Benin - first impressions last.

On the whole our border crossings throughout this trip have been problem free, bribe free and speedy. That was all about to change. As we approached the Nigeria/Benin border in our taxi, an ominous difficult air started to rise. Firstly was the row of police officers trying to stop cars with stingers just so they could claim their bribe. As our driver deftly weaved in and out of these, we stopped momentarilty for two passengers to get out. We were swarmed. Breaking through the swathes of people, we finally arrived at our Nigeria exit and worst fear - a row of eight or ten tables of "officials" all wanting a pay off to let us through. Most seemed to have defunct jobs - pretending to be official by having a piece of paper and writing details before demanding a fee. Tired, frustrated and a little bit lighter in the pocket (we actually caught on quite quickly to the ploy and stormed through all but one post and the stamping station) we finally wrestled free of Nigeria and into the calm of Benin. Or so we thought.

The Beninnoise officials seem to be taking a leaf out of their Nigerian counterparts. Hoping for a 48 hour transit visa, we were given an exorbitant price, told that they had run out of visas, told to return to Nigeria, left to wait for a couple of hours, and passage offered for just one person (quite what the other was to do, I'm still not sure). After a lot of waiting and the eventual admittance of the officials that they were just looking for "coke money", we secured our 48 hours in Benin. The two passengers who had got off in Nigeria also mysteriously reappeared. Crossing the border was possible in more than one way, it would seem.

The trouble was, that experience kind of left a bitter taste in the mouth. Also unsure as to whern the 48 hours strats and finishes and not wanting to pay for cool drinks for all officials in Benin, we darted from West to East, with just one overnight.

And a lovely night it was too. Ouidah, a former slave post and voodoo centre on the coast seemed both stunning and very interesting. Benin as a whole, in fact, did not look dissimilar. It all went a bit too quick for my liking and the opportunity to laze a few days on the beaches disappeared as fast as our money did when we entered. Sad. But it leaves plenty of opportunities fotr Togo and Burkina, our next destinations, to excel.

Nigeria

The Lonely Planet guide to Africa says that Nigeria "has a bad reputtion". The only two people we have met so far on our travels who had come through Nigeria effectively told us to "run like the wind and not look back".

Exactly four days after entering Nigeria in Calabar, on the South East Cost, we were stood at the border with Benin on the West, alive, well and unscathed.

In our haste to cross the country in record time (and avoid being mistaken for oil workers), we saw only two cities - Calabar and Lagos - and the countryside which whizzed by inbetween. That doesn't give a huge opportuntiy to get a well rounded, balanced view of the country. But since when have I ever been well rounded or balanced?

My findings on Nigeria can be nicely analoginalized (is this the verb for making an analogy? If not, why not?) in our bus journey between the two cities. Firstly, we got there. There were times on that journey where that seemed a distint unlikelyhood, but we did arrive safely in Lagos. As we did on the other side of Nigeria.

The journey started well. We were organised into our seats according to our ticket numbers. Imagine. Six weeks spent in free-for-all mode and suddenly we were lining up, single file, to board. Nigeria, it seemed, was trying to organise the unorganisable. And then our first taste of air conditioning. Crammed in like sardines we may have been, but Nigeria was making stifled attempts to add a bit of class. Driving out of Calabar, the Christian preaching commenced - songs, sermons and individual thanksgiving time. This echoed Southern Nigeria to a tee. Religious paraphanalia is everywhere. Whether it is exaggerated because of the muslim dominated north, or whether Nigerian people have taken Evangelicalism to new levels simply out of their own choice, I don`t know. The prayers on the bus asking God to aid the driver to take us safely to Lagos did seem to get heard, however. I can only say it must have been divine intervention which delivered us in Lagos, because the roads were chaos. Dual carriageway most of the way, there has clearly been a great deal of infrastructure planning building done here. Alas, the roads have all but disintegrated and now drivers weave inbetween potholes at upwards of 120kph. On either side of the carriageway. Yep. The central reservation has been knocked down at all to frequent intervals and cars will merrily cross from one side to the other to choose the "path of least resistance".

Yet, the underlying positive in all of this were the people. Nigerians, I would say, have been the warmest nd most welcoming of all the people on the trip so far. Beaming smiles, open handshakes and gentle inquisitiveness, thesewere not the people I was expecting and it was a wonderfully welcome surprise.

Lagos itself proved the smog-filled, chaos were were expecting, though did throw in a couple of nice surprises - The new Bond film and a "White House Pancake Breakfast Extravaganza"; and a couple of reminders that all is not pearly white - overzealous officials and a nights stay in a brothel.

All in all Nigeria had proven eventful, some might say fruitful, and I was left with the niggling feeling that I may just have missed out on something good.

Cameroon - a bit of a mixed bag

Its difficult to know where to start writing about Cameroon. In our minds, this was our Mecca, our haven between the enjoyable, but grinding world from where we had come and the impending, inevitable arrival of our next foe - Nigeria.

I would love to say that Cameroon realized the mothering role which we were hoping from her and embraced us with a big warm blanket and allowed us to suckle on her teat for a few days to gain a bit of strength, before burping us gently and sending us out into the big bad world of West Africa. I'd love to say this, but, alas, it didn't. Instead, we found oursleves huddled on the step of a shoddy backpackers in Yaoundé at 3.30 am being attacked by mosquitos and reeling over the ten police checks which had been imposed on us in the preceeding eight hours of travel. Whilst there were weakened attempts at offering us the respite we were needing: an unexpectedly easy Nigerian visa, an eye poppingly well stocked 24 hour bakery just down the road in Yaoundé, fresh seafood in Limbé on the coast and the opportunity to summit the iposing Mount Cameroon; these really masked the slight disappointment I found with Cameroon and its people.

Yet it all started so well. At least once per tropical travels, I find the need to mistakenly buy a bunch of plantains thinking they are bananas. This usually incurs the pointing and laughing of local people as I try to peel back the solid skin and bite into the raw fruit inside. Cameroon was no different: on a bus break from the border I set about my thankless fruit task and the people stood around and laughed. yet then, something completely unexpected happened: someone disappered off into the market and brought me back a real bunch of bananas, declining my offer of money. The Cameroonians appeared so confident and open compared to the Congolese and Angolans and on this evidence, incredibly generous. Alas, this was to be one of the few occasions of Cameroonian hospitality. There seemed so much on offer in the country, yet no matter how hard I tried, I found I could not warm to its people. Money was on everyone's minds and the pinnacle came in a shared taxi when a fellow passenger asked me to pay her for getting out onto the pavement so that I could get out! It wasn't said with a hint of cheekiness or even hope, just a full expectation that I would pay her.

The few days towards the end, particularly the ascent of Mount Cameroon, were splendid and the Cameoonian guides and porters were excellent with a touch of sarcastic humour I don't usually relate with Africa. Walking through hills overflowing with long grasses took me right back to the Yorkshire Dales (though, thankfully, walking through the ash laden lava flows of the 2000 eruptions did not resemble Ribblesdale, beautiful though they were), as did the stiff breezes and need for woolly jumpers when we reached the summit (4090m). My gorging of all the seafood I could find in Limbé also went a long way to appeasing the






I hope I am wrong. I was only there a matter of days and so please, please don't judge a country just on what I write. Perhaps it is a telling sign of places to come which have had much more contact with tourists, without doubt there was and element of rural/urban differences with people much more welcoming and genuine in the rural areas, or perhaps we expected too much from our haven.

Gabon - the next one which, errm, got away

Anyone who knows Rose or myself knows that neither of us are great planners. Sometime in July, a few months before our trip was due to begin a mutual friend happened to speak to both of us within the period of a few days. Both of us has clearly put responsibility of the other one to make the plans and both of us were certain that the other was doing it, it transpired.

When we met in Windhoek, just a matter of days before departure, and in between ever more frantic visits to the Angolan embassy to secure our visa, we finally managed to set in stone our one and only certainty of the trip - we would visit Gabon. "We have to see the lowland gorillas", said Rose "and Gabon sounds like the best place to do it". "Gabon." I replied, in complete agreement, "its a plan".

It was somewhat of a surprise, therefore, when we failed to turn left in the Congo, instead continuing north on our pleasure cruise towards Cameroon. There was method to our madness, however, and that method was the opportunity to see one of only two groups of habituated gorillas in the world. Those few days proved to be a veritable feast of jungle excitement and a whole lot of learning about the fascinating world of gorillas and the people who research them.

If, like me, the phrase "habituated" throws out for you images of gorillas living in a neat house, with freshly cut grass, the smell of baking coming out of the kitchen and the kids playing on the swings in the back garden, think again. Habituation means that the gorillas allow people to get close to them and not bother them. In order to do this, the researchers and guides have had to go through a two year process which staggers the mind. There is a multiple step process of behaviours which the gorillas go through before finally accepting that these pesky people are colming every day, whether they like it or not, so there no point in worrying about it really. The first few of these stages, needless to say, involve agression. The researchers just have to stand, unflinching, as the gorillas roar, charge, chest beat and even take swings at their visitors. Having seen the size of these fellas up close and heard some of them roar, I doff my hat to each and every one of those brave people who go through that on a daily basis.

The group themselves, and a non-habituated group which we were very fortunate to see in one of the jungle clearings, were nothing short of incredible (a group consists of one adult male, a few adult females and their offspring). Cliché though it sounds, it was a real pleasure to observe their human-like features, behaviours and interactions.

If this wasn`t enough, the trip also threw in our first beds in two weeks, desperately needed clothes washing, a marvellous evening of wine and stew with Hannah, the English director of the park and her Congolese co-worker, Patrick, and the small matter of being shocked by an electric catfish and chased for several hundred metres through the jungle by a rampaging elephant.












Gabon, I'm sorry to have missed you, but you would have had a hell of a lot of living up to do to beat this.

A brief note on BO

Sadly I could talk for quite some time about my Body Odour over the past few weeks (which I thought had peaked ont the trip North through Congo, yet surpassed even those levels on a bus journey in Cameroon the other day when the smell I thought was the live chicken under our seat followed me outside when I got off).

However, the BO I would like to briefly mention is the same BO that everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, is talking about - Barack Obama. It has been a truly incredible experience witnessing the aftermath of the US election out here. Prying into local conversations in bars or on buses and the name keeps cropping up. Walk along the streets of remote parts of Congo or Cameroon and people smile at you with thumbs up and shout "Obama!". The markets have Obama DVDs and people walk past in Obama T-Shirts. I've never known anything like it (obviously I wasn't here eight years ago when bush won, but methinks it may not be the same)

I once heard that the most commonly recognised phrases in the world are "ok" and "Coca Cola". I would add "Barack Obama" to that list now and even suggest that he has surpassed the might of "Coca Cola". Whether he is more than "ok" remains to be seen.

The Republic of Congo - sometimes the gamble pays off.

Choices you make whilst you are travelling are more often than not a bit of a gamble. This hostel or that one, this taxi or that one, this country or that one. As with any gamble, sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn`t. Congo gave us a fair few options and made us gamble with more than just a night in a comfy bed.

The train across Congo, from Pointe Noire to Brazzaville, was a bit of a gamble. Still reeling from our forced flight from Angola, we were determined to continue overland and that meant the prospect of taking the train. Despite choosing the First Class option, we never really expected luxury (though Rose did pack her PJs just in case), but I didn`t think that expecting a back on my chair was too much to ask. Alas, a backless chair I got. However it was the prospect of meeting the ninjas which played on our minds as we boarded and headed out of the relative comfort of Pointe Noire. The Ninjas are a group of rebels who still are dominant in a small part of Congo, the Pool Region. A region which the train had to pass through.

Pointe Noire Train Station

Despite my backless chair, the driver`s desire to stop for an hour at random places on the way, and the undesired attention and intimidation tactics of a group of lads, our journey was progressing smoothly but slowly. Then we got to Pool. The police, who had been wandering up and down the aisles up to this point on the journey, summarily disembarked. the train proceeded about a kilometre, at which point the ninjas embarked. But funnily enough, the train got a sudden air of calm. The boys who had been pestering us for much of the journey were firmly sat in their places. In fact everyone firmly sat in their places. The ninjas, it would seem, had been given the task of securing the train for their section, and that was a role they seemed keen to play out. Yes they were heavy handed. Yes they were intimidating. Yes they did request a "donation at the end". But I did have an admirationn for the way they clearly took their roles seriously. At its head was a Congolese Chuck Norris lookalike. He assigned a ninja to babysit "les blancs", clearly feeling we were stupid to be on the train - a crime waiting to happen, but one which wasn't going to happen on his watch.

At one of our random stops the driver, obviously feeling a bit twitchy with rebels in tow, decided to cut short his usual hour long break and moved away with half the train still squatting in the trees. Cue panic on the train and a mad dash by the rebels to signal the driver to stop. By firing out of the windows. We stopped soon enough. I turned to Rose and said, "You have to admit, they do look out for people". That was one step too far.
"Feck off Ant." came Rose`s reply in her dulcet Irish tones, "I think you`ve got that Stockholm Syndrome or something. These people shoot other people don`t forget."

And I had to concede the point. They probably do shoot other people. But I still gave Chuck Norris a secret wink and a nod when he got off and Rose wasn`t looking.

And so we found ourselves safe and sound in Brazzaville and headed for gamble number two: seeing the gorillas. Our plan had always been to do this in Gabon, yet suddenly we discovered that we could possibly do it right here in Congo and get to Cameroon all in one minor leap of faith. This meant heading to the far North of the country. No rebels on the way. What could possible go wrong? A mere 600km - Windhoek to Tsumeb. And its the main road. This was gonna be a doddle.

Hmmm. To say the roads up North in Congo aren't that great, is probably akin to saying a sumo wrestler is a little bit chubby round the edges. It all started so well with tar road for 300km and a rather pleasant 4 hour bus journey. The remaining 300km took three days, two breakdowns, three rescues, a lorry crash, a night on the equator, a night "sleeping" on logs, a 10km hike as part of the standard bus service, a canoe across the river, a missing boat, several bribes, being pulled out of a tent at 01.30 by an army officer, some pretty grotty food, and a not so friendly insect who found warmth and lodging in my ear for a couple of days.

















Yet once again the gamble paid off and the gorillas and Cameroon transfer were ultimately a rip roaring success. But that remains a story for another time.

The Republic of Congo. In a nutshell, a gamble worth the wait(ing).

Democratic Republic of Congo - the one that got away

Sometimes the Angolans were a bit too helpful. Sometimes they told us things that weren't true, not out of spite I don't think, but because it is better to say something than admit to not knowing. That is why we ended up yoyoing up and down the main promendade for three hours one hot Luanda afternoon looking for an office. It is also why we ended up bypassing the DRC on our journey.

Actually, that is a bit of an exagerration. We decided in Luanda that given the slightly volotile circumstances in the DRC, an uncertain route to get from the boredr to Kinshasa on public transport, to save some of the pennies which Angola had sucked out of us, and to save a page in our passports, that we would catch a ferry up to Cabinda (the separated Angolan territory between DRC and Congo), or even more ideally to Pointe Noire in the Rep of Congo. "No problems at all" we were told. "Boats go all the time" we were told. "But you have to go to Soyo" we were told.

And so it was a day and a half later that we found ourselves in Soyo somewhat bruised, battered and really rather pungent from a minibus journey which included two breakdowns, the loss of both our wallets and a rather painful hour holding onto an axle. "There's no boat from here" came the answer we really weren't wanting to hear from a security guard at the port in between mouthfuls of the lobster he was devouring. "Fiddlesticks" I said (though that might not be wholly true).

Fast forward an hour and we had been offered a "legal" trip to Cabinda on a barge that evening which we felt was one step too far even for adventure seekers such as ourselves. Three options remained. Fly, turn back, swim.

The twenty miute flight was unpleasant for all the other passengers on board I have no doubt. But we covered the distance it had taken the previous 18 hours to do in 20 minutes and landed in Cabinda where we promptly hightailed it out of there to arrive, quite unexpectedly given our situation just a few hours earlier, in the Republic of Congo.

So that was that. We turned down the opportunity of "legally" canoeing through without valid visas, but that was as close as we came to the DRC.

Angola - money matters

Picture the view. Peering out to an oceanic vista with millionaire yachts docked on your doorstep. To the left is a 7km stretch of beachland called the Isla. To the right is the centre of town - a multitude of giant buildings and construction sites on their way to becoming giant buildings. At night, the skyline is more reminiscent of Hong Kong - electronic billboards and lazer lights - than the stereotypical image of Africa.

But there is a twist (there's always a twist). Our vista was affectionately known as "monturo de beuena vista" roughly translating to "rubbish dump with a nice view". You see it is nosebleedingly incredible how expensive it is here. The dump was actually the car park of the Luanda Yacht Club who very kindly allowed us to pitch tents much to the bewilderment of Zirka, our taxi driver, whose jaw almost hit the floor when he saw that we weren't like the usual punters he drops off at the Yacht Club (I thought at one point, in fact, that he was going to offer some of our fare back. No such luck!)




Angola holds a bit of a mystique when you are in Namibia. Off limits, down talked and yet so close, it wasn´t a hard decision to want to find out what really goes on here. And what we found was a country which truly does seem to be putting its war years behind it, rolling up its sleeves and building for a bright future. The amount of construction work throughout the country had to be seen to be believed.

By using public transport, we figured that we would be doing things on the cheap, yet even packed minibuses were mindnumbingly (not to mention bumnumbingly) pricey. How the local people afford such prices is beyond my comprehension. One person we spoke to simply said "we Angolans are very innovative". And from what I saw I can't disagree. The people, in fact, were brilliant. I read somewhere that if a journey through East Africa is about the landscape and wildlife, the West Africa is about the people. Angola has really started to live up to this. It wasn't just the innovativeness of the Angolan people though, but more the fact that people seemed willing to spend money. In Namibia I often felt like people were reluctant to part with their cash. In Angola, people bought things on the street, got their shoes shined and generally seemed to be happy to contribute their money elsewhere. And noone seemed remotely interested in us. Anywhere. Angola is very very untravelled and white faces are seldom seen, especially in the rural areas. Yet noone took a blind bit of notice. It was fantastic. We would converse, barter and pass just like anyone else and that anonimity really made you feel safe and, in a strange way, very welcome.

Of course there are many sides to a picture. I can't for one minute say that its all sunshine and roses here. I think I read that the GDP is still amongst the lowest in the world and certainly the slum areas were in a very bad state indeed. And there were children everywhere. In Benguela we took a long midday walk along the beautiful beach and there were hundreds of Angolan children revelling in the sea. It was wonderful to see, but you realised that the children were out because there are no schools for them to go to. I hope that the future is bright for these people and the money which is clearly pouring into the country gets down to those who need, and deserve, it.



So country number two, Angola, a big thank you. You have proven that a book should not be judged by its cover and I will be watching with interest. I can't think of any place where I've been more intrigued about going back in five years time to see how it changes. I'll just save my pennies before coming back and hope for a room with a view next time.

Namibia - the rediscovery

As I have said before, when you live in a place for a while - nomatter where that place is - it becomes normal for you. Namibia was normal for me. Day to day routines of work rest and play had become thoroughly set in and were very comfortable. And then the 30th of September came about and I had finished my job. The thought of uprooting myself and discovering new countries became a scarily imminent prospect which I was both excited and pertified about.

But Namibia - my home - was about to do its last favour for me. It was about to prepare me for what lies ahead. It started throwing problems at me and I strongly (want to) believe that it was Namibia´s way of saying, "Ant. Thanks for helping me out the last few years. Now I´m gonna toughen you up for a couple of weeks for what lies ahead." And in a Micky training Rocky Balboa style it did. Visa problems, transport problems, money problems and homelessness helped me to find the fighting edge that will hopefully get me through the next couple of months as I wade up the West Coast. Even the Windhoek taxi drivers made us wait an age before we could get to the bus station.



And it succeeded. The visa worked out in the end. The transport got there in the end. The money came in the end. And people housed me, for which I am ever ever so grateful especially given my rather distracted and absent mindedness as I rediscovered myself and Namibia.

So thank you Namibia. I know you were only being cruel to be kind and I will never forget that.

Arise sir blogalot

So. There we have it. My time in Namibia is pretty much up and it has come just a mere six months (give or take) after my blogging life came to a slow grinding halt.

This is the thing. The problem with trying to write about different experiences when abroad is that if you experience them for long enough they stop being different. And hence stop being blogworthy. I have started writing quite a few times and just stopped again because I think they stopped carrying the conviction and surprise of my first experiences here.

However good news is on the horizon. Life is soon to take a new blog friendly twist and hopefully you will be the benefactors of this. After a slightly drunken conversation and an inability for either of us to pluck up the courage to step down and admit a terrible idea, myself and a fellow VSO volunteer, Rose, have decided to saunter our way back home (UK and Irelend respectively) and take public transport back up the West Coast of Africa. Roughly this way:



I do plan to go back and add more stories about life in Namibia as I think and reflect on them, but for now you can keep updated with our findings as we embark on the slow journey home.