Journal Entry 52

June 22nd, 2005

"Happy Happy Joy Joy"

 

I left off in Niger, and what a ride it's been...some of my most off-the-beaten-track travel yet... How I manage to find myself in Ethiopia today, I'll never quite understand, but I'll try to begin to sort it out here...

CHEAP SLEEP
Niamey, Zinder, Nguigmi, Mao, N'Djamena. I left Niamey, Niger. If I was ever in a town that seemed to have been overrun by gremlins, and not just the movie theatre, this was it. Anyway, over the next week and a half, I got creative, sleeping at bus stations, a remote Chadian border post in the desert in the midst of a raging sandstorm, and with people I met on the way, paying for merely one night out of ten. And I met goats who wondered whether human hair (mine, actually) was edible.

LAST STAND IN THE DESERT
Zinder, Niger. En route passing these wigwam-like huts that bulged in the middle, looking ready to pop and shoot out a large egg at any instant. At this point, I knew that after the past few months in the Sahel, my days in the desert were limited. And I actually got nostalgic here (the next week was to fully cure this...you'll see.). I had nice walks, the market was fascinating, and I even bought some souvenirs and gifts, and hung out with a friendly leather-worker (assuming that's what you call people who make stuff with leather)

CAMEL PARKING LOT
Yep, at Zinder's market. Thursday is the big market day, and I hit it right. East side, a parking lot, and roughly partitioned for vehicles, donkeys, and camels. Other sights: people selling mysterious 2m sticks. Tuku (flat dry desert cheese). Animal skins and barbers and carved calabashes. Roulette tables and mini-swingsets. Scarred faces and praying men. Generally, ordered disorder.

THE ASSHOLE OF THE EARTH
Lake Chad, I believe to be it. I dead-ended at Nguigmi, in eastern Niger. Waited three days in this sandy town (quite frankly a shithole) for a ride around Lake Chad into the country of Chad. Every day we were leaving 'today'. Every day we didn't. I chipped a tooth on a date with a rock embedded in it. When we finally did leave, it was on a Landcruiser piled 2m (6') high with goods (they could teach even Cambodians and Burmese something!), then 20 of us on top constantly struggling to not get jolted off. Here's an almost farcical image for you: me, wrapped haphazardly in a 16' (5m) pea-coloured turban, clutching a guitar, holding on for dear life atop that fucking truck. And it was only the beginning...

MY DARKEST DAY?
The ride was a cruel, evil joke. A blinding, nighttime sandstorm. Corrupt officials. Horrendously hot sun, like a hot iron brand on my skin. Dust. Bad water, tasting either like petrol or mildew, depending on the well. Heat. Getting stuck in the sand twenty or more times, pushing and having to walk. I was a surly bastard. Normally I'm a nice guy, but had we been stranded, I was the first one of the group that would've been eaten. I know this is true because it's the first time in Africa tea has been prepared in my presence and hasn't been offered to me. I didn't care. Two days of bumpy hot hell, and then a midnight arrival in Mao, Chad, where I slept on the ground with my stuff in front of the police (who were later to delay me three hours in a subtle attempt at extracting some cash from me--unsuccessfully).

CHAD?
I know. I'm not sure either. But I was here, if only for a few days. Don't think they see many tourists. Every time we stopped in a village, you would've thought I was an alien, to see people look at me.

ALI, MY SAVIOUR
But Mao, Chad, it was that I met Ali, who I'd spend the next three days with. I accompanied him to N'Djamena, Chad's sprawling capital city, and stayed with his family. His wife made the best food I've had in a month. Nice guy; my image of this part of the world softened, slightly. And he was some kind of official, smoothing the way through my police registration, and buying me malt beverages (being a good Muslim).

WHAT HAPPENED HERE?
Okay, Friday the 10th of June. This is the day I meant to get my Cameroonian visa, cross the border, and begin to head south. That same morning, I somehow purchased an airline ticket, and that same afternoon, I was on a flight to...ETHIOPIA? What the hell? I'm as confused as someone following this trip may be.

NEVER ENJOYED HEINEKEN
During the flight, I gave it another go. I still dislike Heineken, no matter how cold or how long since I've had a beer. And Ethiopian red wine is worse. A flood of thoughts, at least partially induced by a flood of alcohol and caffeine, convinced me that I should have opted to connect to Cairo, Egypt. So when I landed, I tried to talk Ethiopian Airlines to let me connect to Cairo for $26 (which was the difference between the price of the two flights). No go, after discussing my case with no less than a half-dozen people. So I stay, it's what was meant to be.

WHAT I KNEW ABOUT ETHIOPIA:
1) When I was little there was a famine here, and a bunch of famous people sang 'We Are the World' to save them.
2) To teach us about how much that must've sucked, one day our school cafeteria served us what starving Ethiopians eat, and I puked.

WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT ETHIOPIA:
I land, to learn that election-related demonstrations had basically shut down the capital, Addis Ababa. Thirty people killed in the previous days. Foreigners were leaving in droves. Nice. Not having planned to come here, I had no information, no guidebook, nothing. I spent the night at the airport, a social butterfly for once, chatting happily away with anyone who'd talk to me.

04 SENE 1997 (MY ARRIVAL IN ETHIOPIAN TIME)
I can't really talk about Ethiopia in the same email. The climate, the food (it's actually good!), the people, the landscape... Everything is so drastically different, that it'll have to wait.

A NEW DAWN
At morning's first light, I hit town, with a hand-sketched map from a fellow tourist's guidebook in hand. A new adventure begins, with a sparkle in my eyes that I've been missing of late...

P.S. This edition's craving is 'Cap'n Crunch 'N' Berries' cereal. A big bowl.

"You can't grow food in a fucking desert." (-Sam Kinneson, transmitted to me by friend Justin Crank)

"Strategy's never been a big part of your life." (-Mike Lauer)

 

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