to get me into the bathroom, but hopefully the espresso with beat the beer in helping me stay awake.
At 10:44, an employee asked me if I intended to stay here all night. I said I did. He asked why and I told him it was because I had a flight in the morning. He asked where and I told him Calabar. He said they don't normally allow passengers to sleep there overnight. I told him I didn't intend to sleep but to stay up. I pointed to my stuff and said I didn't want to sleep and leave it all unattended. He looked a bit askance at me but seemed to acquiesce. He walked off. Then he returned. "The environment is safe enough, but if some funny men approach, you can always talk to a person with a blue shirt and with a badge like this" he said showing me his badge around his neck. So so far so good. He didn't kick me out. Which at quarter to 11 would not be good since I have no idea what I would do in that circumstance.
At 11:54, another employee came by and asked the same questions. He said passengers can't stay here. I told him the other guy said it was OK. He started to walk away and then came back. He said there was a place downstairs with a policeman where passengers needing to stay the night should stay. I told him I would be happy to go anywhere he needed me to go. He told me to stay where I was and right now I'm not sure if he'll come back and move me or if he'll just let me stay. I figure the airport will essentially reopen at in less than 6 hours and I can survive until then. Just so long as I look like the kind of guy they don't want to throw to nocturnal Lagos they should let me stay in the airport and not expect me to take a cab into the city where I'm vulnerable to whatever.
At 12:51, two more employees came by and asked more or less the same things. She asked if I missed my flight and I said I didn't--I was just waiting for a flight in the morning. She asked why I didn't stay in hotel and come in the morning. I told her that I sometimes stay in airports when I have connections between flights and I didn't think it would be a problem. She said that they don't encourage it. She suggested I head to the place downstairs where the people who miss their flights stay. I said I would and it's no problem.
Thursday, November 20, 2008 24:55 Nigerian local time
Fourth Tiring But Unpanicky Day In Kano
My day was planned to be pretty low key. I wanted to get the second Western Union transfer and see the Museum and send postcards to the nieces. Other than that, no real plans. Just take it easy. The next night I intended to stay overnight in the airport in Lagos. Would it be just hanging out in a food court patrolled by Nigerian security guards and plenty of honest people doing the same as me? Or would it be defending my luggage from an onslaught of thieves eyeing my bags waiting for me to go to sleep or even just show a sign of weakness. Either way, I intend to stay up all night.
I got up nice and late and headed to the internet cafe. I did my usual stuff and lost my connection to my email just when I was going to send my itinerary to my parents. Sorry Mom & Dad. As long as you don't hear of any Virgin Nigeria crashes you shouldn't worry too much.
Then I headed to the post office. I got stamps but no postcards. There was a booth with postcards near the post office but they sucked pretty bad. I should either be able to find them in the Lagos airport or in Calabar.
I headed home to rest. Then I headed out to find the museum. I got lost on the way and I'm not sure how. The crowds in the Old City are thick and it's chaos. I had to cross a stalled convoy of gasoline tanker trucks. Eventually I found the museum described by Lonely Planet as the best in Northern Nigeria. I guess the museums in Northern Nigeria set a low bar. It was only N200 but it wasn't spectacular. It took me only about 10 minutes to blow through it. I passed a white couple who had a guide. The guides are apparently knowledgeable, but frankly from what I heard, he was going into more detail than I was in the mood for. I figured the couple was envious of me when I just read the descriptions by the photographs of the British troops in 1903 and blew past them.
I headed back to the hotel. I was tired and hot and wanted 2 things--a Star beer and to not be noticed by the Abuja woman. I got one of my wishes.
She wanted a Maltina and expected me to pay which I did since it's only a buck. So we chatted again. She was inside and saw me walk through the building. She suggested we go back inside because she was watching a TV show on the TV in there, but I said I preferred the cool outside. She was facing these 2 women at another table and then switched sides. She said they were jealous and saying bad things. They were speaking in their native language so I didn't know what they were saying. I'm not sure what this Abuja woman is. She asked if she wanted me to go get some suya, but I said I planned to eat some Chinese or Indian food later. She didn't know the Chinese had their own food. I guess she's a bit isolated. Also, I thought she knew what country I was from, but for some reason, she thought I was Zambia. I told her that, no, I'm American. We chatted some more about my trip. She asked me which is closer to Nigeria--America or Mali. I found it hard to believe it was a serious question, but it was. I guess as far as she's concerned, they might as well both be Mars. So odd. She got annoyed by the two women again and was a bit disconcerted by what they were saying. I didn't know what was going on. She wanted another Maltina. Dammit, but OK. A few ambulant merchants came by. One was selling cloth. The Abuja woman looked at a couple bolts of cloth. One was really nice and one was not really what I like. She asked me which I preferred. I sensed what she was up to. "I like that better", I said pointing to the nicer one, "but don't let me influence you because you are the one buying it." "You don't want to pay for me?" "Sorry, no." She sent the cloth salesman on his way.
It was starting to get dusky and I wanted to either eat Indian or Chinese food and that's over on the east side of town. She said she would walk with me until we got moto-taxis and she would go back to her town where her sister lives after I left. She led me a couple blocks south of the hotel for some reason rather than just flag one down on the big street by the hotel. One stopped. She talked with the guy after I told him I wanted to go to the Central Hotel. She told me not to take him, but he offered N50 (US$0.40) and I wasn't going to pass that up. A local price rather than a white price. I got on and bid her farewell. She warned me not to answer the door tonight if someone came knocking. Huh? I was a bit disconcerted. Who was she? Was she going to go back and try to convince the hotel staff that she's with me and they she needs the key to my place and then clean me out? I figured the hotel staff wouldn't fall for something like that. My experience is that the hotels are the hardest place to try to rip someone off. The entire staff knows who is staying there and they watch. African hotels have better de facto security than American hotels, in fact, simply because labor is so cheap in Africa that all hotels there have about 4 or 5 times more employees than an equivalently priced American hotel. And they keep an eye out for their guests. So I was a bit uneasy, but not too uneasy to ruin my expected meal.
The moto-taxi ride was great. It was the first one since my crash. I felt dominated by Nigerian since then. But now I was on the back of this moto-taxi and the driver was going up and down curbs and weaving between cars and cutting off other moto-taxis and being pretty aggressive. I had a couple of Stars in me, so I was just enjoying it. I felt like we were now dominating. I was reasserting my presence in Nigeria. I was on top of the world again. It was fun.
I got dropped off at the Central Hotel. It was now dark. I took at look at the Smart Tandoor restaurant and some Chinese place, but they both looked closed. It could just be that it was too early--only about 6:15. So I headed east one roundabout and headed south to where I knew there was another Chinese place and another Indian place. I found the Chinese Palace first and headed in.
As with all Chinese places in Africa, something critical on the menu is rediculously overpriced. It's always the soups and it's usually egg rolls as well. Here the egg rolls are pretty reasonably prices (N80 each) but the rice was overpriced (N280 for a small bowl of steamed rice). I got the mabo tofu (or as they call it, Minced Beef [Kano is heavily Muslim so it's not the usual pork] With Braised Tofu In Spicy Sauce--oh when will the world just learn how to say Mabo tofu?) and 3 egg rolls and an overpriced rice with a small bottle of water. The total came to about N1500 (US$12). It was a nice amount. I left and since this is a high class joint, there were moto-taxis out in front waiting for patrons. It was only N100 going back which is fair since it was night and you generally pay a premium to driver who wait for you rather than just meet on the street in traffic.
I got back and went up to my place. The moment of truth--did the Abuja woman convince the hotel staff that she was with me and get a key to my room? I opened the lock. Nope. Everything intact.
I set my alarm and watched TV. There was Entertainment Tonight which made me want to stay in Africa because I hate their forced insincere positivity and building up of celebrities and David Letterman which was fun to watch after so long--especially since one of his guests was Carla Bruni.
Then I packed a bit so there wouldn't be too much to do in the morning and went to sleep.
Thursday, November 20, 2008 21:22 Nigerian local time
I got up nice and late and headed to the internet cafe. I did my usual stuff and lost my connection to my email just when I was going to send my itinerary to my parents. Sorry Mom & Dad. As long as you don't hear of any Virgin Nigeria crashes you shouldn't worry too much.
Then I headed to the post office. I got stamps but no postcards. There was a booth with postcards near the post office but they sucked pretty bad. I should either be able to find them in the Lagos airport or in Calabar.
I headed home to rest. Then I headed out to find the museum. I got lost on the way and I'm not sure how. The crowds in the Old City are thick and it's chaos. I had to cross a stalled convoy of gasoline tanker trucks. Eventually I found the museum described by Lonely Planet as the best in Northern Nigeria. I guess the museums in Northern Nigeria set a low bar. It was only N200 but it wasn't spectacular. It took me only about 10 minutes to blow through it. I passed a white couple who had a guide. The guides are apparently knowledgeable, but frankly from what I heard, he was going into more detail than I was in the mood for. I figured the couple was envious of me when I just read the descriptions by the photographs of the British troops in 1903 and blew past them.
I headed back to the hotel. I was tired and hot and wanted 2 things--a Star beer and to not be noticed by the Abuja woman. I got one of my wishes.
She wanted a Maltina and expected me to pay which I did since it's only a buck. So we chatted again. She was inside and saw me walk through the building. She suggested we go back inside because she was watching a TV show on the TV in there, but I said I preferred the cool outside. She was facing these 2 women at another table and then switched sides. She said they were jealous and saying bad things. They were speaking in their native language so I didn't know what they were saying. I'm not sure what this Abuja woman is. She asked if she wanted me to go get some suya, but I said I planned to eat some Chinese or Indian food later. She didn't know the Chinese had their own food. I guess she's a bit isolated. Also, I thought she knew what country I was from, but for some reason, she thought I was Zambia. I told her that, no, I'm American. We chatted some more about my trip. She asked me which is closer to Nigeria--America or Mali. I found it hard to believe it was a serious question, but it was. I guess as far as she's concerned, they might as well both be Mars. So odd. She got annoyed by the two women again and was a bit disconcerted by what they were saying. I didn't know what was going on. She wanted another Maltina. Dammit, but OK. A few ambulant merchants came by. One was selling cloth. The Abuja woman looked at a couple bolts of cloth. One was really nice and one was not really what I like. She asked me which I preferred. I sensed what she was up to. "I like that better", I said pointing to the nicer one, "but don't let me influence you because you are the one buying it." "You don't want to pay for me?" "Sorry, no." She sent the cloth salesman on his way.
It was starting to get dusky and I wanted to either eat Indian or Chinese food and that's over on the east side of town. She said she would walk with me until we got moto-taxis and she would go back to her town where her sister lives after I left. She led me a couple blocks south of the hotel for some reason rather than just flag one down on the big street by the hotel. One stopped. She talked with the guy after I told him I wanted to go to the Central Hotel. She told me not to take him, but he offered N50 (US$0.40) and I wasn't going to pass that up. A local price rather than a white price. I got on and bid her farewell. She warned me not to answer the door tonight if someone came knocking. Huh? I was a bit disconcerted. Who was she? Was she going to go back and try to convince the hotel staff that she's with me and they she needs the key to my place and then clean me out? I figured the hotel staff wouldn't fall for something like that. My experience is that the hotels are the hardest place to try to rip someone off. The entire staff knows who is staying there and they watch. African hotels have better de facto security than American hotels, in fact, simply because labor is so cheap in Africa that all hotels there have about 4 or 5 times more employees than an equivalently priced American hotel. And they keep an eye out for their guests. So I was a bit uneasy, but not too uneasy to ruin my expected meal.
The moto-taxi ride was great. It was the first one since my crash. I felt dominated by Nigerian since then. But now I was on the back of this moto-taxi and the driver was going up and down curbs and weaving between cars and cutting off other moto-taxis and being pretty aggressive. I had a couple of Stars in me, so I was just enjoying it. I felt like we were now dominating. I was reasserting my presence in Nigeria. I was on top of the world again. It was fun.
I got dropped off at the Central Hotel. It was now dark. I took at look at the Smart Tandoor restaurant and some Chinese place, but they both looked closed. It could just be that it was too early--only about 6:15. So I headed east one roundabout and headed south to where I knew there was another Chinese place and another Indian place. I found the Chinese Palace first and headed in.
As with all Chinese places in Africa, something critical on the menu is rediculously overpriced. It's always the soups and it's usually egg rolls as well. Here the egg rolls are pretty reasonably prices (N80 each) but the rice was overpriced (N280 for a small bowl of steamed rice). I got the mabo tofu (or as they call it, Minced Beef [Kano is heavily Muslim so it's not the usual pork] With Braised Tofu In Spicy Sauce--oh when will the world just learn how to say Mabo tofu?) and 3 egg rolls and an overpriced rice with a small bottle of water. The total came to about N1500 (US$12). It was a nice amount. I left and since this is a high class joint, there were moto-taxis out in front waiting for patrons. It was only N100 going back which is fair since it was night and you generally pay a premium to driver who wait for you rather than just meet on the street in traffic.
I got back and went up to my place. The moment of truth--did the Abuja woman convince the hotel staff that she was with me and get a key to my room? I opened the lock. Nope. Everything intact.
I set my alarm and watched TV. There was Entertainment Tonight which made me want to stay in Africa because I hate their forced insincere positivity and building up of celebrities and David Letterman which was fun to watch after so long--especially since one of his guests was Carla Bruni.
Then I packed a bit so there wouldn't be too much to do in the morning and went to sleep.
Thursday, November 20, 2008 21:22 Nigerian local time
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Third Semi-panicky Day In Kano
My goal on the third day was to visit the last things I need to visit in Kano and then figure out how to get to Calabar. I headed to the internet cafe to try to see what I could figure out. One of the options I looked at was to fly. There was a Virgin Nigeria flight from Kano to Lagos on Thursday and Lagos to Calabar on Friday. It would mean spending a day in Lagos. But it would also mean that I'd never be too far from civilization. And when I have no access to money and can't fend for myself, that's a good thing. The only problem is that the flight is N34000. I booked it and headed to the Virgin Nigeria office which, conveniently, is really close to the internet cafe. The Virgin website they could take a credit card there which would be good since that would leave me enough to survive.
But when I got there, they required cash. I counted out what I had and figured if I flew I would have not quite enough but almost to get to Cameroon--provided nothing went wrong and I could stay at the airport in Lagos. I decided to go for it.
I headed back and stopped at an ATM on the way. This time it said "Serious error" and canceled the transaction. Yikes! So the ATM is still not working. I waited for a reasonable time to call my parents and have them Western Union another $200.
I fell asleep for a while. At some point, there was a knock on my door. The woman from Abuja sent the hotel man up to tell me that she was in the bar. I don't mind if she tries to sit with me in the bar, but I'm not really into the idea of her interrupting me when I'm not there. I told the guy I was sleeping (obvious from the way I was dressed) and he said he would tell her.
I called and had another $200 sent to me. Then, I just watched CNN for the rest of the night. When the power went out and the generator came on, I turned up the volume. When the power came back and the generator turned off, I turned down the volume. Pretty much for the entire night until I went back to Dunkin' Pepper and had a chicken a fried rice.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008 20:31 Nigerian local time
But when I got there, they required cash. I counted out what I had and figured if I flew I would have not quite enough but almost to get to Cameroon--provided nothing went wrong and I could stay at the airport in Lagos. I decided to go for it.
I headed back and stopped at an ATM on the way. This time it said "Serious error" and canceled the transaction. Yikes! So the ATM is still not working. I waited for a reasonable time to call my parents and have them Western Union another $200.
I fell asleep for a while. At some point, there was a knock on my door. The woman from Abuja sent the hotel man up to tell me that she was in the bar. I don't mind if she tries to sit with me in the bar, but I'm not really into the idea of her interrupting me when I'm not there. I told the guy I was sleeping (obvious from the way I was dressed) and he said he would tell her.
I called and had another $200 sent to me. Then, I just watched CNN for the rest of the night. When the power went out and the generator came on, I turned up the volume. When the power came back and the generator turned off, I turned down the volume. Pretty much for the entire night until I went back to Dunkin' Pepper and had a chicken a fried rice.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008 20:31 Nigerian local time
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Second Panicky Day In Kano
Monday morning I woke up. Hopefully, this would be the day I get my Western Union infusion. I went to the internet cafe which is at the other end of the street with all the banks. After some surfing, I headed back and the banks were now open. I went to the GTBank. All the banks in Nigeria have this airlock type system to control access to the bank. You press a button and enter the phone booth sized tube and then a few seconds later, it opens on the other side. I got a form, but their pens sucked and I couldn't write on the forms. So I headed home to get a better pen. Since I was home now, I decided to try a closer bank. I tried the Diamond Bank first but the form for me to fill out didn't say Western Union on it anywhere and it was missing some fields. The guard who helped me get the form tried to tell me to have a seat and he'd get another form, but I decided to try another bank. I went to Intercontental Bank. There I got a form and filled it out, but they told me I was missing the money transfer control number. Great!
Back to the internet cafe to email my parents and ask them to send it. I also had them text it to my phone. It didn't take long. Then back to the Intercontinental. I gave them the form and my passport. Then for the second time in a week, she said that she didn't think that was me in the picture. Flattering, but when my ability to survive depends on her believing it's me, it's disconcerting. I told her I weighed over 200 kg 8 years ago. Then I offered my driver's license. She preferred that. In the end all worked. It took about 15 minutes from when I went in (the second time) to when the teller eventually set down a huge thick stack of N500 notes. Yikes, it's one thick stack. I managed to fit it into my money belt, but it was tight.
OK, I can breathe now. I returned to the hotel and relaxed. I'm ashamed to say, I watched Life With Mikey with Michael J. Fox. At least, they played About a Boy which is much better a bit after that.
In the evening, I headed down to the hotel bar and sat there with a Star thinking about what I'd do. Then this woman came and sat with me. She first wanted to make sure I wasn't married. I'm not sure why. She said she's in town from Abuja for her sister's wedding and was staying at this hotel for a while. We chatted for a while and then she hinted that she's like a Maltina. (In Africa, any beverage whose first 4 letters are "malt" are alcohol free beers). It was only N120 (US$1). Then she showed me how to eat Nigerian food. She ordered some meat from the restaurant for N100 (US$0.80) but it was just cold chunks. She said a rather lengthy prayer over the food. By now it was dark and she started putting food in my mouth. Next she got N200 (US$1.60) and ran across the street to get some suya which is hot, spicy, barbequed meat. She did another lengthy prayer over the food. It was pretty good and there was a fair amount of it. Everytime she told me to eat she did so by saying "chop chop". Finally we shared an African salad which has some sort of sweet vegetable and chunks of what I think was also meat. Again she said a engthy prayer and kept saying chop chop.
Finally, I was pretty tired, so I excused myself to go back to my room. She asked if I wanted an escort. I told her no thanks, but I can find my way. Then I went up and went to sleep.
Tuesday, November 18, 16:01 Nigerian local time
Back to the internet cafe to email my parents and ask them to send it. I also had them text it to my phone. It didn't take long. Then back to the Intercontinental. I gave them the form and my passport. Then for the second time in a week, she said that she didn't think that was me in the picture. Flattering, but when my ability to survive depends on her believing it's me, it's disconcerting. I told her I weighed over 200 kg 8 years ago. Then I offered my driver's license. She preferred that. In the end all worked. It took about 15 minutes from when I went in (the second time) to when the teller eventually set down a huge thick stack of N500 notes. Yikes, it's one thick stack. I managed to fit it into my money belt, but it was tight.
OK, I can breathe now. I returned to the hotel and relaxed. I'm ashamed to say, I watched Life With Mikey with Michael J. Fox. At least, they played About a Boy which is much better a bit after that.
In the evening, I headed down to the hotel bar and sat there with a Star thinking about what I'd do. Then this woman came and sat with me. She first wanted to make sure I wasn't married. I'm not sure why. She said she's in town from Abuja for her sister's wedding and was staying at this hotel for a while. We chatted for a while and then she hinted that she's like a Maltina. (In Africa, any beverage whose first 4 letters are "malt" are alcohol free beers). It was only N120 (US$1). Then she showed me how to eat Nigerian food. She ordered some meat from the restaurant for N100 (US$0.80) but it was just cold chunks. She said a rather lengthy prayer over the food. By now it was dark and she started putting food in my mouth. Next she got N200 (US$1.60) and ran across the street to get some suya which is hot, spicy, barbequed meat. She did another lengthy prayer over the food. It was pretty good and there was a fair amount of it. Everytime she told me to eat she did so by saying "chop chop". Finally we shared an African salad which has some sort of sweet vegetable and chunks of what I think was also meat. Again she said a engthy prayer and kept saying chop chop.
Finally, I was pretty tired, so I excused myself to go back to my room. She asked if I wanted an escort. I told her no thanks, but I can find my way. Then I went up and went to sleep.
Tuesday, November 18, 16:01 Nigerian local time
Monday, November 17, 2008
First Panicky Day In Kano
OK, I woke up after one of the worst sleeps of my trip. I was up all night working through scenarios and options. I counted the number of N500 bills. Ten. To rent a room here another night would be six of those. My ATM card didn't work the day before and I wasn't sure today was going to be any better. I didn't know how to make a international phone call on my cell phone. I brought it for emergencies and it was looking like I might be in an emergency. The only thing is that I didn't how to use it. I had tried to turn it on the previous night but the battery was dead so I recharged it during the night. So how do you call America on an AT&T Wireless phone from Nigeria on the MTN network? Do I need to know some cryptic code for making an international call?
I got up and swallowed one of my dwindling anti-malarial Savarines. Then, I went out. It was about 7:30. On my way out I asked if they had any N2000 (US$18) rooms. Nope, not available. Hmmm... There's a place in Lonely Planet called Tourist Camp where they say rooms are N2000. I can't stay in the N2850 room if I'm running out of money.
But first task--internet. I had given my parents a heads up that I might need backup. And I had some audibles to consider. I limped toward the internet cafe. It took about a half hour to get there. On the way, I stopped at an ATM. I placed the card, entered my PIN, and waited for the telltail sound of machines counting money. Nope. Same cryptic error message as yesterday.
I tried to cross streets but was over-cautious after being hit dead on by a full speed motorbike the previous day. I wasn't exactly at my nimblest either--you can limp walk, but it's hard to limp run when traffic is aimed at you. I still had to do it, though. I was in Nigeria after all.
I had gotten up early enough that when I got to the internet cafe, it wasn't open. Dammit! It's Sunday. Is the damn internet cafe closed like in Bobo-Dioulasso? What's with these internet cafe's closing on Sunday? But alas, they were in the process of opening. They would open around 9am. I took a walk. Not exactly a relaxing walk. There would be no relaxing for a while.
My parents had responded to my email. Whew! I checked some options. No buses. Nothing on getting to Calabar. It was easy to find information on rates for international calls. But the logistics of how to actually make an international call weren't anywhere in the FAQs at AT&T Wireless. And that's what I needed. But a little googling and I finally found it. You press 0 and keep it pressed until the '+' appears. Then you enter the international code and then the number. That's what I needed and I don't have the faintest fricking clue why the logistics of making an international phone call are not in the AT&T FAQs.
I had what I needed though. I updated my facebook status since all my facebook friends were freaking out. Then I limped home. It was about 11. Checkout time at the La Mirage is noon. There is a place across the street called the International Hotel. I thought I'd check it out and see what rates they offered. The cheapest room there: N800 (US$7). The cheap rooms were in Block A. The woman tried to upsell me to a N4000 room, but I said I was happy with the "general toilet". My room turned out to be N1155 (US$10). I could stay here a couple days before having to kill myself due to running out of money. Much safer. I took the room with the general toilet in Block A. Or as I would affectionately come to call in: Cell Block A. My room has a bed, a desk, a ceiling fan, and a TV. The lock was a huge padlock.
I went across the street and up to my room on the third floor. I packed. I tried to throw my backpack on my back but it's a lot harder than you'd thing when you have tender arms from falls and motorcycle crashes. Then I had to go down to the bottom down a narrow staircase with legs that barely work. It wasn't easy, but I made it, checked out, and then went across the street. It was easier going up. But, I was still ready to collapse as I unloaded my baggage on the bed in Cell Block A.
I went down to their bar and has a N200 Star. Then I went back to my room and called my parents. I had to pull the trigger on a Western Union transfer. The ball was in motion. And hopefully that ball would land before I ran out of money.
It took one more phone call to get the details straight and then it was just wait.
I was hungry, so I decided to check out a place called Dunkin' Peppers. The font was the same as Dunkin' Donuts. On the way, I got a meat pie, but Nigerian meat pies are not like Ghanaian meat pies. Nigerian meat pies are gluteny and chewy and not terribly tasty whereas Ghanaian meat pies are flaky and crumbly and buttery. I ate it but it wasn't very good. Then I headed to the Dunkin' Pepper door. Once inside (a man opened the one way-mirrored door from the inside for me) I found a sort of fast food type place. The counter had "Dunkin' Interncontinental" written across it. Maybe it was actually related to Dunkin' Donuts. I ordered a chicken and fried rice. It was pretty spicy and pretty good. N650 which took another one of my rare N500 notes. But it would be only meal of the day (besides that crappy meat pie).
I left and went back to my hotel. I drank Stars until it was too dark to read and then went to bed. It wasn't fun sleeping. I still was sore all over and changing my position in bed took a force of will. I watched bad movies until they became soccer in Arabic and then the power went out. The generator soon started up (it's right outside my window) and the lights and fan came on at least. I turned off the TV and tried to sleep. A mosquito kept me up for a while but I couldn't defend myself from mosquitos all night. I eventually drifted off.
Monday, November 17, 21:10 Nigerian local time
I got up and swallowed one of my dwindling anti-malarial Savarines. Then, I went out. It was about 7:30. On my way out I asked if they had any N2000 (US$18) rooms. Nope, not available. Hmmm... There's a place in Lonely Planet called Tourist Camp where they say rooms are N2000. I can't stay in the N2850 room if I'm running out of money.
But first task--internet. I had given my parents a heads up that I might need backup. And I had some audibles to consider. I limped toward the internet cafe. It took about a half hour to get there. On the way, I stopped at an ATM. I placed the card, entered my PIN, and waited for the telltail sound of machines counting money. Nope. Same cryptic error message as yesterday.
I tried to cross streets but was over-cautious after being hit dead on by a full speed motorbike the previous day. I wasn't exactly at my nimblest either--you can limp walk, but it's hard to limp run when traffic is aimed at you. I still had to do it, though. I was in Nigeria after all.
I had gotten up early enough that when I got to the internet cafe, it wasn't open. Dammit! It's Sunday. Is the damn internet cafe closed like in Bobo-Dioulasso? What's with these internet cafe's closing on Sunday? But alas, they were in the process of opening. They would open around 9am. I took a walk. Not exactly a relaxing walk. There would be no relaxing for a while.
My parents had responded to my email. Whew! I checked some options. No buses. Nothing on getting to Calabar. It was easy to find information on rates for international calls. But the logistics of how to actually make an international call weren't anywhere in the FAQs at AT&T Wireless. And that's what I needed. But a little googling and I finally found it. You press 0 and keep it pressed until the '+' appears. Then you enter the international code and then the number. That's what I needed and I don't have the faintest fricking clue why the logistics of making an international phone call are not in the AT&T FAQs.
I had what I needed though. I updated my facebook status since all my facebook friends were freaking out. Then I limped home. It was about 11. Checkout time at the La Mirage is noon. There is a place across the street called the International Hotel. I thought I'd check it out and see what rates they offered. The cheapest room there: N800 (US$7). The cheap rooms were in Block A. The woman tried to upsell me to a N4000 room, but I said I was happy with the "general toilet". My room turned out to be N1155 (US$10). I could stay here a couple days before having to kill myself due to running out of money. Much safer. I took the room with the general toilet in Block A. Or as I would affectionately come to call in: Cell Block A. My room has a bed, a desk, a ceiling fan, and a TV. The lock was a huge padlock.
I went across the street and up to my room on the third floor. I packed. I tried to throw my backpack on my back but it's a lot harder than you'd thing when you have tender arms from falls and motorcycle crashes. Then I had to go down to the bottom down a narrow staircase with legs that barely work. It wasn't easy, but I made it, checked out, and then went across the street. It was easier going up. But, I was still ready to collapse as I unloaded my baggage on the bed in Cell Block A.
I went down to their bar and has a N200 Star. Then I went back to my room and called my parents. I had to pull the trigger on a Western Union transfer. The ball was in motion. And hopefully that ball would land before I ran out of money.
It took one more phone call to get the details straight and then it was just wait.
I was hungry, so I decided to check out a place called Dunkin' Peppers. The font was the same as Dunkin' Donuts. On the way, I got a meat pie, but Nigerian meat pies are not like Ghanaian meat pies. Nigerian meat pies are gluteny and chewy and not terribly tasty whereas Ghanaian meat pies are flaky and crumbly and buttery. I ate it but it wasn't very good. Then I headed to the Dunkin' Pepper door. Once inside (a man opened the one way-mirrored door from the inside for me) I found a sort of fast food type place. The counter had "Dunkin' Interncontinental" written across it. Maybe it was actually related to Dunkin' Donuts. I ordered a chicken and fried rice. It was pretty spicy and pretty good. N650 which took another one of my rare N500 notes. But it would be only meal of the day (besides that crappy meat pie).
I left and went back to my hotel. I drank Stars until it was too dark to read and then went to bed. It wasn't fun sleeping. I still was sore all over and changing my position in bed took a force of will. I watched bad movies until they became soccer in Arabic and then the power went out. The generator soon started up (it's right outside my window) and the lights and fan came on at least. I turned off the TV and tried to sleep. A mosquito kept me up for a while but I couldn't defend myself from mosquitos all night. I eventually drifted off.
Monday, November 17, 21:10 Nigerian local time
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Maradi, Niger To Kano, Nigeria: A Hard Fall And A Collision With A Motorcycle
Well, the day started out fine enough. But I was headed to Nigeria--a country reputed for being hard. Would I conquer Nigeria? Or would Nigeria conquer me? The short answer: after one day, Nigeria has me in a headlock and choked off my oxygen supply.
I woke up and paid my CFA 6500 (US$13) hotel bill. Then for CFA 200, a moto-taxi to the autogare. I got there about 7am and after some shuffling between different cars that seemed more promising, I got a car for CFA 5000. They took me to a man who was willing to change Euros to Naira. I gave him €100 (five 20's) and got 14400 Naira. The internet rate was 14700 so I was pretty happy with the rate. But I was relying on faith that I could find an ATM in Kano. I knew about the one at the Hotel Central, at least. There must be more.
At 7:30, we were off with 8 people. At about 8:30, we reached the border. I got my exit stamp without any problem. The official copied a bunch of information from my passport into a ledger. There weren't any columns, just comma separated fields over 2 lines. I got my Nigerienne exit stamp. Then back into the car for a while until we reached the Nigerian border. I was looking forward to this. First was immigration. I went in and got a blue sheet to fill out. It asked all the typical questions. The only one that worried me was the address in Nigeria. I forget the name of the hotel and I didn't have my Lonely Planet. The only thing I remembered was that there was a Hotel Central that has an ATM that takes Visa. Then on the back of the blue sheet, the officer wrote out the names of fields like "Date of Issue" and "Place of Issue" with the information on my passport. Not the most efficient operation. He gave me my stamp. I was wondering if I'd have to pay a dash. But no. He didn't ask for money.
So immigration was relatively painless. So far so good. Next we went to the customs building. A guy saw me and called me into the customs area. He sat down and asked for my vaccination form. I produced it. This is a usual trick--if you can't produce it they don't refuse you entry but rather they request a dash. But mine was in order. So I went back out the car. This was painless.
Just as I was getting in, another guy snagged me. He brought me back into the building and led me upstairs to an office labeled the SSS office. He had me fill out another form with much of the same information as the blue form. But we wanted exact dates I'd be in the various cities I'd go to. After some explanation he agreed to let me just list the cities. I was wondering if he was fishing for a dash. When I finished, he took my passport and inspected the visa carefully asking me questions about it that were printed right on the visa in my passport. Then he flipped to the picture and details page. He looked at the picture. He looked at me. He looked at the picture. Then he looked at me again. "I don't think this is you." I explained that 8 years ago I weighed 235 lbs and now I'm about 150 lbs. I tried to push my cheeks forward to look more like the picture. "It doesn't look like you at all." Actually, I'm a bit flattered. I look much better now than I did then. Much better. He didn't say that exactly, but I'm sure he agreed as well. The driver of the car was there too. He asked the driver if he thought it was me. They chatted for a bit in their native language. I was getting nervous. I was actually afraid something like this would happen since I look so different now. People have commented on it before, but nobody has ever thought it wasn't me. And this is a government guy, so he has to thing it's me. Otherwise, who knows what might happen. Finally, he decided that it looked enough like me that he wouldn't treat it as a fake passport. His final question was about my goal. I said it was just tourism. He didn't buy it. But I told him that I had some money saved and just wanted to see West Africa. Finally, he handed me my passport.
We headed back downstairs and when we got to the lobby about to leave the building to go to the car, another guy called me into his section. A currency declaration form. I had to fill it out and then I counted my currency out. I had a bit less than when I went through the customs in Guinea when they stole my money. I counted out my euros (320), dollars (only 23), and CFA (30000). He eventually told me I could approximate. I guess they are only interested in amounts over $5000 since I had to check a box to that effect. That done, we headed out to the car. I got in. Was somebody going to come? Whew! Nobody else came. That whole thing must have taken 20 minutes. I felt sorry for the Nigerians in the car who just had to wait while all this happened. The nice thing is that they never asked for a dash. I did the whole border procedure without paying a cent.
Then it was a 4 hour ride to Kano. My right but cheek was on the thick wire that forms the outline of the seat cushion. It was painful as hell. There was no room to shift because there were 3 other big guys in the back seat. I just had to endure it. No choice.
Finally, we arrived and I found myself is chaotic moto-park that seemed to have no exit. Finally, I saw traffic and headed that way. I had no idea where I was. As I was leaving a man on a moto-taxi asked me if I needed to go somewhere. I asked if he knew La Mirage Motel. He didn't, and he didn't really even speak English. But there was a sort of moto-taxi dispatcher who knew and explained to the young man where it was. The price would be 200 Naira. It was a long way. And anyone who had ever ridden on the back of a motorcycle with a heavy backpack knows how uncomfortable that is. Pretty damn uncomfortable. As we got closer, the young man started asking locals for the hotel, except he had the name all wrong. Even after I corrected him on the pronunciation he continued to get the name wrong. But I was there to say the name and they all knew it. After about a ten minute ride where my waist muscles were literally shaking because of trying to hold my backpack on (prompting one guy to ask me if I was cold, even), we made it. I practically fell of the back of the motorcycle. My muscles were completely fatigued. The driver wanted 300 Naira and I was just happy to be there so I didn't argue. I just paid it. I went in. Lonely Planet put their prices at 1300 Naira (US$11) to 2500 Naira (US$20). It's gone up a bit. The cheapest rooms are 2000 Niara (US$18) but there weren't available. The next cheapest was 2800 Naira (US$23). That's more than I wanted to pay, but oh well. The room is pretty nice if a little unsecure looking. There is fan, AC, TV, and minifridge--though the power comes and goes. There is a private bath and toilet and they even provide a towel and toilet paper. But it's more than I want to pay.
So I'm in a new country with a new currency and task #1 after finding a room is finding an ATM. Fortunately, Murtala Mohammed street is filled with just about every Nigerian bank in existence. I headed down that way.
Along the way, I slipped on a slanted wooden plank covered in sand. I fell and I fell hard. I banged my right knee and got scraped pretty bad all along my right arm. But no time for that now.
I tried a bunch of ATMs. They either didn't work by giving some error message indicating they were unable to connect to something or they just said "No Useful App". I looked for the Central Hotel which is supposed to have a Visa ATM in its lobby, but when I found it after getting a little lost, it was under full renovations.
Semi-defeated I headed home. I figured I'd wait a little while and try later. Meanwhile, I had to clean up my bloody arm and hand. It stung a bit, but I got it all cleaned. It was sore and I needed a little rest.
Then at about 3:30, I headed out again. I hit the same ATMs that sort of worked. But still no luck. I popped into the Friends Internet Cafe and Bakery where I paid 250 Naira for an hour of internet time. I checked email, facebook, and some other stuff. Then, as it was going to get dark soon, I started to head home. At the roundabout at Murtala Mohammad and Bompai, I wanted to get from the north side of the street to the south side and then from the east to the west to get to the GTBank which said it couldn't access the issuer or switch (whatever than means). I got across the west bound lanes and to the median strip. Then there was a lull in the east bound traffic--about 3 lanes wide. I started going across. About half way, a wave of moto-taxis came around circle. I went a little further but they were coming fast. One was headed right for me.
I froze. I watched to my right as it came. It didn't look as if it was going to miss me but rather hit me dead on in my right side. I was frozen just watching it come right at me. I watched for about a second. Then, impact, dead on. For the next, what I think, was 3 seconds, I felt myself carried along by the front of the motorcycle thinking something along the lines of "I can't believe this is happening, I can't believe this is happening, I can't believe this is happening." Then there were I was on the ground, the driver was on the ground, a passenger was on the ground, the bike was on the ground, and various parts were scattered about.
The passenger in a Muslim style outfit got up and come over to me and led me to the side of the road and sat me down. Then he went over and helped the driver over. The people hanging out on the corner came over and gawked. The passenger brought the driver over. I apologized taking all the blame. The driver had a bloody lip and spit blood every ten seconds or so. But nothing else seemed out of line. He never said a word. The Muslim passenger did all the talking. They were about both about 25. After establishing that we all had nothing seriously wrong, he went and retrieved the headlight and a part for starting the motorcycle. I went out and retrieved the headlight casing which was pretty much a loss. I apologized again. I had no idea what was going to happen. But we were all pretty much OK. There was some minor damage to the bike. I asked how much it would cost to repair the bike. The Muslim pointed at the headlight and the casing. He said about 1500 Naira for one and 1600 Naira for the other. And about 500 to reattach the starter lever thing. And 500 Naira for the driver's lip. Finaly he said 2000 Naira for the bike and 500 for the lip so 2500 Naira. I pulled out a €20 bill and said that it was about 2800. The kids around there told him it was 2900. He seemed happy with it. But then I went into my dwindling Naira stash and pulled out 2 500 Naira notes and gave them to him as well. He seemed happy. Everyone tried to shepherd me off after I did that. I guess they realized that I thought I had more leverage than I thought and they wanted to save me from myself. In the end I got off pretty cheap money-wise: €20 and 1000 Naira (US$8). I assume it was my fault for being in the intersection, but what responsibility does a motorcycle have to not hit a pedestrian head on? It was a bit costly and I certainly got bruised and scraped.
I limped home. It was already dark by the time I got back. I wanted a Star beer because I'm collecting the back label of the Star beers from the Anglophone countries. My hotel bar only had Gulder so I went next door. There was no light. I had wanted to write into my journal, but that wasn't going to happen. I got my 60cl Star for 200 Naira (US$1.80). After that, I went to the restaurant of my hotel and got a meal very reminiscent of the meals I had on the Comanav ferry from Timbuktu to Gao for 400 Naira (US$3.60) though I think they overcharged me--it was supposed to be 300 Naira (US$2.70).
After that, I limped back to my room and watched a horrible movie called Camp Rock. Then a horrible movie about trailer trash flight attendants came on and I was watching it when the channel starting changing on its own and eventually turned into a soccer match commentated in Arabic.
Eventually I just turned off the TV. But I kept turning options over in my head. I was in the position where I have to call audibles. It's second down and long, and I got sacked hard.
I was panicked. I turned out the lights but kept turning on the lights to check things in the Lonely Planet. I did that until past 3am. I kept doing it. I couldn't find a comfortable position, either. I was pretty battered and bruised. My two incidents but pretty tender sections on my right arm and left arm respectively. I was pretty sore where the bike parts impacted my right side--especially where my rib cage broke off the headlight and where my right leg hit the frame.
So that was my first day in Nigeria.
Sunday, November 16, 2008 19:48 Nigerian local time
I woke up and paid my CFA 6500 (US$13) hotel bill. Then for CFA 200, a moto-taxi to the autogare. I got there about 7am and after some shuffling between different cars that seemed more promising, I got a car for CFA 5000. They took me to a man who was willing to change Euros to Naira. I gave him €100 (five 20's) and got 14400 Naira. The internet rate was 14700 so I was pretty happy with the rate. But I was relying on faith that I could find an ATM in Kano. I knew about the one at the Hotel Central, at least. There must be more.
At 7:30, we were off with 8 people. At about 8:30, we reached the border. I got my exit stamp without any problem. The official copied a bunch of information from my passport into a ledger. There weren't any columns, just comma separated fields over 2 lines. I got my Nigerienne exit stamp. Then back into the car for a while until we reached the Nigerian border. I was looking forward to this. First was immigration. I went in and got a blue sheet to fill out. It asked all the typical questions. The only one that worried me was the address in Nigeria. I forget the name of the hotel and I didn't have my Lonely Planet. The only thing I remembered was that there was a Hotel Central that has an ATM that takes Visa. Then on the back of the blue sheet, the officer wrote out the names of fields like "Date of Issue" and "Place of Issue" with the information on my passport. Not the most efficient operation. He gave me my stamp. I was wondering if I'd have to pay a dash. But no. He didn't ask for money.
So immigration was relatively painless. So far so good. Next we went to the customs building. A guy saw me and called me into the customs area. He sat down and asked for my vaccination form. I produced it. This is a usual trick--if you can't produce it they don't refuse you entry but rather they request a dash. But mine was in order. So I went back out the car. This was painless.
Just as I was getting in, another guy snagged me. He brought me back into the building and led me upstairs to an office labeled the SSS office. He had me fill out another form with much of the same information as the blue form. But we wanted exact dates I'd be in the various cities I'd go to. After some explanation he agreed to let me just list the cities. I was wondering if he was fishing for a dash. When I finished, he took my passport and inspected the visa carefully asking me questions about it that were printed right on the visa in my passport. Then he flipped to the picture and details page. He looked at the picture. He looked at me. He looked at the picture. Then he looked at me again. "I don't think this is you." I explained that 8 years ago I weighed 235 lbs and now I'm about 150 lbs. I tried to push my cheeks forward to look more like the picture. "It doesn't look like you at all." Actually, I'm a bit flattered. I look much better now than I did then. Much better. He didn't say that exactly, but I'm sure he agreed as well. The driver of the car was there too. He asked the driver if he thought it was me. They chatted for a bit in their native language. I was getting nervous. I was actually afraid something like this would happen since I look so different now. People have commented on it before, but nobody has ever thought it wasn't me. And this is a government guy, so he has to thing it's me. Otherwise, who knows what might happen. Finally, he decided that it looked enough like me that he wouldn't treat it as a fake passport. His final question was about my goal. I said it was just tourism. He didn't buy it. But I told him that I had some money saved and just wanted to see West Africa. Finally, he handed me my passport.
We headed back downstairs and when we got to the lobby about to leave the building to go to the car, another guy called me into his section. A currency declaration form. I had to fill it out and then I counted my currency out. I had a bit less than when I went through the customs in Guinea when they stole my money. I counted out my euros (320), dollars (only 23), and CFA (30000). He eventually told me I could approximate. I guess they are only interested in amounts over $5000 since I had to check a box to that effect. That done, we headed out to the car. I got in. Was somebody going to come? Whew! Nobody else came. That whole thing must have taken 20 minutes. I felt sorry for the Nigerians in the car who just had to wait while all this happened. The nice thing is that they never asked for a dash. I did the whole border procedure without paying a cent.
Then it was a 4 hour ride to Kano. My right but cheek was on the thick wire that forms the outline of the seat cushion. It was painful as hell. There was no room to shift because there were 3 other big guys in the back seat. I just had to endure it. No choice.
Finally, we arrived and I found myself is chaotic moto-park that seemed to have no exit. Finally, I saw traffic and headed that way. I had no idea where I was. As I was leaving a man on a moto-taxi asked me if I needed to go somewhere. I asked if he knew La Mirage Motel. He didn't, and he didn't really even speak English. But there was a sort of moto-taxi dispatcher who knew and explained to the young man where it was. The price would be 200 Naira. It was a long way. And anyone who had ever ridden on the back of a motorcycle with a heavy backpack knows how uncomfortable that is. Pretty damn uncomfortable. As we got closer, the young man started asking locals for the hotel, except he had the name all wrong. Even after I corrected him on the pronunciation he continued to get the name wrong. But I was there to say the name and they all knew it. After about a ten minute ride where my waist muscles were literally shaking because of trying to hold my backpack on (prompting one guy to ask me if I was cold, even), we made it. I practically fell of the back of the motorcycle. My muscles were completely fatigued. The driver wanted 300 Naira and I was just happy to be there so I didn't argue. I just paid it. I went in. Lonely Planet put their prices at 1300 Naira (US$11) to 2500 Naira (US$20). It's gone up a bit. The cheapest rooms are 2000 Niara (US$18) but there weren't available. The next cheapest was 2800 Naira (US$23). That's more than I wanted to pay, but oh well. The room is pretty nice if a little unsecure looking. There is fan, AC, TV, and minifridge--though the power comes and goes. There is a private bath and toilet and they even provide a towel and toilet paper. But it's more than I want to pay.
So I'm in a new country with a new currency and task #1 after finding a room is finding an ATM. Fortunately, Murtala Mohammed street is filled with just about every Nigerian bank in existence. I headed down that way.
Along the way, I slipped on a slanted wooden plank covered in sand. I fell and I fell hard. I banged my right knee and got scraped pretty bad all along my right arm. But no time for that now.
I tried a bunch of ATMs. They either didn't work by giving some error message indicating they were unable to connect to something or they just said "No Useful App". I looked for the Central Hotel which is supposed to have a Visa ATM in its lobby, but when I found it after getting a little lost, it was under full renovations.
Semi-defeated I headed home. I figured I'd wait a little while and try later. Meanwhile, I had to clean up my bloody arm and hand. It stung a bit, but I got it all cleaned. It was sore and I needed a little rest.
Then at about 3:30, I headed out again. I hit the same ATMs that sort of worked. But still no luck. I popped into the Friends Internet Cafe and Bakery where I paid 250 Naira for an hour of internet time. I checked email, facebook, and some other stuff. Then, as it was going to get dark soon, I started to head home. At the roundabout at Murtala Mohammad and Bompai, I wanted to get from the north side of the street to the south side and then from the east to the west to get to the GTBank which said it couldn't access the issuer or switch (whatever than means). I got across the west bound lanes and to the median strip. Then there was a lull in the east bound traffic--about 3 lanes wide. I started going across. About half way, a wave of moto-taxis came around circle. I went a little further but they were coming fast. One was headed right for me.
I froze. I watched to my right as it came. It didn't look as if it was going to miss me but rather hit me dead on in my right side. I was frozen just watching it come right at me. I watched for about a second. Then, impact, dead on. For the next, what I think, was 3 seconds, I felt myself carried along by the front of the motorcycle thinking something along the lines of "I can't believe this is happening, I can't believe this is happening, I can't believe this is happening." Then there were I was on the ground, the driver was on the ground, a passenger was on the ground, the bike was on the ground, and various parts were scattered about.
The passenger in a Muslim style outfit got up and come over to me and led me to the side of the road and sat me down. Then he went over and helped the driver over. The people hanging out on the corner came over and gawked. The passenger brought the driver over. I apologized taking all the blame. The driver had a bloody lip and spit blood every ten seconds or so. But nothing else seemed out of line. He never said a word. The Muslim passenger did all the talking. They were about both about 25. After establishing that we all had nothing seriously wrong, he went and retrieved the headlight and a part for starting the motorcycle. I went out and retrieved the headlight casing which was pretty much a loss. I apologized again. I had no idea what was going to happen. But we were all pretty much OK. There was some minor damage to the bike. I asked how much it would cost to repair the bike. The Muslim pointed at the headlight and the casing. He said about 1500 Naira for one and 1600 Naira for the other. And about 500 to reattach the starter lever thing. And 500 Naira for the driver's lip. Finaly he said 2000 Naira for the bike and 500 for the lip so 2500 Naira. I pulled out a €20 bill and said that it was about 2800. The kids around there told him it was 2900. He seemed happy with it. But then I went into my dwindling Naira stash and pulled out 2 500 Naira notes and gave them to him as well. He seemed happy. Everyone tried to shepherd me off after I did that. I guess they realized that I thought I had more leverage than I thought and they wanted to save me from myself. In the end I got off pretty cheap money-wise: €20 and 1000 Naira (US$8). I assume it was my fault for being in the intersection, but what responsibility does a motorcycle have to not hit a pedestrian head on? It was a bit costly and I certainly got bruised and scraped.
I limped home. It was already dark by the time I got back. I wanted a Star beer because I'm collecting the back label of the Star beers from the Anglophone countries. My hotel bar only had Gulder so I went next door. There was no light. I had wanted to write into my journal, but that wasn't going to happen. I got my 60cl Star for 200 Naira (US$1.80). After that, I went to the restaurant of my hotel and got a meal very reminiscent of the meals I had on the Comanav ferry from Timbuktu to Gao for 400 Naira (US$3.60) though I think they overcharged me--it was supposed to be 300 Naira (US$2.70).
After that, I limped back to my room and watched a horrible movie called Camp Rock. Then a horrible movie about trailer trash flight attendants came on and I was watching it when the channel starting changing on its own and eventually turned into a soccer match commentated in Arabic.
Eventually I just turned off the TV. But I kept turning options over in my head. I was in the position where I have to call audibles. It's second down and long, and I got sacked hard.
I was panicked. I turned out the lights but kept turning on the lights to check things in the Lonely Planet. I did that until past 3am. I kept doing it. I couldn't find a comfortable position, either. I was pretty battered and bruised. My two incidents but pretty tender sections on my right arm and left arm respectively. I was pretty sore where the bike parts impacted my right side--especially where my rib cage broke off the headlight and where my right leg hit the frame.
So that was my first day in Nigeria.
Sunday, November 16, 2008 19:48 Nigerian local time
Friday, November 14, 2008
On Liter Two Or Three Of Bière Niger
[[ I wrote this post while drinking 5 Bière Nigers (I was charged for 6, though). I am redacting parts that I wouldn't post sober, but I'm leaving a lot in given the interesting events of my first day in Nigeria--Mark Monday, November 17, 2008 9:07 am Nigerian local time.]]
So here I am at the Hotel Jangorzo in Maradi, Niger close to the Nigerian border on Friday night. I have not much CFA money and not able to lock my room securely so I can't go out.
Right now my life sucks. Bad! [Redacted] I'm back to square one in Seattle when I return. Hell, I'm probably even behind since it will be harder to find a job in this market than in the market when I last looked and landed a job on the second interview. [Redacted]
My iPod is toast. Maybe I can get it repaired when I return, but for the rest of my trip it is done. No more ABBA. I'm not a happy camper right now. And I'm about to enter the most aggressive African country, Nigeria. I have no idea what to expect--everyone has warnings. As long as I'm not the victim of criminal activity, I'll be OK. Lonely Planet says it's not a place for first-timers. I suppose I'm no longer a first-timer. I've been through quite a bit. I've been battle hardened. I still get ripped off, but I can take care of myself more than ever before. And I am pretty much immune to appeals to my sympathy. Tell me that if I don't give you 20¢, you'll starve to death? Then, I'll let you starve to death. Solving your problem is not my role. I'm a tourist. If you have something to sell that I want to buy and we agree on a price, we have a deal. Otherwise, if you want charity, don't come to me. I'll help the old and infirm but not just a merchant who failed to convince me to buy something. There is no consolation prize.
Today is a low point. Right now, I only want to go home. I have half a mind to get to Lagos and skip Cameroon--just change my Douala to Accra ticket on Dec 12th to just get me on the next Virgin Nigeria flight to Accra. I can get by in Accra with no problem. I can house myself cheaply and just hang out in Osu for a month until my KLM flight to ORD. But I won't. I've had low points before. I didn't give up those times. I won't give up now. It will be challenging. Actually, I think that Nigeria isn't as bad as everyone says. I think I'll be fine. I'll probably be there for 12 days. Then it's all Cameroon. The unknown is scary. But then the unknown becomes the known. My trip wasn't easy, but I know what I'm doing. In some ways I know people will be impressed by what I've done. But, having done it, I know how easy it was. It seems too easy. It seems unimpressive. I'm just taking it one day at a time. I see the problems in front of me but I just go forward without thinking--I can't think or I'd be paralyzed. And it turns out OK because that's just how life works. It's not me doing something incredible--it's just me living life ignoring fear out of necessity. Anyone else would do the same. Things just work out with or without my effort. Yet, I'll get credit for it. Do I deserve it? I don't feel like it. But a part of me also knows that I went through it. Maybe it isn't as easy as it seems. Maybe the ability to suspend thought and just persevere is something creditable, after all. Maybe I can feel proud of what I've done rather than think that anyone could do it but they just haven't tried. I don't know. I want to think so. But I have no choice. I can't but move in the direction I move. There is no other real option. When there is no option, is there merit in moving? When there is only one choice, why should anyone get credit if that choice seems like a hard choice? It's the only real choice.
Anyway, tomorrow I enter Nigeria. I will conquer or be conquered by Nigeria. I am confident that I will hold up to everything Nigeria has to offer. It may be hard, but so were my first two days in Dakar. I got a pretty rude introduction to West Africa and I got through it. It wasn't easy. I was filled with self-doubt and a desire to just get the hell out for a long time. I constantly weighed the cost of failure against the cost of forging ahead. I thought about just going to an airport and buying a ticket back to O'Hare for a long time. It wasn't until I was in Gabu, Guinea-Bissau that I broke through and realized that I could actually finish this. Since then, I haven't really had thoughts of going home early. I have them occasionally but nothing like the sustained thoughts of giving up I had in Senegal and Gambia. Right now, I'm having those thoughts again. I know I can fight them. All I really fear is the unknown. The unknown of how many Euros to change into Naira and whether to do it at the autogare or closer to the border. Do they even want Euros in Nigeria? The fear that there won't be a usable ATM in Kano. The fear that I won't have small enough currency to dash the Nigerian officials in all their various border procedures--apparently there are a bunch. The fear that some unscrupulous person in Nigeria will see that I'm white and stalk me until he can make off with my laptop and journal. There is a lot to fear. There is a lot of uncertainty. But I have learned to live with uncertainty. I know that I can get through anything. Even in French--and Nigeria is English speaking, so I have an advantage there since I actually understand what's going on around me.
Tomorrow I'll go to the autogare and head to Kano, Nigeria. It's a 4 hour trip. I'll get there early and find a place to stay and find an ATM. I'll do this because I have no choice. It is what I have to do. There is no courage in this. There is only the knowledge that there is one road and I have no choice but to travel it.
Sorry for my self-indulgent post. If I even post this. As I write this I have had quite a few beers. If I do post I when I'm sober and have better judgement then you, dear reader, get another glimpse into the reality of long term solo travel. [Redacted] A need to change their way of life from time to time to restore their sanity and humanity. To test their boundaries in ways they can't in their normal life. Or for me, a way to test those boundaries that I can test while avoiding the boundaries I'm still afraid to test. Maybe there are two reasons--to test boundaries otherwise untestable, and to test boundaries to prove you can still test boundaries while still being fearful of boundaries that are more available but more menacing. [Redacted] But I can learn French and travel in Francophone West Africa. As if the second success makes up for the first failure. It doesn't. [Redacted] I can do this trip, though--in French. And maybe if I can prove to myself that I can this, I can do what I couldn't do before. I don't know. What I do know is that I got sick of failure and inability to act. I had to do something. And I chose this rather extreme action as a sort of therapy. I'll find out when I get back. I have a lot less self doubt than before. But I still have a lot. I am way too introspective to ever not have self doubt. [Redacted]
Friday, November 14, 2008 23:15 Niger local time
So here I am at the Hotel Jangorzo in Maradi, Niger close to the Nigerian border on Friday night. I have not much CFA money and not able to lock my room securely so I can't go out.
Right now my life sucks. Bad! [Redacted] I'm back to square one in Seattle when I return. Hell, I'm probably even behind since it will be harder to find a job in this market than in the market when I last looked and landed a job on the second interview. [Redacted]
My iPod is toast. Maybe I can get it repaired when I return, but for the rest of my trip it is done. No more ABBA. I'm not a happy camper right now. And I'm about to enter the most aggressive African country, Nigeria. I have no idea what to expect--everyone has warnings. As long as I'm not the victim of criminal activity, I'll be OK. Lonely Planet says it's not a place for first-timers. I suppose I'm no longer a first-timer. I've been through quite a bit. I've been battle hardened. I still get ripped off, but I can take care of myself more than ever before. And I am pretty much immune to appeals to my sympathy. Tell me that if I don't give you 20¢, you'll starve to death? Then, I'll let you starve to death. Solving your problem is not my role. I'm a tourist. If you have something to sell that I want to buy and we agree on a price, we have a deal. Otherwise, if you want charity, don't come to me. I'll help the old and infirm but not just a merchant who failed to convince me to buy something. There is no consolation prize.
Today is a low point. Right now, I only want to go home. I have half a mind to get to Lagos and skip Cameroon--just change my Douala to Accra ticket on Dec 12th to just get me on the next Virgin Nigeria flight to Accra. I can get by in Accra with no problem. I can house myself cheaply and just hang out in Osu for a month until my KLM flight to ORD. But I won't. I've had low points before. I didn't give up those times. I won't give up now. It will be challenging. Actually, I think that Nigeria isn't as bad as everyone says. I think I'll be fine. I'll probably be there for 12 days. Then it's all Cameroon. The unknown is scary. But then the unknown becomes the known. My trip wasn't easy, but I know what I'm doing. In some ways I know people will be impressed by what I've done. But, having done it, I know how easy it was. It seems too easy. It seems unimpressive. I'm just taking it one day at a time. I see the problems in front of me but I just go forward without thinking--I can't think or I'd be paralyzed. And it turns out OK because that's just how life works. It's not me doing something incredible--it's just me living life ignoring fear out of necessity. Anyone else would do the same. Things just work out with or without my effort. Yet, I'll get credit for it. Do I deserve it? I don't feel like it. But a part of me also knows that I went through it. Maybe it isn't as easy as it seems. Maybe the ability to suspend thought and just persevere is something creditable, after all. Maybe I can feel proud of what I've done rather than think that anyone could do it but they just haven't tried. I don't know. I want to think so. But I have no choice. I can't but move in the direction I move. There is no other real option. When there is no option, is there merit in moving? When there is only one choice, why should anyone get credit if that choice seems like a hard choice? It's the only real choice.
Anyway, tomorrow I enter Nigeria. I will conquer or be conquered by Nigeria. I am confident that I will hold up to everything Nigeria has to offer. It may be hard, but so were my first two days in Dakar. I got a pretty rude introduction to West Africa and I got through it. It wasn't easy. I was filled with self-doubt and a desire to just get the hell out for a long time. I constantly weighed the cost of failure against the cost of forging ahead. I thought about just going to an airport and buying a ticket back to O'Hare for a long time. It wasn't until I was in Gabu, Guinea-Bissau that I broke through and realized that I could actually finish this. Since then, I haven't really had thoughts of going home early. I have them occasionally but nothing like the sustained thoughts of giving up I had in Senegal and Gambia. Right now, I'm having those thoughts again. I know I can fight them. All I really fear is the unknown. The unknown of how many Euros to change into Naira and whether to do it at the autogare or closer to the border. Do they even want Euros in Nigeria? The fear that there won't be a usable ATM in Kano. The fear that I won't have small enough currency to dash the Nigerian officials in all their various border procedures--apparently there are a bunch. The fear that some unscrupulous person in Nigeria will see that I'm white and stalk me until he can make off with my laptop and journal. There is a lot to fear. There is a lot of uncertainty. But I have learned to live with uncertainty. I know that I can get through anything. Even in French--and Nigeria is English speaking, so I have an advantage there since I actually understand what's going on around me.
Tomorrow I'll go to the autogare and head to Kano, Nigeria. It's a 4 hour trip. I'll get there early and find a place to stay and find an ATM. I'll do this because I have no choice. It is what I have to do. There is no courage in this. There is only the knowledge that there is one road and I have no choice but to travel it.
Sorry for my self-indulgent post. If I even post this. As I write this I have had quite a few beers. If I do post I when I'm sober and have better judgement then you, dear reader, get another glimpse into the reality of long term solo travel. [Redacted] A need to change their way of life from time to time to restore their sanity and humanity. To test their boundaries in ways they can't in their normal life. Or for me, a way to test those boundaries that I can test while avoiding the boundaries I'm still afraid to test. Maybe there are two reasons--to test boundaries otherwise untestable, and to test boundaries to prove you can still test boundaries while still being fearful of boundaries that are more available but more menacing. [Redacted] But I can learn French and travel in Francophone West Africa. As if the second success makes up for the first failure. It doesn't. [Redacted] I can do this trip, though--in French. And maybe if I can prove to myself that I can this, I can do what I couldn't do before. I don't know. What I do know is that I got sick of failure and inability to act. I had to do something. And I chose this rather extreme action as a sort of therapy. I'll find out when I get back. I have a lot less self doubt than before. But I still have a lot. I am way too introspective to ever not have self doubt. [Redacted]
Friday, November 14, 2008 23:15 Niger local time
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