tangiers to niamey in 80 days

not quite a trip around the globe, but a trip all the same. the lasttime i updated this blog,i had made it to bamako, on the banks of the incredible niger river.crossing the pont d'oie,i took one look at my feet and realised that biking to burkina fasowasn't going to start thatday - in the space of a couple of hours, both feet had ballooned intothe size of watermelon. after20 stubborn kilometres, dismounted in the southern suburb of senou.after finding a pharmacy, someantibiotics and a place to camp (the mayor's 'salle d'entertainment'),simply stopped and let timedo its thing. five days later, and with feet that were recognisable,scrapped the plan to bike toburkina faso, and instead hitchhiked into a different world. burkinafaso ranks as the 3rd poorestcountry in the world, but nowhere do you read that its people are thehappiest! biking from the fabulouslynamed capital, ouagadougou, to the niger border, it was impossible notto smile the whole way. infected bythis enthusiasm, spent an incredible week camping 'en brousse', starlittered sky that blows me away everytime. have abandoned cooking, as it is far cheaper to buy street foodoff some incredibly tough women...a plate of rice costs between 5 and 15 cent, and tastes better thananything dublin has to offer.
from the 3rd poorest country into the 1st, niger and its capital,niamey. with the intention of only stayingin niamey one or two nights, this 'plan' has been truly scuppered bythe chad visa application. according to theweb, getting a chad visa in niamey should take one day. arriving atthe embassy, now nearly two weeks ago was like stepping into a kafkanovel. scary, confusing, and as of now, with no end in sight.
sometimes being forced to stop is a good thing. have found freecamping with jesus - some friendly peopleunderstood the plight, and 'in the name of our good lord', have agreedto help out. the centre of town isdominated by two markets, the petit and grand, where you can buyanything. here's a diary entry from sunday 9/11/08:
another morning in niamey, who knows how many more? the evening moonis filling out with every passing day. alot, alot of mosquitos in thistown. breakfast and plantain by the petit marche. illegal tradersbustle by the taxirank. the very poor, eyes fixed to the ground search for fallennutrients. return to the plateau, where peopletake fish or meat with their daily dose of rice or haricots. moneygramand western union hoardings are morefrequent than roadsigns. the sweet bread has to be scrutinized for flyfragments. behind the grand marche, menwork like egyptian donkeys - is like the set of spartacus, albeit moreblack than white. chinese motorbikeseverywhere, toyota starlet taxis imported from switzerland, ! , redwhite and black cornmeal dough called To.pots made from pumpkins. boys pulling gallons and gallons of yellowcoloured water tanks. disabled everywhere.polio rampant. boys and bigboys play fighting on every corner.beautiful, smiling children. western supermarketsfor the expats who buy fruit that's available outside fresh for atenth of the price. ngo's everywhere. confused over languages: djerma,hausa and french all cobbled together, leaving me lost; french is hardenough. grandchildren leading the dignified and frail, often blind.open butchery and headless chicken dancing. distant drums as the pinksky gives way to darkness. hello tent. the homeless look for shelterin their dreams.