Ubuntu Times Two

All good things have to come to an end, and so after 10 months &  20 countries, we’re going home.

This adventure has been nothing short of amazing.

We played with chimpanzees in the wild, ran away from armed policemen at sketchy border crossings, huddled through a massive sandstorm in the Sahara, and made our way through the true the heart of the jungle by canoe.

We travelled by literally every means available in covering approximately 10,000kms : plane, train, bus, car, truck, canoe, boat, camel, horse, and perhaps too much on our feet.

We learned about countless cultures and religions – many of which made us question what we think, what we value, and why.

But it’s time to go home and start thinking about what’s next and about what we just experienced.

We hope you enjoyed our stories.

Dan and Meg.

Having already spent  two months in the Islam-influenced regions of North and West Africa, our travels to the Middle East and the heart of Islam promised to continue our lessons about a culture and religion we know little about.

Our first stop, however, wasn’t exactly what we expected.

Beirut, capital of the Lebanon, is one of the most-confused cities we’ve travelled to. Newly built skyscrapers and beautiful condominiums lie beside the bullet and bombshell-scarred reminders of the country’s fifteen year civil war. Scantily clad women travel in packs down the streets of the city’s Christian quarter passing the awe-inspiring Al Salam mosque and the crowd of niqab-covered women outside. And Hezbollah and American flags vie for numerical supremacy in balconies across the city.

The war, which began in 1975 and ended in 1990, pitted the country’s two large religious communities against eachother, and pitted many of each groups’ various factions against eachother as well. And in the midst of it were thousands of Israeli soldiers looking to protect Israel from attacks from the then-Beirut based Palestinian Liberation Organization; thousands of American soldiers looking to protect someone; and increasing interference from the country’s neighbours in Syria. In addition, and perhaps understandably, stability in a country whose demographic composition is marked by two groups, near-equal in size but so different in terms of wealth, power and ideology, has been hard to find.

And nearly 20 years after its official conclusion, the tension that drove the war to its climax is still present when speaking to youth around the country. We were amazed at the level of mistrust and angst that still pervades one groups comments about the other – amongst both young and old. The continued attacks against Israel that originate in the country’s south, and the subsequent reprisals from Israel, do little to help the matter.

That said, the country itself is wonderful. We toured magnificent Roman ruins in Baalbeck, drank wine in ancient Roman caves that stretch over two-kilometres beneath a winery established by Jesuit monks in 1857, and ate like kings with the fashionistas and well-to-do in Beirut’s trendy Gemmayzah district. In some ways, Beirut is a bit like Dubai – an oasis of wealth and ultra-modernity surrounded by poverty and tradition.

Not far from Beirut, just a couple hours drive, lies the Syrian border and Damascus.  Dramatically more conservative than Beirut, the Syrian capital is still light years more modern than we expected. Thanks to a new friend, Mirzan, we toured the city and its mix of gleaming shopping malls, fluorescent-green lit mosques, and open-until-the-sun-rises courtyard cafes. Mirzan had actually emigrated to Canada years earlier but having struggled to find meaningful work, decided to return to his country of birth. And buoyed by petrol and natural gas sales, the largely centrally-planned economy has managed to keep most people happy, despite the fact that the country’s democracy isn’t quite what we’d define as democratic!

Beyond the capital we travelled north-east, skirting the border with Iraq, to arrive in Palmyra. On the bus ride there we were both struggled as to whether the passing road signs noting “Baghdad 150 km” were a good or bad thing. We just hoped the bus didn’t turn right.

Palmyra was all about Rome. The small town is home to the rather amazing ruins of a former Roman settlement, complete with massive granite pillars that run up and down a kilometre-long highway towards the main temples. It ranks up there with El Jem and Bulla Regia in Tunisia as the most well-preserved ruins we’ve seen. From Palmyra we decided to splurge and hired a driver to take us along the Euphrates (including the obligatory dip in the river), through an area which is widely recognized as home to the world’s oldest cities and civilizations. The fertile banks of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers hosted settlements as early as the mid-4th Millennium BC. Along the way we picked up a copy of the world’s oldest alphabet, dating back to 1500-2000 BC, whose 30 sound-based letters marked the transition from symbols (hieroglypics) to form the basis of our modern, Latin alphabet.

Our last stop was Aleppo, home to over 4 million Syrians, not far from the border with Turkey. The city is thought to have been inhabited in some form since the 11th Millennium BC. Between then and now it’s seen pretty much everyone possible pass through, including Alexander the Great, the Mongols, and more recently, Dan and Meg.

Aleppo is also home to, according to us, the world’s friendliest population. Between the two of us we’ve visited nearly 70 countries, and never before have we been made to feel so welcome by the locals. We were welcomed into people’s home, fed, quizzed, and sent off on our way at nearly every turn. I realize that everyone says that “somewhere” has the friendliest people ever but go to Aleppo first and then I’ll let you argue with me.

Syria was a fascinating country: at times conservative and traditional, at times modern and very Western though always retaining a close bond to its Islamic roots.  Defined as a pariah-state and part of the ‘Axis of Evil’ by the American government in 2002, our visit painted a very different narrative, one formed in large part by a people who have little that ties them to those who govern. Syria’s continued support of Hezbollah will evidently ensure that it remains on the list of the world’s rogue states, but it would be a pity for people not to visit and experience a population who went out of their way to show us that despite religion, language and the cultures, we’re altogether very similar people.

Added bonus: two shawarma, salad, kebbeh along with a freshly-pressed strawberry and kiwi juice ring in at under $4CDN.

Crossing the border from Aleppo we progressed into Turkey – a country the world defines as being primarily in Asia and part of the Middle East, but whose young population and urban metropolis’ feel much closer to Europe.  Long home to the Ottoman Empire, the latter’s collapse post-1918 saw Turkey distance itself from its Middle Eastern neighbours and establish an independant Turkish identity and nation under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. His decisions at the onset of the Republic to adopt Latin script rather Arabic, to grant full rights to women, and to promote the separation of religion and state (as the “the liberation of a nation is only achieved through the separation of education from Dogma”) have left Ataturk as an enlightened hero who singlehandedly created a modern Turkish state and identity.

Those decisions are visible today throughout Turkey. Istanbul and Ankara are modern, well-built, cosmopolitan cities. The two feel much more like their European neighbours to the West than their Middle Eastern and Asian neighbours to the East. Even throughout rural Turkey, the culture and environment are markedly different from their former Ottoman partners.

But as many noted to us, the country is nor Asian, Arabic or European. It’s Turkish. And while entry to the EU is on the agenda, those we spoke to repeated the belief that while membership in the EU would hold benefits, it cannot come at the expense of a country that holds its Muslim faith and Turkish identity proudly. Moreover, many maintain that the issue of Turkish membership will down to Europe’s willingness to accept that a Muslim country can be part of Europe – a question that few can confidently answer today.

But no matter which world it actually sits in, Turkey represents the physical meeting point of two worlds, East and West, and of two religions and the cultures they underpin. With its large population of cosmopolitan, educated, bilingual youth — over 50% of the country’s 72 million population is under 30 — it offers a glowing example of how those two world’s might co-exist. And given that most of Turkey’s Asian and Middle Eastern neighbours share a similar demographic composition, and a similar reliance on trade to promote economic growth, perhaps we can expect a similar push towards a more moderate middle-ground and a greater understanding of the people on both sides of the Bosphorus.

After a couple of weeks spent enjoying the comforts of home, Meg and I are back on the road. First stop: Tunis, Tunisia. Having already spent a couple of weeks in North Africa, namely Morocco, before heading home, we’re trying hard not to simply zip through in order to fast-track the Middle-Eastern portion of our trip. Tunis itself is rather nice. More European than any of the Moroccan cities we visited, it’s also quite a bit rougher around the edges, making it feel quite real. Morocco felt like a giant tourist trap so Tunis has proved to be a very welcome alternative.

That said, it’s also been a massive adjustment for us as our visit coincides with Ramadan and a month long period of fasting for locals. As a result, pretty much everything shuts down during the day and food is nearly unavailable until the sun sets and people break their fasts. We’ve tried our best to do as the locals but in the 35-45 degree heat, not drinking water has proven quite the challenge. I mentioned this to a friendly taxi driver in Tozeur, in the desert-laden south of the country, and he explained that Ramadan was meant to equate rich and poor, i.e. so that the rich could feel the challenges and pains of those who lived daily without. It’s tough to argue against that rationale and the perspective it grants no matter what religion you follow.

Philosophy aside, both of us were pretty peeved when we arrived in Tunis to find that our bags where still somewhere between Toronto and Tunis, likely laying face-down in a ditch at the airport in Rome. I’m not actually kidding about what we feared – we saw several bags strewn across the roads leading from the runway to the terminal in Rome…. We were told they’d be there the next flight, that night. So we waited. Nothing. Next day, two more flights, nothing. By now we’re desperate, need to brush our teeth and desperately need a change of clothes. Don’t worry we splurged and bought the necessary things. Next day, one more flight, nothing. Now we’re just angry. So we jump in a cab and drive to the airport for a face-to-face with the Alitalia rep. We arrive and the first woman we speak to starts laughing when we explain our problem – apparently this is quite common – great. Then her face looks up from behind the counter and says calmly, but sir, your bags are here. WHAT! Yep, they came in this morning but apparently no one thought about putting it into the system or contacting us….. anyways.

After a couple of days in Tunis we travelled back and forth to some awe-inspiring Roman ruins (2nd century BC) both east and west of Tunis. Bulla Regia, a two-hour train journey west, shows the excavated ruins of an entire village. The area receives quite few tourists and as a result we toured the site alone with a phenomenal guide who showed us the brilliantly-preserved houses, baths, kitchens, etc of those who had settled there some 2200 years ago. Some of the houses were in near perfect condition, having been encased by metres of sand for nearly 1500 years, and included some awe-inspiring art work, still intact, such as traditional Roman and Byzantine (300 AD or so) mosaic drawings and frescoes. Moreover, the site demonstrates the ingenuity of the Romans, with complete sewage and drainage systems built across the settlement, and given the 40 degree + heat, full basements built to escape the heat.

Our next stop was a blip on the map called El-Jem, two hours south-east of Tunis. Like Bulla Regia, El-Jem contains near-perfect remains of a Roman settlement, in particular, a massive 30,000 seat coliseum that hosted gladiators, beasts and slaves. While the building itself is quite a marvel, what was most interesting was touring the underground cellars and walkways where one could imagine men and beasts training and preparing for battle in the dark and damp cells under the Coliseum’s stands. And back to Roman ingenuity, the Coliseum comes complete with a retractable floor that allowed the bodies of the vanquished to be quickly dumped underground…  You can read more about the El-Jem Coliseum here: http://www.roman-empire.net/articles/article-026.html .

But enough about the Romans.

We were going to stay the night in El-Jem but the only hotel had closed down so we jumped back on the train and headed to Sfax, the Hamilton/Detroit of Tunisia. It’s a transit point going all-ways across the country and we figured we’d be able to get a good night sleep and then head south to the desert. Unfortunately, hotel prices were slightly out of our budget so we ended up at “Hotel de la Paix,” an ironically-named establishment that gave us nothing nearing peace during our stay. With no ac, no fan, several insect friends,  a sorry excuse of a bathroom and a rowdy coffee-bar (yes, surprisingly, coffee-bars in non-drinking countries do get rowdy!) we were up most of the night, perhaps finally getting to sleep around the time of morning prayers (4.15am). This hotel gets mention as possible the worst establishment we’ve visisted since we began travelling in March (which says a lot given that Tunisia’s per capita GDP is about double the wealthiest sub-Saharan country’s) . Woken up  by honking traffic two hours later, we weren’t in the mood for much so we decided to shelve our plans to travel to the Libyan border and instead took the easy route west on a direct bus to the desert-town of Tozeur. Here there was supposed to be a beautiful salt-encrusted lake bed, dried from the heat, that shone with varying colours as the sun moved across the sky. Well… arriving at night we checked into our hotel (this time a fantastic, cheap, clean and friendly place!)  and were really excited to head out the next morning to see the lake. After breakfast we organized to tour the city and the lake by horse-drawn carriage, not so much as a romantic option but rather as the most common form of local transportation). Our guide Farouk promised that we’d see the salt craters. Great! So we set off with our horse Sonya, passing through massive palm-tree plantations that feed much of the world’s demand for fresh and dried dates, and through field of pomegranates, olives and abricots, all very beautiful. Then we start heading towards the empty expanse in front of us that should be the lake. But the further we go, the more we notice that there’s no water, no salt. Nothing. Just rocks and sand. But after about a half hour Farouk gets excited and jumps down from his drivers seat and runs towards a hole yelling “c’est ici!”

Indeed, our salt crater was what looked like a man-made hole, about a square-metre in size, that did indeed contain a thick crust of pink, desert-lake salt. Quite cool though a tad disappointing given our expectations. Apparently in the hot months the lake retreats some 15 kms into the desert, a bit beyond the reach of trusty Sonya.

With that, we decided we were ready to move on and headed back to Tunis for our flight to Beirut and the beginning of our tour of the middle east.

Next update from Beirut in a couple of days.

Cheers, Dan and Meg.

Mauritania is possibly the coolest place either of us has ever been.

Where else can you spend days wandering through the vast expanses of the Sahara with a train of camels, then explore shipwrecks and seal colonies off the coast of the Atlantic, all the while fearing for your safety and the presence of Al Queda?!

We didn’t plan on spending long in Mauritania, in fact, the day we arrived in Nouakchott we almost decided to leave immediately. You see, Mauritania has suffered the unfortunate fate of having been labelled home to some rather unfriendly Al Queda sympathizers. Since 2007 they’ve been blamed for several murders in the country, notably of four French tourists in 2007, and on the day of our arrival, of a American teacher based in the capital. This murder, attributed to Al Queda, and the subsequent flow of media reports on how risky the country was had us both rather terrified. Suddenly curious looks from passerbyes turned menacing, friendly conversation was perceived as attempts to track our movements, etc. We were literally scared. Evidently, for little reason given overall crime, including against foreigners, is almost non-existant in the country, but the thought that foreigners were being specifically targeted was enough to have us seriously weigh the option of leaving.

Luckily we didn’t.

Many however have chosen to steer well clear of the country. Most government travel advisories state cleary you shouldn’t set foot in the country. As a result, tourism in the country, the primary industry outside of fishing and iron ore mining, has dropped 60% since those deaths in 2007. Our host in Nouakchott, Saif, noted that while pre-2007 he could expect to have 75% occupancy in his small guesthouse, since then he’s lucky to have one or two visitors a month. Everywhere we went we were met with deserted hotels, closed down tourist boutiques, and a lot of conversations about former-guides, etc, having been forced to find something new to do in order to eek out a living.

What a pity.

The country is home to some of the most beautiful scenery we’ve seen on this trip – empty seas of red, yellow and white sand dunes with almost surreal apparitions of camel trains and lonely desert nomads crossing them. 75% of the country is covered by sand, even the capital Nouakchott is essentially paved over desert – the sea shells and sand from the sea are evident throughout the city. And the coast is replete with gorgeous, deserted beaches from where you can spot the schools of fish and accompanying predators in the worlds most fertile fishing grounds.

 Literally at the crossroads of African and Arab culture, Mauritanians proved to be the most welcoming and hospitable people we’ve met. Several times we were invited into peoples home for tea and meals, offered accomodation in their homes, and on almost every journey been urged to join them in drinking their warm, oily, greasy, watered-down fresh goat milk and countless glasses of scalding mint tea. Our last night was spent with our new friend Mohamed, and his welcoming family, eating roast camel and drinking mint tea while watching arab pop music videos. We had met him on our journey from Atar to Choum, a small village on the imaginary border between safe and non-safe Mauritania, from where we planned to catch a 15 hour train across the desert to Nouadhibou. Unfortunately the train was late… by about 12 hours… and so luckily Mohamed rescued us and found a place to wait out the delay, provided us with food, and made sure we had a comfortable spot on the sand to sleep at night. This was one of several nights we slept in the desert in Mauritania, nice on the budget but less so on our backs! 

Our time here was unforgettable and a very fitting way to end the adventurous portion of our travels through Africa that began 4.5 months ago. After almost two weeks in Mauritania we crossed a 4km no-mans-land into Morocco and the occupied Western Sahara. For the two of us, this marks the end of our African adventure. Morocco, and all of North Africa, share little more than a landmass with the countries and cultures south of it. So with that in mind, we’re taking a little break after Morocco and heading home to refuel. 

See you soon. DH and Meg.

Having spent the past month in countries with various degrees of Islamic following – from religious extremism in parts of Mali to very loose adoption in Senegal – we were curious as to what life would be life in an Islamic Republic. Mauritania is known as a moderate nation, friendly to the west, but with very conservative and traditional values and ideals, i.e., modest clothing, no alcohol, pray five times a day.

In preparation for our trip to Mauritania I had purchased a long loose fitting skirt, a few loose fitting long sleeve shirts and a head scarf.  The overall rule of thumb in this country is modesty! And I am happy to say that this goes for both men and women; most men in Mauritania where what is called a booboo which is very Julius Caesar-esque with its draping like fashion but also with the purpose of hiding any shape or form of the body especially the mid-section – which is why tight fitting pants are considered to be distasteful.

So despite the 40+ degree weather I chose to don my baggiest pants, my loose fitting long sleeve shirt and of course the head scarf for this journey into Mauritania; hoping that this outfit would not only put the notorious border guards on our side but also reduce the amount of attention I/we were bound to get in a country with such a strong Muslim culture. And although I was extremely hot in all of these clothes the decision to cover up ended up being to our benefit.

It started at the border where I decided to sit passively in the background and let Dan -“the man” do all of the talking on our behalf. Despite all of the horror stories we read prior to our arrival at the border we had quite an opposite experience and we believe it was due to our extra effort in respecting the local culture; starting with Dan’s ability to speak a few words of Arabic and my obvious attempt to conform to the modesty of the culture; something we later found was very unusual for tourists in Mauritania (despite the very obvious modest/conservative dress of the locals).

After crossing the border we took a shared taxi to Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania. Now according to the guide book, foreign women are to prepare themselves for a large quantity of attention from the local males – something I was not looking forward to but was prepared for given my experiences in other testosterone filled cities of the past. However, this time there was something I could do to try and reduce this irritating attention and this was to dress modestly and to wear a headscarf. This worked wonderfully! Dan and I were free to walk around the streets of the city with little to no hassle from strange men. We even found the people to be very polite and courteous compared to their neighbours to the South – stepping to the side to let me pass and not accelerating their cars as we crossed the intersection but rather slowing down so as to not splash us with the puddle.

With my dark hair and my now tanned skin the addition of this head scarf to my image created a bit of confusion given my very Caucasian looking travel companion. We even had a lot of people ask us if we were Muslim which although we had to tell them the truth we did feel a sense of accomplishment that we were fitting in more than the average tourist!

My experience wearing the headscarf ended up not only acting as extremely beneficial to our comfort in this country but is was also very insightful. As a woman born and raised in the west – an extremely liberated region in comparison – my initial thoughts on wearing a head scarf were somewhat defensive – questioning why a women had to essentially “hide” themselves from the world?

And while I will not say I agree with dress so extreme as the Wahabi-influenced burka, I will say that wearing the headscarf provided me with a safe haven that we as women have all yearned for regardless of our location.  In combination with loose fitting clothes, the head scarf leaves literally nothing for creepy men to look at!

I  hesitate to come across as an avid supporter of covering up our women because some men have yet to develop the respect-for-women-gene but I am left understanding why women in countries such as Mauritania feel greater comfort in covering up as they do.

Sure, it would be nice to think that women could be free of such harrassment no matter their dress, but even civilized Canadian men at construction sites and at nightclubs have a tendency to be less than civil despite our belief in equality and human rights.

But then again, in such male dominated societies, do women have a choice to cover up or not? Or it is simply the way things are? I, as a foreign woman, have the choice (thanks Dan!) to wear what I want, whereas here relations between men and women, and the legal and societal codes that frame them, leave little to no rights to the woman. Thus while wearing the headscarf left me feeling safe, it may leave local women feeling quite the opposite.

Nonetheless, a great opportunity for me to gain a perspective of how women are treated and what rights they have on this side of the world

It’s been hot since we arrived in Cape Town four months ago but since arriving in Burkina Faso, and then crossing over into Southern Mali, it’s been almost unbearable. 40 degrees plus most days, making hikes through Dogon Country in Mali almost unbearable. Dogon country, btw, is a rather phenomenal collection of villages and settlements set up along a rocky escarpment.

About 500 years ago a tribe called the Tellem lived in the escarpment itself, rapelling up and down to their birdnest-like homes with ropes mades from baobab trees.

They were subsequently chased out by the Dogon people, who came from the  northwest areas of Mali and eastern Senegal. This later tribe set themselves up in small villages made completely of mud, which with a red sand desert backdrop makes for a beautiful sight. One of the real highlights was camping in the desert, a top a rooftop of a local villagers home, listening to the drumming emanating from the neighbouring village.

We had next hoped to  travel by pirogue (canoe) up the Niger River to legendary Timbouctou but decided that the price, weather and our general lethargic state (!) made this a trip we would be best to hold for a future vacation.

So instead we made our way to Djenne, one of Islam’s holiest cities, home to the world’s largest mud structure – a rather massive mud mosque – pictures to come.

Most impressive from our trip to Djenne, however, was the massive sandstorm we witnessed literally engulf the town. We were sitting on the rooftop of our hotel, enjoying a pop, when in the distance we could see a front of massive, and extremely dark clouds, making their way towards us. But as they got closer they began to change colour – eventually turning various shades of red as the sand grew thicker in the wind. Here are a couple of pics – they don’t do justice to the mix of awe and fear that we felt as the wall of sand got closer and closer!

Updates from Senegal and Mauritania to come shortly!

Dan and Meg

Without  a doubt, Meg and I are ridiculously fortunate to take the time necessary to take such a long trip. But as many of the last posts have noted, it’s not all exactly a holiday! Luckily we just spent 10 days in Ghana – without a doubt the easiest country in Africa to travel in. Who knew buses could carry a maximum of one person per seat? Or leave according to a schedule, and on time?! And what about all these paved roads, there are more paved KM’s here than (likely) in the last three or four countries we’ve visited combined.  No surprise then that Ghana is also the most touristed place we’ve been to since leaving South Africa – and after a couple of months in the middle of nowhere it’s subsequently been nice to take advantage of the amenities of touristville throughout the country. From good restaurants, clean hotel rooms and easy-as-pie transport; what more could you ask for?

And good for Ghana. Despite being surrounded by at-one-time basket cases, it has put together a string of 27 stable and mostly positive growth years since Jerry Rawlings took over in a coup in 1979, and has amazingly avoided any-and-all conflict since independence. The result is one of sub-Saharan Africa’s best economies and most well developed urban cores. Downtown Accra might be a newish suburb in Canada (let’s say Brampton) with nice neighbourhoods, a couple of tall buildings and an increasingly middle class population.

Unfortunately Ghana’s growth hasn’t benefitted everyone equally and the North of the country is still very impoverished. Thus while its politicians talk of being a middle income country by 2020, the reality will likely be marked by tremendous levels of inequality between north and south/urban and rural. Nothing new in development circles but nonetheless a little dirt to take the shine off of Ghana’s media/tourist darling glow.

Now being in such a conducive place for travel is nice but as we learned after the first couple of days, it can be a touch boring when things are too easy. We subsequently tried to speed our way through the big city and jumped on a ferry for a two day trip up the world’s biggest man made lake enroute to Burkina Faso. This latter country is perhaps best known for nothing, save for once being led by a young army general named Thomas Sankara who in the span of four years tried to turn his country’s fate around by building schools, training doctors and ending the corrupt practices of many of his peers. The experiment didn’t last long though as he was assassinated and much returned to the status wuo, miring the country in desperate poverty until a more recent push for good governance has led to an upswing. In the capital Ougadougou, there’s evidently quite a bit of money floating around given the impressive infrastructure and both public and private development. It’s quite like Brazzaville with a very calm and friendly people, and a nice and relaxed atmosphere. Unfortunately there’s not a great deal to do so after just a couple of days in Ouga and the “land of honest men” (translation of Burkina Faso – renamed from fomer name Upper Volta by Sankara to emphasize the revolution he was trying to lead) we’re off to Mali later this week to seekout Timbuktu.

All the best from Ouga.

Dan  and  Meg.

Having decided to skip over Niger, Chad and Nigeria for security and convenience issues, we flew into Cotonou, Benin on a flight that left … early. Neither of us could really understand what was happening when they ushered us onto the plane an hour before the scheduled departure and promptly left. I hope no one arrived late at the airport…

An hour later we had flown over the ridiculously busy shipping lanes outside of Lagos and landed in the sweltering heat of Cotonou. It’s been hot for the duration of our trip but this past week has been ridiculous with temperatures throughout Benin reaching 40 degrees.  Evidently some of our decisions haven’t helped our cause – notably the decision to stay in a hotel located above a bakery. When the ovens are on a small fan doesn’t really help much.

Benin is about the size of the GTA, and its neighbour Togo isn’t much larger, so we only planned to spend a couple of days in each. The region is perhaps best or worst known for its role in the pre-abolition slave trade. The powerful Dahomey Kingdom in central Benin, for example, used its power in the region to trade slaves from neighbouring tribes to European merchants hungry for manpower on sugar and cotton plantations in the Americas and the Caribbean (from the mid 15th to the mid 19th centuries over 10 million slaves were taken from Africa, with a possibly similar number dying enroute). 

As for specifics of the trade – a small Portuguese cannon (used by the Dahomey to fend off neighbouring tribes) could be had for 15 male slaves or 20 young women. Defending a Kingdom thus required a huge amount of cannons and thus a steady supply of new slaves to acquire them, mostly raided from weaker tribes in Nigeria and Togo. Amongst the most interesting aspects of the trade is the continued ill-feelings between the Dahomey people in Benin and their Beninois co-citizens from other parts of the country that were, not so long ago, sold off for guns and gun powder. This is in fact part of the reason why the Beninois government changed the name of the country from Dahomey to Benin in 1972. It was apparently decided through a random suggestion by a mid-level general to the ruling Dictator during the country’s 1972 Marxist revolution. The new name (Benin) has no real connection to the country save some vague regional ties but as it “sounded good” and did away with any connection to the Dahomey tribe, it was overnight adopted as the country’s new name. How nice it must be to be a military dictator

But while the slave trade is long since dead, the region’s other main export, voodoo, is still very much alive. Travelling north to the small town of Abomey, the former capital of the Dahomey Kingdom, we toured several small villages and settlements whose current traditions and culture centre on voodoo and the reverance of spirits, be it spirits of the dead, animals or other worldly. For example, in one village, many years ago, the King was woken by his staff alerting him that a baby had been found that could speak perfectly like an adult. The King sent for the baby but immediately placed in front of the King the baby began to tell tales of destruction for the King’s village – first by plague, then by locusts, then by fire. Incensed by what he saw as the baby’s illogical predictions, he had him thrown into the bushes to die. But not long after having done away with the boy did a great plague hit the village, almost killing the King, and not long after did locusts invade causing  great famine, and finally soon after a great fire came close to doing away with the village. Unable to stand any more disaster the King consulted his Oracle to divine why such tragedies were happening to the village. The Oracle closed his eyes and saw the body of the small boy in the bush – he’s predictions would continue to haunt the village until he was given the burial of a King. And so since that day the village has left offerings and sacrifices for this boy to ensure their continued good fortune and protection from evil.

Related to such practices are the more ominous fetish markets where you can consult a ‘doctor’ who will prescribe a combination of dead animals and or roots to either cure what ails you, or if you’re a bit sneakier, put an end to one of your adversaries or make that man or woman you’ve been lusting over suddenly be unable to resist your advances. These markets were somewhat hard to manage given the smell of death that lurked around us, accompanied by the mangled faces of recently killed dogs, lions, crocodiles and nearly anything else that moved.

We ended our time in the region at a voodoo ceremony to mourn the death of a local villager. As tradition dictates, all the young men in the village pile into a small area where they are chased by the spirits of the dead – voodoo priests dressed up in rather frightening faceless costumes. And should one be touched by the spirits of the dead one is thought likely to do soon thereafter. Having been told that, I wasn’t against joining Meg in the women and children’s section that was somewhat shielded from the action (my ego can be put aside when dealing with evil spirits). Thereafter we watched as the spirits chased after the men, and the men taunted the spirits, all accompanied by violent pushing, shoving and whipping – often way too close for comfort and all-together quite a surreal, if not frightening, experience.

Then, out of nowhere, one of the spirits turned and approached our safe zone, motioning with his sword towards the two white faces in the crowd. By now I had already given away all of my change to the other two voodoo spirits who had approached me, and this third spirit wasn’t too happy to be left out, thrusting his sword towards Meg before finally turning back to his real job at the urging of the women behind us. Meg can now proudly say she’s been poked by a voodoo spirit.

Oh, and with these experiences under our belt we decided that we’d forego anymore voodoo on the trip (and possibly forever!) and made our way across the border to the calm and quiet of the Togo. Equally small and skinny, it lacks the historical charm of either of its neighbours, Ghana and Benin, both of which were home to powerful Kingdoms but is home to some vast expanses of coffee and cocoa plantations that made for some great hiking and a relaxing end of our stay in voodoo country - nowhere near as exciting as witnessing the aforementioned ceremony but sometimes its best to be able to sleep at night!

After spending a couple of weeks travelling through the jungle towards Cameroon we arrived in Yaounde exhausted and ready for a break. And as if the two legs of travel from Ouesso, Congo to the first glimpses of civilization in Yokoduma hadn’t been bad enough, the final stretch from Bertoua to Yaounde took us through more dirt roads leaving us, literally, brown/red upon our arrival in Yaounde. We subsequently had very high hopes for our time in Cameroon. And given that Cameroon is the most developped country in Central Africa we figured this would be our mini-vacation on the way north to Tunisia.

It started off well as we met up with one of my friends from the LSE who is working in Yaounde with a German NGO. He was an amazing host and treated us to four days in a real house, complete with hot showers. Now that may not seem like much for those back home but these were our first hot showers in over six weeks. I thought about holding out, not wanting to spoil the willpower I had developped for braving the icy-cold showers we had got used to, but the thought of warm water was just too strong. Unfortunately the hot showers were mitigated by a pretty nasty bout of food poisoning that knocked me out for a couple of days.  Once recovered, the three of us (us + Dominic) had a couple of great days in Yaounde that consisted of eating. Just eating. Having lost a bit of weight we both tried our hardest to eat a lot while in the city, not knowing what we’d get next!

But come Monday it was back to work as we needed to get our visa’s sorted for the next leg. We decided that given recent kidnappings in Niger, Chad and Nigeria, and given our overall desire to take it a bit easy, we’d skip the harder countries and fly straight to Benin to begin a coastal route through Benin, Togo and Ghana before heading into the Sahel. So we drove off in search of the Beninese Embassy (which for some reason they decided to locate in a small village about 30 minutes outside of Yaounde, very convenient!).  And then I went crazy. Seriously! The embassy officials were quite easy to work with but unfortunately for me were not willing to bend the rules regarding the need for a hotel booking in Benin. I tried to explain that given our type of travel a hotel reservation was kind of pointless but they maintained they needed one. So off we went looking for an internet cafe to make a booking. As we were in the middle of nowhere this took some time. And once we found one, it literally took 10 minutes to load one page. So off we went looking for another cafe. And once again, at ten minutes per page my patience was wearing thin. Same at the third place, and same at the fourth. By now my forehead was bruised thanks to the banging against the computer desk and I was ready to  forego  any future African travel and instead find an Air France office!

However, necessity is the mother of invention so as repeated attempts to acquire a reservation failed, I decided to build my own reservation thanks to a little copy and paste and a hotel logo. Job done. Don’t tell Benin.

The next day, my sanity slightly returned, we headed towards the Southwest and some beautiful beaches at Kribi. Scheduled to be a quick three hour trip, it turned into double that as our bus driver didn’t have the right paperwork with him and we subsequently spent two hours sitting at a police roadblock waiting for a replacement bus. Sometimes you can only laugh. Luckily we spent the next two nights enjoying shrimps  and fresh coconuts on the beach, thanks in part to a friendly Rastafarian who offered himself up as our cook, while watching the flares from offshore oil rigs. Strangely, the oil is actually from Chad and travels 1000kms or so down from Chad by pipeline before being picked up by boats and transported to a refinery about 500 kms north along the Cameroonian coast at Limbe. There, once refined, it’s picked up by trucks that haul it back to Chad…

We spent the next 10 days touring through Cameroon via Douala, the country’s economic capital and all-round rather nice  African big city, and then through beautiful rolling hills and massive banana, papaya and palm oil plantations towards a small town called Foumban in the northwest. Many of the smaller towns in Cameroon still have Kings/Sultans in power, representing the various tribes that ruled in pre-colonial times, and Foumban`s Sultan still lives in a massive palace in town. The palace wasn`t much to look at but the accompanying museum was fantastic: hundreds of years of history regarding wars and conquests, the European invasion, and the continued preservation of their culture. Included in the above were several ornaments made out of the skulls of their enemies, namely stools and drinking vessels. As the only two foreigners in town (except for a couple of French soldiers who were quite surprised to see us and ran over to chat), we were happy they don`t cut heads off anymore!

The only downside of Foumban was another adventure with food poisoning; though this one knocked both of us down for a full day. The worst part was that we couldn`t really avoid the establishment where we were poisoned as it was the only place in town serving meals and having befriended the owner we couldn’t run away too easily. With two pretty good bouts of illness in 10 days, and a couple of other close calls, it goes without saying that we’re just about ready to forget about Cameroonian cuisine!

Finally, back to the coast at Limbe for a couple of days recovery before jumping on a plane last night to fly to Benin. Cameroon is no doubt the most developped country we`ve seen since Namibia but also suffers from a tremendous degree of inequality. And while it is one of the few countries in the region to enjoy stability since independence, based on the comments of the locals we spoke to, its somewhat hard to imagine this calm place continuing forward without some type of disruption that attempts to spread the wealth….

As our heads narrowly missed the couple of metal beams that jetted across the van’s ceiling, we quickly realized that this wasn’t going to be fun. But it wasn’t until we overhead someone mention that we wouldn’t get into Yokoduma until nightfall that our brains fully understood how bad this might be. Nightfall… it was now about 9.15am… that meant about 10 hours in a semi-standing position that after 15 minutes of being strewn about, and on top, of our fellow (seated…) passengers had already become quite painful. At this point I looked at Meg and sadly told her, “I’m not sure I can do this.”

Luckily (!) at the same moment our vans tires started to spin in the mud and the vehicle began to quickly careen towards a leafy embankment. After settling with a thump in a large mud rut, the driver tried his best to dislodge us but having failed to gain any traction in the deep mud he instructed everyone to get out of the van and for the men to start pushing. The ability to get out of the van was a god-send for Meg and I for we were literally about to crack under the discomfort of our packed transportation. And pushing the van, with about a third of the group willing to help, was actually quite fun. The first time.

Unfortunately this pattern of driving 10 to 15 minutes, getting stuck in the mud, disembarking and pushing would repeat itself for approximately 10 hours. At best we managed a half-hour at a snails pace before having to get out and push our way out of the various potholes, mud ruts, and generally attrocious rainy season road conditions in order to keep going. Often the roads were so bad that even once we had managed to dislodge the van and get it on its way, we had to walk for several kilometers on our own and rejoin the van once it had reached better road conditions. Usually you expect a bus to carry you, whereas here it seemed as if we were literally going to pull and push the bus to our destination. Not exactly the fastest form of transportation! Thus as the sun began to fade throughout Southern Cameroon we were still less than halfway to Yokoduma, most of the men (myself included) were covered in mud and dirt, and earlier projections of an early evening arrival were now being replaced by midnight and beyond.

If there was any redeeming element to this first part of this journey it was the looks of absolute wonder of the village children as they starred at Meghan, her white skin, and her long hair. This area of Africa is home to dozens of different tribes affectionately known as “pygmies.”  They are most easily identified by their very short, but completely proportionate, stature. Based on their almost fearful looks, I think it’s safe to say that they were as interested in us as we were in them.

Around 8pm the van suddenly pulled to a halt and once again we were told to disembark. Yet unlike the now dozen similar stops we had made, this time there was no giant pot-hole to push through. Rather, a large transport truck had already taken its parking spot in said pot-hole, leaving oncoming transport with less than a vehicle-width to pass around it. We spent the next hour watching the driver and our merry band of passengers offer various recommendations on how he might overtake this parked obstacle, the angle of approach he should take, the speed, etc. Nothing was too little to leave undiscussed. We thought we might never leave and began to think about the possibility of spending the night in the jungle when finally the driver jumped in the front seat and calmly drove past the parked truck, smashing some trees and burning some rubber in the process, but making it through nonetheless.

Unfortunately once arrived on the other side, the villagers who had been sitting on the sidelines watching the discussions take place now came forward to tell us about one more, small problem – “la grand-mere des gourbions.”  The grand-mother of all potholes.

And live up to its name it did. Spanning three quarters of the road, it dove down more than two feet deep and was nearly 10 feet long. Our driver, and our growing entourage, surveyed the hole and decided that given the time, now nearly 10pm, it was time to call it quits for the night. No one actually told us this but we got the idea as people started to jump back in the van and cover themselves in blankets. Now came our next problem, we’re both quite tall so sleeping in a small, cramped bus seat wasn’t really that appealing. But when you’re stuck in the middle of the jungle what else can you do? Some of the passengers drifted off to the nearest village where they hoped to find a bed or dry piece of ground to sleep on. We, on the other hand, preferred sticking close to the bus should it leave at some strange hour. But at the same time, we really wanted to find a place to stretch our legs. Sleeping in the forest wasn’t an option given the wealth of species, some friendly, some not, that made it home. So what were we to do? Climb the bus.

We scaled the small side ladder and made our way to the top of the bus where large plastic tarps covered a massive mound of luggage. With some heavy prodding and rearranging we managed to carve out two, albeit not very comfortable, spaces where we could stretch our legs. It must have looked good to others as within a few minutes we had another passenger join us. Within minutes Meg was fast asleep. I, however, couldn’t get past the sounds coming from the forest and spent the next several hours believing that gorillas and pythons were climbing the bus to get us. Worse than my paranoia was the growing cold and damp air that left both of us shivering until morning.

(In the end we both managed to get a couple hours of much needed sleep. Combined with the prior evening spent in the pirogue, we had now managed a total of 4 hours sleep in two days. Our bodies were not happy.)

As the sun broke through the thick foliage in the forest we rose to find a dozen or so people inspecting the challenge ahead of us. Unfortunately none looked more optimistic than the night before. The group of us then proceeded to spend the next three hours conducting a massive engineering project to (this sounds much more modern than it actually was) drain, level, and pave the pothole so as to enable the bus to drive through it. That description doesn’t do justice to the rather amateur job that actually took place but by 9am the bus was attempting its first crossing. At 9.01am it was stuck. And at 9.02am we were now in the hole ourselves pushing and pulling the bus as best as two-dozen men could. At times it seemed that all was lost and that we’d be waiting for another truck to come our way to tow us out – a possibility that could mean two, three or four more days in the forest. But to everyone’s surprise, about an hour later, and with everyone finally pulling their weight, the bus finally made it through the mud and we were on our way.

Now at this point we’d been traveling on this bus for 24 hours, and we’d been traveling since Ouesso for near 40 hours straight. So while we were happy to be on our way, climbing back to our cramped spot in the aisle of the bus didn’t really leave us that much happier!

The next three hours went by relatively uneventfully. The road actually managed to improve and while we still had to disembark a couple of times to permit the bus to pass through, we finally arrived in Yokoduma around noon, 28 hours after we set off from Kika.

As we got of the bus in the garage at Yokoduma we breathed a massive sigh of relief at having finally made it. Then we remembered where we were (still in the middle of nowhere – two days travel from Yaounde), quickly glanced down the street at the available hotel lodgings, and decided we might as well head to the ticket office to kick start the next leg of the trip as soon as possible. Two hours later we were back on a bus, this time having paid a bit extra to sit in the front seat, and on our way towards Bertoua near the border with the Central African Republic and on the main (!) road to Yaounde.

As we bought our tickets we asked how long the trip might take. The response was far from convincing, “Well, if all goes well it should take no more than 8 hours.” And if it doesn’t? All we could do was laugh and hope for the best.