Breakfasted on baked beans and sandy fried bread – delicious!
Filled the truck with water while waiting for the border police to pull their fingers out and let us through. Our returned passports were all stamped with yesterday’s date, suggesting that they’d been processed last night so we could have gone through and not had to camp amongst the dogs, wind and border spotlights.
Moved on, into the Twilight Zone, with sand figures racing across the desert and abandoned cars emerging like ghosts from the haze. Needed black and white film to emphasise the atmosphere.
We lost the road and Kelvin and Ben wandered off into the swirling sand to get their bearings, only to struggle to find their way back to us. Having all got off the truck to lessen its weight, we did our first stint of running sand matting, throwing the maps under the wheels and scrabbling in the loose sand to retrieve them. Eventually onto a gravelly road towards a new frontier.
Arriving at the Niger border early morning we met flies and heat. Had to empty the overhead nets onto the ground and our bags and maps were soon coated in fine swirling sand. Officials searched everything but were obviously bored with the procedure by the end. One of the searchers left with a tin of pilchards and an Exodus brochure.
We handed in our passports and vaccination forms and the drama began, because Ann had no cholera certificate. She had her injection in London but lost her certificate the day before we left and didn’t realise the importance of replacing it. The guard got very aggressive, saying we would have to go back to In Guezzam or even Tamanrasset. Kel was furious and Ann very upset; she kept apologising for threatening our crossing. Things looked even grimmer when the guard said he was putting Ann on a truck back to In Guezzam to get a Cholera shot there.
But first he checked that each of us had the equivalent of 3000 French francs - a fee or a bribe I'm not sure - which we managed with a shuffling of bills, people borrowing from others and Kel handing them out like sweets. We all got through except Ann. The guard told her to stop counting her money and then stamped her passport as entry refused. Everyone started offering advice and suggesting ways around the problem, but the official refused to budge (very reasonably, with hindsight).
Then Dr Vicki produced a syringe and sterile needle from the truck first aid kit and drew up chlorinated water from Julie’s water bottle to perform a dramatic "cholera" vaccination. It was a drawing up needle, which is bigger than an injecting needle, and my skin crawled at the prospect. Ann stood there bravely saying it was all right, she would give it a go. And in a macabre melodrama, Vicki walked off with the first-aid kit, giant syringe, Ann, and a story to tell.
What followed was behind-the-scenes but, Vcki told us on her return, she injected Ann with water and signed Ann’s vaccination form and then presented as much I.D. as possible to substantiate her MD credentials. Ann burst into tears back on the truck, more distressed by the trouble and delay she had caused than the painful injection. Nikki diplomatically told her that it was only a short delay, and thirty minutes over 26 weeks was worth the tears.
Kelvin returned triumphant from officaldom and drove us into Niger, leaving the second Exodus truck to the joys of lunch amongst the flies before their processing even started. What a relief to make it through.
Vicki went on about it being a farce because the genuine cholera inoculation only protected you from one of the many cholera strains, but I thought they had every right to force the point, given that they had a cholera epidemic on their doorstep which might just be that strain. Seemed reasonable to me, and I felt less sympathy for Ann than some of the others, given all the shenanigans I'd gone through in my last frantic hours before boarding. Still, we were on the road at last.
Initially Niger appeared little different from Algeria. But then we saw the first greenery for ages, vast expanses of desert-floor vines and grasses being harvested by people and grazed by camels.
We stopped roadside for lunch and soon had three adult Tuaregs, three children, and their camels for company. The family had beautiful smiles and posed for the volley of camera shutters. One was wearing a worn leather pouch with long tassels and a neck cord, which Bob traded for a T-shirt and Nikki’s scratched sunglasses. What a superb traditional souvenir, worn, used and authentic. Literally off the Tuareg’s back (or front). Realising they were onto a good thing they disappeared and then came back with a second bag that Marcus traded for a digital calculator watch.
Driving on after lunch we struggled through huge sand drifts, stopping several times to give drinking water to shrouded men and children seemingly walking between nothing and nowhere.
Kelvin love sharing our water and we all enjoyed the interaction too, smiling and having out bonbons. It was such a release after the drama of the border.
And our first day out of Algeria just kept on giving. Stanley - we named our truck after American journalist Henry Morton Stanley who came looking for and found missing missionary and explorer David Livingstone - got through most of the difficult drive unaided but we all quickly became expert at the running sand matting game. Then, finally, we stopped just off the road, actually a twisting, turning score of multiple parallel sandy tracks leading apparently in both directions to just more sand.
The wind dropped for dinner, such as it was. Our stores are low so it was a meal based on dehydrated filler. I just can’t get over its chemical flavour but the others appreciated the food. Ben and Vicki then set fire to our latest tyre acquisition, turning the sky a fiery orange and drawing me out of the truck to its warmth.
Fresh fruit tomorrow!
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