(1) on the way through northern Europe 
(4) in Benin 
with Frank Butler
On the ride to Casablanca it occurred to me that I might be getting too old for this lark. This was brought about by the fact that the hair that was blowing in my eyes was my eyebrows and not my fringe. Casablanca itself was a little disappointing...probably because with a name like that you expect so much and the fact is that it is just another big Moroccan city ...lots of concrete buildings poorly constructed and lots of guys sitting around drinking tea.
So I kept the visit short... got the visa for Mauritania and bought a new front tyre for Beem and headed outa town, with never a thought of seeing Humphey Bogart or playing it again Sam.
I took the coast road to Essaouira, which was very nice but there really isn't a great deal to see except French Camp Cars - that's mobile homes or caravans to the rest of us. There are thousands of these white boxes plying that coast road...they seem to travel in Convoy with the occasional Dutch or German going it alone; then the roost at night in a Colony and compare solar panels and 12 volt microwaves, trying as much as possible to have nothing to do with the locals...which might sound harsh...but the fact is that it's true and to a degree understandable.
Anyway I had plenty to do with the locals...mostly it was hostile looks and waving finures if a camera was seen, or beaming smiles and magically appearing carpets if the camera wasn't there to save me.
Essaouira was where I saw my first Kite-surfer closeup, I had seen the odd kite on the horizon before but this was the first time at close range and in any number and it was love at first sight...and there were old geezers doing it too.
I made up my mind to give it a go at the first opportunity. Essaouira was touristy and expensice so the kiting would have to wait...maybe Agadir. Agadir was touristy and expensive, maybe Laayoune...no kite surfing in Laayoune, in fact very little of anything in Laayoune. Dakhla that would have to be the place.
And after thousands of Kilometres of sand, many
different kinds of sand, I arrived in Dakhla, which is
actually in the Western Sahara...but you won't get a Moroccan
to admit that. Dakhla is the last big town before the
Mauritanian border. As there is something of a dispute
between these two countries as to who actually owns the
former Western Sahara, Dakhla seems to have a very high
military presence, and jets from the air base are heard and
seen overhead several times a day. Fighter jets and Camels
and tents...two worlds collide. There is a Kite-surfing camp on the edge of the Lagoon in Dakhla and I stayed there. Ahmed my smily little teacher would come "Insh' Allah" most days and teach me thing that I didn't want or need to know, and seemed reticent to do anything that involved expense...at least to him. So we had a friendly parting and my beleif that Moroccans think all non Moroccans are idiots was reinforced...The bottom line was I never actually got to Kite-surf...not yet.
Benin, 7 July
The best thing that happened to me apart from picking up a few French words while staying at the surf camp (thanks guys) was the ‘Sand meets the Sea Festival’ in Dahkla. For two days for some reason that I still can't fathom everyone wanted to be On Camera.
The Festival was a gift from the King to the people of Dahkla, some might see it as staking a claim to somewhat shaky ground...the Cynical Bastards. I see it as a magnanimous gesture by a benevolent ruler in order to boost the area’s fledgling tourist industry...but I always see the best in everyone...one of my many faults.
Anyway the festival was a hoot...camel races, the antics
have to be seen to be believed. Fantasy...Thats where twenty
blokes on horseback charge down the showground and then fire
ornate rifles simaltainiously, and make a hell of a
bang...The crowd love it. I got to film all of this up close...it was fantasic. After that I left for Mauritania.
Mauritania
Mauritania, Mauritania, Mauritania, what can I tell you about Mauritania. Well, it is a hard country to love.
Because they are having this little difference of opinion about who owns the Western Sahara, the country's two border posts are miles apart over a no-mans land of sandy goat tracks and scrub. Let me set this straight for those who may wish to follow this route: the distance between the two Imigration posts is less than five kilometre not the fifty to ninety kilometres often reported.
(but it can take an hour to do and as there are no sign posts and groups of dubious characters stripping cars of unknown origin and a very good chance that you will get buried in sand it is quite stressful)
Once you get to the Mauritanian side and see a newly constructed tar road the jubilation is short lived.
The policeman who looks at you as if you have just murdered all his children asks for your passport, and in the same breath inquires whether or not you have remembered to bring him a present from your country. Luckily I had remembered to bring him twenty dirham from my country..he looked at me as if I had just spat/shat in his hand but stamped the passport anyway. The important thing to remember is that you are not the first person to have made this crossing, so smile and get it over with, and move on, twenty dirham is about two Euro. The customs guy got me for ten Euro (processing fee) and another sold me a month's worth of useless (but mandatory) insurance for fifteen Euro.
I pretty much had a month of this kind of treatment and saw some spectacular Sand...Like I said Mauritania is hard to love.
On the up side I did meet some great people...but unfortunately none of them Mauritanian. I met Harriet and Andrew Dimmock, who are distant relations by marriage. They with their three children have been doing aid work in Mauritania for the last six years, living at the local level and loving it ...God bless them. And I also got to meet Dave and Gillian an English couple who I went four-wheel driving with in the sand for a week.
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When I say bike I mean bicycle, I stopped to watch this apparition approach. He was a fantastic guy, I never got his name. He had pedalled his bike up from South Africa - Respect !
We only spoke for about three minutes but exchanged a lot of information The conversation went along these lines "Whats Senegal like" I would say, He would reply "not much there..bit of a shithole, but a lot of pretty girls and the beer is cold He would ask what about Mauritania, I would say Lke Senigal but without the beer and the girls We had a few laughs and then we went on with our journeys, I to the tourist shearing station at the border and he to a very dry country.
I got through the Barrage d'Deama crossing for six Euros. A month of constantly being ripped off can do wonders for your barganing skills.
Then a Senegalese copper was waiting in ambush for me. "insurance" he screamed. I gave him my Mauritania Insurance papers. "These are no good this is Senegal", he reminded me helpfully. I said that it was all I had and that there was no insurance at the border post. He said you have made a traffic infraction you must pay twenty Euro. I said that I would rather go to prison and that I wanted him to take me to the station. He said "lets call it five euros, that's good training for you...anyone want to buy a camel ? ". So I went to St Louis for a beer, a rest, and a laugh.
It was in Dakar that the niggling feeling of fever finally
manifested itself as full blown Malaria. So I found myself a
nice, clean, friendly, light, and airy little guest house
and started the treatment. During this time I would go outside and just watch life on the sandy street in front of the guesthouse and sit and chat with the boys and film the girls going by. I spent two weeks in Dakar and grew to really like the Senegalese. The are a proud, handsome, people who are respectful and nice to each other.
But after two weeks I needed to move on and go straight to Mali which is due east from Dakar. Let me tell you that in Africa the further you get from the sea the hotter it gets and the worse the roads get. The roads in Eastern Senegal are that horrible combination of short good stretches mixed with wheel bending potholes..so you are cruising along nicely and then around the corner there is a minefield of dustbin sized potholes...on with the brakes all the luggage lurches forward and hits you in the back, the front forks load up so don't have the travel to ride the hole so they bottom out and then the luggage jumps up in the air...the whole thing is a pain in the arse, literally.
So I arrived at the border two days after waving goodbye to the Atlantic, Battered, Bruised, and Boiling. Ambient temperature was 42 degrees Celsius The crossing was all waves smiles and offers to buy the bike...Christ, what a difference !
Mali
The first thing that strikes you about Mali is ...no, not that it's f..ing hot. Its the number of Baobabs...thats those huge trees that look like they have been planted upside down and the roots are where the branches should be...and the fact that the roads are good.
I headed straight for Kayes to find me some A.C and a cold shower. Kayes is where I found out that my Mother had just died of a heart attach while driving. Which I thought was rather Ironic as she was more used to giving heart attacks with her driving that getting them. We all have mothers and we can all expect to experience this tragedy or already have so I won't labour the point...I rode straight to Bamako the capital of Mali to see about getting a plane to England for the funeral (ambient temp 46°).
I got the flight, the funeral was a credit to my family (particularly the girls) Mum would have been very proud. I flew back, jumped on Beem and we set off for Timbuktu...yes it really exists.
To Timbuktu
The plan was to ride up to Mopti on the Niger river, and then get a boat down the river to Timbuktu, and from there I would ride south to Douentze. Needless to say when a paragraph start with 'The plan was...' it didn't work quite like that. There was no water in the f...ing river. "Damn those Africans" ... .you can sort of forgive them for not being able to keep a an electricity network together but something as basic and simple as a river...how bad can it be?
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Down through Dogon Country
Douentze turned out to be a gold mine of film opportunity and more than made up for the disappointment of the Mystical TBT. I filmed a local Christening, the local Market, The Maraboo system at work. I stayed witha Fulani family and filmed a Fulani live-stock market...I had a ball, I was there for three weeks.
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My first stop there was Vulture town...it has a name
begining with 'O' but I think of it only as Vulture town.
The Bastards are on every lamp post and wall top..It's
Incredible. I filmed them at the Hospital wandering around between sick
patients who had come outside into the shade to get some
respite from the heat of the clammy wards. People would be
lying on the cool cement with a drip attached to their arms
dozing or asleep, and a Vulture would be sitting there
watching them two feet away...call me over-sensitive ...BUT The best was when I went to the old abbatoir. It starts at 6.00 am when they start to kill the animals in an open shed. They simply cut their throats and then take them apart...not for the faint hearted. The incredible thing is to watch the vulture gather as the place stops at 7.30 am. The butchers grab all the usefull bits and then drive awayand the the vultures come in and clean up...It all makes sense but it really is something to see.
I went to 'Wagga' short for Ouagadougou. I didn't rate it much too many aggressive street traders and touts, so i moved on to Togo...another hassle free border crossing... Yipeeee.
Togo
Togo is lovely...very laid-back and green in places you could almost believe that you were in the English country side. I spent most of my time there in Notse about a hundred kilometres north of the capital Lome.
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Benin
From Togo I moved east again to the neighbouring country of Benin, with the intention of finding out a little about Voodoo and getting a boat to Gabon or Cameroon...Nigeria doesn't want me...I think that the Parking Wardens in London (many of whom are from that country) have had a word about me... I think I may need to get back there and sort out a few visas...
Written in Gabon,16 September
My family come from County Donegal in the top left had corner of Ireland...so naturally I have an Irish passport, as well as an English one, as well as an Australian one.This may sound a little excessive but believe me sometimes it pays dividends.
The English passport that I had been travelling on had run out of pages, it was less that three years old, so I had no option but to send it back to get a replacement, this would take time. so I decided to nip over to Ireland where the Nigerians are a little more friendly and the visa a little cheaper and get a visa in Dublin and visit the folks back in the 'ol country' at the same time, which is what I did.
The Nigerian Embassy in Dublin wanted a hundred Euros for the visa and proof that I had sufficent fund to suport myself in Nigeria this was to take the form of Five Hundred Pounds Sterling in Travellers Cheques. So I drove half way across Ireland to Dublin went to the Embassy filled out the form, gave them the Irish passport and was told to 'come back in two days...oh and leave the travellers cheques with us'.
I drove back across Ireland and returned two days later, where to my surprise they gave me back my passport with a visa in it and a handfull of travellers cheques which the guy told me to cash in 'as they dp not except travellers checks in Nigeria.' Yeh, thats what I thought too.
Anyway while in Ireland I developed a high fever and thought that it was Malaria again so I went up to Letterkenny General Hospital to get a blood test and see for sure what this coming and going fever was all about. I had been having it in Togo and Benin also.
At the reception I mentioned, Malaria... West Africa ..fevers...they said 'go over there and wait for four hours', not quite the response that I had been hoping for. Eventually I saw a young German doctor who was very apologetic about the wait and said that my file had been placed on the wrong pile...I would have to be admitted and have a barrage of tests.
I stayed in for five days and gave gallons of blood, urine, and the odd stool sample. (skip the rest of this stuff if you feel queasy). I had X Rays, Ultra sounds... Apart fom the forty degree fevers they could find nothing wrong with me. For the first couple of days it was fun to lay there and sweat and shiver and listen to the craic going on between the nurses and the patients and even just us patients, Hospital seem to attract characters or is that just my imagination.
I was getting the feeling that the doctors were out of their depth, that and the fact that all the tests had to be sent to Dublin was starting to get to me, so on day five I asked to be released and went back to England to see if they could do any better at the London University Hospital of Tropical Dease in London. They took more samples and ruled out Malaria and the doctor said it was probably worms of some sort, and gave me some worm tablets and said she would email me with the results of the tests...(She never did)
It was time to get back to Benin...I had picked up some filters for Beem, I had bought some blank tapes for the video and I had my Nigerian visa...I was all set to go.
At Gatwick Airport they said that I could not board the plane as I did not have a Visa for Benin...I said that I would get one on entry, they said the computer said 'NO', that I must have a visa before I get there. I said I am sure that I can get a tempory visa on Entry and then extend it...they went away to check...I went to the toilet.
When I came back they said that it was all OK, 72 hour Visa on entry...10.000 CFA, 10 Quid...no worries...pheeew.
The plane ride to Tripoli was long and dull. All they had for in-flight entertainment was a computer generated video of the plane flying over the mediterranian en route to Libya, five hours of that would be enough for anyone? but the price was right so I can't complain too much.
Two hours at the airport and then back on another plane...Oh I nearly forgot the ten security checks before this could happen, belts, shoes, watches all had to be removed, every body in the room had to check your passport the whole thing was completely over the top.
I arrived in Cotonou, Benin, at a little after midnight. I went through Immigration and the guy said "You have no Visa"...I told him that I was aware of this and wanted a tempory visa. He said "You wait" I thought here we go, everyone else had left the Imigation hall and then the guy said "Come" we went to his office. He said "you have no visa" and rubbed his fingers together and gestured to his pocket. I said "Por qua" he repeated the gesture I repeated "For Why" he gave up and told me to to the Immigration office in town the next morning...Welcome to Benin.
Next day I gave Amos a call to say that I was back ...he came straight around and took me to the Immigration office and sorted out a month's visa for me. Then we came up with the idea of me moving into the boarding House at the English International School as all the boarders were on summer Holidays.
We spoke to Simon Collins the main man at the School, and he said that it would not be a problem, a small donation was all that was expected and I had the place to myself...that was a big money saver...hotels in Benin are not cheap. I was spending twenty Euros a night to sleep in a dump so this was a definite step up.
I still wanted to do some video on Voodoo...but I was nervous and wanted Amos to come with me to Quada to help with the translation and make sure that I doidn't offend anyone...This may sound very politically correct of me, but the real reason was that I had already visited a Voodoo village and been shown around by the Voodoo Queen and some of her helpers. That night at about two in the morning my shoulder muscales on my left arm started to twitch spaxmodically. I nearly shat myself. Had I upset someone with the camera or a badly phrased question. Next morning I thought what a load of old bollocks, but that night I had the Voodoo heeby-jeebees.
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