Chapter 20: at the end of the world

The bus charged on into the river, driving hard yet somehow sluggishly as it entered the choppy water. I can’t truly speak for any of the other passengers, but I was fairly nervous; more than once as we crossed over the bus would lean or rock to a side and I was thoroughly convinced we wouldn’t make it across. I’ve never wished for a G.I. Joe vehicle more so before in my entire life (including elementary school, mind you...). Yet somehow, by the grace of God, we made it across; and as our front tires grappled finally onto the dry pavement awaiting us on the other side, my fellow passengers and I let out a chorus of grateful praises to our driver, thankful to be alive.

We continued on towards the city of Agadez, driving through the desert into the night. We stopped once or twice, but there weren’t any beggars or vendors around to pester us now (as they usually did) – there was almost no other sound or movement besides that of our bus and its passengers. That part I didn’t mind so much. When we did finally arrive in Agadez, however, we were swarmed by turban-wearing taxi drivers (this is somehow the norm, from what I’ve seen, in West Africa…everyone wants to drive around a white guy). Luckily, we weren’t in that fray too long: Sara had learned of a cheap guesthouse from a Niger PCV we had met in Niamey, so we grabbed a driver and had him take us there. Team Adventure, frugal as always, was all about staying at the cheapest places imaginable, regardless of the conditions. When we arrived at our supposedly "recommended" guesthouse, we were “greeted” by a short, fat Niger woman who couldn’t speak a word of English. Reluctantly, she gave us two rooms, but was fairly pissed off with us for not being able to speak French (which happens to be the national language in Niger). She really wanted we four, white tourists to pay more and rent out four rooms – seeing how, as I’ve said countless times before, we whites are filthy rich – but, in the end, she realized ‘twas all for naught.

I’d like to talk about these rooms for a moment, if I may: I’ve traveled a lot during my many travels during my stay in Africa, and this certain room – by far – was the worst room I’ve ever slept in. It would’ve been better, really, to sleep outside – despite the mosquitoes and the possibility of being knifed by a local. The room was maybe ten by eight feet in dimension, with no screens on the “window” or “door” to speak of. It was easily 10 or 15 degrees warmer inside that it was outside, due – most likely – to the unhindered sun baking the room with unbearable desert intensity all damn day. However, in the end, I relied on my trusty cure for falling asleep in the African heat: a strong dosage of Benadryl and off-the-street Valium. Never fails.

After a horrible night of restless sleep, the four of us set off into the town to look for a desert guide and to find a new place in which to lodge our second night (believe it or not, taking into consideration the shitty rooms and the shitty front desk woman that "greeted" us upon our arrival, we were not all that pleased with our first place of lodging). It took us most of the morning to find a tour agency that would take us up on our proposed desert excursion, but we finally made a deal with a man who ran his tour agency out of a guesthouse. The guesthouse rooms were decent (they had their own bathrooms and screened windows), plus the building had a veranda that overlooked the entire city, and was also somehow centrally located. We decided to pass our nights at this establishment the remainder of our stay in Agadez.

We knew that we would have to buy supplies before heading into the desert, and that we’d have to leave half the shit we brought with us at the hotel in a safe room. The four of us had to buy fabric for turbans before setting out the following morning, because the sun was almost unbearable up there in Niger, and would be even worse once we were into the wilderness. The ‘Grande Marche’ of Agadez more or less resembled every other main central market I’ve seen in my travels (cheap, imported goods - nothing really traditional to speak of), so I wasn’t expecting much. After finding suitable material for turbans (and a few prayer robes), we were going to try and hit up the Tuareg market on the outskirts of the city. There, one could barter with Tuareg nomads, who come in from their desert dwellings to peddle goods with the town folk and trade livestock (donkeys, camels, goats, horses, oxen, etc.). It was also at this Tuareg market where we would be able to trade our cheap, crappy street vendor goods from Ghana for decent touristy goods (Niger, and Agadez in particular, is famous for its silver, swords, and carvings)
. Before we originally set out on this odyssey of ours, Team Adventure made sure to stock up on cheap $2 watches and Rastafarian items (Bob Marley handkerchiefs, Rasta-colored wristbands and bandanas, etc.) off the streets of Tamale. Granted, these bartering items we were bringing with us from Ghana were incredibly cheap – a lot more so than the things we ended up trading them for with the Tuaregs – but.... screw it. We may have been assholes by doing this, but we were assholes who ended up walking out of Niger in the end with a lot of whoop-ass souvenirs.

Anyway, back to our tale. After leaving the Grande Marche with our turban fabric and a few other select items, we were en route to the Tuareg Marche (so Vasquez and I could buy swords before heading out on our desert trip) when a sandstorm hit. Hard. The storm engulfed the entire city, blinding everyone, before a violent downpour of rain and hail followed immediately on its heels. In a horrendous state of confusion, we all somehow managed to separately make our way back to our guesthouse – where we rinsed off the sand and ice, and waited out the storm. Before we retired for the evening, we managed to secure a quick dinner – the usual course for us during our stay in Agadez: brochettes and baguettes, grilled right off the street.

The following morning, we left our hotel and arrived at a predetermined rendezvous point a few kilometers to the north of Agadez. Here, Team Adventure was introduced to our guide/cook for the next few days, Mukada, and his family. Mukada’s family lived in tents, as most Tuareg nomads do, and were extremely hospitable and friendly. The customs were somehow similar to the ones I had known in northern Ghana – an exception maybe being that the Tuareg women were perhaps granted more independence in their conduct in front of strangers and guests. Who knows. Anyway, on this particular morning we also were introduced to our camels.

They were a motley-looking bunch, but, honestly, what camels aren’t? To me, the ever-optimistic do-gooder of West Africa, they all looked stupid as hell; they smelled terrible, and they were constantly going to the bathroom (though, surprisingly enough, they never once spit in our presence). After packing up saddle bags and securing our gear, Mukada and his nephew, Alilih (we think he was his nephew…pretty sure, at least…), assigned us to the camels that we were to be taking care of and riding for the next three days. There were three females and two males – and the females tended to be white in color, while the males were a light brown (and considerably less attractive...not that I'm attracted to camels or anything...). Now, Anna had a lot of experience with riding horses, and, coincidentally, she was assigned the mother camel of three of the other camels – the biggest one, and arguably the fastest. Dan also got a female, which, next to Anna’s, was probably the fastest. Sara – poor, poor Ma Bristol – ended up with the bat-shit crazy camel; a female with a bell around its neck to, in my opinion, warn other camels in the caravan to her approach. She had a horrible temper and disposition, and she ended up despising Sara, as well as the rest of us, by the end of the trip.

All that remained now were the two males – both ugly as hell, with light brown hides and dark brown patches of dirty hair on their stumpy humps and hindquarters. One was set aside as the pack-camel, which would end up carrying our cooking gear and blankets, as well as a sound majority of our packs, for the entire trek. The other was bestowed upon yours truly. I had the extreme pleasure of having the smelliest and ugliest camel in the caravan under my watch; it was significantly dumber than the rest, though thankfully not the slowest (the pack camel and Sara’s seemed to be slower than mine). What set it aside in appearance (besides the lack of star looks) was the apparent scrotum that hung from his chin. Seriously. I henceforth dubbed my trusty steed “Ol’ Scrotum Face” for the remainder of my time in the desert.

Soon after being assigned our rides and packing up the remainder of the gear, we were off. Seven humans, five camels, three days in the desert. Starting out, we led the camels (by hand, we didn’t mount them quite yet) away from Mukada’s camp and through a river – which was interesting enough, to say the least. Once we were on the other side, the guides showed us how to wear turbans in the fashion of the Tuareg (every group of people seems to have a different way of doing it…), then assisted us onto our mounts. Now, unlike riding a horse, where you have a leg on either side of the creature, when riding a camel you have to keep both legs straight ahead of you and apply pressure against the back of the neck – increasing the intensity of the pressure in accordance with how fast you want it to go. Its extremely unnerving being atop a camel at first: for starters, you’re much higher off the ground than you would be if you were on horseback – and it seems even more-so seeing how you’re naturally off balance with both legs in front of you, stretched out, moving along with the back-and-forth motion of the beast’s shoulder blades. Also, worse than the sense of unbalance is the physical pain one endures in the typical Tuareg-fashioned camel saddle. They’re made of wood, and one would think after riding it that they have nothing to do with keeping one on the back of a camel as much as they do decimating one’s taint to smithereens.

The trek was on, and Mukada’s family members headed back to the compound, leaving us to to make our way through fairly flatland and occasional, scattered shrubbery and trees. Nothing too serious; at this point in the day’s journey, we were still trying to get comfortable aboard the wooden saddles and learning our sense of balance. We’d occasionally cross upon rotting animals (saw a decomposing donkey covered in maggots, that was sick shit…) and other travelers, but for the most part it was just the four us white tourists, awkwardly atop broken-down camels, being led on by two strolling Tuaregs and a pack camel. It must have made one hell of a sight for a stranger to come across.

We rode for a few hours, until the sun became too high and the heat was too harsh to ride through. Camp was made under a few snaggy, picky desert trees – where we remained for at least five hours, until the sun began to descend back towards the horizon, sometime around 4 pm. During this five hour break, we took tea, ate lunch, wandered around the rocks and foreign shrubs, took bathroom breaks, read, slept, and filled our bottles with what little water remained. Yes, dear readers, we hadn’t planned on bringing water with us. A dumb move on our parts, sure enough. It was a good thing our guides knew we would end up being inexperienced, retarded tourists who knew absolutely nothing of the desert and its uncompromising ways: they brought along a big, plastic “jerry can” in order to fetch water with.

The water we ended up drinking over the course of the next couple of days ended up getting worse and worse, but at this point in time of the trip, it wasn’t so bad. Mukada and Alilih went off and started digging into the ground with a metal bowl and his dagger, finding various spots scattered around in which water would eventually seep up through the dirt and sand – in which case he would scoop it out with the metal bowl. The water wasn’t clear at all, but brown – and it tasted like dirt; but that was ten times better than the water we would eventually be forced to drink farther down the road.

Anyway, we packed the camels up once again – securing the bags and all the cooking gear – and saddled up again. Sara’s camel was always there to entertain the rest of us at times such as these; it did not like being mounted in the slightest, and would bellow out the most God-awful noises one could think of. Ol’ Scrotum Face didn’t seem to mind all that much me climbing aboard – but, then again, he didn’t mind too much of anything…because he was a Goddamn idiot. Who smelled bad. Once moving, we rode on until sunset – over rocky hills and valleys, and down a dried up river bed for some miles – before making camp on the outskirts of a small Tuareg settlement.

We made camp on the outskirts of this ‘village,’ and found that we were to sleep right there on the sand and rock…ten feet away from the camels. The minute we dismounted, Vasquez wandered off towards the settlement “to make friends.” For those who know Dan, this isn’t surprising in the least. There were some foothills on the other side of the village, so once he came back from his cross-cultural exchange, Team Adventure scaled the rocks and got a decent look over the the valley and the Tuareg village below. Later on in the evening, once the sun had set, some of the men from the settlement came out and offered us camel milk. Unboiled, unpasteurized camel milk, mind you – a surefire way to contract tuberculosis – but at that point in time, as thirsty as we all were, we didn’t even care. Camel milk, for the record, tastes like ass and hair.

Even later on in the evening, the villagers invited us to watch traditional courting/mating dances of the Tuareg. This consisted of all the available women in the settlement to sit around in a tight group and beat the bejesus out of a cluster of drums (this was particularly interesting for us Ghanaian PCVs, seeing how women don’t usually use drums in traditional ceremonies in Ghana). While they’re doing this, their apparent ‘suitors’ come a-calling; charging in through the dark on camel back and stampeding around the cluster of drummers in a tight circle. I had no idea how this man on the camel managed to charge in like that, on his camel, and gallop around the women like that…especially in the dark. God knows Ol’ Scrotum Face and I weren’t up to a challenge of that magnitude. No way in Hell.

The moon was out in full force, and so, after the ceremony and greetings and well-wishings were over with, we had no trouble finding our way back to our makeshift camp site on the outskirts of the settlement, and, upon doing so, we all fell soundly asleep. None of us had brought pillows or blankets or anything of the like - the closet thing we had were square yards of fabrics that PCVs call 'wraps;' you can use them as towels, skirts (for women to wear over pants in muslim communities), pillows, and sheets. As tired as we all were, bunching up a turban for a pillow, using a wrap for a sheet, and sleeping on rocky ground with nothing but a prayer mat underneath us was just about perfect.

I had never before, in my entire life, been woken up by the mere smell of something; no smell had ever been strong enough, or foul enough, to wake me from my slumber. Then again, I had never slept next to camels before. Before the sun rose, the camels began relieving themselves with great relish - and my nostrils were burnt, seemingly, for the rest of the day. Ol' Scrotum Face - "Awurrah," as our guides referred to him as - particularly was in rare form. After taking tea, biscuits, and groundnuts for breakfast (we took tea nearly a dozen times a day with Mukada - those Tuaregs just can't seem to get enough of it), we packed the camels and mounted up for yet another day of fun under the sun (ha).

My ass, crotch, and taint especially were incredibly sore, so riding at first was extremely uncomfortable. To make the morning's ride even more unbearable, the terrain that we had to maneuver over and around was rocky as all hell. The camels, though used to carrying us now, were not as sure-footed as we would've liked and tripped constantly. Ol' Scrotum Face nearly fell a dozen times as we went along over the rocks, and to fall from a camel was a calamity I was definitely not looking forward to. Despite the soreness and the troublesome way of passage, the day's ride was overall much better than the day before's.

As the morning passed on, and the sun rose higher and the heat intensified, it was once again time to break camp until the evening came around. We found a spot that was shaded by a few measly thorn bushes and made our settlement there - much worse than the previous day's spot, but we were getting farther out into the desert and our options were next to nothing. The water supply, too, was getting worse; where it had been cloudy and warm and dirt-tasting before, now it was brown and tasting like camel-hair. It was almost undrinkable, but everyone was so thirsty that we didn't really have a choice in the matter. I became so dehydrated over the course of the day that eventually my urine became darker than the crap I was defecating. Due to the poor diet and less-than-sanitary manner in which we were eating, I had contracted amoebas or Giardia or something - meaning that I was shitting out clear, frothy liquid that smelled like sulfur. My urine, on the other hand, was a disturbing, golden brown - the color of a Killian's, so to speak.

During the day's break, I managed to fall asleep. Not taking into consideration the speed in which the sun dashes across the sky at the latitude we were currently on, I managed to doze away under a spot in the shade that was quickly turned into a hot spot for the sun. When I woke up eventually, I had suffered a severe sunburn on my face where it was exposed. Because of the turban I was wearing, the burn was fashioned in a way that it almost looked like I was wearing a red Lone Ranger mask. Quite ridiculous to say the least.

When we set off again for the last stretch of the day's ride, the winds had picked up. But not a pleasant, cool breeze: it was a hot, hammering gale that tore across the desolate ground and burned us wherever the skin was exposed. Once again, we had to cross over rocks, but this time around it wasn't nearly as bad - only for short time, actually, before we ended up being bogged down in a muddy swamp. The mud was making it extremely difficult for the camels, who, once again, were tripping and baying in agony. The storm a few days prior had left makeshift rivers cutting through the valley, and they were now just to the point where the water had dried up but the ground was still soggy with mud. Great fun to ride through.

After a stressful time passing through the marshland, we came to a settlement of Fulani and Tuaregs. Like before, we made our camp on the outskirts of their makeshift village of nomad dwellings, and let the camels go to graze. The Fulani, unlike the Tuaregs, are cattle herders (Sankpala has a few itself, which take care of the Magazia's herd as well as some other villagers' cows in exchange for the cows' milk, which they then sell in Tamale's market), and there were several of those huge-horned African steers around grazing in the swamp. At one point, a few of the Fulani and Tuareg came over to our camp and asked Mukada, Vasquez, and I to help them lift a steer out of the wet mud, where it had gotten stuck. That was also great fun, lifting that huge, heavy beast - it took five or six of us to do it, and we had to employ wooden logs like levers in order to pry it up onto its knees.

In the evening, Fulani children came by and started a drum n' dance number that was pretty cool - I was pretty exhausted, so I didn't get a real good look on the whole thing. I think Dan got some decent pictures, though, and hopefully I'm getting copies of his film soon. *Note: Team Adventure agreed to make copies of all the negatives taken on the trip for one another, that way each of us gets the pictures taken by everyone else. Lots of pictures; and when I get the doubles from the others, I'll post them on this page along with my pictures (which are on here now, obviously) *

The morning of the third day came, and my ass and back were killing me. Thankfully, the winds were in our favor throughout the night and we weren't cursed with the foul stench of the camels (despite the fact that they were much closer on the second night). Our last ride with Mukada and Alilih lasted a mere hour and a half, and soon enough we found ourselves crossing the land which had been a river two days before - the sun had dried it up eerily fast. We reached Mukada's family dwelling late in the morning, and all of the children of his wives' sisters were there to greet us and welcome us back. The family had a bore hole, which was a blessing, and we all got to relish in non-brown water throughout the afternoon.

Our ride back to Agadez came later in the afternoon, on the brink of yet another downpour. We parted ways with Mukada and his extended families, and tipped him and his nephew quite well for the experience (it was well worth a couple of bucks). Back in Agadez, we were dropped off back at our hotel. The room, despite having gravel for a floor, a tabletop "air conditioner," and a fan that barely worked, was heaven-sent: it did, after all, have its own toilet and shower. We all took advantage of this - we hadn't showered or changed our clothes in three days, and most of us hadn't shat once on the trek. Even the straw beds, which were hellish the first time around, were nigh orgasmic after sleeping on prayer mats in the desert next to camels.

The following morning, after a breakfast of yogurt (we got into a schedule of eating two substantially small meals per day during our stay in niger) we made our way into the Tuareg market. For the most part, the Tuareg market was just like the Grande Marche in the center of town, just not as big; and, like I said before, it sold livestock. You had to really look around before you found something worth bringing home; after about a half an hour of walking into canopied-stalls, I came across a man that was selling Tuareg swords. I don't think I've mentioned this before, but every Tuareg man carries a sword - its like something out of a movie, seeing all these men in robes and turbans, carrying swords, walking around buildings that look like they were constructed seven hundred years ago. Well, I managed to convince him that I was not a tourist, and that I was a Peace Corps Volunteer (almost everybody knows Peace Corps, no matter where you go in West Africa), so I was able to buy a sword off him for nearly the same price as what the Tuareg men pay (I emphasize this only because I got ripped off all the time in Ghana because I was white and automatically labeled a tourist, which got old real fast...).

This was the souvenir buying day, and holy shit did we ever buy souvenirs. Vasquez also picked up a Tuareg sword like mine, and I managed to swindle a silver short-sword off a trader who was, in turn, trying to rip me off. What originally had cost something like 120 CFA (roughly $240), I managed to get for 30 CFA and a $2 wristwatch I bought off the streets of Tamale and convincingly explained to the trader that it was American and made of white gold. Touché, indeed. We all bought our fair share of the famous silver Agadez jewelry - once again, probably paying too much for it, but you can only buy that shit in Agadez so we didn't mind spending a little more than necessary.

In fact, because we had spent so much money on silver, exotic clothing, and swords, we realized that we were running out of money for the remainder of our trip. We had budgeted roughly $600 per person on what was supposed to be a three week trip, the majority of that being spent in Agadez, in Niger, and in the Dogon cliff country of Mali. Well, we were now almost two weeks into the trip, and had already spent most of the money. A short meeting was held, and it was decided that we didn't have enough time and money to go into Mali, which was unfortunate. However, this freed up even more money for us to blow on silver and knives (which became an ongoing joke among Team Adventure, the purchasing of knives - I, for example, came out of Niger with two swords and seven knives).

Securing our bus tickets for the ride back was fairly easy, and the next day we were en route back to Niamey, leaving the old, desert city of Agadez behind us. This time, there was no river for us to ford through, which was sweet. Before heading directly back to the capital city, however, we were going to take a quick, one-night stopover in a small southern town called Doso. There was a Peace Corps sub-office there, and we were able to talk to some volunteers staying there about how to go about visiting the nearby giraffe sanctuary on the outskirts of town. And so, we passed yet another night in a Peace Corps dwelling, watching movies and drinking boxed wine - taking in the luxuries of western life (ex. bathing), before setting off again on the open road.

The giraffe sanctuary was rather boring. Yes, we saw giraffes; there were a lot of them, in fact - but they were quick to frighten and wandered off after ten or fifteen minutes of us coming across them in the bush. Dan tried to chase them, but those things are pretty damn fast. After getting the typical "Hey, take a picture of me in front of these giraffes!" pictures for everybody, we were finished with the reserve. The 'guide' demanded a tip that was extremely outlandish, and it almost came to altercations when he realized we weren't about to pay anything that ridiculous. Luckily for Team Adventure, a tro-tro passed by en route to Niamey, and we hopped aboard just in the nick of time.

We reached the capital city with little trouble at all, after that. The Peace Corps hostel was a refreshing change from the rustic accommodations we had frequented in Agadez, and it served as a good jump-off point as we picked up last minute souvenirs (more knives and jewelry, surprise surprise) and visited noteworthy spots around town. The original plan for the trip back south to Ghana was to not go back the way we had come - we were not about to go troing it through Burkina again, entering the border at Bawku, in the Upper East Region, where those corrupt border guards had tried to detain us if we didn't pay them bribes. Screw that. This time, we were going to take a relaxing route via STC-esque bus all the way to Ouagadougou, the capital city of Burkina Faso, then down to Paga, in Ghana. This ended up being a very, very wise move on our parts.

Burkina Faso, like I've mentioned before, is a crappier, Frenchier version of Ghana (sorry, natives of Burkina Faso - but this is my opinion, and I think you'll find most folks would agree with me...). I can't say I really enjoy the place all that much. Everything you could want there, you can have for a much lower price in Ghana. And, most importantly, in Ghana they at least speak English. None of us could speak French for this trip (while planning a team of journeyers, originally, Dan and I had really, really tried recruiting people who spoke French....alas, this did not pan out well at all). All Team Adventure could really say in French was the equivalency of "Okay? Okay." We at least managed to secure decent accommodations in Ouaga, though, before getting ourselves lost downtown trying to find the central market. Dinner went well, however, and was quite good - the first real meal of our trip. They even had ice cream...something I hadn't had in nearly two years.

The mosquitoes, however, were pretty bad. The showers were covered with them - clouds of mosquitoes, covering you while you bathed (the water didn't seem to effect them at all). I was covered in bites and welts after taking a mere two minute shower - it was unbearable. The last day of our trip, which was a series of long bus rides from Ouagadougou, down to Paga, in Ghana, then finally down to the Peace Corps sub-office in good ol' Tamale, went by rather quickly: I was so tired that I slept most of the way, regardless of the insane amounts of mosquito bites that covered my body.

Tamale was a welcome sight, rest assured. However, for yours truly, it was a wake-up call. While I had been gone on this little trip of mine, things had been happening (or not happening, so to speak) in Sankpala - and with Peace Corps. The last of the village bike workshops that I had been planning (to take place, tentatively, in the first or second week of September), had been canceled - the guy who we ordered bikes from in Accra couldn't guarantee our order, so I was now left with money for nearly 120 bicycles - and 120 anxious Ghanaians impatiently waiting for bicycles that most likely weren't coming. Also, I had to process that stupid S.P.A. Grant check (that had just come in...finally) for the Sankpala school Youth Club and sports teams. There was also the matter of securing a place to stay for the volunteer who would be replacing me in Sankpala after I left - I had to straighten everything out with Alhaji in order for the PCV to be able to stay at my old hut (Alhaji wanted it for himself real bad). I definitely had a lot of shit to accomplish and a not a whole hell of a lot of time to see it all done.

I was looking at a mere two weeks left in the country in which I had spent the last two years of my life. There were a lot of loose ends to wrap up, a lot of people to say farewell to, a lot of business matters to conclude, and an old way of life to prepare for....

More or less yet another huge pain in the ass for yours truly.

(to be continued...)