A few months ago we had a great week staying at Noumbi in Congo. Here’s what happened.
1 CommentFresh from a dinner with Kingsley Holgate and his crew driving round the edge of Africa last night (they left Cape Town a month after us and caught up with us here in Cotonou) we headed off to the beach with Hugo and Stephane and the entire surfing population of Cotonou, numbering 5. The waves [...]
0 CommentsSome of you will remember this post from a few months back. Thanks to Hugo, one of the surfers we met here in Contonou we finally managed to put together a small movie of what happened when we decided to take a slightly alternative route from Congo into Gabon, and sit on the internet for [...]
1 CommentContonou (the capital city of Benin in all but name) does not have the best reputation. The guidebooks call it “chaotic” and “polluted” and “one of West Africa’s least enticing cities”. (Even its name, in Fon, means “mouth of the river of death” – a reference to the thousands of slaves who were shipped from [...]
1 CommentIts Thursday afternoon and we’re in Abomey, Benin. We crossed over from Nigeria yesterday afternoon after enduring a pretty horrible road to the border (tip: use the road in the south if you ever have to cross from Nigeria to Benin). Back in French country so its back to omlettes and coffee in bowls with [...]
2 CommentsThe past 5 months, the most common question we’ve been asked about our route is “are you going through Nigeria?”. When we said yes, the questioner would either turn pale, throw their hands in the air, or swear loudly – and sometimes do all 3 at once. Nigeria is the sixth country we have travelled [...]
2 CommentsSince last Thursday we’ve been staying with Paul Retzlaff and Keith Levet in Shonga, western Nigeria. Three years ago Paul, and several other Zimbabwean farmers were invited to set up commercial farms here by the Governor of Kwara State – Abubakar Saraki. The 13 farmers here are already running impressive farming operations and are generally [...]
0 CommentsSeveral years ago, in an inspired move, the government of one of the Nigerian States invited a group of Zimbabwean Commercial Farmers to establish farms in Nigeria. We’re on our way to visit that group of farmers now, but we’ve spent the last week with the second group who arrived here in February last year. [...]
0 CommentsIf you believe in reincarnation, and think that you’ll get any choice in the matter, be sure not to come back as a Drill. Not only are Drills amongst the most endangered of all primates in Africa, but they also spend almost all of their time taunting, threatening, bickering and generally being unpleasant to each [...]
0 CommentsLurks met the two Americans, Eric and Sharikay, at a laundromat in Swakopmund, Namibia. They were on their way south from Europe on a trip called Border Crossings. They had plenty of advice for us, but story that really stuck in our minds was that of the road between Mamfe – in Cameroon – and [...]
0 CommentsIt’s 3pm on Saturday and, with much relief, we’ve just hit tar road again in Fundong. The road from Wum to here was much tougher than we expected and was reminiscent of the “low-range-all-morning” Dombe Grande Pass in southern Angola and, on one distressing occasion, similar to the jungle road in Southern Gabon where the [...]
0 CommentsStill no proper internet so here’s another mobile update! Yesterday we drove north to Bafut after another great breakfast in Bangem with our new friends Fidelis and Francis, both in their late twenties and both employed by the Catholic Church (Satellite TV technition and Chef, respectively). Good men, these. In the one day we were [...]
0 CommentsWe’re in a little place called Bangem in the middle of Cameroon, staying in another mission with some more kindly Priests. The town is full of the usual contrasts: For example, although i can hear the sound of eTV infomercials next door on the satellite TV which the mission has hooked up, there’s no internet [...]
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