West Africa 1999: 3

Ryan tells me he sent you a copy of my email from The Gambia, so I'll continue the story of my trip from there. We flew to Conakry, Guinea on an old Russian Antonov plane and had a tour of the area. Some battle damage - the presidential residence is abandoned as it was hit by a missile, but basically the area is OK. It is a fair sized city, with streetlights at all intersections, but they haven't worked for two or three years - this was common in Africa. We got out into the countryside & visited a big waterfall with a lake below it.

The flight to Lungi, Sierra Leone was without incident, and we caught a Russian Helicopter (complete with an arrogant Russian crew) to Freetown. The ferry that used to cross there was sunk while transporting a couple of tanks across the bay during the fighting. We were met by a Mercedes from a travel company, given a tour around, and back to catch the helicopter to Lungi again - it was 1 1/2 hrs late - we were panicking about our plane connection. Freetown has a lot of damage, most government & official buildings have been blown up and are burned out hulks, but it is a pretty area. Lots of heavily armed troops as roadblocks. The travel company, who we met with in Freetown, has a representative at Lungi make sure we made the flight to Monrovia, Liberia OK - and had us cleared through customs with express service.

Liberia is really sad. The capital and main city, Monrovia, has no running water and no electricity. You should know the city name - it is on the stern of most of the ships in the world, it has been a huge ship registry country for years, and used to be very prosperous. The phones work after a fashion, but international calls are all but impossible. The city was a major battleground for 3 years of the 10 year war which ended recently and house to house fighting destroyed entire neighbourhoods. Few business buildings can be occupied, all power poles, including high tension power lines, have had the wires cut off them and the main generating plants have been blown up. Any building with electricity has it's own generator, and the European Community donated a fleet of tank trucks to haul water into the city which is distributed a bucket at a time. We visited a huge refugee camp, where many people from the city and the interior are living in twig, or whatever they could find to use to build, houses. The people were very nice and friendly - they hadn't seen a tourist in 10 years - by no one has any money.

We met the advisor to the speaker of the house of parliament, and he took us through the parliament buildings and introduced us to many high officials and ministers. He then escorted us to the airport where the president's private building was made available to us to wait for our flight - that was nice, as the flight was 2 1/2 hours late. People ran around getting our passports stamped, etc. while we relaxed in air-conditioning watching big screen satellite TV. When we boarded the plane finally, our host waved away anyone who attempted to check our papers or baggage. Real VIP treatment!

Ivory Coast has an incredibly corrupt customs and immigration service, and we found officials here to be very surly. It seems to be doing well businesswise, the capital & main city, Abidjan, has lots of super highways, etc. but nothing works well - I couldn't send either email or faxes - and a snotty attitude is found almost everywhere. I liked it the least of the countries we saw. There had been a front page story in the paper in Liberia about the customs officials of Ivory Coast extorting money from people crossing into Liberia, including the author of the article who had to pay to get his passport back. (The "lose" them while they have them to stamp.) I experienced this first had when we left. I was taken into a small room and told that if I did not pay them right there they would charge me with a trumped up currency infraction, and that there would be a huge fine. I demanded a phone to call the Canadian Embassy, where we had visited, and to see the person in charge. Another guy came in and the really turned up the heat, and so did I. Eventually the let me go, and Tim as well. He had been told he was next, but when they found we were together they left him alone. Most people in the airport had paid around $US 50 each to not be made to miss their flight. Horrible place!

We arrived in Ghana without incident after a short flight, and it was a real breath of fresh air. It is English speaking, most things work, people are friendly and helpful and the country has lots to see and do. It is the only one I'd like to return to. We could even use phones and faxes! They have an absolutely beautiful university there, it looks more like a massive resort done in the Mediterranean style architecture.

From there we drove to Lomé, Togo, where we found our fight to Niamey had been cancelled, so we stayed only one night at a fabulous hotel (Sarakawa) right on the beach. Olympic size pool, king beds ,and all the extras. We drove to Cotonou, Benin the next day and visited a travel agency where we got a different flight to Niamey booked, but it left from Lomé. That night we checked on the flight again and found it had been cancelled (a regular situation with Air Afrique) and that now the only way to fly to Niamey was to fly back to Abidjan, overnight, then to Niamey the next day. The last place I wanted to go was Abidjan, so we cancelled the ticket and took a 10 hour hot, dusty trip by train to Parakou, Benin, then the next day hired a car and were driven to Niamey. (All car rentals in Western Africa come with a driver, who works whenever you need him.)

Niamey, in Niger, is an interesting place. During the Uranium boom they built huge modern buildings here, including the hotel we stayed in on the banks of the Niger River. This is their sole main source of income, so when the boom ended everything collapsed. The result is a shack town with super modern steel, concrete and glass big buildings scattered through it. It is something to see camel trains strolling down the main streets past these modern structures - what a contrast! The country is desperate, though. One in three children die before the age of 5, the average age is 43 years and the literacy rate is 17% in spite of so called compulsory and free education.

We flew from there to Bamako, Mali, which really doesn't have much to offer but is a little better off than Niamey. We caught a river boat from near the city for the five night trip down the Niger to Timbuktu. It was really interesting for a couple of days, but then started to get boring. Food on board was OK but not great. The boat could be best described as a floating village, complete with pigs, goats, chickens and whatever else. There are 5 classes - Deluxe, first, second, third and fourth. I had deluxe and Tim first. That meant I had one of the two cabins with air-conditioning, which actually worked now and then. I also had a shower, sink, toilet but no toilet paper, towel or soap. This turned out not to be important when we found there was no water. When I wanted water, I asked a staff member for a "seau de l'eau" and they would throw my bucket overboard to get a new bucket of filthy water for my room. (The locals use it for sewer, washing and drinking). At no extra charge they included a large menagerie of wild life - bugs of all sizes, shapes and descriptions.

Nothing much in Timbuktu, so we flew back to Mopti, where we had been by boat, and a tour operator took charge of us for a tour of the very interesting Dogon country. The flight to Mopti had not left Timbuktu for a week, so it was overbooked and the airport was full of absolutely panicked tourists trying to get out of the place. The alternatives are an almost impassible 4 wheel drive road across the desert, or the river boat we came on. Fortunately, having been in Africa for over a month at that time, I knew to present the ticket guy with a large bribe, which left some poor tourists stranded I suppose.

The Dogons are an exception in this part of the world, being a friendly but close knit agricultural society. They moved to an area of very high cliffs where they hid out during the conversion of most of the area to Muslim by force. They are very high on education for their young, and are very hard workers. >From here were drove back to Bamako, where I had a swim & changed at the hotel we had stayed at there and then to the airport for the flight to Paris. Tim stayed in Bamako for an extra two days, but I paid $150 to leave two days earlier as there really isn't much to do in Bamako.

My flight out of Paris was two hours late leaving, which was causing me some worry, as I had a 2 hr. 15 min. connection in Miami, however it proved to not be a problem as 3 1/2 hours out into the Atlantic a black guy about four rows ahead went nuts and started yelling profanities at the people behind him and telling them he was going to have them killed, etc. etc. I didn't notice anything, but when we had been in the air for about 6 hours the plane was descending - a bit disconcerting, as I thought we should be about two thirds of the way across the Atlantic, but the guy beside me looked out the window and said, "That's land! That's France!"

All I could come up with was, "Oh, Shit!"!

Anyhow, six uniformed gendarmes came on board and made off with the fellow. I guess he has screwed his life up for nothing - the penalty for that sort of thing is really steep now - I think up to 10 years in jail and the cost of the returned flight. When they said they were going to take an hour to fuel and head back for Miami I explained that I had already been travelling for 36 hours, that there was no way I could make my Miami - Costa Rica connection, and asked them for a hotel in Paris. They gave me dinner, breakfast, hotel and transfer vouchers and away I went. Had to take me to the terminal by van, as the plane was not near the ramps, I guess for the police vehicle. Got home smoothly the next day - Air France was late again, but I went straight to the AA gate for San José and they checked me in with 15 minutes to spare.

The good think out of it is that I now know a great hotel near the CDG airport in Paris for $100 per night. It is called the Bleumarine. Had an incredible dinner - pigged out on all the things we couldn't get in Africa - and a good nights sleep.