Niger River Project

Let’s get this show on the road – or maybe canoe on the water would be more appropriate…

I just realised yesterday that it was a mere six weeks until the Big Off! Six weeks!! I haven’t even had all my jabs yet. That little joy awaits me tomorrow. I think the only one I actually still need is rabies. I’ve heard nasty things about this particular jab – like that it hurts. And makes you foam at the mouth. And then go mad. Or maybe that’s just my imagination running away with me.

On the subject of letting the imagination run amok (smooth link eh?), I’ve been pondering lately how strange it is, this side of a big journey like the Niger River Project as it’s now become known, to try to envisage what it’s going to be like. Of course it’s impossible. You can look at the pictures, read the books, surf the web (for what scarily little info there actually seems to be out there on some of the places we’re heading for), you can fantasise, but nothing actually ever lives up to expectations.

How must it have been for Mungo Park, the illustrious Scot whose trailblazing exploits in the late 18th/early 19th centuries first led me to come up with the idea of heading down the Niger? For him the planet truly was lonely. He had no internet, no guidebooks, nothing, not even a decent map. In fact the very reason he went was precisely because West Africa at the time was one big cartographical black hole. Labels saying “Here be dragons” would not have looked out of place on some of the maps by even the leading map-makers of the day. What Park must have felt contemplating heading off into such complete and utter uncertainty, one can only wonder.

That, of course, is part of the joy of travelling – the unknown. There are certain things I’d like to have a better idea of, however. One is what it’s going to be like trying to hump our canoe to the launch point. For anyone interested, Dan and I are planning to rent a vehicle to take us to as close to the river’s source in Guinea as it’s possible to get by 4×4. We’re then going to leave the canoe and some gear with the driver, walk to the source (about three days’ yomp), walk back again then get driven to the town of Faranah from where we’ll hit the river proper. But that still means getting the canoe into Guinea then lugging into Mali from wherever we decide to finish the stint on the river.

And it’s big – collapsible, but big. Do you remember those old heavy tents you used to get in the olden days? The ones with canvas shells and frames that needed a degree in civil engineering to unfathom and you always vowed every year that you’d colour code but never did? Well, it’s a bit like that. Perhaps not quite as heavy, but bulky. Dan, if you’re reading this, we’re going to have put our thinking caps on, buddy. It’s going to be a right pain!

But, anyway, it’s all part of the fun. At least being big it’ll be a handy deterrant to all those nasty hippos and crocs that want us for lunch. Await further missives for a report on my experiences in putting it together for the first time…