Jo'burg By Truck 1985-86

Woke up to the grumbling of people discovering that thongs and shoes they’d left outside their tents had disappeared during the night. Stupidly we had also left our new stools out and four were gone. So too were Ben’s clothes, left out to dry - two pairs of underpants, denim shorts and shirt - and the three pairs of undies I had hung at the end of the truck. This resulted in our first blow up as a group, with some of us wanting to make a stand and demand the return of our stuff and others saying we should do nothing. I didn't understand why our stupidly leaving things out made this stealing okay. The "do nothings" wouldn't sit back and do nothing if the same thing happened back home, even if they had left things out. What was great though was that while our words were heated the tension dissipated quickly and things returned to normal, with no lingering tensions about our different opinions.

A breakfast search of our campsite found the three Swedish passports and Geoff’s towel on the ground. I understand why the y discarded the passports but don't know why the towel was undesirable. We pulled out of camp but stopped again at the offenders' village, the barefoot thieves running for cover on seeing our truck and disappearing into the grass behind the huts. One of the boys had left his plastic shoes and a metal rolling ring in our camp and Ben armed himself with these to walk through the village. But what he planned I don't know and he did not return with any more contraband. 

Wandered down to the falls for an early morning spray but the water pressure noticeably less than last night. All alone so revelled in that again. 

Our southbound journey took us down the western boundary of Parc Nationat de Benoue, but the only wildlife we saw was a single, small brown duiker (small antelope) in the grass just off the road early in our drive. The country became greener as the morning wore on and we started up the Massif de L'Adamaoua, a long haul on which we overtook the Encounter Overland, before cruising into the southern city of Nganundere.

Woke up in a furrowed field, just metres from the road. A fire was burning in the small village tucked (and therefore hidden last night) behind rocks on the other side of the road. We had an audience for breakfast and loo squats.

A morning drive through hills - dozed a lot - before we stopped to shop in the city of Maroua. Decided to lob into the artisan shop for some tourist hassle. Some beautiful handcrafts, including superb half giant gourds decorated with block work - what a pity Stanley is so small and we are so many! - gorgeous trading beads at horrendous prices, finely worked woven mats, and the now familiar collection of brightly coloured leather thongs and snakeskin handbags. Fled back to the market, where I could have bought a huge soft cotton-stuffed mattress for only 4000 CFA. The fabric alley was piled with coloured prints but mostly from Niger. The banana truck was in, loading up carts with hands of green fruit.

Had another open-air shower, storing up on cleanliness, before I walked to the market along roads lined with diesel sellers, their wine bottles and glass jars of fuel displayed on tables, who filled vehicles directly with plastic tubes.

Australia Day but I didn't realise until Vicki reminded me!

Mammoth sleeping bag wash, scrubbing on the table using gallons of water. Exhausting but a great excuse for R&R at the patisserie. Commandeered Sacha and Anna (off the Douglas family truck) and headed off with Jim, wandering down the ruined street before descending on the bakery - and, surprise, surprise, there was Nikki surrounded by postcards and croissant crumbs. Astronomical prices but I splurged on a slab of scrumptious cake/pudding worth every franc.

Feeling very low, bored, tired, supersensitive to anything and everything said to me. Spent most of the morning trying to sleep, though the roads were too rough for that a lot of the time. Felt no desire to mix with anyone on our truck and yearning to curl up with someone for a while and go nowhere and see nothing. The last few days have been hard with few respites and that's getting to me. Harder to be civil than just cut myself off for a while, so I put my Irish music tape in my Walkman and tried to escape from it all for a while. We drove through hard, compacted grey soil country with occasional deep sand drifts and tracks carved between thorn trees.

I woke with a bad cold and feeling pretty rundown and crowded into the top corns of the truck with a sick Hawken for a long day of socialising, sand matting, teamwork - with our passengers and the Douglas family - and one-upmanship with the Encounter Overland (EO) truck.