210 Days….. A great escape and hundreds of potholes!

Countries visited – Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria & Cameroon

Miles travelled – 2186 miles

Sunny days – 29

Coolest night – 20’C

Warmest day – 37’C  in Togo & Nigeria

Cheapest fuel – £0.45 in Nigeria

Best food tasted – Freshly caught fish that was so tastily barbecued to order in Limbe, Cameroon (they could sell the recipie and make a million!)

Most interesting camps – Day 1 Cameroon outside a bar in Kumba – A GREAT night after a most amazing day in the Rain Forest.

Most scenic (muddy) drive – Through the forest in North Cameroon, we saw our first clear streams/rivers for the first time in West Africa – feels like the Africa you see in the films.

Easiest visa application – Congo(Brazzaville) Embassy in Abuja. Mary, the lady who deals with applications, was amazing and got us on our way with our visa’s in less than half an hour

 Most useful things

• Our whiteboard on the side of the van. We decorated this in support of the national football teams of Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon (Black Stars, Super Eagles & Lions) which was a real winner for all our police checks. 
• Oh, and the winch!  When the Landy fell into a soak-away pit at The Stumble Inn in Ghana

Least useful things

• Kelly Kettle! DON’T buy one of these – you will never use it
• DEET – does not stop you getting bitten by Fourous (we call them Hoover Flies) they are an absolute pain in the butt – literally!
• The lack of a T55 Torx bit to inspect the gearbox oil!!  Poor planning!

 LOWLIGHTS…..

1) Seeing a mangled, dead person on the road in Nigeria.

2) The crazy roads in Southern Nigeria, pothole & tanker heaven – 80% of the road traffic are fuel tankers that have yet to learn that the cargo they are carrying should not be driven at speed greater than 20 mph on potholed roads!!

3) Both Nick and I got the flu in Nigeria and only got better when we were at the sea in Cameroon. 

 HIGHLIGHTS….

1) Doing the gentle hour hike to see the lower Wli Falls in Ghana, they really were worth seeing (Nick took a swim in his pants …..“real man” swimwear)

2) Finding a little Swiss run hotel in Togo where the owner had two washing machines (we haven’t seen these since we left Europe) and allowed us to do a load of washing for free, filled the swimming pool for us and did not charge us anything to stay there!!

3) Getting in and out of Abuja in record time. We arrived on a Sunday evening and we proudly left before sunrise on the Friday morning with our Angolan, Cameroon & Congo visa’s.

4) Driving through amazing forests in Northern Cameroon – Cross River Park is amazing.

5) Meeting Sam, a 6 Foot 8” Cameroonian farmer, who took us on a tour of his Rubber and Cocoa farm which was preceded by him taking us to a local music night and dedicating a song to us (which he sang!).

6) Meeting up with our Italian friends and meeting some new fellow overlanders, Heike & Stefan going North – THANKS GUYS!!!

 RANDOM FACTS….

1) We visited the ‘birthplace’ of voodoo in Togoville and we had an official audience with the Prince of Togo (in Togoville), quite surreal really. We are not sure whether the king is still alive as we were told he is ill but they won’t publicise his death until two years have passed from his death….go figure.

2) Nigerians on a whole were extremely friendly and very welcoming. We only had one incident where we were stopped by ‘fake’ officials. They claimed that we had come into Nigeria near Lagos and as we had travelled this way so we had to pay ‘environmental tax’. We firmly stood our ground and told them where we had entered Nigeria as tourists but they wouldn’t believe us and so they then asked us to pay  ‘baggage drop off tax’. We firmly told them we had no baggage and the very alcoholic smelling man started to try and mumble some other taxes we would have to pay and that Nick should go with him to see what this was all about. Now we would normally just drive away but we had another man standing with a nail board under our front tyre so we couldn’t go forward. Clearly they still had hangovers and they didn’t anticipate us escaping. Nick saw two large lorries approaching (I might add that we were stopped on a very fast dual carriageway) and told me to put the car in reverse and GO GO GO. We escaped tyres intact and some very surprised ‘officials’ who just stood and watched us leave!!

3) The route around Abidan in Nigeria is chaos where the Abidan-Lagos expressway dumps all the traffic into the middle of a market. Fuel tanker mayhem and a huge fire risk as there are many leaking fuel tankers!!

Nick & Vicki
Stonehenge to Cape Town 2010/11
www.langebaan-sunset.com

We cook using the Trangia system

   

180 Days…..The real Tropics, great food & amazing music!

Countries visited – Burkina Faso & Ghana

Miles travelled – 1704 miles

Sunny days – 27

Coolest night – 21’C

Warmest day – 40’C Koubri in Burkina Faso and the days have got more humid coming South to Ghana

Cheapest fuel – £0.51 Ghana

Slip slop repairs – 2 more…..Reef SA if you want slip slops road tested you better send them my way!!

Best food tasted – Burkina Faso: Fab doughnuts  Ghana: Chicken Curry & Red Red (Deep-fried plantain with chilli sauce)

Best wild camp – Village corner under a tree on a junction at the “Rasta” Camp

Most useful things – Our spangly new solar panel to keep our fridge going when we stop for a few days

Least useful things – Our squashed beloved washing machine!

LOWLIGHTS…..

1) Getting an infected mosquito bite!  Although Nick’s Boy Scout first aid “training” came in handy here (so did a packet of Ciprofloxicin)

2) One more traffic fine* in Ouagadougou for not stopping at an amber/red light….Nick!

3) Not being able to find anywhere in Ouaga to watch the deciding Grand Prix.

4) Nick driving over our roofrack ‘washing machine’ tub!!!*  ^^

5) Realising what man is doing to the land in the tropics – not many hard woods left but also people “existing” on less than $1 a day – it’s a tough one.

6) Almost rolling the landy – Dassie decided to have a “sideways” moment but luckily Nick is such an amazing and gifted driver he managed to “wrestle” the car back into a straight line ….  Phew!!

*Comment by Nick: Vicki paints Nick in a bad light here – its NOT all his fault!!

^^ Comment by Vicki: It is if you put the tub under the wheel arch, forget that you have done this and then reverse over it!! 

HIGHLIGHTS….

1) Being invited to have some tea with villagers in a small village in Burkina Faso. Although the tea making was a long process, it was so worth the wait and the conversation.

2) Free camping at the Hotel Ok Inn, couldn’t be better in a capital city and meeting up with our mates from Gravel Roads (Eric and Dean)

3) Staying with our fellow Italian overlanders (Fab and El)  in a village in Burkina Faso and hosting Italian coffee mornings for one and all (including Rastas on donkeys)

4) Demonstrating 5 solar lamps for an evening school class and getting involved in a volunteer project at a local school in Koubri, Burkina Faso

5) Staying at the Green Turtle Lodge, Ghana…..  paradise!!

6) Vicki realising that Nick is better at map reading almost ALL of the time ;-)

7) The welcome we got when we came to Ghana – complex handshakes and a discussions about the world cup – GO BLACK STARS!!!

8) Ghana street food – It may well be fried in palm oil – but boy it tastes good!!

9) Greenery – palms, hardwoods and plants of tropical sizes

10) Music and dancing – amazing concerts and players – seen some proper African drumming along with some sexy bumpin and grindin!!

11) Trying to master several different African handshakes

RANDOM FACTS….

1) We gave two volunteers a lift in the back of Dassie and they said it was more comfortable than a tros-tros (local mini bus transport in Ghana), so much so that they both fell asleep!!! And it wasn’t even a tarred road!

2) We had our first proper bartering experience with a little girl in Burkina. She had spotted that we had an empty coke bottle so she came over with a bag of peanuts (they grow these themselves). I thought that she wanted to sell them to me so I got a little bit of money to pay her, when handing over the money she was clearly shocked and gasped. She then made it clear that she wanted our coke bottle. She then said goodbye and something else in the local language, which I clearly didn’t understand. About half an hour later she came back and had made me a little hand broom as a thank you for the money!

3) Meals in Ghana sometimes come on two plates…..  we are putting weight on!!!

4) Dassie was orange by the time we hit the coast in Ghana so we gave her a good clean – nice to see parts of the van that we had not seen for more than a month

5) West Africa has had some late rains – we had some great tropical storms with proper Hollywood style lightening, one of which required a complete drying session the next day.

6) Forgot to mention that even though Nick has lost his wedding ring – he still managed to get a marriage proposal from a lady at an egg stall – Nick thinks its because of his good looks and charm – Vicki belives it was because he was so dirty that she took pity on him and simply offered to scrub him clean and wash his clothes….  Could have been a “lost in translation” moment ;-)

Nick & Vicki
Stonehenge to Cape Town 2010/11
www.langebaan-sunset.com

We use the Shurflow pump & British Berkefeld Filters