Niger River Project

Recovery from the Journey from Hell takes at least two days, and is assisted by numerous cold beers. The Estonians are big drinkers and, convinced they’re the first of their countrymen in Niger, hold something of a celebration. Not wanting to let the side down, I join in.

The great joy of Niamey is that it serves the best – and cheapest – beer I’ve tasted since being in Africa. It’s called, rather unimaginatively, Niger Beer. But it’s good – for lager – and cold, so for the first day, we don’t do an awful lot except sample various of the local hostelries and their fine wares.

On the third day we set out to explore a bit of Niamey. There’s not an awful lot to see here. There’s the Niger, of course, but we saw that the day before from the comfort of a riverside bar.

In fact, picturesque as it looks here, the Niger is relatively insignificant in historical terms. So instead we head for an area of town where we’ve heard there’s a colony of giant fruit bats living. Strange, but apparently true.

Walking down the street where the bats are said to live, Pritt, one of the Estonians, starts pointing into a tree and gets his camera out, snapping off a shot. As we stand there looking up, it suddenly strikes me that this bat looks rather lifeless.

‘That’s not a bat, it’s a plastic bag,’ I point out to Pritt. He looks crestfallen, but brightens up when a few metres on we find another tree this time full of what are unmistakeably giant bats hanging upside down and squeaking at each other.

This is about the high point of central Niamey. Niger is an unbelievably poor country – statistically the world’s poorest. Because most people live off agriculture, they tend to have large numbers of children to spread the burden of working the fields. Consequently it’s Niger’s kids that really suffer, with two-thirds malnourished and only about one-third receiving any kind of education.

In the country’s far north, they have an even worse lot, as this is the area where Niger’s uranium mines are to be found. And, unsurprisingly, it’s the children who get the bum job of having to go down into these living tombs, in unspeakably awful conditions.

I’m surprised at Niamey, and how comparatively well it disguises its status; in some ways it looks better off – and certainly better organised – than Bamako in Mali. But look more closely, and Niger’s pains are there to see: scores of rag-clad children with hungry eyes wandering the streets with begging bowls; leppers with fingerless hands looming out of the shadows pleading for help; polio victims with useless, contorted limbs dragging themselves across the ground. It’s a painful sight.

On the evening of the third day, Dan arrives from Bamako, having against all odds managed to get a new passport and all the necessary visas to carry on. We’re back on track.

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…