nobby
Guest
well folks, today i have been modtly, on the internet.....
so ime reaching that time when decisions have to be made as to routs an timings. im writting this in lagos (much gnashing of teeth and biting of nails whilst approaching), nigerea + will be on into cameroon next, then its eithr north or south. a lot depends on the triffeling matter of a sudanese visa, but wait im ahead of myself, let me take you all back to a place further west (go west, life is peacefull there.....) aplace of safety, a place of relaxation, aplace called.... to be honest i cant remember where i emailed you all last, lifes been sutc a blur. also my memories abismalll. ill stop this waffle now and take you back to accra, ghana (last time i looked) and begin with the usuall, 'hope im not repeating myuself' etc etc.
left accra 6 march, straight to the border with togo. biggest + busiest border yet, so lots of wandering back and forth getting worthless bits o paper sighned by numerous people. ho hum. from border straigh to camping place in lome, stopping off at a KTM dealer (V. strange, swanky shop full of my favourite orange bikes n bits, in a run down african capital) on the way. no tyres there for me. nice place to stay, sandy shady campsite with monkeys a horse and a parrot. got to get water from a well and shower with the aid of a bucket (no running water see). had my first case of someone falling off there pushbike cos o me, shouldnt larf but it still makes me chuckle now (has appened to other motorcyclist a few times). usuall thing, riding allong the road, avoiding people, potholes (not too many at the time) cows etc and generally tacking in the scenery through a largeish village, riding tarmacked roads with 50cm wide by 50cm deep open gutters running either side (you can tell whats comming cant you?). any way, there i am approaching this rather well dressed young man (its amazing how even the best dressed people can cycle arround without getting sweaty or dirty in outrageous temperatures)as i come close to overtake him, he does the usuall thing of looking over his left shoulder to see whats comming and the bike does the usuall thing of vearing sharply left into the middle of the road. the aformentioned young man admirably corrects this movement, but as usuall a little too much tacking the bike sharply to the right. unfortunately his front wheel dissapears into the gutter and he star jumps (verry athleticly i must say) over the bars to safety. anyway all is well and it was very funny. i guess you had to be there.
so, where was i, oh yes lome. had a wander round. nice place. back to the french way, lots of mopeds (vespas here) and nice bread! wahoo. saw a man with not one, but two goats on his bicycle today, one either side like panniers....
buzzed up togo in three days or so. found some great roads, twisty, hilly, some with tarmack some without. bush camped most of the way. it rained again too. now thats not on. temp dropped to bellow 30oc when it did, and boy did it feel cold!!!! everywhere got noticebly drier in the way north and i stopped sweating constantly at night. which was nice. bumped into some peace corp workers from amerika, cycling between villages.
there was one section of road just south of a place called bafilo which was very very steep and full of hairpins (bends i mean) as it wound its way down the hilllside. i went up AND down it, it was soo cool, but the thing that was really amazing was the fact that for about 2-3km it was a constant line of big, knackerd, articulated lorries, either on thier way up, down, or just plain ole broken down. when they weere moovin they never did mor than walking pace. half way up one poor guy had had to stop suddenly (or as suddenly as these things can) to avoid someone changing a drive shaft in the middle of the road, his lorry had jacknifed accross the road and was in danger of toppeling over. he didnt look too happy, but the long line of people trying to get past didnt seem to mind.
strange african phenomenom no. 8754965384656934734894.3. there you are, happily riding through the rainforest on a tiny little dirt track, climbing up the side of a hill or in a vally, when you round a corner and the forrest suddenly gives way to a large rectangular clearing with bamboo boxes at either end - a football pitch! theres always a village somewhere near by, but its still damned strange when it happens.
ok folks, took a small break there (not that you'd no) im now safely embeded in cameroon. aahhh.
anyway, back to the story.
as i was saying im in togo, its early morning and im riding through the forest on a v small track and theres a fallen tree blocking the way. everywhere in africa they chop the vegitation away, then burn the stubble to make way for crops or cattle ('slash n burn' if my schooboy geography serves me correctly). the problem in this case was it had also burnt through the trunk of a rather substantial tree, causing it to topple during the night. anyway not to be dishartened, i sprang from mavis and ventured forward to solve this new challenge that awaited my eager mind. well allmost. after trying to physically moove the thang i opted for pilling stones over the lowest parts then manfully piloting mavis over. half an hour and 50 million stones later im just about to try my evel kneivel bit wen two guys turn up with v. iron age stylee axes and cut it up for me to pass. ho hum.
they have some v. groovy houses in north togo (and benin). made the same way as a lot of african houses, mud walls with pitched, thatched roofs, but these consist of one or two storeys made up of 2,3 or 4 round towers joined by several short straight walls, giving the impression of a (very) small castle, which apparently they were. they even had the roof beems sticking out the side of the walls, which looked like cannon. some had grain stores on top of the towers which had the appearence of a mud cooking pot with a strw hat.
reeached the border with benin and crossed no proplems, untill i reached the benin side and found out i had crossed the border and the togo police and customs was in the last village i passed, 40KM ago. hmm. so i return to get stamped by some very friendly police, then back to the border. still, atleast it was only 40km.
not much time spent in benin, mainly cos theres not much to see or do. no fuel in the north so headed straight down the one main road to cotonou(vie a place called we-we!) solved one of the oil leeks on mavis with the help of a rock and a stick, only to descover another that was a little more worrying...
spent e few days waitin for da uver guys on motorbikes to turn up at a place called grand popo, with the odd day spent in cotonou trying to use the internet (1hr just to reed emails, and its not cos im popular). prand popo was cool, nice beach, posh auberge to camp in the grounds of, swimming pool. aaaah. couldnt settle though, waitin to here from grahan n mindert and also thinking about nigerea (wasnt really looking forward to this bit, butterflies etc), wanting to sort tyres for mavis amongs other things. decided to leave without the others and hit nigeria on my own(?). i did whach teenage mutant ninja turtles whilst having the nicest burger yet though. oh, fixed my tent poles for the third time. arrogent drivers in south benin, they overtake whilst comming towards you and coss youre a bike they expect you to moove off the road. luckelly the side is quite smooth. actually saw a pregnant woman. 1st time. lots of tiny babies but no big women, maybe they hide, or its not the right season??
and so on to nigerea. no proplems whatsoever at the border. i did have a moment when id cleared the nigerean side (after about 1hr) when one of the guards called me back. oh oh, here we go i thought, get the cash out for a few bribes, but no, they just wanted to know if id used any ferries on my way from england!! i was to get used to this, most people in nigerea couldnt belive that you can drive all the way from england with only two small ferri crossings. stayed in lagos for a few days to get cameroon visa. increadably busy place, and the roads, definately the worst so far. supposidly tarmacked, but usuelly with potholes anythin from 30cm accross to longer than a buss. and they were deep, verry deep. a lot of flooding from the drains too, so you had to whach other cars to see which bits they avoided and which bits they got stuck in. wierd place generally, crap roads with a lot of old decaying buildings, but in other parts really posh new buildings, still with crap roads.
deary deary me, this really is taking a long time. im typing in cameroon, fixin stuff and hopefully finishing this. so if you aint already fallen assleep at the computer ill continue......
so lagos yeah. didnt seem as bed as everyone makes out, maybe i was lucky, or just not the hassleing kind. probably healped ythat i looked like a tramp. changed some money on the black market, can you belive ive been in africa almost 5 months (HOW long!!!) and always used my debit card or travellers cheques! no worries, girl from hotel took me to a bloke in a shop. no black briefcases or plastick bags stuffed with cash. who invented the sack race and why? wot about the frosbry flop, was it a mr or mrs frosbry? oh yeah, minor problem, fuel shortage. despite nigeria having heaps of the raw materiels, the government subsidises the prices, so super (the best you can get) works out at 25 naira a liter, which is roughly an absured 12pennies!! wow. but during my stay, by either buying at stations that had raised the prices when they got fuel, or from blokes at the side of thre roed i was paying anything between 40 to 100 naira a litre. still chaeper than england. apparently the government wanted to rzaise the prices but due to upcomming elections was dithering, so not allowing fuel yo reach the stations.
picked up cameroon visa and on to abuja (capital), stopping off at oshogbo to visit the funky forrest (dotted with sculptures and containing a shrine to a river god whose name escapes me). abuja is really strange, huga sprawling modern place (every road is a 6 lane dual carridgeway), full of funky modern(ish) buildings, some finished, some abandoned, some not even started yet. most of its remarkably clean, with very few shed type dwellings seen in most other capitels so far by this young (whom i kidding) travveler type person. anyway, did my usual trick of arriving to get a visa on a friday, so had to stay till monday. and they didnt give me one. bugger. will have to try in chad for my sudanese visa now. started contemplating wot to do if i cant go thro sudan.
all peple seem really friendly (most want to keep in touch so they can get a visa for england mind, but i think thats just par for the course). when arriving at petrol stations, allways allowed to the front of the v. long queue, most peple not seen a bike with two cylinders disk brakes or shaft drive, so mavis got a lot of attention, people crawling over and under her to have a good luck. usually includes police and army types too. never felt threatened or worried though. noticed the clutch was slipping when accellerating in wrong gear. looks like im going to have to sort that oil leek out after all. more parts added to growing list to be sent from home! lots of police/army roedblocks (they have long planks wiyh spikes on if you dont slow down). not once asked for money.
sorry if im going on a bit here, keep loosing track. this is more for my benefit when i get back than for you orrible lot...
yet anothrer sesion in the air con computer place. actually resonably speedy here.
into cameroon on 26th march, bit of stick about the war (think they took the french side), but appart from that and been asked if i was a girl (happens a lot) cos i got earings, sailed through. back to the mud roeds again. really good fun after the tarmack of nigerea, but even now after small small rain there were some impressive puddles and even more impresive ruts to contend with. fell off once trying to skirt a deep lookin hole only to slip on the bank at thz side. no harm done appart from filing my (priviosly) split pannier box with thick red mud. still the torrential downpoor later that day soon cleaned it off!! everyone still speaks english neer the border, as i moove further east it changes to french. english speekers dont like speeking in french at all + trying to decide wot language to ask directions in (which i did a lot trying to get through duala) is a tough one, even if you get the right language thay all think youre speeking the rong one. but then thats oprobably just me. weathers still hot n humid, had some groovy electrical storms, even worn my waterproofs on the bike a few days, wen it rains in cameroon you know about it. but then it lowers the temp a bit and makes a change from the dry ive been used to so far. stayed the night next to mt cameroon, v. impressive hill.
seen afew 'white-black' people on my travels, but gettin more common. tryin to work out if theyre 'albino' or not. same colour skin as an englishman in winter, blonde hair (not pure white) but propper 'african' facial features. dont tend to cover up from the sun like true albinos. v. strange at first. no one bats an eyelid, but then they live there.
so, arrived yaounde 28th and been ere ever since. got parts ordered for mavis, took geerbox out to sort clutch and change seal, need more parts, shes leekin from both the engine and the geerbox into the clutch! no wonder it was slippin. changed tyres, generally cleaned her and doing service jobs. fixing all the nigly little things such as panniers anb bags, cleaning stove etc. yaounde seems nice place. most of it recent architecture ( as apposed to colonial) set amongst some steep hills (oh my legs ache!) covered in forrest and tin shacks. not so many of the backstreet bits n bobs shops as in other towns, but in my search for tools and other implaments im gradually finding them. thought i was going to have problems changing money (and boy hav i spent some money. import on parts for bike, nu tyre, nu passport [old one nearly full] oil, food etc etc. quite scary really). id just spent all morning changing travellers cheques then descovered a visa machine, hoorah!! but it didnt work. hoorooh. but it does now. hoorah. more rain, hot when sunny, nice n cool at night. theres a brand of supermarket here callid nikki, and over every entrance they have what must be remainders from the blues brothers stage show - life size fibreglass figures of the two brothers (names escape me) dencin away! cool.
so, that bring s you up to date i think. mavis will be back together again soo i hope, and in the meentime ime generally wandering round, tacking it easy and havin a few beers. now i know i cant go anywhere its nice to stop. have to decide where to go next i s,pose.
so untill the next installment, ill be back, well both be back....
k.
so ime reaching that time when decisions have to be made as to routs an timings. im writting this in lagos (much gnashing of teeth and biting of nails whilst approaching), nigerea + will be on into cameroon next, then its eithr north or south. a lot depends on the triffeling matter of a sudanese visa, but wait im ahead of myself, let me take you all back to a place further west (go west, life is peacefull there.....) aplace of safety, a place of relaxation, aplace called.... to be honest i cant remember where i emailed you all last, lifes been sutc a blur. also my memories abismalll. ill stop this waffle now and take you back to accra, ghana (last time i looked) and begin with the usuall, 'hope im not repeating myuself' etc etc.
left accra 6 march, straight to the border with togo. biggest + busiest border yet, so lots of wandering back and forth getting worthless bits o paper sighned by numerous people. ho hum. from border straigh to camping place in lome, stopping off at a KTM dealer (V. strange, swanky shop full of my favourite orange bikes n bits, in a run down african capital) on the way. no tyres there for me. nice place to stay, sandy shady campsite with monkeys a horse and a parrot. got to get water from a well and shower with the aid of a bucket (no running water see). had my first case of someone falling off there pushbike cos o me, shouldnt larf but it still makes me chuckle now (has appened to other motorcyclist a few times). usuall thing, riding allong the road, avoiding people, potholes (not too many at the time) cows etc and generally tacking in the scenery through a largeish village, riding tarmacked roads with 50cm wide by 50cm deep open gutters running either side (you can tell whats comming cant you?). any way, there i am approaching this rather well dressed young man (its amazing how even the best dressed people can cycle arround without getting sweaty or dirty in outrageous temperatures)as i come close to overtake him, he does the usuall thing of looking over his left shoulder to see whats comming and the bike does the usuall thing of vearing sharply left into the middle of the road. the aformentioned young man admirably corrects this movement, but as usuall a little too much tacking the bike sharply to the right. unfortunately his front wheel dissapears into the gutter and he star jumps (verry athleticly i must say) over the bars to safety. anyway all is well and it was very funny. i guess you had to be there.
so, where was i, oh yes lome. had a wander round. nice place. back to the french way, lots of mopeds (vespas here) and nice bread! wahoo. saw a man with not one, but two goats on his bicycle today, one either side like panniers....
buzzed up togo in three days or so. found some great roads, twisty, hilly, some with tarmack some without. bush camped most of the way. it rained again too. now thats not on. temp dropped to bellow 30oc when it did, and boy did it feel cold!!!! everywhere got noticebly drier in the way north and i stopped sweating constantly at night. which was nice. bumped into some peace corp workers from amerika, cycling between villages.
there was one section of road just south of a place called bafilo which was very very steep and full of hairpins (bends i mean) as it wound its way down the hilllside. i went up AND down it, it was soo cool, but the thing that was really amazing was the fact that for about 2-3km it was a constant line of big, knackerd, articulated lorries, either on thier way up, down, or just plain ole broken down. when they weere moovin they never did mor than walking pace. half way up one poor guy had had to stop suddenly (or as suddenly as these things can) to avoid someone changing a drive shaft in the middle of the road, his lorry had jacknifed accross the road and was in danger of toppeling over. he didnt look too happy, but the long line of people trying to get past didnt seem to mind.
strange african phenomenom no. 8754965384656934734894.3. there you are, happily riding through the rainforest on a tiny little dirt track, climbing up the side of a hill or in a vally, when you round a corner and the forrest suddenly gives way to a large rectangular clearing with bamboo boxes at either end - a football pitch! theres always a village somewhere near by, but its still damned strange when it happens.
ok folks, took a small break there (not that you'd no) im now safely embeded in cameroon. aahhh.
anyway, back to the story.
as i was saying im in togo, its early morning and im riding through the forest on a v small track and theres a fallen tree blocking the way. everywhere in africa they chop the vegitation away, then burn the stubble to make way for crops or cattle ('slash n burn' if my schooboy geography serves me correctly). the problem in this case was it had also burnt through the trunk of a rather substantial tree, causing it to topple during the night. anyway not to be dishartened, i sprang from mavis and ventured forward to solve this new challenge that awaited my eager mind. well allmost. after trying to physically moove the thang i opted for pilling stones over the lowest parts then manfully piloting mavis over. half an hour and 50 million stones later im just about to try my evel kneivel bit wen two guys turn up with v. iron age stylee axes and cut it up for me to pass. ho hum.
they have some v. groovy houses in north togo (and benin). made the same way as a lot of african houses, mud walls with pitched, thatched roofs, but these consist of one or two storeys made up of 2,3 or 4 round towers joined by several short straight walls, giving the impression of a (very) small castle, which apparently they were. they even had the roof beems sticking out the side of the walls, which looked like cannon. some had grain stores on top of the towers which had the appearence of a mud cooking pot with a strw hat.
reeached the border with benin and crossed no proplems, untill i reached the benin side and found out i had crossed the border and the togo police and customs was in the last village i passed, 40KM ago. hmm. so i return to get stamped by some very friendly police, then back to the border. still, atleast it was only 40km.
not much time spent in benin, mainly cos theres not much to see or do. no fuel in the north so headed straight down the one main road to cotonou(vie a place called we-we!) solved one of the oil leeks on mavis with the help of a rock and a stick, only to descover another that was a little more worrying...
spent e few days waitin for da uver guys on motorbikes to turn up at a place called grand popo, with the odd day spent in cotonou trying to use the internet (1hr just to reed emails, and its not cos im popular). prand popo was cool, nice beach, posh auberge to camp in the grounds of, swimming pool. aaaah. couldnt settle though, waitin to here from grahan n mindert and also thinking about nigerea (wasnt really looking forward to this bit, butterflies etc), wanting to sort tyres for mavis amongs other things. decided to leave without the others and hit nigeria on my own(?). i did whach teenage mutant ninja turtles whilst having the nicest burger yet though. oh, fixed my tent poles for the third time. arrogent drivers in south benin, they overtake whilst comming towards you and coss youre a bike they expect you to moove off the road. luckelly the side is quite smooth. actually saw a pregnant woman. 1st time. lots of tiny babies but no big women, maybe they hide, or its not the right season??
and so on to nigerea. no proplems whatsoever at the border. i did have a moment when id cleared the nigerean side (after about 1hr) when one of the guards called me back. oh oh, here we go i thought, get the cash out for a few bribes, but no, they just wanted to know if id used any ferries on my way from england!! i was to get used to this, most people in nigerea couldnt belive that you can drive all the way from england with only two small ferri crossings. stayed in lagos for a few days to get cameroon visa. increadably busy place, and the roads, definately the worst so far. supposidly tarmacked, but usuelly with potholes anythin from 30cm accross to longer than a buss. and they were deep, verry deep. a lot of flooding from the drains too, so you had to whach other cars to see which bits they avoided and which bits they got stuck in. wierd place generally, crap roads with a lot of old decaying buildings, but in other parts really posh new buildings, still with crap roads.
deary deary me, this really is taking a long time. im typing in cameroon, fixin stuff and hopefully finishing this. so if you aint already fallen assleep at the computer ill continue......
so lagos yeah. didnt seem as bed as everyone makes out, maybe i was lucky, or just not the hassleing kind. probably healped ythat i looked like a tramp. changed some money on the black market, can you belive ive been in africa almost 5 months (HOW long!!!) and always used my debit card or travellers cheques! no worries, girl from hotel took me to a bloke in a shop. no black briefcases or plastick bags stuffed with cash. who invented the sack race and why? wot about the frosbry flop, was it a mr or mrs frosbry? oh yeah, minor problem, fuel shortage. despite nigeria having heaps of the raw materiels, the government subsidises the prices, so super (the best you can get) works out at 25 naira a liter, which is roughly an absured 12pennies!! wow. but during my stay, by either buying at stations that had raised the prices when they got fuel, or from blokes at the side of thre roed i was paying anything between 40 to 100 naira a litre. still chaeper than england. apparently the government wanted to rzaise the prices but due to upcomming elections was dithering, so not allowing fuel yo reach the stations.
picked up cameroon visa and on to abuja (capital), stopping off at oshogbo to visit the funky forrest (dotted with sculptures and containing a shrine to a river god whose name escapes me). abuja is really strange, huga sprawling modern place (every road is a 6 lane dual carridgeway), full of funky modern(ish) buildings, some finished, some abandoned, some not even started yet. most of its remarkably clean, with very few shed type dwellings seen in most other capitels so far by this young (whom i kidding) travveler type person. anyway, did my usual trick of arriving to get a visa on a friday, so had to stay till monday. and they didnt give me one. bugger. will have to try in chad for my sudanese visa now. started contemplating wot to do if i cant go thro sudan.
all peple seem really friendly (most want to keep in touch so they can get a visa for england mind, but i think thats just par for the course). when arriving at petrol stations, allways allowed to the front of the v. long queue, most peple not seen a bike with two cylinders disk brakes or shaft drive, so mavis got a lot of attention, people crawling over and under her to have a good luck. usually includes police and army types too. never felt threatened or worried though. noticed the clutch was slipping when accellerating in wrong gear. looks like im going to have to sort that oil leek out after all. more parts added to growing list to be sent from home! lots of police/army roedblocks (they have long planks wiyh spikes on if you dont slow down). not once asked for money.
sorry if im going on a bit here, keep loosing track. this is more for my benefit when i get back than for you orrible lot...
yet anothrer sesion in the air con computer place. actually resonably speedy here.
into cameroon on 26th march, bit of stick about the war (think they took the french side), but appart from that and been asked if i was a girl (happens a lot) cos i got earings, sailed through. back to the mud roeds again. really good fun after the tarmack of nigerea, but even now after small small rain there were some impressive puddles and even more impresive ruts to contend with. fell off once trying to skirt a deep lookin hole only to slip on the bank at thz side. no harm done appart from filing my (priviosly) split pannier box with thick red mud. still the torrential downpoor later that day soon cleaned it off!! everyone still speaks english neer the border, as i moove further east it changes to french. english speekers dont like speeking in french at all + trying to decide wot language to ask directions in (which i did a lot trying to get through duala) is a tough one, even if you get the right language thay all think youre speeking the rong one. but then thats oprobably just me. weathers still hot n humid, had some groovy electrical storms, even worn my waterproofs on the bike a few days, wen it rains in cameroon you know about it. but then it lowers the temp a bit and makes a change from the dry ive been used to so far. stayed the night next to mt cameroon, v. impressive hill.
seen afew 'white-black' people on my travels, but gettin more common. tryin to work out if theyre 'albino' or not. same colour skin as an englishman in winter, blonde hair (not pure white) but propper 'african' facial features. dont tend to cover up from the sun like true albinos. v. strange at first. no one bats an eyelid, but then they live there.
so, arrived yaounde 28th and been ere ever since. got parts ordered for mavis, took geerbox out to sort clutch and change seal, need more parts, shes leekin from both the engine and the geerbox into the clutch! no wonder it was slippin. changed tyres, generally cleaned her and doing service jobs. fixing all the nigly little things such as panniers anb bags, cleaning stove etc. yaounde seems nice place. most of it recent architecture ( as apposed to colonial) set amongst some steep hills (oh my legs ache!) covered in forrest and tin shacks. not so many of the backstreet bits n bobs shops as in other towns, but in my search for tools and other implaments im gradually finding them. thought i was going to have problems changing money (and boy hav i spent some money. import on parts for bike, nu tyre, nu passport [old one nearly full] oil, food etc etc. quite scary really). id just spent all morning changing travellers cheques then descovered a visa machine, hoorah!! but it didnt work. hoorooh. but it does now. hoorah. more rain, hot when sunny, nice n cool at night. theres a brand of supermarket here callid nikki, and over every entrance they have what must be remainders from the blues brothers stage show - life size fibreglass figures of the two brothers (names escape me) dencin away! cool.
so, that bring s you up to date i think. mavis will be back together again soo i hope, and in the meentime ime generally wandering round, tacking it easy and havin a few beers. now i know i cant go anywhere its nice to stop. have to decide where to go next i s,pose.
so untill the next installment, ill be back, well both be back....
k.
Pay for the duty on the imports?
