• South America
• West Africa
• R.T.W.
• Bike
• Central America
• Home

West African Trip

17^th March 1996 - 17^th May 1996

Introduction

Before starting this trip, I had just spent 6 months at Queen Mary and Westfield college, University of London, as a mature student. It was certainly an education for me, as I had, up to that point thought of universities as centres of excellence of learning. How wrong I was. So, after leaving scholarly life behind me, I decided to do a quick (9 weeks) trip across west Africa.

We started on a cold March morning in Wilsden Green, west London. The travel company I used this time was called Bukima, which was run by a bunch of Australians. The truck, an ex-Germany army four wheel drive Mercedes 14 tonner, had been modified to make our trip possible. A large water tank was up front, along with two extra diesel tanks. Under the floor at the front of the passenger compartment was where we kept the food and cooking utensils, further back was where we locked our kit (accessable from outside). The top was plastic coated canvas, which we rolled part way back when the weather allowed. On the back were kept 6, second hand, spare tyres, under which was an area for firewood (unlike Dragoman trips, where all of the cooking is done on gas cookers, all of our cooking on this Burkina was over open fires).

Our route that cold March morning took us though London to Dover and then, more or less, non-stop for the next 36 hours, through France and Spain. The truck had no heating in the canvas covered passenger section, so we spent most of our time sat upright in our sleeping bags, grimly trying to keep warm.

Our first stop was at Estapoina in Spain, and after getting stuck in the town's narrow streets (at one point our canvas top was jammed up against overhanging window sills), we (illegally) camped out on the beach. The next day saw us making a brief stop in Gibraltar (I treated myself to a deep pan in Pizza Hut), then onto Algicaris and our ferry across the straights.

Africa

Our first stop in Africa was the Spanish outpost of Ceuta. Here we used up any Pesetas we had, before going into Africa proper.

The border into Morocco was chaos. It was, I think, the worse border that I've been through. There was no real attempt at order, and masses of people wandered around in a human version of Brownian motion.

We were not the only westerners trying to drive through the border. A German couple were there with their ex-army Mercedes Unimog (my favourite vehicle), and a young English couple who were in their rather ancient Mini (that's the original kind of Mini car, not the new one made by BMW). They were going to see how far south they could get. They had no visas, no road maps, no real idea, but an awful lot of adventure in them (I hope they made it).

We were forced, by the officials, to unload all of our luggage from the truck and have it searched (at no other border have I had this happen to me). The Moroccan who searched our stuff was a pleasant chap, who asked one of the group if the book in his bag was the bible. He didn't seem to understand that Westerners read books for non-religious purposes.

Morocco

After about 2 hours we were through the border and in Africa proper. We drove for 30 minutes from the border, before stopping and sorting ourselves out. This became our standard post-border procedure. The reasoning behind it, was that we didn't want some bored or over-officious border guard to find some reason to cause us problems if we stopped within sight of his post.

Our crew, Grimee (driver mechanic) and Paula (co-driver), told us that we would have to get used to the some third world customs. Such as women being treated very much as second class citizens, and so not to be surprised at the way that they were treated. We were also told not to extend the such western courtesies as allowing a woman to enter a room first or to open a door for her.

Northern Morocco was much greener and westernised than I expected. I suppose I was expecting Africa to begin immediately with desert and backwardness.

Northern Morocco contains numerous Roman ruins, which we, of course, could only look around one or two. I must admit that I am rather "ruined out".

The first city that we visited was Fez. It was like going back in time to a medieval city. The streets were narrow with badly maintained paving (falling into the city's sewers would be a simple matter if one's concentration lapsed), which we shared with other pedestrians and some of the worst looked after donkeys that I've ever seen (I couldn't understand why these people looked after their beast so badly, as there own livelihood depended upon them). The prize for smelliest part of the city was won, but only just, by the tannery (the second smelliest part was the butchers' section, where centuries of blood and gore were making themselves noticed). Here, skins were turned into leather, using techniques and equipment that hadn't changed in centuries. Fortunately our city guide gave us sprigs of lavender before entering these parts of the city.

As per usual in any Arab city, as soon as the locals got wind of a group of "rich" foreigners, we were surrounded by salesman, all trying to hawk their wares. On more than one occasion our shaking heads reply were met with "bloody tourists !".

We, being infidels, were not permitted to enter the city's mosque, but our guide took a photo of it for me.

No visit to Fez would be complete without a trip to a carpet sellers. I must admit that I have no wish to own a carpet, no matter how many stitches it has per square inch, so the visit for me was taken up by telling one salesman after the next that their carpets were very beautiful but that I didn't want to buy. This seemed to be a technique that worked in not offending the man whilst giving him no opening to start another "sales attack". One of our group made the mistake of answering a salesman's question as to the worth of a carpet with sarcasm. He said a carpet was worth 1 cent. The salesman took this to be an opening bid in a haggle over the price. It took us ages to get him free from the carpet seller.

When I started this trip, I imagined it was going to warm and then hot and the very hot, what I didn't expect was snow. We travelled south over the Atlas mountains, and it was here that we met cold weather. Camping , thankfully for only one night, in the mountains led to nobody getting any sleep, we laid in out tents, wearing all of our clothes, in our sleeping bags, shivering, waiting for the morning.

French Uniroyals

The truck had a mixture of tyres on it, all secondhand. It was about this time -in the cold Atlas mountains - that the first tyre gave up the ghost. The rubber under the tread started to bubble and become molten, then the steel re-enforcing shot sideways out of the tyre. It took us two hours to change the tyre (our times came down, with practise, as we changed out all of the French made Uniroyal tyres, as they to succumbed to the same malady).

The gorge at Todra (sometimes called Todja) was truly magnificent. Having come over the mountains and through the desert to get to it, it had better have been. To give us the best views and light, we arrived in the morning. This also meant that we beat the German and French tourists.

Along the bottom of the gorge ran a small river, which was used by local goat herds used to water their flocks.

In the middle of the gorge was a hotel come restaraunt that normally caters for the rich tourists. They were happy for us to set up camp and use their facilities, although the tourists (when they arrive in their air-conditioned buses) weren't happy with us playing AC-DC tapes while we did out camp chores.

It was then that I learnt that the mad-cow problem (BSE) was getting further out of hand, back in Britain, when a French tourist told me that "British cows were crazy".

We did not cook from the truck that night, but had a meal in the hotel. As per usual it was something called tadjinee. This was a sort of stew with vegetables. The odd thing, for me, was the meat used. Not only was it a mystery as to what animal the meat came from, but what part of the animal!

In preparation for the lack of sanitary conditions further south, I let Olivia (fellow traveller) cut my hair. We were camped in Marrakesh and she had a pair of hand clippers, so I ended up with a number 2. This means that my hair was reduced to something the length of velvet. Washing my head was so much easier without hair, and drying was achieved by rubbing a hand through my "locks", which sprung back and left a fine mist of water droplets around my head.

Our route then crossed back across Morocco to the sea. Here we watched a full eclipse of the moon and a comet in the northern skies. All very astronomical.

At one point we came across a site where a new road was being built. In the process a lot of small trees had been uprooted. This wood was a god send to us, as we needed it for cooking. Out came the chainsaw and some hand saws. The wood was as hard as rock. It was like sawing concrete. We managed to get some of it on-board the truck (so we had to walk over them to get to our seats) and some went on the storage shelf at the rear. We, over the next 7 and a bit weeks, slowly managed to cut this wood up for use on the fire. It would take ages to light (needed other kindling to get it going) but once alight it would glow and give off a lot of heat for hours.

We now drove south through what used to be Spanish Sahara, a country that was given up by Spain and should have become an independent nation. Morocco, however, had other ideas and it is now part of that country. This action has left a lot of hostility from both the people of the area and Mauritania to the south.

The border with Mauritania is mined. To get over the border you have to join a convoy, guided by the Moroccan army, that leaves Dakhla twice a week (there was no north going route, officially, from Mauritania to Morocco, although Dragoman used to hire a local guide to go north, until they hit a mine and blew off a front wheel). We camped outside the town (a dusty hole in the middle of nowhere) next to the sea and the UN peace keepers' camp. Here we passed a couple of days waiting. We swam in the sea, thinking, as there was a small (15 foot) cliff down to the beach and no local buildings for miles around, that we would not be disturbed. Within 5 minutes of Paula (co-driver) putting on her bathing suit and swimming, the area was full of local men gawping at her. I wonder if there is any way in Islam for its adherents to clean their souls of such sins?

Mines - Mauritania

Our convoy consisted of our truck, a couple of Nissan 4x4s, some French guys on motorbikes (old BMWs), a German father and son team driving a world war two Kubelwagen (jeep based on the VW Beetle) and a couple of Senegalese in Peugeot 404 estate cars (standard road going estate cars). We set out with two military vehicles as our escort. After two rather boring days driving south over ever worsening roads, we got to within 5 miles of the border. Our escort stopped, got out of their vehicles, and pointed south. That's the border over there, they told us, and left.

The first 500 yards were the worse. The sand was soft, and everybody bogged down. Our 4 wheel drive truck only just managed to keep going. The two Peugeots had to be dragged and pushed and manhandled to get them through. Everybody help everybody else get through.

We then came to the border road, this was tarmaced, sort of, and just wide enough to take a truck. We were warned not to leave the road for any reason. Later we found out why. Within 200 yards of the Mauritanian side of the border, we came across what was left of a Landrover that had left the road. The two occupants had died when their vehicle had struck a mine. We could see other mines (looking like corroded round cake tins) in the sand dunes to either side of the road, where the wind had uncovered them.

It took several hours for us to get through the border post, the delay being caused by the haggling over how much of a bribe we were going to have to give the soldiers. This is against Bukima's way of doing things, so it took quite a while before we were moving again. It was dark before we got away from the border area and at the real border post (a stone built encampment) where, under the headlights of one of the trucks, we had our passports checked and stamped. We ended up camping for the night in the desert.

Early the next day we arrived at Nouâdihbou, our first Mauritanian town. Another dusty hole. Here we arranged for a guide through the Banc d'Arguin national park. It was either go south through the park, or take a train (ie. put the truck on an open flat bed and sit in it for the duration) to east Choûm, where a road south starts.

We teamed up with two other vehicles going south - a German driving a blue ex-airport fire truck and the two Germans in their open topped Kubelwagen. We would be with the guides and these two other vehicles through to Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania. Horst and Marcus, the father and son team in their Kubelwagon, were going on to Ghana, where Horst used to work, to sell their vehicle. They had had problems getting into Morocco when, at the border with Ceuta (the Spanish enclave), the border guard refused them entry, as their Kubelwagon was still painted olive drab camouflage. The guard said that it was a "war wagon". So Horst and Marcus went back into town, and straight to the only open shop (it was Saturday afternoon). Here they bought a large tin of magnolia emulsion, a small tin of red emulsion and some cheap brushes. In a carpark on the seafront they painted the Kubelwagen white with pink highlights. The next day they had no problem getting through the border.

The small part of the Sahara desert that we crossed together was hot and sandy. Nothing new there. But it wasn't "normal" hot, oh no! It was "someone was beating you around the shoulders" hot. How anybody lives here (and they do) is beyond me. And how part of world war two was fought here is mind boggling.

Even in the middle of the dessert, miles from any civilisation, there were still people. Some, like us, passing through, while others actually living there. There were also clouds of flies, quite what they lived on when they didn't have dumb westerners to feed on, I don't know.

On day one we stopped at a small water hole (oasis would be the wrong word to use for this place. There was a well, which was about 45 feet deep, and a bucket on a rope to get water. A small hut, where we ate lunch and drank some mint tea. No palm trees or camels), where we got bogged down in soft sand. In the digging out and sandmatting that then happened, I hurt (re-hurt) my lower back, so that was me out of any heavy work or bending. To lighten the load on our truck, I jumped in the blue ex-crash truck and continued over the desert that way. By the end of the day we had crossed the desert and were at the sea again. Here we camped next to a fishing village.

Our next day started early. The sand cooled overnight and was firm while cool. We drove through the sand dunes near the seas edge until the surface became to soft for us. The rest of the way to Nouakchott was by the beach. Most of the beach was a good 30 meters across, but in places this went down to almost zero, when we would be driving with one set of wheels in the surf. At one point we were stopped at a small village by a very official looking chap. He demanded a road (what road!) tax from us, before letting us on our way76. We found out later that the French bikers simply rode past him, as they didn't think his uniform was real or in any way official.

I never actually went into Nouakchott, we all stayed in a small hotel on the outskirts, but I'm told that it was just a dusty hole. That about described the whole country.

While waiting outside of the hotel, to guide the Germans in, a young man from the Cameroon started trying to beg money from me. I kept saying no, and instead of accepting this, he started lowering the amount of money I was to give. Basically he was haggling with me as to how much I should give him. This went on for quite a while. He got nothing.

From the capital we, accompanied by Horst and Marcus in their VW Kubelwagen, headed east and inland. At a place called Tintan (a dozen buildings either side of the road) we got our passports stamped out of Mauritania (while waiting for this, as per usual a crowd formed. They stole some bits and pieces from both vehicles and spat at us. Such were the people of this dusty hole of a country) and turned south. I was happy to leave this hole of a country and its hostile people.

Mali

From Mauritania to Mali, there is no road, just bush tracks. We drove in a southerly direction all day, picking tracks at random from the many that were there. At the end of the day we came upon Nioro, the Mali border town. It turned out that the tracks we had been following all fan out at the Mauritania end and converge again at Nioro. A large man wearing brightly coloured pyjamas (well, that's what his business suit looked like) approached the truck. He took our passports to get stamped up (he was the customs and immigration guy) and pointed us to his brother's bar. He definitely knew what we wanted.

Cold Beer

Cold Castle beer. We had not been able to get any beer in Mauritania (apparently you could, in Nouakchott, buy stubby bottles of beer for $15 a bottle!) so the first swallow definitely hit home.

The customs and immigration guy was also the local money changer, unfortunately he knew he had us where he wanted us, so instead of getting the full 100 to the French Franc exchange rate, we only got 90. We only change enough money, to buy the beers and some food.

Bamako (the capital) was our next stop. As we planned to stay a few days, Horst and Marcus left us and headed on south by themselves. We stayed in a campsite outside of the city, but went in and made full use of the George hotel. This is the swankiest hotel in Mali. It has a swimming pool (with clean water) , served cold (ice cold) beer and steaks. For the three days we were in Bamako, I ate steak (the only meat I ate during the entire trip - due to lack of it in the shops and markets), drank cold beer, and swam in the pool. It was a welcome break from having to deal with Africa, which can be a bit of a pain at times. Staying at the hotel were part of the German version of the BBC's world service radio broadcasters. I have fond memories of laying by the pool, drinking beer and chatting with these interesting people.

The mud brick temples (mosques?) at Djenne (pronounced jenny) were our next stop. I stood watch over the truck with Paula (Bukima trucks cannot be fully locked up, and so needed guarding at all times) , while the others explored the buildings. As per usual the truck attracted a lot of attention. I didn't mind the endless question whether or not I knew Jean-Claude Van Damme (for some reason, kung fu films were big in this part of the world, and the only white man that many people could identify was Jean-Claude Van Damme and/or Bruce Lee. So, quite naturally, as I was a white man I must know them) it was the never leaving you alone and always trying to sell you something, that began to wear me down. This time, however, we were surrounded by a hundred or so school kids, who, lacking any other form of entertainment, came to gawp at the white people. This was fine for a while, but as I didn't do anything, they started to throw stones (I suspect to get a rise out of us). We eventually managed to shoo them away (probably their tea-time).

One of the nice things about travelling overland is the people that you meet. We met Stephen at a campsite, he had been a stock trader in London, and was now riding his BMW motorbike back home to New Zealand, via CapeTown. We met him at the campsite outside Mopti. His trip had almost ended almost before it began. He rode his bike across France and Spain to get to his start point in Morocco, only to have an engine problem in Gibraltar. He had to get the parts flown out to him from the UK, which meant waiting for 4 or 5 days in Gib (I know of worse places). This put his schedule out badly and his Mauritania visa was going to run out before he could enter that country. Bemoaning his lot in a bar in Gib, a fellow drinker asked to see the offending Visa; and then, using a ballpoint pen, changed a 1 into a 2 and "gave" Stephen an extra 10 days to get there. This highly unofficial change was not spotted at the border (no surprise as it's a stone machine-gun emplacement in the middle of the desert) so he was able to continue on with his trip. I wonder if he made it home.

In the middle of nowhere we stopped at a village to get some water from their hand-pump well. On the side of the pump was the name of the donor. This one was a present from the people of India. All of the water on the truck came from local sources, and as Bukima believe that anything the locals can drink westerners can, we never purified any of the truck water. I had numerous bouts of runny bum, thanks partly to this policy, and often my only intake was beer and fizzy pop (which also made for a large proportion of my calorie intake).

The next part of the trip was a three day trek through the hills in Dogon country. I bowed out and spent the time looking after the truck and doing nothing much. I shared this "vigil" with Paula (our co-driver) and one of the other passengers. We camped out next to the village that was the end point of the trek that the rest of our group was taking.

Each day the local kids would come to gawp at the white people (well, the had no TV), so we had to be ever vigilant to make sure that nothing was pinched.

The second night at that camp was Anzac day, so we three celebrated with some beer (both Castle and the local sour milky stuff) and my first drag of Cannabis. Must admit that I wasn't taken with the stuff, just seemed like another way to get drunk, and it hurt my lungs (felt like someone had used coarse sandpaper on the inside of them).

On the evening of the last day in camp, we three (that had not gone on the trek) prepared a meal for those who had gone on the trek. When they got back, all they did was bitch about how they had endured the trek and we hadn't. I guessed that they had been working themselves up for most of the last three days. Not one of them thanked us for preparing them a meal and making sure that there was beers left for them. This behaviour upset Paula quite a bit.

Bribes - what do you expect, this is Africa

Getting out of Mali turned out to be a bit of a chore. We needed to get our passports stamped at the Mali side of the border, before leaving (at each border passports are checked and stamped on the way out as well as the way in). The army guy manning the post (his house on the outskirts of town) told us that he would be only too happy to stamp all of our passports, but it would cost us a total of $200 (US). When we told him no way were we paying, he shut our passport away in his desk drawer and said that we'd be going nowhere.

So we camped outside of his house and made a lot of noise. Grimee pretended to fix the engine (lots of revving involved), we played loud music (AC-DC again), played Frisbee and had our lunch. After two hours of this Paula was beckoned back inside, given our stamped up passports, and told to "fuck off". Which we duly did.

Burkino Faso (Upper Volta)

Our first stop here was quite unscheduled. We stopped in the city (large town ?) of Ouahigouya and booked into a single room of a non-descript hotel for the afternoon. We used their showers to get clean, which was nice after quite a few days in the bush, and partook of some ice cold beers, while watching the French F1 Grand Prix on their TV. The last proper shower that I'd had before this had been in pool side changing room at the George Hotel in Bamako, I spent most of this trip either dirty or very dirty.

We had been told, before arriving, that Burkina Faso was the poorest country in West Africa, but I didn't find it so. The people that we came across were all well fed and turned out (by West African standards). The thing that I really liked was their positive attitude, something missing from a lot of the peoples we had come across in West Africa up to this point.

I also noted that some of the more wealthy locals drove Nissan Pajero (Shogun) 4x4s. This turned out to be because they (the vehicles) had been donated by one aid agency or another. Normally, the donor organisation's name was painted on the side of the car. One thing that I didn't really understand was why the German government (one of the donors) would give a Japanese 4x4 instead of a Mercedes J-wagon 4x4, and why the British government (another donor) wouldn't give a Land Rover or even a Range Rover. I was told that such vehicles would not have been acceptable to these local big-wigs.

There wasn't much for us to see in Burkina Faso, apart from the people, so we drove straight through to Ghana.

Ghana

Our arrival into Ghana took a lot longer than it should have. Basically the border post staff were bored, so they kept us around for hours, just so they could talk to us. This of course meant that we were to late to get to a Forex (foreign exchange) to get some local currency. So, at the first toll bridge, we had to plead poverty.

After so many Muslim countries, Ghana was a wonderful change (and the only country in West Africa I would ever consider going back to). They had road-side advertising hoardings (apparently "Guinness is good for you" - they brew it locally) and pigs in their farms. They spoke English (instead of the broken French that we'd been dealing with), and didn't want to sell you anything. They did want to trade addresses though. Everywhere we went in Ghana, people asked for my address, and gave me their postal address.

After a long and very bumpy ride, we got to the Mole (pronounced Mole-ee) national park. The truck took such a beating on the roads that it cracked a couple of its suspension springs. Pop stars, when they visit Mole, use the local airstrip and so avoid the bouncing around that we took.

The campsite at the park is on top of a 200ft high ridge. At the bottom was a small lake where elephants watered themselves, and at the top a sort of lodge cum bar cum restaurant. I ate a very "interesting" cornbeef spaghetti bolognese there one evening.

We arranged for park rangers to guide us around the park, to see some of the animals (no big cats, just deer, civets and elephants). The park rangers had to be armed (with ex-British army SLR rifles) as there was a danger from poachers, who would shoot to kill rather than be captured.

Later, from our vantage point at the top of the ridge, we watched the elephants come to the water hole to drink and bathe. But being inquisitive beasts, they also came up the hill to check us out, and to eat the fresh vegetation around the lodge.

We managed to get access to one of the lodge's bedrooms, so that we could all get a bath. The water, cold, was pumped up from the elephant's water hole, and was, well, not very clean. It would be best described as thin mud, but it did wash away the accumulation of sweat.

We then drove, again over the very bumpy roads, to our next stop - Kumasi. This is the ancient capital of the Ashanti people. Up to 1833 this city had been an important centre of the slave trade. Many local (black) people made their fortunes selling slaves to Europeans, for use on the plantions in the Americas. When we British finally stopped the trade and banned slavery, the local people at the time were incredulous and said that we just didn't understand Africans (if you don't believe what I, a white guy, am saying, please have a look at the writings in the Cape Coast museum).

We stayed in a park in the middle of Kumasi, which was great as the gates were closed after dark, keeping out the thieves. One of the more adventurous local boys managed to get past the park officials to see us. He did our laundry for us, for a fee (I suspect that he took it home and got his Mum to do it). The local toughs tried to take this money from him, but he managed to keep it by showing them only a very small note; while keeping most of it in another pocket and saying that that was all that we (cruel) westerners had paid him. Clever lad, he'll go far.

On the down side, we were camped next to a Seventh Day Adventist church, where very noisy services were held. These services were for the women of the town, and so started late (about 23:00) , after the women had finished jobs and domestic chores, and went on even later (3 or 4 in the morning). There was much singing and playing of over-amplified organs and electric guitars. It's amazing how you can train yourself to sleep through just about anything.

While exploring the local shops, I found a must have local product. It was some sort of cooking ingredient, came in a clear bottle, was a dark brown liquid, and was called Shitoe. I just had to buy some, although I didn't have the nerve to use it.

Eating at a local restaraunt (rice and some sort of beef stew) the local cats started coming round and being coy and hoping to be fed. One particular white one was very good at this, so I dropped a little rice and gravy on the floor for it. It lapped this up, so a not very nice looking bit of meat followed, then another and then another. I didn't get to eat much of that meal, but the cat went away satisfied.

Moving further south we came to a forest walk way. Built between 9 huge trees, the rope bridges that made up the 300 meter (15 meter up in the air) tree canopy walk swayed alarmingly. I have never liked the motion that you get on rope bridges, and definitely didn't like these. From the platforms on each tree, one could look directly into the canopy, rather than having to look up at it. I managed to get around the walk way without freezing once, although my slow, staring straight ahead, progress was found to be most amusing by my fellow travellers.

Continuing south we arrived at the ocean again. This was the first sea that we had seen since Mauritania. A great sense of having achieved something was felt by us all.

Cape Coast

Turning left at the ocean we made for Cape Coast. Here there's a Dutch ex-slaver fort (the British ex-slaver fort could be seen some miles further up the coast). It had started out life as a Spanish slaver fort. They had gained permission and paid rent and tribute to the Ashanti king at Kumasi for the right. But the Spanish had not built well, and their fort was overlooked by a hill, so when the Dutch came along, they simply sited a couple of cannons on the hill and forced the Spanish out. The first thing the Dutch did was build a second fort, on the hill, to make sure that nobody could do the same thing to them

We paid our ten dollars admission and were shown around by a local guide (Ghanaians, who regularly go around the fort to discover their history, pay only one dollar, which is fine by me). We were shown the cells were slaves were kept, also the death cell. This was in full view of most of the fort, and was where unruly slaves were left to slowly die of starvation, as a lesson to all others. The walls of this cell were smooth in places where the condemned had tried to slake their thirst by licking condensation.

Our guide explained how the European slavers would not roam more than a few miles from the fort, for fear of being killed by the Ashanti people. And how they had to pay rent for the fort, to the Ashanti King in Kumasi, and pay what was effectively a tax for each slave transported. He explained how the slaves were brought, by Ashantis, from hundreds of miles inland to the forts, where they would be kept caged until a slave ship came to take them. We were showed the door leading to the sea, where the slaves would be taken, one at a time (to stop any attempts at escape), straight on board the slave ships.

Abolitioning slavery, by the British in 1833, was a small light in our otherwise dark imperial history.

The trip ended in Accra (the capital of Ghana). This was a nice place, where I bought some presents for people at home . Cold beer was also to be had, and an icecream factory was just up the road from our camp site. The only annoying part of sitting under the thatched roof of our campsite's beach side bar, was that flies kept on drowning themselves in our pints. We had to take a sip and then quickly cover the glass with a drink mat. But really, this wasn't so bad, and the views of the ocean were stunning.

The camp site had chalets as well as places for tents, so I booked myself into one. Well, the rains had arrived and I'd had enough of roughing it. It gave me the opportunity to shower regularly and to wash my clothes. My Rohan trousers were so dirty, after wearing them continuously for almost 9 weeks, that I could scratch my name in their, slightly shiny, surface. And, to be honest, I stunk by this stage. I remember the look on the KLM airline staff member's face, when I walked into her office to confirm my flight home. The poor woman wasn't used to westerners being quite so dirty or smelly.

Clean it

As is usual on these trips, we did an end of leg truck clean. This meant that everything on the truck, as well as the truck itself was cleaned. We took the seats out and beat them with shovels in an attempt to kill the fleas that were biting us (Tip: if the spot that comes up from a bug bite has a wet head that oozes clear liquid, then it was probably a flea that bit you).

Goodbyes

After saying goodbye to the others who were staying on the truck (they carried on through central Africa to Kenya and then onto Namibia. From there some then flew home, some flew onwards in their travels, but three of them got jobs running truck trips in East Africa) I took a taxi to the airport, turning up six hours before the flight (as required). The airport was chaos. The international flights part is divided from the local flights part, and only international passengers were allowed into this part. This meant that there was a mad scrum outside the door, with people trying to get in. Once in, I had to wait in line for my luggage to be checked in. Thankfully the chaos of the check in procedure was alleviated by one (yes, just one) european KLM staff member. Then I had 5 hours to kill before the flight! Rather than going back down town and back into the chaos, I decided to wait it out in the peace and calm of the international lounge, trying to get some sleep.

By the time I got to Accra and was on the KLM aircraft heading for home, I had had more than enough of Africa. It can be great fun, but it was also very tiring at times. I was so happy when we took off and I heard the wheels retract (then I knew we were on our way).

On the flight, I sat next to a mining engineer, who was flying home on leave. He was in Ghana training the local engineers in correct mining practices. He told me that the people were very quick on the up- take, but couldn't be trusted to do the job on their own. He said that if he didn't constantly monitor them, they'd quite happily sit around and do nothing all day.

Of course I had to go and get food poisoning from the airline meal (never eat the rice in airline meals), so I didn't enjoy the bacon sandwich I got at Heathrow (something I had been looking forwards to for weeks!). And I was glad to be seated right next to the toilet on the 14 hour flight to Vancouver, that I took two days later, but that's another story.