Negotiating the intricacies of the Dollar-Naira exchange rate with part time prostitutes at a seedy road bar on the outskirts of Lagos is never something I had on my list of things to do; but there we were…
As you get into Nigeria you can feel the vibe change; from the peaceful tranquility of Benin to an incredibly aggressive and in your face presence. Men with Ak47’s and mirror shades in green fatigues, black fatigues and grey seem to scowl at you as they wave you over an peer into the back of your vehicle. The gun toting man looks over at his bleary eyed superior and some kind of gesture is made, a wide beautiful smile cracks the stone sour face “You are welcome” as a hand of friendship is offered. Man I am loving Nigeria! This is not the kind of place to recoil or back off, this is the place to barrel head long into the throng, into the street and into the people, the beautiful aggressively friendly people!
We left Ghana a via the Keta wetland (pronounced “Ket-ah”), a RAMSAR site of importance to migrating birds, it is a huge wetland complex rich in habitat for waders and supports a large number of people. We observed a lot of harvesting of the sedges and grasses in the wetland giving the area an interesting patchwork appearance. The wetland is a sight to behold, but unfortunately there is just no access. Although not really a designated protected area the Keta wetland provides an important migratory path and provides the potential for possibly lucrative ecotourism ventures. We followed the ecotourism signs, we looked for the bird viewing platforms, we asked around. But we found none.
Since then we have been crossing the country Of Nigeria. Its been slow going. The last few days I have passed over one hundred and fifty road blocks, I have showed my passport, car papers, all the drivers licenses I have, all the papers, carnets, and broken out my god-given-gift of talking shit. I have talked about South Africa, I argue with being called Oyibo ( “white”) and strongly tell people I am of the same blood, that of Africa. By the end of your day your hand is a grease pool from the dozens of hand shakes and your cheeks are sore from the smiles. On one section you can actually see the next road block from the one you are stopped at. But all in all most of the guys just want to chat, and see where you are from. Being South African is a huge help, so much so that Sebastian our thick accented German is now South African too, we have a flag in our window, next the Ghana and Nigerian ones and we generally get through with a bit of a joke and a laugh. What a crazy place; I’ve been offered booze by cops, driven on the wrong side of the highway for long stretches, dodging oncoming cars, and eaten freshly killed chicken on the side of the highway in the Niger Delta, grilled to death with an ice cold coke. Although tourism is an anomaly here, we are generally welcomed…Life is good.
Park wise we are not moving fast, distances take a long time, 11 hours to get 380km yesterday. You just never speed up and you hit markets. Road blocks and traffic. Traffic like I have never seen before, I suppose it's a lot like much of the heat, two stroke engines burn a thick blue smoke into the air. But we have made it to Okumo, an incredible place I will write a section about just for itself.
On a personal note, I have seen that Don has been slandering me on the online blog…. That’s ok. All I can say is what is Don’s position on the trip? We have C-Baz the surgeon, chief negotiator and overall ladies man. We have Greg the chief mechanic, we have me the PR officer and spatial data expert lu extroadinaire and French student. Don… um.. ja, we have Don.
Enough said.
Peace. Chris
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