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Motorcyclist Illustrated May, 1976
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part 8
by Fergus & Sharyn Reilly
Back to the Sahara 2630 klms
Sansanné-Mango, Togo February 23rd, 1975 (day 173 - 21151 klms)
to
Niamey, Niger April 2nd, 1975 (day 211 - 23781 klms)
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As we rode further north in
Togo the bitumen suddenly improved to an extent we were sailing along a
broad expanse, reminiscent of a British motorway, with not another
vehicle in sight -the best road we'd seen in Africa. which abruptly
ended in a small village, returning to the typical rutted dirt road
interspersed with small patches of bitumen. It transpired that this
village was the president's old home and the superhighway was built with
overseas aid money!
This was reputed to be an area where people lived in a
primitive state. and did not wear clothes. I suppose we rather
imagined a scene like a movie nudist colony, but we only saw one man
walking proudly along the road, wearing nothing else but a straw hat
and a cape. I suspect the coming of the road had changed habits and
the president was keen to “modernise” his region.
By night we had reached the savannah again. The night
was completely still and quiet, like the desert. After the humidity on
the coast, it was good to be returning to the desert. |
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The road had become deeply
corrugated, but that didn't deter a Honda 90 towing a scooter by means
of an electric flex 300 kilometres northwards over some of the poorest
road we had ridden! We were beginning to worry we might be reduced to
similar measures as my bike developed knocking noises in the engine
and loss of power. Despite Fergus checking all possible sources he
couldn't find the trouble, except to suspect the “fail-proof” timing
regulator.
We decided to struggle on towards Ouagadougou. the
capital of Upper Volta (now known as Burkina Fasso). By now the sun was
unbearable after twelve and until four o'clock as we stopped to lie
in the shade and wait for evening to carry on. Some small children
were watching us so I went over to give them a share of our biscuits.
But, as I approached. they ran off to return when I went back to the
bikes. Finally, I left the biscuits on some leaves in the no man's
land between us. When I had left again they picked up the biscuits. We
learnt later that children are warned by their families never to
approach strangers as child stealing, although rare. is still
happening in West Africa, usually as sacrifices in juju (black magic)
rituals. |
We camped the night beside a
river which had been dammed to build a bridge. It was a sanctuary for
birds which skimmed the pools for fish. My romantic day-dreams were
shattered when Fergus stated matter-of-factly that this would be an
ideal place for crocodiles. Suddenly the pools of water linked by
sandbars looked very threatening. I spent the night listening for any
noise of slithering bodies. Fergus's apparent unconcern finally
penetrated so I gave up my vigil and went to sleep. I was never so
glad to wake and see a cloudless day and the peaceful pools of water
below!
The following day my bike deteriorated further. Every
half an hour we would stop to let it cool. We made little progress and
stopped in the bush so that Fergus could recheck the timing. Just as
he started to work a young boy appeared with a dead monkey slung over
one shoulder, its tail split to allow the head to pass through, making a
strap; a bloody stick and a bag of sweets in the other hand.
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Although speaking only one or two words of French he
happily settled down next to Fergus and watched him working on the
motor. Not only was he a monkey catcher, no mean feat as they are very
fast, but he grasped mechanics so quickly that he handed Fergus
pieces as he reassembled the bike. The young boy's delight on
receiving an orange relieved some of the blow of not finding the
trouble with the bike.
So, we limped into Ouagadougou. After several hours
searching for a place to stay, we stopped to ask at a mission for
advice. Our luck was changing again, the missionary and his wife
offered their guest room which was not being used. Fergus spent the
week trying to adjust the timing, after making a tool to release the
flywheel. There was a slight improvement so we decided to send back to
Britain for the “infallible” timing regulator and to head for Niamey,
the capital of Niger. We had read there were potential buyers for our
bikes there. It seemed we could sell them at a price to buy our
tickets to Australia.
Although the week's work on the bike was not particularly
successful we thoroughly enjoyed Ouagadougou. Upper Volta is reputedly
the poorest country in the world, but the people's unbounded optimism
makes them the most generous we had ever met. We spent hours sitting
in the market talking to the stall holders, never hassled to buy and
instead given tea and nuts for our company. |
The drought of two years
earlier had forced many of the nomadic races into the cities and
Ouagadougou had quite a large number of Tuaregs, the Saharan nomads.
The missionary couple we stayed with introduced us to a young Tuareg
religious man. He instantly became a friend and took us to meet his
friends who made knives and jewellery.
We spent many unbelievably peaceful hours in a
makeshift tent watching the craftsmen and drinking the sweet green tea
which the Tuaregs serve in tiny glasses after a ritualistic
preparation.
Mustapha, our friend, sat with us late into every night
explaining the powers of his religious caste. His father was a great
Marabou and so, hopefully, would he become, after learning and passing
rigorous tests; amongst which was the ability to survive alone in the
desert with only a small quantity of water for almost a month.
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His caste prepared pieces of the Koran which were inserted
into leather amulets to ward off evil and sickness. having seen the
results of juju in other races we couldn't disbelieve his claim that
it was possible to create magic to make a person invisible or
impenetrable to bullets.
The Tuaregs believe totally in the desert. Those forced
into the town talked often of returning to the desert when they had
enough money to buy the animals, depleted by 80 per cent in the
drought. Mustapha explained that there the air is pure and not that
breathed in and out by many people. The men are chivalrous like the
knights of the Middle Ages, they always are veiled in the presence
of women and even sip their tea from underneath the veil.
Tuareg women are free to a greater degree than their
European counterparts; they retain all the wealth on divorce and
either party can dissolve the marriage. But perhaps the most notable
characteristics of Tuareg women is their irrepressible joy. They always
were laughing, leaving all responsibility to the men, spending hours
plaiting each other's hair into intricate patterns or playing with the
children.
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Our time and money were
running short so we exchanged gifts and said goodbye to the Tuaregs.
We were carrying letters to their families in Niamey which - they
assured us - they could not do as it would be a prison sentence if they
were caught.
The slight improvement on my bike lasted till the end
of the bitumen. Once on the rough track again there was no way I could
keep up speed to cope with the artificially advanced spark Fergus
gained by widening the spark-plug gap.
We struggled on the rest of the broiling hot day. When I
reached a low of 10kph before the knocking began we gave up. I rolled
into a tiny village and we decided to stay to await a truck to carry
the bike and me to Niamey. |
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The people sympathised with our problem
and brought us a stool to sit beside the road under a tree. It was
market day and soon we were watching the to-ing and fro-ing of various
sellers. The nomadic cattle herders brought their beautiful tall
wives to the village to sell their spices and to buy cloth or silver.
The men sat with us whilst the women did the selling. The nomads again
impressed us by their self-sufficiency; they asked no questions as to
why we were there but made themselves comfortable and sat peacefully
making idle conversation.
The day passed and not one vehicle had room for the bike. We had
just fallen asleep when a truck screeched to a halt. Someone in the
village must have stopped it. Fergus persuaded the driver to take the
bike and me to the border of Niger, for a sum. The bike was lifted up
and into the truck and I was given a place in the cabin. A few hours
later at dawn we stopped in a tiny village. The men in the back of the
truck jumped down with bundles which they opened up to display cloth
and clothes. From the surrounding bush people appeared and a makeshift
market ensued. The sellers were real actors and if we hadn't been in
the middle of the African bush they could have been English Cockney
tradesmen, bantering with each other and their buyers, and selling at a
furious pace.
At each village the same procedure took place. The truck obviously
served remote villages who were only too glad to turn out at dawn to
buy wares from the “city”.
Fergus soon caught us up and followed the truck to the border. The
soldiers on duty there suggested we stop outside their office as all
traffic had to be checked and they would help us find a lift to
Niamey.
Determined not to miss any possible chance of a lift (we had little
money, water or food on board) we camped in the shelter of a large tree
in front of the customs post where every truck stopped. These behemoths
would roar into the area at all hours of the day and night bringing a
dense cloud of dust which inevitably settled over our makeshift shelter
between the two bikes and soon coated everything we had. We slowly
grew more desperate as our supplies dwindled and not one vehicle had
room for the bike.
Three days later a man in a Peugeot utility offered to take the
bike and me if I was ready in 5 minutes. So we hastily brushed off the
dust, freed the bike from the structure we had made, wedged it between
two refrigerators and set off. Luxury! I was in an air-conditioned
cabin. Fergus was left to pack everything onto his bike and hopefully
meet again in Niamey, he followed at a furious pace but only caught up
with the Peugeot as it entered the outskirts of Niger's capital city and
followed it to the local Catholic Mission.
The first signs of Niamey were the camels carrying goods into the
city in the cool of the night. We met at the catholic mission and
unloaded the bike. We spent the night outside the Archbishop of Niger's
window, guarded by the Tuareg night watchmen and woke to the sound of a
bustling African city.
The next six weeks were six of frustration; the parts took two months
to arrive, and we tried to sell the bikes. Many people showed
interest, but all knew that we were a captive market. So, a long
waiting game was played as the price dropped while our frustration
increased. When we had only $20 left to our name a young American who
befriended us convinced himself to buy the bike. He wanted it, but
couldn't really afford it. But his beautiful Tuareg wife agreed and he
was convinced! He arranged the sale of my bike which had finally been
restored to its former glory by the new part, to a French boy, who
would send us the remaining half of the money in Australia.
While we were clearly taken advantage of in the very biased buyer's
market, we did end up selling the bikes for more than we had paid for
them, brand-new, in Scotland. They had carried us and our gear for
17,000+ kilometres over some of the world's worst roads and were still
in excellent working order - a tribute to the Spanish engineering.
We were finally set. We had enough money to buy a ticket to
Australia. We nostalgically said goodbye to our bikes which had carried
us for nine months. And to last reports they are fine and working well
and living in the Sahara still.
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