Journey from Hell, part 1 , or El Dorado
Gao is my last stop in Mali. After this, I’m headed for Niger.
As I gear up for the trip, I can’t help but think of all the stories I’ve heard and read about the bus ride to Niamey – bad road, hassles, bureacracy, unpleasant border guards. I’m preparing myself for a long, hard slog.
Fortunately, I’ve got some company for the trip: two Estonians are heading the same way, hoping, they believe, to be the first Estonians in Niger. It’s a pretty obscure country, so they could well be right.
We get to the bus in good time. Actually, it’s not a bus, rather a large metal box containing crappy seats welded to the back of a large truck. One passenger I’m talking to actually describes the vehicle as the ‘boit’ (box).
As we wait, a fight breaks out between a group of the young men, who, like in all other African transport stations, are hanging around trying to get tips for stowing passengers’ baggage on buses. They’re squabbling over which of them it was that hoisted our bags up on to the truck and thus who should get the tip. We didn’t see any of them put our gear up so we don’t give any of them anything. They slouch away, grumbling and muttering to themselves.
The trip gets off to a bad start. Someone from the bus company has reserved us some seats at the front of the bus so we don’t have to through the ritual scrummage with other passengers trying to get to the seats further back.
In fact, it turns out to be a poisoned challice as we have half as much leg space as everyone else, and some bright spark decides there’s room for seven across in our row, when in reality there’s only just room for six. Wedged in like chickens in a battery farm, we hit the road. I’m only glad Dan with his long legs has been spared this torment.
Actually ‘road’ is too kind a term. It’s more of a track, though at points even track would be inaccurate as there appears to be no discernable route at all – only ruts and bumps and sand.
We crawl along, the truck creaking and jolting its way over the terrible surface. To add insult to injury, the Malian government is in the process of building a proper paved road to the border, but it’s not quite finished. So for a large part of the way, we’re driving directly next to a lovely smooth tarmac road that we’re not allowed to use.
Despite the slow progress, there’s an interesting subplot to the journey. The two Estians’ visas for Niger aren’t valid until tomorrow, so we don’t want to get to the border too quickly or else they’ll probably be refused entry. Niger time is an hour ahead of Malian time, so ideally we don’t want to get to the frontier before 11 Malian time.
In the end, this is exactly the time we arrive. They’re safe. But instead of crossing the border in the middle of the night, we’re told that we’re going to spend the night here and cross in the morning.
Most of the passengers shuffle off to a collection of crummy old huts where passengers from other buses have already bedded down for the night. I poke my nose in to see what it’s like, but it looks too much like a refugee camp, so I opt to sleep in the bus.
This turns out to be a big mistake. The problem is that being in such dilapidated condition, many of the bus’ windows don’t shut. Although it’s scorching by day in Mali, by night the temperature drops drastically. And being basically a metal box, the bus has zero insulation; from being an oven, the boit soon becomes a refrigerator.
I awake only a few minutes after falling asleep shivering violently. For a moment I wonder whether I’ve got malaria again. But then I feel the wind howling in through the un-closeable window and realise that this is proper cold shivers.
There’s nothing I can do. My sleeping bag is in my rucksack on the roof. All I can do is curl up and wait for dawn.
After what feels like the longest night, dawn comes. Our fellow passengers, bleary-eyed, stagger on to the bus and we make for the border.
Surprisingly, and happily, border procedures are swift and painless. We hand over our passports, wait for our names to be called out
There’s a slight moment of fear when or some unknown reason the cruel-faced border guard starts slapping the man in front of me around the ears, but when I’m called up, he clocks my white skin and undergoes an instant transformation to Mr Nice Guy. He doesn’t even ask for a bribe. In a perverse way, I’m slightly disappointed it’s so easy.
This feeling quickly evaporates as the bus stops for several more roadchecks: customs, police, military… At each stop we have to go through the same rigmarol as before. It takes hours.
By midafternoon, Niamey is stating to feel a bit like El Dorado – not that I’m under any illusion there’s gold to be found there, but from the time it’s taking, I’m beginning to wonder if the place really exists.
Eventually, as the sun is beginning to drop, we hit the suburbs of Niamey. Like Bamako, Niger’s capital begins as a collection of slum dwellings that slowly cohere into something more recognisable as a city.
It’s taken us over 24 hours to complete a journey less than 400km long. But, we’re here. And there’s cold beer…
Tags: Niamey, pain, Travel
djnorwood