River Niger to Gao, Mali and Hombori

Sunday 15th January
The previous day we seen a nice looking patisserie called chocolat, but unfortunately it was closed on Sundays. We managed to buy some nice croissants from another patisserie to eat in the car. I went for a quick browse along the street of second hand book stalls as I thought I might have a good chance of finding our rough guide that was stolen and buy it back as books are very hard to find here. But unfortunately with some enquiries the best English book I got was the final third of the Lord of the Rings for John to read again. Niamey was a lot quieter on Sunday mornings than other days and I noticed a lot more of the women had similar cut marks on their face like a tribal custom. Leaving Niamey we took the main road to Mali that roughly follows the River Niger, although the Niger is not too easy to access. We arrived at Ayorou, the Niger border town, late afternoon for the quick exit formalities. The border guard had very striking face scars of six oval incisions from outside his eyes across his cheeks to his mouth. Whenever this had been done it must have really hurt to leave these very clear incisions. It was 40 km from here to the Mali border and border town so we thought we’d try and find a quiet spot on route by the River Niger. As the area did not seem too remote from people we stopped at a small village to ask if it was OK to camp nearby. There were only women and children around in the village and none of them spoke French, but Steve through sign language and drawing in the sand managed to convey that we wanted to camp nearby. We drove on to find a camping spot beyond the village but were soon in another bigger village where upon the exit there was another border post. This was slightly confusing as it wasn’t shown on the map. We checked that this was still a Niger border control and not a Mali one. This border seemed more formal than Ayorou and they even wanted to check our vaccination records which seemed a bit strange for an exit. We asked here if there was a good place to camp and they recommended a place 11km on along the River Niger, but it was nearly sunset so we only drove a few km along before trying to drive down to the banks of the River Niger for a place to stop. John thought he’d walk down to the river and investigate a spot for fishing tomorrow but didn’t get very far as the ground was interlaced with channels. The camp spot was noisy with the sound of birds and we just enjoyed the gin and tonic we’d bought at the supermarket in Niamey rather than cook.

Monday 16th January
I got out of our tent to spot a couple of fishermen in pirogues only about 50m from the tents just staring at the site of two strange tents. I put the kettle on to boil and after 10 or 15 minutes the fishermen decided to use their pirogue to within about 10 metres of our tents. There was also another pirogue with two people working its way towards us. The first pirogue was a father and son and only the father could speak a little bit of French and of course I can only speak a little bit of French to. I asked if the son went to school, but he said no, he was training to be a fisherman. When the other man and child arrived they could also not speak French. They were after any kind of goods we would give. I gave the boy some trainers which in hindsight would have been much more useful to someone that worked on the land not water, and Kathy and Steve gave away a couple of jumpers which they put on before they returned to their pirogue no longer interested in us visitors. In the distance on the opposite bank John spotted a black small whirlwind which looked like it might be locusts.
We soon arrived at the Malian border and quickly completed the car paperwork. However, the man in charge of passports was not happy with our visas as they were valid for a stay of one month within 3 months of issue, but ours were issued in Paris on 4/10/05. John was pretty sure that he’d explained the dates to the French embassy and we weren’t behind schedule, but it didn’t look right. The Malian official was keen for us to recognize that the visas were out of date; we could each pay the equivalent of five pounds and get the visas sorted out in the next big town of Gao. Going back to Niamey wasn’t really an alternative as we’d already formally left Niger on our visas in addition to all the extra time it would take. He said he would radio through the information to the police in Gao. We were now in Mali which was pretty sparsely populated in this area. We’d found out at the border that the time had gone back an hour to be the same as England and the rest of the West African countries we would visit. We were following the route of the River Niger, but not quite as close to it as John would like. Tributaries of the river which were dried up at this time of year, acted like reservoirs next to the Niger for watering the animals and washing. We wanted to camp next to the Niger that evening and again asked in the village for permission, using sign language as no one spoke French. As we drove to try and get close to the river a couple of boys were chasing afternoon. It was still pretty hot and on the route all the donkeys in the villages were lined up against the shaded wall of the buildings. We thought the boys were trying to show us the best place to camp, but when we followed them they were showing us a boat to take our vehicles across the Niger. This crossing led to just a 70 km section of track. We drove on a further kilometer and realized we weren’t going to get closer to the River Niger. They make lots of thorn tree hedges near the River Niger to keep the goats out of the farmed areas. Where we stopped proved only to be just over 100m from another group of juts and a man busy building his pirogue. These huts were still part of the same village where we’d asked permission. It wasn’t long before 2 or 3 people came over to have a look at us and see what was going on. Then a young guy came over with a bowl with what looked like might be some kind of animal in it and was walking over to Kathy and Steve, the vegetarians. What it turned out to be was cooked fish which tasted quite nice – the others said it was like Perch. About 10 kids gathered around fascinated by the dogs and doing sharp sprints away following any docile movement from Dillon before returning. One guy came over that spoke some French and was talking about death from something which sounded quite serious until we worked out that he was talking about hippos and how the lower ground 100m from us is used by hippos and obviously it’s not a good idea to get between them and the water. He invited us for evening food in the village but the guys politely declined. John was looking forward to the big Toulouse sausages bought from the supermarket in Niamey. A woman came over with her twin baby boys, Hassan and Yussein to proudly show us give us to hold. There was only the one guy amongst them that spoke any French. My mobile picked up a signal here as we were not far from Assongo so I was able to receive text messages from home and call a friend in Scotland and find out she’d got engaged. The line had a delay on it and it was horrible to hear myself echoed a second after I’d spoke.
Tuesday 17th January
Soon after dawn the fisherman were setting off in their pirogues and the boy goat herders were leading their goats away from the village. The boys used sticks to bash and shake the trees and drop goods for the goats who when not satisfied took to clambering up to the tree. We thought we ought to give out some goods to the village to say thanks you for the hospitality and stay near their village. I gave away the top I’d had made in Niamey which felt too big for me. We soon reached Assongo which has distinctive rocks against the wide Niger River and is known for hippo spotting, but we didn’t see any. The 100km dirt road from here to Gao was having some construction work done to it, but got close enough to the river for some good views. We got to Gao early afternoon where the guidebooks say you should register with the police and we needed to sort out our visas. They needed two passport photos from each of us and the office had an interesting photo album of tourists that had been through the town. This was to help them find you if you disappeared. In looking and stamping our passports they said nothing about our visas and this is where we’d been told to go so we hope our visas should now not be questioned. We still need a visa for Mauritania which we couldn’t get in London due to our date of arrival. We should have got them in Niamey and now it looked like we would need to detour to the capital Bamako to get them. There were lots of coloured scarves for sale in the street and with the weather feeling hotter all the time I thought I’d buy one. I asked if they were for women as well as men and was told 4metres for women, 6m for men. I wasn’t convinced that women were wearing 4m of material around their heads, but some white material to cover my head would be useful so I bought some. The stall owner could speak French, so he was getting a guy who was passing down the street in a wheelchair to translate. The guy in the wheelchair also spoke excellent English and asked if I’d buy a Tuareg cross – he said they’d been made by people who suffered from Polio. In Agadez and Niamey there had been many people in wheelchairs with bicycle pedals in front at hand height for moving with the hands. In Niamey there had also been a lot of boys who had lost a leg walking around on crutches. They tied all 4 metres of cloth around my head which was pretty hot and it was a relief when we drove off and I could take it off without offending. A guy from Nigeria, seeing from our car we were English asked us for money who’d been expelled from Libya and was now stuck in Mali without money.
We left Gao to take the boat across to the other side of the River Niger before it stopped for the evening. We drove along a causeway which had lots of water lilies next to it, to reach the roll on roll off ferry. Just beyond the ferry the piers and first deck section for a new bridge across the River were in place. The first bridge since Niamey. The boat men said it would be completed this year, but would seem quite as romantic as taking the ferry with the included animals and manure. Once across the other side we drove to Gossi, an area known for its elephants, but we didn’t see any and from here What we could see was three misted mound shapes rising above the flat horizon near Hombori. We drove until the sunset towards them and rough camped at the base of the largest one.
Wednesday 18th January
It was a really windy night with the car swaying and tent making so much noise that it was impossible to get much sleep. It felt like all the wind was being channeled around the Hombori massif to our tents. In the morning Steve found one of his heavy duty thick tent pegs had been bent. We walked up to the base of the Hombori rock to near where heavy duty rock climbing skills would be needed to continue. As we looked back at our tents we saw that we had actually camped quite near to a small group of round huts, but with no lights and natural materials we hadn’t noticed them the previous evening. When we got back to the tents there were two boys by the tents. They couldn’t speak any French and I think they were from the Fula tribe. Communication was pretty limited but they had a good laugh at some of the photos in the Michael Palin book as well as laughing at the digital image of themselves. We continued along the road to Douentza passing the unusual rock mounds, a monument valley, one rock called the hand of Fatima. We stopped at a village on route that was alive with its market day. The people looked very poor. John found one stall which sold Kola nuts and bought some as the guide books say they are useful to give out to important people in the Dogon Villages. We pulled off the road to some rocks for lunch. During lunch a family came over to us who couldn’t speak French but were communicating they wanted medicine. The man appeared to be communicating that he had earache and ringing in his head while he slept. The woman had a young baby who from his size must have been less than 3 months old and was indicating the baby was being sick although breast fed. Another woman with a larger baby showed us the weeping ears of her baby. It was easy to see why the infant mortality rate for the under 5s is so high here. The teenage girl with them looked much healthier in her smart blue material robe and pierced ears and braided hair of her tribe. John gave the women some money to take the babies to Doctors which they seemed pleased with. They enjoyed pointing out to us baboons climbing up on the sides of the rocks. This they did by pointing, repeating Un, Un and laughing. We continued on arriving in Bandigara in the evening where we were due to meet a guide for the Dogon region that had been arranged for us through the Joliba Trust charity that we’d raised money for. Arriving in Bandigara you’re immediately set upon by men offering to be your guides to find hotel and for the Dogon Region and English is a lot more widely spoken with the tourism. The expensive hotel was full and our guide who’d been around the hotels looking for us would come back tomorrow morning. The weather had turned pretty cold and I had to dig to the bottom of my clothes box to find jeans and a wool jumper. We bought a large bag of kola nuts from someone offering to be our guide and tried a bit of one – not very nice and quite bitter, so it was unlikely that we’d eat any of them. They’re grown in Ghana and the Ivory Coast.

Tam, Algeria to Niamey, Niger

Thursday 5th January
We left after a great breakfast of fresh bread, homemade marmalade and cake. It was late morning by the time we’d fuelled up and headed south with our cars smelling like a fresh bakery. We camped only just off the piste in an area just north of the construction site location we’d stopped at on our way up. Steve’s car was making a bit of a strange noise and opened up the bonnet to investigate, but felt best to leave things as they were.
Friday 6th January
We got quite an early start for us – about 9 and headed south for the border. As we reached the tarmac Steve’s car cut out. The guys worked out that the alternator had packed up. A few alterations were made and we got going again, but we hadn’t got far down the tarmac when the car cut out again. John called Scorpian Racing for some advice – the great advantage of the sat phone. As both cars had two batteries – one for working a fridge or freezer the suggestion was to keep swapping car batteries. This we did and we were 9.5 km from In Guezum before the car cut out again. The freezer was still on in the car and draining the other battery. So we swapped batteries again and jump started the car. At this point I started on a new book – travels with myself and another, five journeys from hell, by Martha Gellhorn, which sounded quite extreme and made the present situation seem more mundane – at this short distance from In Guezum I could even pick up a mobile signal – quite unusual for the journey. She does state in the introduction that the only aspects of travel that is guaranteed to hold an audience is disaster! In In Guezum we fuelled up – fuels much cheaper in Algeria than the more European Niger prices. Steve fuelled up keeping the car running – but this is something that’s not noted here. We then reached the border post at 15:30. It took about an hour and a half to sort out the paperwork – we were the only people at the border. This was long enough for the car to cut out again. John thought about another call to Scorpian Racing but our guide Sleaman, advised it would not be wise to use a sat phone in front of the border Police. We then said goodbye to our guide and his son before heading south. We wanted to avoid the Niger border of Assamaka because we’d never managed to find it on the way out. We knew the waypoint we had for Assamaka from Chris Scott’s book was wrong from the way up. Unfortunately within 10-15 minutes we could see something on the ridge of the horizon which revealed itself to be Assamaka. We should have headed back to the erroneous waypoint as we knew this was out of site of the border. We kept both cars running and started on the paperwork. It was now 17:30 and only about half an hour until sunset. The border town had a few officially uniformed officers and quite a few hangers on. One was trying to negotiate being our guide to Arlit, but I managed to convince him that there was really no space in our car. We left Steve and John to try and do the paperwork quickly. There were tourist taxes to pay, but each receipt only stated half the amount, and car insurance together with the money changer and poor rates this was definitely a place we would have been better to avoid at this time. There wasn’t much change from 100 Euros for two cars and four people, but we were keen to get some distance between us and the border town. We drove east towards Arlit until we were out of site of the border post and then headed south in the direction of Ingal. The piste to Arlit is quite wide here and we realized later that we stopped and camped, not that far from the main piste, but we’d managed to find a dune to get behind which was welcome as the desert was pretty flat here.
Saturday 7th January
We jump started Steve’s car and headed south west and managed to pick up the clear piste to Ingal quite quickly. It was pretty featureless white desert until we reached the area of the first well, Anes Barakka shown on the Michelin map where there were lots of camels grazing and the odd herdsman. There didn’t appear to be much to graze on except mirages. As we got further south to the I-n-Abangharit well there were more tribes and people collecting water from the well. We later learned that the women in black at the well may have been slaves to the Tuareg. After Tegguidda-n-Tessoum we took the piste towards Agadez and the soil became a browner iron rich colour. Donkeys were now getting more frequent instead of the camels. The landscape was still pretty flat but we managed to find a small valley between two villages to camp the night.
Sunday 8th January
As we approached Agadez the distinctive mud mosque minaret and water towers showed us the way. The outskirts were quite busy and we passed the animal market. We checked back into the Hotel Tidane. That afternoon Kathy and I had our second attempt at trying to visit the mosque minaret. An English speaking man took us to the Sultans Palace to get permission, although he was not around or busy sleeping and the caretaker was sent for while we were taken to his brother’s jewellery shop opposite. We weren’t given any pressure to buy anything and after 5/10 mins were taken inside the mosque. The entrance to the minaret is very low and like going inside the pyramids at Giza, but after once revolution of the minaret we could stand up until we neared the top where it became progressively narrower and you had to squeeze up to the top viewing space which just fit 3 of us. It was quite hazy, but impressive the uniform terracotta buildings, all of only one storey, the Air mountains and a good view of the bustling street by the grand Marche. Agadez is still quite compact and we could see the edges of town. When I asked how many people lived in Agadez, the guy told me only 8,000. John and Steve dropped Desiree’s excess luggage from Tam off with a friend and asked for any good car mechanics. He did know a place where we could take e alternator, but it wouldn’t be open until tomorrow. We went to Pension Tellit for Sundowner drinks, near the mosque, although it was quite hazy and not a spectacular sunset, but pleasant rooftop terrace – this was where Michel Palin had stayed in Agadez. We went to the le Pillier restaurant – run by the same hotel owner and old Italian. I enjoyed a fantastic freshly filled pasta, buttered steak and ice cream together with a gin and tonic. We visited a bar on the way back to the hotel which had pleasant courtyard seating out the back – that was until the urinal in the corner that we hadn’t noticed, started being used. The smell and ambience was not quite the same after that!
Monday 9th January
I went to the bank before 8:30 as having been there before I knew the queues could get quite long and involved 3 queues – one for the card transaction, another to get a signed receipt and the third longest queue to finally get the cash. On the way back from the bank I bought some material to hopefully make some cooler clothes. They have lots of bright coloured materials, but the bright blues yellows and greens I thought would be a bit much for me. I took the material to a tailors shop who had pictures of lots of different outfits on the wall but said it would take 3 days. Tomorrow was Tabaski, so I imagined that it would be difficult to get an outfit made quickly anywhere, so I decided to wait until Niamey. A lot of the women’s outfits were fitted and look very nice on the slim women – but to call them slim was probably insulting as for the majority it was difficult not to be slim in Niger. Early in the morning, there were quite a number of children wandering around with bowls which may have been just in the hope of food, or they may have been given food somewhere in town. One of the jewellery shops opposite the mosque was run by handicapped people. I bought an Agadez cross pendant. The Tuareg have a pendant for each of their towns. We’d first seen them in Ghat, Libya. John hadn’t noticed there was a pendant for each town until Algeria which shows how well he was doing at avoiding the jewellery sellers! The guys had dropped the alternator off at the car mechanic and we met up for breakfast.
At the breakfast café we met a journalist who has spent time filming in West Africa for the BBC and is now doing some work for the Anthropological Society. He talked about places of interest on our route in Mauritania and Mali. In the bank Kathy met 3 guys who ate lunch next to us at lunch in a café yesterday who all turned out to be journalists.
Of the foreign visitors to Agadez a few were wealthy tourists from Europe or else they were journalists or aid workers. The reason that tourists need to be wealthy here is the cost of the flights and traveling in the popular Air mountain region to the north east is expensive as guides are recommended and can cost about 100 pounds a day. Within the last month a French doctor had been shot dead in the Air mountains. We’ first learnt about this from Mohammed in El Katrun, Libya. It wasn’t easy to find the news out here, but the story seemed to be that the guide who was driving his vehicle with the tourists tried to drive off when someone tried to stop the vehicle. A gunman shot at the vehicle and whether he was aiming to or not, shot the French Doctor dead. It wasn’t clear whether the motive was a robbery or not. The others weren’t keen to visit the Air mountains because of the price of guides and they felt southern Algeria probably held the best scenery, although the villages, oasis, waterfalls and mountains sounded very beautiful in the guide book.
Kathy found a craft shop in the afternoon and I got some new sandals – quite environmentally sound as made from old tyres! They also had some books in the shop, but a number of the thick paperback books turned out to be catalogues of artwork by Sotherbys for auction. In the Dogon region of Mali it is said that many of the historic masks have been sold to the western world.
There was quite a lot of music playing in the streets of Agadez and I thought it would be good to buy some especially to get some variety to the car music. When I asked for popular Niger music the CD which were also videos seemed to be the traditional cure salee type music or otherwise rap music which didn’t sound very appealing or what we’d been listening to. I went back to the music shop opposite the hotel, and next to the popular table football and asked for what they were playing which turned out to be a cassette copy of Ethiopian music.
We went back to the le Pilier restaurant for our evening meal – not being very adventurous, but the fresh pasta and buttered steak tasted so good. For a final drink we went back to our hotel and sat on the roof. It was great listening to the sounds from the music shops and marche de nuit opposite the hotel. It was also a great place to go in the morning and take photos of the people passing by.
Tuesday 10th January
Outside our bedroom that morning was the sound of baaing as I looked out through the shutters to see some goats being cleaned – their final wash before being sacrificed later on. Out on the streets there wasn’t the usual rush of people going to work, but people dressed in their best outfits and carrying their prayer mats. A couple of horses dressed up also galloped past the hotel. As we left town at 10, the whole male population of Agadez seemed to be pouring into the centre. Once on the road to Tahoua it was much quieter and we only passed about 6-7 trucks and a broken down land rover – there aren’t many land rovers here. Towards Tahoua the villages started to have beehive shaped granaries. People were wearing their best clothes – some brighter colours such as men in pink. It was like driving out on their Christmas Day. Later in the afternoon fires could be seen in the villages with the goat meat stretched on poles around them. On the road we hadn’t seen many vehicles, but half the vehicles we’d passed were broken down. We reached Tahoua, Niger’s 5th town and checked into it most luxurious accommodation, which really the only merit was it had clean sheets. For our evening meal we walked a couple of kilometers across town to an Italian restaurant. The owner was very proud of his cooking, but unfortunately the gnocci – not that I have any idea how to cook it, tasted very doughy and the cheese sauce on the pasta was not desirable either.
Wednesday 11th January
We left at 8 to make the journey to Niamey before it got dark with no lights on Steve’s land rover. We passed lots of villages centred on the road with lots of ramps to slow the traffic down. There was more being grown in this area – mostly fields of onions with irrigation water. We passed through Birnin-Konni the border town to Nigeria by mid morning. Between the villages were herdsmen who showed great control over their animals who lined up in packs behind them before crossing the road. We reached Niamey and our first sight of the River Niger by late afternoon, just as I was comfortably falling asleep in the afternoon sun after a cool beer. The hotels were very full due to the annual West Africa conference of minister which this year was taking place in Niamey. There were also quite a lot aid workers around, so we ended up having to take a suite in a hotel, which was a lot more than we’d been paying in Niger, although at least the standard had gone up. This turned out to be the same hotel that a friend of Kathy and Steve who works for an anti slavery charity works for. In the hotel they had satellite television and the first television news we’d seen since Tunisia. We had no idea the debate on Iran was coming to the fore. We popped out to a restaurant round the corner. Guinea fowl and hedgehogs were some of the meat on the menu. The restaurant was very smart and the only other people there was a table of ministers who must have been attending the conference with their cars and chauffers waiting outside. The food was very good although difficult to chose some of the African speciality and sauces with the names not meaning very much and the waiter warned me against my first choice of sauce as being amer which I later learnt to be bitter. We enjoyed some French red wine which was a lot smoother than any red wine we’d drunk recently. Steve and Kathy’s friend joined us later in the restaurant and it was one in the morning before we left – a very late night for us.
Thursday 12th January.
Steve found a garage just round the corner from the hotel which said they had a suitable alternator for the land rover. We headed off to the city centre to visit the museum. The rough guide describes it one of the best in West Africa, but after the visit I realized that this was on a very different scale to Europe. They had a number of small building with different exhibits, but a number of these were closed such as the dinosaur skeletons. The exhibits we saw included the different costumes of various tribes as well as their different types of huts. The wooden trunk of the arbre de tenere was cemented in concrete in a cage with some photos of what it look like in situ before it was hit by a truck. One of the most detailed buildings was about the Uranium industry, although nothing looked like it had been updated since the downturn in the mid 1980s. Outside the museum I bought a long cotton tent like dress to be a bit cooler. Here it must be in the thirties for a few hours each day. They had a big textiles shop which I went inside to see if they made clothes as I had some material – made in the Ivory Coast, bought in Agadez. All the cloth here was made in England – Manchester. I had no idea that there was still a textile industry in Manchester. An employee took me to a tailor in the petit marche opposite where I was measured up and shown a book of photos. The skirt and top will be made by Saturday and cost the equivalent of seven pound fifty. This seemed very reasonable so I didn’t see any point in negotiating. Even the poorer women on the roadside outside the petit marche selling a few vegetables look very smart in their fitted top and skirts of bright printed cotton. We went to a CD shop and bought 4 CDs, 3 pirate copies, the other by Mamar Kassey a group referred to in the guide book for traditional music including the flute. Later in the afternoon we headed down to the River Niger and the Kennedy bridge which was very busy with traffic pouring in both directions including people on the pavements. Steve and Kathy said they taken the dogs for a walk down to the river, but thought it would be dangerous to cross the river as people were parting ahead of Dillon this could be dangerous if people starting moving off the narrow pavement into the traffic. By the bridge looked like allotments with patches of lettuces being watered from the Niger. A young boy was in his pirogue and seemed to be continually bailing out water that it must have been quite a challenge to keep it afloat. We walked along the river to the back of the Palais de Congres where African music was playing for the ministers. We watched the sun setting across the Niger and made our way to the Grand hotel for a gin and tonic and great view of the Niger in the last light. We met up with Ramona again and made the short trip back to last nights restaurant, but this time we sat out the back which was like a different restaurant, much more informal but with the same great food. Yippee - this is the fastest internet cafe Ive found in West Africa.
Friday 13th January

We headed into town to see the Grand Marche and walked back along a street full of book stalls. We hadn’t seen many bookshops in Niger at all and did manage to find a few English books in these second hand stalls including animal farm. I bought a Nigerian novel, Elina and Miller’s Death of a Salesman – something I’d never read or seen. We retired back to the hotel for the heat of the day before going back into Niamey for the late afternoon opening of the bank and another walk by the River Niger towards sunset. We had drinks at the Grand Hotel for sunset, which was a lot more crowded and didn’t seem so pleasant. Although the grandest hotel in Niamey, the building looks to be a 60’s 70’s concrete construction, so not very grand at all apart from its views over the Niger.
We walked into Niamey for the first time at night and picked a Lebanese restaurant which served great food and a chilled red wine. We then went to try at some of the city’s bars starting at a rooftop terrace which was playing cheesy dance music with a few wealthier Nigerien clientele. After one drink John had soon had enough so went back to the hotel. We were going to visit La Cloche bar on the way back which was lit up and looked livelier by night than when John and I had visited during the day. As we walked to La Cloche we passed many boys and young men sleeping rough and retired for the night along the sides of the street. We got to about 50m from La Cloche bar and I heard Kathy shout as I felt a sharp tug on my shoulder as a guy had run up and pulled my bag. I had my left hand on my bag and was pulled backwards and across the street, but managed to get both hands on my bag handle, but then I was facing him with a tight grip on my bag handle the other side. I was facing away from Kathy and Steve and into the darkness and between my greater fear of being hit and his greater desperation he had the greater pull and disappeared down an alley. This had all probably happened within about a second although it felt like I’d held on for a while. From being in the La Cloche terrace the day before I knew the area behind the street was a big empty wasteland, although thought you had to climb over a wall to get to it. Steve ran after the guy down the alley but I shouted for him to come back and when he did he said it was impossible to see anything in the unlit area. This all happened outside the Commercial Bank of Niger which does have armed guards outside. Kathy said she think someone was offering to help but amid the confusion she was frightened it was someone else trying to take her bag and shouted for him to go away. We took a taxi to the police station which proved to be just a couple of blocks away and tried to find someone to report to. At first it looked like we were walking towards some cells but may have just been some sleeping accommodation for the police. In what turned out to be the main building our arrival woke up a policeman speaking in the entrance hall who wrote down some information in a log book and gave me a number and told me to come back tomorrow morning. Steve recognized the way back to our hotel and we walked back. The insurance company only had a 24 hour no for medical emergencies and would not be open until Monday. Thankfully this had been the first day that I’d worn my money belt under my clothes and had the passports, my cards and some money in there. The big loss was the digital camera within my bag and my purse still had lots of money in it. This is a real cash society and we’d only been able to withdraw money on cards in Tripoli, Libya, Agadez and Niamey, Niger and in hindsight we would have carried a lot more Euros cash with us as cards were very limited. We had to borrow money from others in the group before we got to Agadez. The room was very hot and I didn’t sleep well with the moment of the mugging going over and over I my head, so I sat in the bathroom which had a tiled bench which felt nice and cool and started to read the Nigerian novel I’d bought in the market. I felt very stupid for going into town with so much in my bag. It was actually the first night on the trip of walking around a city, the rest of the trip not staying anywhere bigger than a town and like many cities in the world there was crime. It was also a city that felt fine to walk in during the day, but at night there weren’t many people walking around except the homeless. From the walk into the city it felt a lot quieter and I remember thinking we should take a taxi back. However, the distances were so short to walk and after what felt a big meal it was good to be walking. Seeing the pleased reaction of the uniformed guard at our hotel to a one pound tip the next day, in a place where they would be used to western people a tourists bag with any money was going to be huge.

Saturday 14th January
I got the telephone directory from reception to see if I could find any shops that sold cameras. I knew Niamey would not be a place to try and replace a digital SLR camera, but thought there might be somewhere that we could get some basic digital camera. We drove to an electronics store on one of the main avenues out of town which had a big advert in the telephone directory, but had one digital camera. We asked about any other shops and he directed us back towards the Petit Marche. After asking in a mobile phone shops, the owner sent one of his assistants to guide us to a shop which had 3 digital cameras, but they were asking hundreds of pounds for very basic Kodak digital cameras. We’d seen a bright red shop called photo guida the previous day which John thought might be a possibility which turned out to have one. As I suspected, people don’t come to one of the poorest capitals in the world to buy a digital camera. The shop had the prices written on the goods and were not willing to negotiate. They also had USB memory sticks which had also been in my bag. Realising that this was the best chance for this trip of replacing the camera and getting a basic USB stick we bought them and headed to the bank to replaced the stolen cash and cash used for the camera. Mali also has the same currency as Niger – the West African CFA which is directly linked to the Euro in rate.
We then went to the tailor in the Petit Marche who proudly showed me the skirt and elaborate top he’d made. Unfortunately I wasn’t in the best of moods and wasn’t able to show him the appreciation he deserved as my mind was on trying to find the police station again. We drove to a police station which I didn’t recognize and it looked like there was a group of people waiting to be charged. The officers gave us directions to the other police station, but we went back to the hotel to get the torn slip of paper I received with my crime number on it. The police station was a lot livier by day. I went to the same room and showed them my slip of paper. After five minutes another police officer walked in, one of the broadest men in Niger. He spoke good English and was very helpful. He said that the police officer was not very good the night before, as if an officer is sent down by the River Niger before 10 or 11 in the morning there is a good chance of finding items, although obviously not money. The policeman asked us if the police in our country would be likely to find a stolen bag for which we could only say no. He took an interest in the camera when we told him how much it was worth and said there would be no similar cameras in Niamey. He apologized and asked for some money to do some investigation to help people at the market talk – the equivalent of six pounds, gave us his mobile phone number and asked us to call him in a few days. He also gave us a form with details of the crime which could be sent to the insurance company. By this stage it was already the afternoon and we decided it would probably be best to relax and stay another night, rather than rushing on. We needed to find a cheaper hotel though. We drove across town down a wide avenue which contained the huge American embassy to a hotel that was already full before returning back to another hotel 100m down the road from our original hotel. The Hotel Sahel which was previously full proved to be much cheaper and cleaner with good views over the River Niger and we saw our best sunset with the river really glowing red. We returned back to the Lebanese restaurant that night – but this time we drove. It felt good to be going back into Niamey and not letting one incident and one man spoil a country that I’d really enjoyed.

Hoggar Mountains

Sunday 25th December
We enjoyed our breakfast of fresh bread and home made jam on the terrace before heading into Tam to get what we needed for our next 10 day journey. After the bakery, grocery and butcher I went to the internet café where after half an hour I managed to load a few photos to the blogsite and then the communication lines failed. The mobile phone networks also failed. Our guide Sleaman, picked up someone else who we later found out was one of his 19 sons to accompany him on the trip. We headed north up towards In Salah, but not nearly that far. We took the turning towards Ideles before taking a dry river bed north east. The scenery had just began to get more spectacular and we set up camp for the night. John got the fire started for an evening by the camp fire and we all made calls home on the sat phone to more traditional Christmases.
Monday 26th December
We continued driving up a dry river bed to a track that took us to Mertoutek. On the way our guide stopped to talk to a Tuareg. One of his camels had the typically Algerian seat which Claudia told us was more comfortable than that used for camels in other countries. We arrived at Mertoutek early afternoon and registered in with the National Park and took a guide to show us some rock paintings. There were lots of animals, but I quite like the ones of people dancing. The paintings were often in the roof of small caves formed in the rock so you had to lie down on your back to see them. The wind and sand had created lots of holes and caves and George enjoyed wandering and exploring where no one else could. We climbed up the ridge behind the village of Mertoutek and continued to see more rock art.By the time we returned to our cars in the Oued the sun was nearly setting. We went back out through the village before turning east off the road and finding a space to camp. It was quite late and quite, but John got a fire going so we didn’t retreat to the warmth of the tent too early.
Tuesday 27th December
The mornings drive started with driving along a riverbed with rounded boulders and this time with water in it. The guys thought this was spectacular. The scenery was but I guess putting the car in people’s water source isn’t too great, although it was mainly just the tyres rather that other car parts that were getting wet. John was learning from the guides and picking up dead firewood as we drove along. The guides were more prepared with an axe to break it up, and they particularly like the dense roots. We’ve only taken dead wood and currently both look pretty plentiful. At lunchtime the guides were joined by a girl and many goats and the later enjoyed taking refuge under the car.
After lunch we headed north to the peak of Garet et Djenoun, the tallest mountain along the ridge. We had the novel experience of seeing a plane travel miles overhead. Novel because you really don’t see many planes here – I think the last one we saw was in north Libya. After the Garet et Djenoun we headed east to the next ridge for an early camp spot and a cold beer for Kathy and Steve. John went off to climb the tallest peak, which he said was much further and much taller than it looked.
Wednesday 28th December
We headed further west to the valley of Amadror, a dried up lake which had left behind salt deposits. Sleaman picked up some salt for himself and for us. We stopped for some lunch by the remains of some old huts. I made the first soup. Amazing how much soup and pasta some dried powder rehydrates too! After lunch we headed south down the valley chasing mirages. Towards the end of the afternoon we saw the big mound of telertheba. Sleaman pointed it out but I couldn’t see it on the map. I later realized that it was further away than I thought when I looked at the map. Distances can be deceptive. We got stuck looking for a camp spot. We’d hoped it was suitable for the night, but Sleaman felt it was too near the main piste so we headed on to tuck in behind some more rocks.
Thursday 29th December
We headed along another dried up oued with some interesting plant life. Yellow flowers a bit like foxgloves submerged in sand until the flower. We began climbing on more rocky terrain and progress was slow, but the scenery looked fantastic behind in the distance with valleys of sand between the blue grey of the mountain ranges. It was a bit to far away to come out well in photos and showed us that there was plenty more to see in this area. We arrived at Ideles and got our passport stamped before taking on some fresh water and visiting the bakery for some freshly baked bread. The town looked odd with a road which hadn’t been surfaced and new street lighting. It looked like it had been started a few years ago and the modernization project abandoned. We headed south over some rocky but not so spectacular terrain, had some late lunch and continued climbing. After lunch the scenery got better and we were following the route A8 in the Chris Scott book. Sleaman spotted some gazelles, but none of us could Seaman. By the time we stopped to camp for the night we were at just over 2000m and unlike the rest of the trip the weather was cloudy, with just some mountains in the distance glowing red as the sun was setting.

Friday 30th December
The morning was cold and cloudy so it was good to start moving. The scenery was getting more spectacular and looked like boulders had been mechanically lifted and perched in precarious places. We then started a descent down a dry river bed to the village of Tahifet. We stopped for lunch in a spot which gave us the opportunity to scramble up to the top of some screed mound and realized if you could only get just a bit higher it would be more spectacular. After Tahifet we headed east south east before camping in a dried up oued. Although not always a good idea to camp in dry river beds this was quite a wide valley and would need quite some rainfall before it flowed. We‘d been told that the rain in this area was from June to September. Climbing up the valley sides got a better view of the sunset. John later returned there and was puzzled by what appeared to be a car with a searchlight in the distance. We stayed up until 9 around the campfire before retiring to bed. Only John climbed up the valley side and could still see the car driving around with the searchlight. John was getting worried and was sure we were going to be found soon. He went to get Steve who was already asleep, but after being prodded by Kathy and dressed in his own trousers on the second attempt he came out to have a look. John had seen the car lights stop just around the bend in the oued. John and Steve went to investigate taking Dillon as some protection. When they got around the bend they found the guides sleeping and woke them up. The conversation was confused but at least the guides had seen the car which had now gone and everything seemed OK to go to sleep.

Saturday 31st December
We continued south east along the dried up riverbed. It was amazing how high dead wood was piled up against the trees in the oued showing how high it did flow. By lunchtime we asked the guides again about the searchlight – John trying to work out if there were modern bandits driving around at night. Then our guides admitted that it had been them driving. That is why the car had stopped just around the bend in the oued – it had been them. Just before lunch we reached what the guides called the door to the Tassili n’Hoggar. The scenery was becoming rockier and after a slow climb and descent we reached a sandy valley and explored the rocks at the side where there was a water hole. Not tempting for a dip though. We had some lunch and then continued on where the scenery was full of spectacular volcanic plug shapes. The guides had a name for a few of them – like a camel. Some looked like fairytale castles or fortresses and it looked like Stonehenge was on one hillside. The guides took us to a rock arch with more carvings inside. We camped that night in-between some very tall rocks. One looked like the neck and head of a camel with no teeth. That night the guides cooked for us. Pain du sable made with semolina and water and cooked on and under hot ashes from the fire. After half an hour when it was cooked, the bread was washed and scraped and after a hot piece for us all to try it was broken up into a bowl where most of it began to look like couscous except the crusts. A stew was also boiling away on the fire with vegetables and the odd bit of mutton. This was added to the crumbed bread bowl and we were all given spoons to tuck in. It tasted delicious. The few bits of meat did not taste so good, especially to Kathy and Steve who are vegetarian, but the crunchy bread crusts and vegetables in the lightly spicy stew were great. We retreated back to our tents at 7 and John got the camp fire burning. Only five hours until midnight! I received a couple of phone calls on the sat phone which was great. We opened the bottle of red wine and finished off the whisky. We retired to bed at 11:15, without the urge to stay up another ¾ hour and see in the New Year. There was no champagne and fireworks here!
Sunday 1st January
Today we were heading to see what Sleaman had described as his favourite place in the desert. We stopped to see lots of rock carvings on the way. His favourite spot was still in the Tassili n Hoggar, the dark volcanic plug type rocky landscape with dunes adjacent to the rocks. We saw another rock arch and got stuck in the sand and had to let our tyres down before finding a camp spot for the night. There was another group of tourists around which was a novelty and hadn’t happened since we’d been in Algeria. It was quite windy, so we took shelter behind a large rock and realized we were also under it to. We hoped it could stay in position a bit longer. The fire was lit and danced around in all directions in the wind. The barbecue was also lit to cook our mutton chops.
Monday 2nd January
I got up just after sunrise at 7:15 and climbed a high dune which merged into some columns of volcanic plug. It was quite cold while the sun still didn’t have any power and felt good to be getting some exercise. We drove around some more of this landscape, saw another rock arch and I climbed another high dune trying to follow in the footsteps of the other group for an easier climb, but these were being blown away fast.
We started back on our journey back to Tam. That night Sleaman again surprised us with some couscous and vegetables which was great timing for me – just before I’d started to cook and our diminishing grocery store was looking less appetizing. Couscous cooked properly is a lot moister than what I’d managed to cook. We sat by a camp fire and used up our final wood supply.
Tuesday 3rd January
This was the last day of our guided tour around Algeria and we all desperately wanted a shower and with no cigarettes left, a few were in desperate need of a shop. It was also great to be back and sample Claudia’s cooking. We also needed a bit of a time to rest, so we decided we’d stay two nights to give us some time to relax. Claudia also had a German woman, Desiree staying with her who now spends her life in Agadez and Algeria. She’s written about and photographed the Tuareg. There was also a German guy staying there who had fallen off his camel on day one of his holiday so was spending the remainder of his holiday here recuperating.
Wednesday 4th JanuaryJohn had broken a filling and thought Tam maybe the best opportunity of going to the Dentist and use Claudia’s knowledge of a good dentist – assuming she didn’t fly back to Switzerland. Claudia actually needed to return to the dentist herself as she’d had a temporary filling last week. So John and Claudia headed off to the Dentist at 8:30, while the rest of us lazed around in the sunshine waiting for a late breakfast. When they returned Claudia looked in more pain, but John hadn’t been charged anything for his dental work. He’d also sat in the female waiting room – as waiting rooms in Algeria are not mixed. There were lots of police in town – the town is a military base and has more military than civilians. An elderly leader of the Tuareg had died the previous week so there had been a funeral and they may have expected trouble. We headed into town for lunch at the hotel. Hamburger, chips and beer – I was still pretty hungry after traveling 10 days in the Mountains it’s difficult to plan how much food you need. The hotel food wasn’t great and it was good to be returning to Claudia’s for the evening meal. I then went to the internet café where I spent 3 hours! The time went very quickly as it was great to be able to load photos to the blogsite – I still had photos from Libya that I hadn’t had a chance to load. I also had a book to read so I didn’t get to impatient with the speed of the internet which was probably the fastest since Tripoli. We enjoyed a final meal with all the family, including the youngest goat that had was born on Christmas Day and John had named Jesus.

Agadez to Tamanrasset

Wednesday 21st December
We got up early to go to the internet café and print off Barbara and Lucas’s invitation from the Algerian agency. This wasn’t going to be simple as John could not access his email account properly. John had phoned Algeria at 7:30 to get them to send the email to Lucas and my email accounts. However, the emails in Algeria this morning were not getting through. Faxes from Algeria to Agadez did not seem to be getting through either and not many places had faxes because of the dust. We went to the Algerian Consulate. Claudia of the Algerian agency had offered to talk directly with the Consulate if we rang her and passed the phone to the Consulate. She’d tried but couldn’t get through to the Algerian Consulate directly. The problem was, the woman at the Consulate refused to speak to her on the phone and said we needed a copy of the invite to proceed with the visas. Lucas realized the only possibility of getting the invite would be if someone in England could open John’s email account and forward the invite to Lucas or my email account. With a couple of phone calls this was achieved and printed off at the internet café and we rushed back to the consulate. Barbara and Lucas visa application was not acceptable in English so they rewrote it in French. John and I headed back to the hotel to start packing up ready to check out of the hotel and leave. But Barbara and Lucas returned 5 minutes later. The Consulate had refused their visa applications because it had to be done in your home country. It may be possible to get a visa in the Capital, Niamey, over a 1000 km away. Barbara was upset – the applications had taken the majority of their time in Agadez, they’d spent more money on getting an extended multiple entry visas to Niger and all the running around had been for nothing. It wasn’t possible to speak to anyone more senior at the Consulate and it was as if the woman at the Consulate had led them to believe it may be possible and enjoyed giving them the run around. This had brought the traveling with Lucas and Barbara to an abrupt end. We needed to leave today to make the Algerian border by lunchtime tomorrow. Lucas managed to quickly copy his entire photo collection for us – no small task with the amount of photos he takes (about 3000) and this will be quite a few evenings worth of entertainment for us. He also copied some digital maps for us and they gave us a bottle of Spanish red wine for Christmas. We gave him the old version of the Chris Scott book with waypoints for Mali and Mauritania. I wondered if I should leave my mobile phone with Barbara. Then we had a number to ring for our interpreter and negotiator when we got into trouble! Hopefully it will turn out to be a blessing in disguise. They have to be back by Feb 15th, so this now gives them more time in Mali and Mauritania. I think Algeria will be interesting for the scenery, but we may not necessarily meet too many people and the less Arabic, more French Africa does seem more vibrant.
We enjoyed a few final beers together. The Dutchies had also returned to say goodbye. They were heading off to the Air Mountains for a week before heading south to Benin, Togo and Ghana before returning to Mali.
We left late in the afternoon and after traveling a short distance we knew it would be dark before we reached Arlit. We would need an early start the next morning to do the 200km desert drive to the border where we were meeting our guide. We survived the first checkpoint without Barbara – this one was an 80 pence peage. At Arlit we got through the checkpoint – there were a few sites lit up – probably work compounds for the uranium mines and we struggled to find the centre for a hotel. We asked for the hotel with the better write up in the guide. We were shown to a building which had a room with just one double mattress piled against the wall and it really didn’t look to be still functioning as a hotel! So we headed to the other ‘grubber’ hotel. We realized we didn’t really have any choice. This was the worst hotel we’d stayed in! It seemed to be a pattern. The night before we met Lucas and Barbara we stayed in our worst hotel in Tunisia and now the day we left them we ended up here. The signs weren’t good when they had to run off and get a light bulb for the 2nd room. Bathroom pictured - a shower did not seem a good option.
The hotel owner took us to the central police station to register. The Arlit checkpoint had also told us we needed to do this. As we registered Steve was looking at the 3 cells behind the desk to see if they offered better accommodation. The smell wasn’t very good though. One of the policeman mentioned Tottenham in addition to David Beckham. Tottenham’s second recognition in Niger.
We returned to the hotel for a beer and omlette and chips before retiring for a brief nights sleep. At 1:30 we switched on the fan which only worked on the highest speed so was like sleeping next to a helicopter. But John felt reassured that this would blow away all the insects that were eating him.

Thursday 22nd December
We were up by 6:30 – it didn’t take long to get ready to leave. Arlit really demonstrated to me how poor Niger is. Arlit is the main town for the Uranium mines which has been Niger’s main export resource. When I asked the hotel owner how many people worked in the mines he said about 800. Since Chernobyl it was easy to imagine this town had only declined. We got some fresh bread and drove a few kilometers out of town past the mines to find a better spot for breakfast. As we drove to the border we passed several groups of people desperate for water and food. This was the first time we had seen this in Niger. We gave out a couple of bottles of water but weren’t really prepared for this. We also passed a broken down truck where they just wanted bread and water. There were quite a number of car wrecks. I asked John if we could turn round so I could take a picture of one, but in doing this we got stuck and there was lots of foul language. So I’d better stick this photo on the website to make it worth the effort. I was ready Michael Palin’s Sahara book. In the absence of guide books for Algeria this was about the most informative book. I had just read about Moktar ben Moktar or the glass eyed one that acts as a terrorist stealing 4 by 4s, hijacking tourists when a Toyoto appeared from the dunes to the right and started heading at high speed towards us. John wasn’t keen to stop, but we didn’t have much chance in going faster than this. John’s knowledge of French is a few swear words and voulez vous coucher avec moi ce soir, but I attempted to find out what they were asking. I heard demander and du pain, but no not du pain, but en panne. But they obviously weren’t broken down but he was loosing patience with my lack of French and decided to try Steve. Steve worked out they were looking for a broken down car and fortunately both Kathy and John remembered seeing the car a few kilometers back. We continued on the main piste and managed to miss a couple of waypoints. The second one was the Niger Assamaka border post, so we used the GPS to get within 350m of it and still couldn’t see it. I checked I put in the right numbers and was quite amazed at the description being a quite busy checkpoint. Without any other waypoint I thought the chance of finding it were slim, so we headed to the Algerian border post. We headed in to the checkpoint and Steve got stuck in the sand outside. No chance of a high speed dash past this one. We handed in our passports, and enjoyed some lunch in the shadow of our car. There were a lot of trucks full of sacks of grain coming through and we wandered if it was aid. But it didn’t have the typically big labels stating the donor country. Each lorry seemed to have to bring in one sack for inspection and they looked very heavy. The border procedures took 2.5 hours. It was hard to see what was taking so much time and we weren’t being asked many questions. I soon finished Michael Palin’s account of Algeria. They asked John to show them where the chassis number was on his car and after he failed this test they obviously decided not to bother asking any questions about the contents of his car or searching it. We were then free to go with our Tuareg guide Sleaman. Steve warned him that we didn’t drive fast but at the end of the day John thought Steve had met his Nemesis as this guy drove slower than him. We passed lots more car wrecks. This had been unique to this route. On other stretches of desert such as Libya to Agadez we only passed many camel skeletons burnt white by the sun. Here the camels had been replaced by cars. The sunset was spectacular this evening. We didn’t appear to be too far from the main piste and we could see some headlights and heard quite a few sounds of lorries which sounded like they were carrying empty drums.
Friday 23rd December
At 7:00 it began to sound like we’d camped near the M25. But John recognized the sound as dozers and road construction. We never actually saw the work as we bared north to meet up with the piste, but sound can travel far in the desert. About 60km from Tamanrasset – shortened to Tam we reached the tarmac. This was in pretty poor condition and a worse ride than the piste. We arrived at Tarahist, Claudia and Moktar’s place late afternoon, a stunning setting with the backdrop of mountains, terracotta buildings and interesting plants. There are typically Christmassy poinsettias, but I guess in a more natural habitat, as the size of trees, they seem to last a bit longer than the UK. They have a pet dog – the first pet variety Dillon and George have met, so this caused a lot of noise. We enjoyed a cup of coffee and homemade biscuits while Claudia fed the baby goat. They also have a monkey – not their own choice – a gift which arrived while they were away. We enjoyed some home cooking – noodles, meat and aubergines, cooked delicately that they tasted like expensive mushrooms. Claudia joked about Tom Shepherd – an English guy Michael Palin met touring around the Hoggar Mountains who at over 70 likes visiting this remote area and will go days at a time driving around the mountains in his white Mercedes not seeing anyone. Claudia has seen him in the last month. He manages to get around the restrictions of needing guides for Algeria. When he was visiting last, the Police as In Salah tried to make him join a convoy. But he said he wouldn’t go faster than 60 km an hour, so it didn’t take long to lose them. We went to bed at 9:30 – no longer used to the late nights!

Saturday 24th December
After enjoying a nice late breakfast we headed into town for a spot of shopping. Kathy got into the spirit of this quickly finding a few nice items to buy. We headed to the hotel for lunch so we could enjoy a nice bottle of wine, but not eat too much to spoil our appetite for the Christmas Eve meal with the newly arrived French guests this evening. We headed to an internet café. The first one was having trouble with the internet, and after 40 minutes of not being able to modify anything on my blogsite, but fortunately having a book to read so I was not too impatient, I gave up.
A French couple staying here who have just returned from walking 100 km in the Hoggar Mountains said the temperature got down to -7 at night and there was ice on their tent supports. This evening we went through a rough itinerary for the next 10 days in the Hoggar and Tassili mountains.
We enjoyed a great meal from Claudia. We asked why couscous tastes so different from what we cook and she explained that you have to steam it 3 times. John is trying to leave me here for some cookery lessons. We finished with some great homemade biscuits before what was to be our latest night in quite some time – 11:00!