So there’s a bit of consternation happening in Côte d'Ivoire, and although that was our primary route, we have to go around. We’d have to go straight through the traditional line of skirmish and on all accounts things aren’t great there. It's not our vehicle and C-baz’s embassy advises against it. Also this gives me another excuse to say that he is being soft, and I think there’s a rule somewhere about forcing your travel companion into going into a civil war zone. Anyway, I agree with him and March on this one. So we are going via Burkina Faso and Mali on our way to Guinea. We miss Liberia too now unfortunately, but its not economically viable as there is only one park to map. I’m going back there one day though, I have to see it.
Anyway so we left Nigeria and hit Benin. Had some consternation with the border guards who wouldn’t let C-baz in. Just plain refused so there we were, no way of going back to Nigeria, no way of getting into Benin. We simply had to sit it out. I tried to explain in my broken French, C-baz explained in his shaking anger… but no, just plain no! Well, we sat, we had water, we explained to them that this is where we would have to camp and C-baz tried to leverage them with threats of calls to his embassy.
Eventually after a few hours they realized we weren’t going anywhere, so after a few phone calls we weren’t stamped in, but allowed to drive to Parakou (about half way across the country) to get officially stamped. The guy didn’t look twice, Bam, bam bam..all in, no problem. Customs wasn’t interested in the car so we all moved through the country without ever really having been there. We bush camped under a radio tower and had a great time all round, although I did manage to piss off a policeman by being too aggressive. I went straight for the dirty underpants when he asked to search the car. Shaking them out in front of him and asking if he found anything interesting (I think that’s what I asked, it was all happening in French), was not a good idea. So C-baz calmed him down, we paid our first fine, and I won’t be so cocky anymore.
In Burkina we stayed at Kampienga lake, a beautiful place which I think Don wrote about. Then he cried. He’d been making fuss about dust in his contacts, but when I saw him standing there, red eyed and whimpering I knew. He clung to me as C-baz prized him off and put him in the car, I heard him crank up Bon-Jovi’s “Bed of roses” and his hand pressed up against the window, slowly sliding down as the car faded into the distance. I think I heard the tear-broken cries of “why!”, but it may have just been the wind. Anyway, him and c-baz headed on to Ouga, limping the car home. Greg and I went to work on Arli and W national Parks. It was good to have old Dwayne along. He sang to me in the mornings and was always keen on a cool refreshing drink or to go birding. He always tried to convince the ladies of the night I was keen, and whenever I got gastro ( which was a few times so far), Don helped out. When I say helped out, I mean that when I was lying prostrate on the floor soaked with water in nothing but a pair of underpants, lying under a fan to drop my temperature in between bouts of vomiting. Don “helped” by taking photos, calling c-baz and laughing! But mother nature got him back; I can still picture him speed walking through a village in Benin, bog roll in hand to hide behind the only termite mound.
Greg left when we got to Ouga, he didn’t cry. We shook hands like men. He went, got on the plane and was brave. Now its just C-baz and I. Mali, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau and Senegal to go....this is going to be good.
-Chris-
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