It’s been a while but Cade has sent us a flurry of new blogs from the Trans Africa expedition. Here he describes (in his unique style!) a typical day on the road….
The prefix `trans` derives from the Latin word to mean ‘through.’ When I think of the action of going through something, my mind immediately casts back to memories of puberty and pane-glass windows. The truth is that despite the fact that I was forewarned before the onset of puberty and to a lesser extent the pane glass window, in both cases I still never really knew what to expect. To this day their gruelling and painful memories send shivers up my spine and serve as a reminder that any term wielding the ‘trans’ prefix immediately implies a high level of endurance and a large element of surprise.
True to its name, the Trans Africa expedition is proving to be no exception to the rule. Our daily dosage of surprise come as a result of more twists and turns than the London A-Z, while our endurance is tested by the fact we go through about as many countries as we do cheap plastic flip-flops. So much so that in order to best convey the extent to which the elements of surprise and endurance are evident, it is best to take a step back and rather than looking at the puzzle as a whole, focus on a single piece or a single day.
To select and explain a day that truly captures the mood, essence and scale of the entire adventure is an option I briefly considered before swiftly filing it in the ‘too hard’ basket. So I selected a day that was simply a good enough laugh, opened my laptop and began spilling my verbal diarrhoea over the keyboard. This is my account of day 88:
The fire crackled and popped under the kettles. The pots and pans clanged in the kitchen and right on cue, Dan`s laughter bellowed after he’d heard what I assumed was himself telling another of his old jokes. Some of the group wake up to the sun, some wake up to their bowels and others simply sleep through the static. For the past three months it is the combination of these three sounds that have come to serve as my daily alarm.
The familiar foul stench of my sweat-soaked pillow crawled up my lip and tickled my nostrils. I hauled myself out of bed, donned my filthy four-day old shorts and made my way to the fire to hear the next of a long line of Dan`s self-proclaimed ‘belters.’ The tone of my skin was now uniform to the tone of the earth. My flip-flops were mismatched, my coffee was tasteless and my body odour surrounded me like the awkward silence after an inappropriate comment. It was just another day at the office.
First on my agenda as with any other day was to remember where exactly we were. This is a task that seems relatively simple in theory, but when your lifestyle has you passing as many villages as you do worms, is much more difficult in practice. In this instance we were surrounded by tractors and farming equipment on a commune in Benin. Where exactly this commune was, I couldn’t tell you until such time as my coffee properly kicked in, but what I could tell you for now was that we were two days into a five night bush camp stretch beginning in a town called Ouidah in Benin, and finishing in the Nigerian capital of Abuja. After a quick yet thorough calculation I soon concluded that we were currently located somewhere between the two.
With that done, next on the agenda was for me to work out where exactly we were going. Luckily on this morning I was not the one to be doing so. Nicola, a worker at the commune had invited us to his village for the morning so was to take my place in the navigational hot-seat in the cab and guide us the way.
While much of our time during drive days are spent with our noses in books or waving to village children, I’d have to say that the majority of our days are actually spent getting on each other’s nerves and pushing each other to the brink of insanity. With wit and sarcasm as our tools, we toil away profusely for the sole benefit of our own amusement and to simply pass the time. This brings me to my third task on my all-important agenda; to annoy the shit out of Gareth. And I figured that if I was to bring my most irritating A-game, It would have to be a two-coffee morning. So I poured myself another cup another cup and pondered my attack.
Nicola informed the group that we were to be visiting the voodoo King of his village and if we were to be fortunate, he would grant us an audience. In the West African nation of Benin, Voodoo remains the state religion and is an integral part of the countries culture so it was no surprise that whilst in Benin, we were to learn a little about this culture. Seeing as we rate ourselves so highly, nor was it a surprise that sooner or later we were to be greeted by royalty. He would have our group in his home, speak to us via an interpreter, answer all our questions and bless us in prayer before sending us on our way.
I’d have to say that the element of surprise came when having promised us to take us directly to the home of the king, the truck ground to a halt at a pineapple plantation on the outskirts of the village.
See, for 88 days now, trying to convince Gareth that pineapples grow from the ground has been as progressive and painful as pulling teeth. For 88 days Gareth has insisted that the existence of pine trees combined with the fact that apples grow on trees, is conclusive proof that pineapples grow in trees. So after having a quick word to Nicola, he was more than willing to provide Gareth with the closure he needed and arranged a small and spontaneous pineapple plantation tour. While the tour had our mouths yawning wide open catching flies, Gareth was forced to stand front and centre with undivided attention.
Gareth returned to the truck thankful but assured us that he’d be confirming the validity of our ‘pineapple plantation theory’ on Google at the next opportunity all the same. And with that, the great pineapple debate of 2013 was put on yet another temporary hiatus and we were back in the truck on the way to the Nigerian border.
Going through an African border is generally long and painful and is sets a scene for the element of endurance. The problem with crossing by land is that you essentially have two immigration points to contend with, an exit and an entry. While generally the officials on exit are happy to see the back of you and the officials on entry are looking for any excuse to keep you from coming in, this means that the exit is usually swift while the entry is tedious. Officials however, don’t always adhere to these guidelines.
I leapt out of the cab on arrival to the border and within a matter of minutes the Benin immigration had our passports stamped and sitting in a pile in the middle of the desk. But before I could say lickety-split, the officials proceeded to demand on completion that I pay a ‘processing fee’ which in-turn instigated an old fashioned stand-off. Our passports sat on the middle of the desk like the net on a tennis court while the immigration officials and I rallied our respective arguments back and forth over the top of them. After a short period of time a lot of banter, I seized a break in play to lift the pile of passports from underneath the ransom they were being held, tucked them under my arm and made my escape.
Our arrival into Nigerian immigration down the road, it was evident that the officials couldn’t be more welcoming. While our passports were processed at a snail’s pace, the officials welcomed us to set up camp on the Nigerian immigration grounds where they were insistent we were to spend the night as their guests. So we set up our tents, started our fire and immediately made ourselves at home.
Due to the fact that there are no official money changers in Nigeria and banks will not change foreign currencies into Nigerian Naira, if you wish to obtain local currency in Nigeria it is necessary to do so illegally on the black market. On asking for their assistance in the matter, the immigration officers wasted no time in calling their contact in the nearby village. Half an hour later their contact arrived and proceeded to exchange our money illegally on the black market, but insisted on doing so in the security of the immigration grounds. And with that, we knew we welcomed to colourfully contradictory world of Nigeria.
While the sun sank over the nearby town, I cracked another beer and took my seat by the fire. The glowing embers softly lit the darkness, the empty beer bottles clanged as they hit the pile, and the laughter of the immigration officer bellowed as Dan’s old jokes were received well by the new audience.
While I have to say that as sure as it had started as just another regular day in the office, day 88 actually just finished as just another day in the office. From royalty to ransoms, the unpredictability that I have come to predict from each day was as powerful as the stench seeping through the pores of my skin. While under any normal circumstances the day would be classified as memorable, the truth is that it faced the same fate as any other day on the Trans Africa trip: To be tossed back onto the pile where it will be lost among the compounded mound of memories and misadventures.
I went to bed that night with the knowledge that while I have no idea what else this trans trip would send me through, what I did know was the fire would once again crackle, the pots would once again clang and Dan’s old morning jokes would have his laughter echoing through the villages. While there was little else I could be sure of, I knew two things. My alarm was set for yet another day at the office and despite all the short and curly’s, puberty ain’t got shit on Africa!