Niger River Project

We arrive at Koubikoro for the second time in two days. Today the sous prefet looks every part the street sweeper in brown Gap dungerees and a wool beanie. The day before he’d looked immaculate in a white robe and skull cap.

This time he waves us through without question. The prefet’s signature, it seems, is worth its weight in gold. But as a precaution, he orders a soldier, complete with AK47, to accompany us and Sori. “You’re going close to the border with Sierra Leone,” he explains. “It can be dangerous there. It’s for your safety.”

Before we strike out, I try to raise the subject of a price with Sori. “Not now,” he says. “We’ll discuss it when we’re out of the village and there’s no one around to interrupt us.” Grudgingly I agree, but I fear I may regret this.

We head out for Foroknia, the next major village along and our base for finding the source. Sori and the soldier agree that instead of taking the main ‘road’ to Forokonia (in reality, just a very steep rocky track), we’ll go on a shortcut over rather than around the mountains in between.

The going is tough. Sori and the soldier have each just brought along a small overnight bag. Dan and I are both staggering under huge packs stuffed with tents, stoves, cameras, water, food and a pair of large machettes. Typical ‘blancs’. All the gear, but no idea…

But we’re both feeling fresh and strong, and it’s good to be out in the bush and stretching the legs. The scenery we’re passing through is magnificent: wooded hills rolling into the distance; huge, exotic trees hung with Tarzan creepers; vast granite boulders balanced precariously like they’ve been placed there by giant hands. And everwhere is absolutely still and quiet, the only sounds the occasional stream or goat bleating in a field.

We’re making good ground, but the going’s getting hotter and tougher. Sori tells us more about his grandfather. “He was a great king of many villages around here. He planted trees along the border with Sierra Leone to keep people out from there. They wanted to come and take water from Djoliba (local name for the Niger) but he fought to keep them out.”

Later we see some of the trees his grandfather planted - huge bamboo thickets that soar up and over to create a canopy that resembles the pillars and buttresses of a Gothic cathedral. As we stand admiring them, Sori drops into the conversation the fact that the little river winding its way beneath the canopy is the Niger.

It hardly seems possible. Only about 70km away in Faranah, it’s a big, soupy swollen thing. Here it’s only just a stream, dark and smokey in appearance, mysterious beneath the bamboo canes. We’re still some way from the source, but I suddenly realise why the locals consider it to be a sacred place; even here it has a certain mysticism about it.

Soon after, we make Forokonia, a large, peaceful village set in a fold between two hills. Sori arranges an audience with the chief, which actually turns out to be an audience with most of the villagers, who gathers to have a good gawp at the two red-faced white men with stupidly large backpacks.

Sori’s a performer, alright. Out comes the book, and he slips into his well rehearsed routine. We exchange kola nuts with the chief, an ancient tradition in Africa when meeting a chief for the first time. I can’t understand why kola nuts; they’re vile, bitter things that taste of bleach. But if that’s all it takes to please them, who am I to argue.

The chief is very welcoming and offers us a hut to stay in for the night. It’s a simple structure, part of a larger compound of identical dwellings belonging to the village ’secretaire’. He’s a toothless fellow in a worn woollen hat, who I suspect is a lot younger than he looks judging by the age of his children.

Inside the hut is gloomy and sparse. There’s a bed, but it’s hard. Our host’s wife comes in to tell us there’s hot water ready for washing. Hot water! All the way out here. Luxury. The shower is a fenced-off area in the back garden of the hut. The floor is made of lengths of bamboo, which makes it slippery, but it proves an effective drainage system.

While I’m washing Dan tells me a chicken is slaughtered for us - an honour given that the diet mainly consists of rice and spicy tomato soup around here (though, an honour we naturally have to pay for). It arrives a couple of hours later in a huge dish with piles of rice and sauce, and we - Dan, Sori, our soldier friend Mahmadou and me - fall on it.

After we’ve eaten our fill, Sori brings up the subject of the fee. In this as in all negotiations we’ve seen him undertake so far, he’s the consumate preformer, spelling out his credentials - his grandfather, his knowledge of the area, his expertise in helping others before us find the source. Then he names his price - too large and outrageous to repeat here. We argue. He steps up his act, throwing himself on the floor in an impressive display of contorted histrionics.

We have to admit the old rogue has us over a barrell. He’s brought us this far, and now we’re in no position to ditch him as our guide; we’d be totally stuck then. But neither are we prepared to pay what he’s asking for. “Other people before have paid this much,” he insists. “I have their phone numbers here, you can call them if you want.” He pulls out a wadge of cards with random European sounding names and phone numbers on. I point out that the nearest phone is about 50km away. In the end, after more playacting and arguing, we agree on a price - a lot lower than the one he wanted, but still more than we’d bargained on.

We head off early the next morning, eager to have a second crack at the source. We decide to skip breakfast and pick up something at the next town along from Faranah. It proves to be happy decision.

We stop at the town - Banian. The day before when we passed through it had been market day, and you could barely see the ground for the bewildering array of stalls laid out selling everything you could imagine and other things you’d probably rather not - cows’ heads, chunks of unpleasant looking fish, pungent smelling roots, exotic spices, mysterious bowls of what looked like grit. Today, though, things are much calmer.

Almost as soon as we stop, an elderly man in a worn black and white checked suit sidles over with a bag slung over one shoulder. He looks familiar. Even before he opens his mouth I know it’s him: Sori Keita. In that sixth-sense way of African guides, we’ve not found him; he’s found us.

Actually, the truth is rather more prosaic. After we saw him the day before, Sori’s son, it turns out, jumped on a motorbike and sped into Banian to tell Sori we were looking for him. Sori did the obvious thing and waited at the side of the road for us to turn up, as he knew we would.

He pulls out a battered copy of Mark Jenkins books, a German translation. It’s evidently become his calling card, and he holds it out to us like it’s a sacred text. “I have shown many people to the source,” he explains to us, patting the book, eager to big up his credentials. “I was born in this area, my grandfather was a king of 40 villages around here. I am well known in this area. I will get you to the source.”

He jumps in and we hit the road. It’s good to have him on board, though I can’t help but wonder what a guide who’s achieved a modicum of fame in a travel book is going to ask for as a fee. I decide to wait until Koubikoro to discuss it with him.

After seeing Sori Keita’s son, we set out for the long drive back to Faranah. We’re feeling deflated. So near but yet so far. Then again, I tell myself (probably not for the last time), this is Africa. Stuff like this happens all the time.

It’s Sunday, but we decide to try to find the prefet as soon as we get back to get his all important signature. We ask around, and are directed to the only vaguely smart looking part of Faranah. We’re shown into his home, where we’re met by a large, important looking men in a red jelabia. I explain the situation - that we went to Koubikoro en route to the source but were turned away by the sous prefet for not having the right papers.

“You got all the way there?” the Prefet laughs in disbelief. “Oh, I am sorry.”
He looks anything but. In the end, probably mainly because we look tired and pissed off, he agrees to take us over to his office and sign the necessary papers. He indicates for us to follow, and shambless off to the next building.

He takes us into his office and we wait while he puts the crucial stamp and seal on our ordre de mission. All this just to go and see a puddle of water trickling out of the ground. Is it really worth it? I keep telling myself it will be.

The road to Faranah is long and takes us most of the day. The roadside is a graveyard for dozens of cars, trucks and buses that have come to sticky ends in the ditch, a combination of poor maintenance and the manic driving tendencies of Guineans.

Our vehicle is an old Land Cruiser. It’s pretty beaten up and spongy in the suspension department, but it looks like it’ll cope with what’s probably ahead. I’m reassured by the driver, Diallo, who’s quiet, but looks determined and reliable.

We make Faranah by early evening. It’s the first town of any size on the river and the logical base for our attempt to get to the source. By chance we plump for a hotel that turns out to be a field away from the river. We grab cameras and run across the meadow to lay eyes on the object of our mission.

There it is: the Niger. It’s not much to look at at first: brown, languid, serene, not the mighty cataract I’d pictured. But it has a purpose about it, gurgling along, the swirling, eddying surface suggesting it may have some surprises in store for us. We snap off some shots, eager to capture those first moments.

The next morning we head out early. We’re making for the village of Koubikoro, where we hope to find a guide, leave the vehicle and set out on foot for the source. I hope we can get the vehicle that far. If we have to ditch it earlier, we’re in for a long walk and time is not on our side.

About 50km from Faranah, a dirt road branches off to Bambaya, the village before Koubikoro. Here we have to pass through an army and customs check point as we’re nearing the border with Sierra Leone. The first soldier to greet us looks angry and agressive. Here we go, I think. Welcome to the Wild West. But then the commandant arrives, an amiable looking man in impeccable uniform - and black welly boots. We tip him the equivalent of about 50p and he waves us on.

After Bambara the dirt road deteriorates. Soon Diallo is battling with the worst Africa can throw at him: giant potholes, large boulders, ruts, ditches - the works. He takes it all in his stride, impasive to the last. He doesn’t even break a sweat; I’m dripping.

Although the road is bad, the scenery is impressive. The forest is becoming increasingly jungular, and the trees are magnificent. Every few minutes the road passes over a small stream. Is that it? I wonder at each one. Is that the Niger?

The 17km to Koubikoro takes us over an hour. We arrive and instantly find ourselves mobbed by most of the village’s children. We’re brought before the ’sous prefet’, the local administrator, whose permission it seems we need to continue. He looks at the paper we’ve brought from Conakry, our ‘ordre de mission’ stating what we’re doing in the area.

“This is no good,” he proclaims to our horror. “You need a stamp from the prefet in Faranah in order to proceed. I could let you go on, but I wouldn’t be doing my job.” He doesn’t look like a jobsworth, but this is exactly what he is. We try to argue with him. I even consider trying a bribe. But he’s just delivered his judgement in front of the whole village, so there will be no going back - except for us that is. All the way back to Faranah just to get someone’s signature.

On our way out of the village a young guy wanders up. We ask him if he knows Sori Keita, a local character who features in a book written by the American Mark Jenkins, who with three friends was the first to canoe the Niger’s headwaters. Sori was their guide to the source, and Dan and I had hoped to find him. “He’s my father,” the young man replies. “He’s not here at the moment. He’s in the next town.”

We give him a photocopy we’ve brought of the picture of Sori in Mark Jenkins’ book. “Tell him two white guys are looking for him and need some help getting to the source,” Dan says. Maybe our enforced return to Faranah won’t be such a bad thing after all.

Our last evening in relative civilisation and luxury. Yes, we’ve found a car to hire (rather expensive, but when else are we going to head to the source of the Niger River?), and at crack of dawn we’ll head off for the interior.

First stop will be Faranah, the first town on the Niger - or Joliba as it’s known by locals this far up. Incidentally, we’ve decided to call the canoe ‘Joliba’. This was the name Mungo Park gave to the craft he and his dwindling band of men constructed in their ill-fated attempt to run the river to its mouth. They made it as far as a place called Bussa in what is now Nigeria, but were ambushed and killed - tragically only about 350 miles short of their goal. With any luck our Joliba won’t meet the same end…

After Faranah, we’ll head off to the village of Bambaya where we hope to find a local guide. Then we’ll get on Shanks’ Pony - ie walk - to the source, hopefully about two days each way. I’ve heard locals are very superstitious about the source and don’t like people visiting it, but I’m sure that if the price is right we’ll find someone to take us there.

So this is it for the next few weeks. After finding the source, we’ll head back to Faranah, from where we’re hitting the river itself. We’re all supplied up, mainly with spaghetti, tinned sardines and couscous - yum! We expect the river trip to take about two weeks and we probably won’t be updating the blog until we get to Bamako in Mali. But watch this space. As soon as we can, we’ll get more up to let you know how the river was.

We’ll be a little older and a little wiser next time you hear from us.

A bientot!

Well, we’re struggling on in Conakry, where to get anything done seems nigh impossible. We’re trying to find a vehicle to take us inland, but the ones so far have been very expensive. Won’t bore you with the details, but at the moment the Saturday aim of leaving Conakry is looking unlikely. Still, this is Africa, and anything can happen…

In the meantime, we’re trying to get used to the sapping heat. It’s unbelievably warm and humid here - it was like being slapped in the face with a hot wet flannel when we stepped off the plane on Tuesday. Still, we’ll need to be used to it by the time we hit the road for the source otherwise we won’t have a very pleasant time.

Watch this space for further missives.

Well, there’s no going back now. This is it, the last night on British soil for three months and a day.

Sorry for the prolonged absence. The past few weeks have a been a mad whirl of embassies, passport photos at 5am and bureaucratic bungles. I could fill this blog for a whole month with tales of visa nightmares, but I won’t bother. The only one worth relating was the Nigeria embassy (there’s probably some Nigerian stooge monitoring this now, ready to pounce on me when I try to cross the border). Without going into too much detail, it was utter mayhem - a West African mob, a 5 1/2 hour queue, only to be told we couldn’t apply because we were too early!! I later discovered that the poor chap, Kenny, who was trying to keep control had been told he would have his throat cut by some irrate visa applicant (neither Dan nor me, I hasten to add!).

Anyway, all’s well now and we’re fully visa-ed up.

Which is just as well, as tomorrow morning is the Big Off. Everything is planned is as well as it could be - which, knowing West Africa will mean that we end up doing nothing that was on the itinerary (except land in Conakry, hopefully).

Dan and I will probably be out of touch for two or three weeks while we locate the source then hit the water. But I promise we’ll update this, hopefully with pics, as often as we can hippos and technology permitting. It would be great if readers could add their own comments to this. When we’re out in the bush, it would be great to know that people really are out there and sharing in our mad adventure.

Until we meet again….

Check out this shot taken at the RGS. It shows a satelite picture of Europe and West Africa…

Local press interest from Ben’s neck of the woods…