5th January 1986 : Twisting and Turning through Togo

Today featured a long winding drive through hills, rounding crazy bends marked with skull signs. A movable warning sign on the roadside alerted us to a semitrailer crashed halfway down a hill from one bend, its load of cartons of Benson & Hedges cigarettes strewn all around. We had visions of making some fast money reselling them, but the unfortunate crew had set up camp very close by and watched us suspiciously as we leapt from the truck armed with cameras to record the scene. Couldn't work out quite how the driver had managed to finish up where he did - until we drove on, past many broken barriers where trucks had crashed and careered over the edge, their abandoned carcasses stripped and rusting.

Requested a lunch stop beside five tiny villages of grass and mud huts with cute spinning-top shaped granaries. The villagers were mostly friendly but some were a bit shy and others tried to ignore us, obviously hoping we would just go away. Dogs, pigs, goats and chickens made a raucous chorus as we passed through. 

Stopped to shop in a town with a large below-ground market that had a central open-air section ringed by stalls selling spices, fruit and vegetables. A gorgeous English-speaking guide, a lad of about 13, answered all our questions about the foods we didn't recognise. We passed huge piles of smoked fish and enormous stocks of yams-manioc, and a lady selling discs of white and yellow lard. I discovered the delights of deep-fried plantain!

Late in the day we made a pandemonic fruit stop, leaning out of Stanley to bargain for pineapples and pawpaws that we heaved into the truck, laughing with the women as Nikki handed out money from the centre of a throng. Kelvin caused havoc with the kids by spraying his gold skin paint down black arms - some panicking when they thought the stuff might not wash off.

Camped beyond garbage and past a dead cow. Bob got out his tape recorder to record us for Karen while Geoff and I got drunk on cheap fruity wine. The tape was a riot with a grand finale of “That Old 4 Wheeler” which I listened to from horizontal in the grass. Someone helped me to bed.