Our new friend returned at breakfast with another bucket of milk. We thanked him with baked beans on toast and tea for breakfast and a collection of treasures - a Grand Marnier bottle, an empty bean can, an empty orange syrup bottle, some biscuits and some aspirin. He just sat and grinned his wonderfully toothy smile, then waved excitedly with one hand and clapped his hands above his head as we drove away.
We survived a 15km jaunt along rough road before we ascended to the real road to a cheer from above and below.
Fabulously scenic drive into Niamey, on a road lined with tiny villages, some just two or three woven huts in a circle fenced with thorn bushes. Others consisted of neighbouring mud-walled compounds containing simple mud buildings. We saw several women pounding long poles into carved bowls and others using the wind to blow husks off grain.
The day's highlight was an hour-long stop at a bustling market: a huge expanse of stalls, nearly all produce, but few selling fruits and vegetables. We saw some oranges among stalls selling spices, dried animal skins, onions, carved gourds made into ladles and containers, brightly woven mats and haggling women, their vibrant clothes splashing colour across patches of sun filtered through the trees. We also saw our first African bullock cart, pulled by two huge, healthy, well-fed animals; and donkeys pulling small carts. There was a huge area where women sat chatting and suckling babies among cut green grasses and green woven mats. Here, too, were piles of brightly coloured fabrics but 30cm-wide strips sewn together into usable lengths. A few second-hand clothes stalls, too, and everywhere piles of fresh bread loaves, rolls and rounds. A group of women wrapped in bright colours and balancing metal jars on their heads walked towards us down an alley as we left the market.
The sun in the truck was scorching as we left town, and when we stopped for a huge herd of longhorn cattle. One matriarch had horns 60cm long.
Soon we reached Niamey, the capital of Niger, where I stood first single-person guard shift on the truck. The tension mounted and I quickly became quite angry with half a dozen or so boys making rude comments and vulgar gestures at me and climbing up the side of the truck. One was so busy having a go at me that he didn’t realise Kelvin was coming up behind. Kel lifted him off the truck by the scruff of his neck and unceremoniously dumped him on his bum on the pavement. The boys scattered but soon returned, and at one point I was nearly hauled bodily from the truck. I wish I’d had the strength to smack him across the jaw.
Eventually Ann relieved me, which gave me time to wander the markets. Here were all sorts of fruits and vegetables, including appetising piles of bright red tomatoes. There were piles of powdered milk and other tinned goods, spices, yoghurt, and humungous pineapples – first quote 1800 CFA each! - and women selling hand-ground peanut butter from large metal platters. Might just have to try some of that tomorrow!
Then it was off to our campsite for a blissful cold shower, after which I lounged at the bar in soporific sunshine, totally relaxed. Watermelon for dinner. Spent the evening in the bar with Geoff, Kel, Nikki, Vicki and a few others, Kel telling stories of past expeditions and entering countries not through official borders, that got funnier as Kel’s beer consumption increased.
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