... an awesome skyscraper next to a crappy neighbourhood/
Bicycle distances Niger
|
Right now I am in Niamey, Niger, and it was not easy to get there. Chinese tires giving up on me (three) plus the stress of the possibility being kidnapped plus a super harsh environment. A Curacao like kunuku ( = dry bush), Boro nomads (the Peul) moving with their cattle, sand dunes and occasional traffic overtaking me.
In Hombori I was detained by soldiers because two days earlier two Frenchmen were kidnapped from their hotel. It is believed they have been abducted by the AQMI (Al Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb). I told the soldiers I knew what had happened and that it was a risk I would take, that it is a free country etc. But they kept on insisting I should turn around and go back to safer places like Mopti, Bamako.
Meanwhile I had to wait for their superior, who - after he had arrived - had to ask permission to let me through from his boss. The rest of the day I spend repairing my tires and setting up my tent next to their base.
Anyway, eventually I got through, but not before the next day. And the next day I was still detained until eleven o`clock. I then got really pissed off because they gave me no reason and it became hot (the sun was rising quickly!). Eventually it appeared that two French television crews (TF1 and ORT) were at the spot and that I had to be absolutely interviewed by them.
In Douenza I was in a hostel with a Dutch couple, a South African and Swedish motorcyclist who were all abducted the next day in Timbuktu (except the Dutch woman who could hide herself in the tent on the roof of her 4WD, a German who refused to get into the kidnapper`s car was shot on the spot!). This all happened in broad daylight at four o`clock right in the middle, center of Timbuktu, which is very strange and what is not likely an action of the AQMI (the Timbuktu action is still not claimed by this group, the Hombori action is) that prepares its operations well and where casualties are rare.
The suspicion arises that another group was responsible for the action. A group that simply wanted to deliver/ sell the hostages to the AQMI for ransom, and panicked when the german refused to obey (he refused to step into the car).
With these people (except the German) I was in the same hostel and have talked all night with them in Douenza. The Dutchman who is a train machinist with the NS [Dutch Railways]even has given me a hand by spraying oil in my bicycle`s crank axis because it made so much noise [because of the sand that got into the crank during my cruel round trip to Tombouctou].
I myself needed five days covering the distance from Douenza to Gao because of exploding tires and soldiers detaining me at Hombori. Finally fifty kilometres before Gao I was taken off the road by gendarmerie that looked like bandits or Libyan rebels themselves.
Imagine a gray pick-up filled with Touareg' like homies with turbans and armed with Kalashnikovs and mattresses (?). The commander was very friendly and explained me that the governor of Timbuktu had ordered no longer permitting movements of 'Toebaboe's' (= white boys) simply because it had become too risky.
They brought me to Gao after they hanged all sorts of stuff outside the pick-up in order to make some space for me and my bicycle + luggage.
I was immediately driven to the army base and to the colonel himself who was very kind to me and actually gave me an update of what had happened. He spoke good English and I got permission to do some shopping in Gao but not alone. I was driven with armed escort into the town Gao. With the driver and an armed soldier accompanying me I had dinner in a restaurant, bought stuff like bread, jam and eggs and finally three solid-looking Iranian bicycle tires that hopefully insj-allah would last longer than hundred kilometres ...
I asked what the road Gao-Niger border was like and it turned out to be red-very- hot. The Coronel agreed on giving me an armed escort but unfortunately there were not enough rolling vehicles. So he decided to put me at 03.00 in the morning on the bus to Niamey [Niger] together with a French and Togolese nun (plus an escort of 4 gendarmes armed with Kalashnikovs).
Until that time I got a room at the army base where I could do some reparations on my bicycle and could chill (until 03.00 so I thought).
As I had taken my bicycle apart I suddenly had to go with a group of gendarmes (at 21.00 on command of the coronel). I was pretty pissed off because I was not ready and had to hurry so: putting back the bicycle parts together, charging the bicycle with all my lugage, putting the whole shit on the rebel pick-up, driving up to 300 meters where apparently a group of gendarmerie had installed themselves under a huge pica tree.
Everything had to be loaded off again and I had to stay there (under the pica tree) until 03.00 when the bus would (in theory) arrive. I got a chair, the greetings and the pick-up returned with high speed to the army base.
I have not slept: under a magnificent sky full with stars I was sitting next to a charcoal fire where a gendarme fed me all night with `le té` (= tea) chatting all night. It was really nice, the coronel arrived a little later on, with beer (!), and we have chatted about the current situation (in English). He said that according to him it was not really the AQMI but a Touareg rebel responsible for the kidnappings in Timbuktu.
The bustrip was also quite a happening: imagine a bus arriving, running gendarmes towards the road (there was no road block, they were some kind of surprise patrol) stopping the bus while aiming their weapons at it, crazy!.
The driver: a fat Moor dressed in a Chinese- plastic' like- fake- brocade- purple- dress searched [checked] thoroughly and looking horrified when I arrive with the bicycle, displaying all my junk on the street.
"Impossible, there is no place for me and my shit!". A member of my escort sneers at him: "orders from the coronel! ... Je dois escorter le blanc (that's me :-)) et les deux soeurs!..." (= I`ve got to escort the white man and the two sisters!).
Eventually I only needed to take out my front wheel and my bicycle and stuff was hoisted into the bus (the luggage section was full). Behind, left, right and in front of me there was a gendarme armed with a Kalashnikov. I felt myself that night super important haha . The escort got out at the border and it seemed that I had an already paid bus ticket to Niamey (plus 10.000 CFA donated by the Coronel!). I decided to stay in the bus until Niamey. It is better to leave such troubled regions as quickly as possible behind you.
It got light. We were passing a huge dry environment then crossing the border with Niger. Almost after every fart that bus stopped: for people to get in/ out, letting border officials search through passengers`stuff. Eventually we did fourhundred kilometers in ten hours, insane!.
Here in Niamey I stay at a campsite somewhat outside the city. I have pitched my tent under a kind of umbrella and I have slept a lot. I can take a shower, there is a restaurant, basically everything I need you can find here.
I must renew my visa, because I still have only six days in Niger but I need more time to reach Nigeria. I actually have hardly seen anything of Niamey but it looks friendly, green, there are shady trees because you are next to the river Niger. It is dark now I think I will have a little stroll to the center and back again.
Niamey, 12/03/2012
I Just got my visa extended with thirty days. In these countries it is important to have such things in order, although I will be at most five days in this country. Too bad because I cross the country without seeing much of it.
Agadez for instance must be an interesting desert town and currently home to some Gaddafi family members is some nine hundred kilometres to the north. The difficulty however is that it is also a risk to go there because the AQMI is active in that part of the country.
.
By contrast my way of traveling is a very intensive one which enables you good contact with the locals and from which you get a good impression of the country. On the road to Gao for example I saw nomadic villages that one normally never would see, say you are taking a bus ride (through the mud camouflage).
A Walloon whom I spoke during the process of extending the visa said that northern Nigeria at the moment is quite tricky to go to, well, I won`t be there that long, but at least I will inform myself as good as possible and eventually change my itinerary or ask a military escort which also works fine.
I will continue my journey again tomorrow insj-allah, I'm excited! Here the weather is wonderful, dry, hot, you sweat a little, and people leave you alone what is very nice.
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten