-George
Augustus Moore-
Okay, today is now officially the last day of the
trip.
It is hard to believe that this day has finally arrived when
I started this journey 69 days ago, TEN WEEKS ago, in Accra, Ghana. I try and think what my expectations were of
the trip and were they met and I think that they were. Are there things that can be improved on the
trip? Definitely. Am I glad I did the trip? Definitely.
Would I recommend the trip to someone else and the answer would be yes,
but be prepared for some tough times, change of plans, long truck days, bad
roads, tinned meat, mosquito’s, tuna rolls and an experience of a life time
that you would get nowhere else on this planet.
My Facebook status this morning:
“IT'S THE LAST DAY!
After 9 countries, 12 borders, 310 hours in the truck, over 4000km travelled,
19 amazing and incredible friends, 10,000 waves issued with love, too many
chicken and chip dinners, 53 tins of tuna, not wanting to know how many cans of
spam and as always a renewed appreciation for the life I am so lucky to live.
West Africa is so different from its Eastern counterparts, it has a beat and a
culture so unique, the people so resilient it is something I will never forget.
I've had the time of my life warts and all and have a feeling I will return one
day. Thanks to all of you who made this trip what it was... INCREDIBLE xx”.
So I have been working on the ‘stats’ of the trip the
last week and below is a summary of what the trip consisted of on a 10 WEEK
African overlanding experience, and WEST AFRICA at that. None of this easy peasy East Africa business.
70 days
10 weeks
9 countries
12 borders
4500km travelled
328.5 hours sitting on Madge (the truck)-92.5 hours
section 1-140 hours section 2-96 hours section 3
23 AMAZING PEOPLE
15 chickens (minimum)
53 tins of tuna
35 tins of SPAM
14,000 waves to complete strangers
23 pieces of West African material
7 camping nights
9 bush camps
38 hotel/guest houses
15 ‘other’ accommodation eg: dorm, bad hut upgrades
13 full pages taken up in my passport
4949 photos
70 quotes for my blog from the roof of Madge
And my love for Africa strengthened.
As you can see I am a bit of a stat gal and the above
stats are a little eye opening to say the least. Probably the time in the truck is the biggest
stat that stands out for me 328 hours, which converted is 13.66 days, full days
in the truck, which is nearly 2 weeks, sitting on Madge. It sounds a lot when you put it like
that. I was probably also surprised on
the lack of fresh food, as it was actually quite hard to find fresh food in
some of the smaller towns-but all in all I’ve had the time of my life.
So the day started with breakfast at 8am and a departure
set for 9am. Ellie and I wanted to make
a stop at the post office which was located across the road from the
hotel. We walked in after breakfast and
there were a few people sitting in chairs waiting for …something, so we asked
the Western Union guy behind the counter where we could get stamps and he
nodded that he could help. So Ellie
launched into some of her French and after she got about 6 words out when the
guy asked if we spoke English and we said yes and he said that would be
best!!! Poor Ellie and all I can say is
she knows more French than me. We waited
about 10 minutes for the stamps to appear and we paid 500CFA per stamp, I was
getting mine for my Globetrotters book and Ellie was going to tempt fate and
send some cards from Senegal. All
through West Africa there has not been a lot of post offices and LP has always
warned that the mail system is pretty nonexistent and if it is then it is very
unreliable, but I think if mail was going to get out, it would be from here. I got to the truck a little early as I had to
gather all my gear that always seems to spread itself from one end of the truck
to the other. I found some lollipops, some
Tang and a bag of material that I had forgotten about and the rest of my crap,
which I collected and condensed into 3 bags.
Well Madge had something to say about our departure time when
we were just about locked and loaded to leave and Zoe went to start the truck
they noticed that a cable had been severed from something and it needed to be
grafted and fixed back to something. As
you can see I didn’t get into the technicality of the problem, but what it
meant to us was that we had some extra time in Saint Louis while Zoe and Sam
were on the fix, but it is pretty funny that Madge got the final say for the
start of the last day!!!!! Some people
went to sit on the bar terrace to use the internet, some stayed on the truck
and used the tables to write up postcards and update journals and I decided to
go back into the hotel and take some photos, especially of the photos of the
pilots and the hotel from back in the 1900’s.
There was so much history staring back at us from the walls and I took
some photos of the photos. I do like
looking at old photos, they are a part of history, something that has been
snapped in time and really they are worth their weight in gold. I was lucky enough to get some photos of my Nan
the last time I was back in Australia in her heyday, her deb ball picture, her
and granddad on their honeymoon, my mum when she was a baby and they are
priceless actually and I will treasure them for all of time.
It was a quick fix and we were finally on the road at
10am. I got my second favorite seat of
the truck for my last day and was the left hand seat at the tables. I love it there because you get the full
force of the wind and the full sun when it is on that side of the truck and I
had just fluked it this morning that I had chosen the sunny side, so I got one
last day to work on my tan as well. I
was going to sit where I had sat on my first day 10 weeks ago, but it was on
the shady side of the truck and I liked the seat I had a lot better as well,
but it would have been pretty cool to start and finish in the same seat. The temperature is so much cooler here than
what we have experienced the last week and I guess being on the coast one would
expect that. We had a game plan of
making a small detour on our way to Dakar via some sand dunes that were
recommended in LP (Lonely Planet). We
reached the turn off for the dunes at 11.50am and we drive and drove and drove
and we saw some partial dunes that had vegetation and tress growing on them and
then we reached the ocean…. We either
missed them or they were the dunes that LP had been talking about. It certainly wasn’t impressive at all and if
you asked me wasted an hour of our time on the search for these dunes that were
not impressive in the least. The upside
was we found some shade and stopped for lunch on the way back to the turn off
to continue our journey to Dakar. To
think that this was the last lunch. The
last time we would eat happy cow cheese, tinned beef, tuna and onion and baguettes
and it was a little sad. Some people
said they couldn’t even stomach the tinned meat anymore and they had only been
eating it for 3 or 7 weeks, try 10 weeks and to be honest I wasn’t that sick of
the meat, but I wouldn’t be rushing out to buy a tin when I get home. I would like to make Ellie’s Spam mash with
baked beans, but I think I will leave that cooking experience until my return
back to Nairobi in January! I got my
last photos with Madge because the next time we stop will be in Dakar later
this afternoon! Imagine. I know I keep harping on about the last of
this, the last of that-but until you spend 70 days traversing the West African
continent and realize the blood, sweat and tuna that went into finishing a trip
like this, you would then understand what a great accomplishment it feels. With one last bush pee we were back on the
road at 1.15pm for the final push to the city.
Sam had prepared a quiz over the last week, so to help
kill some travel time; we played the quiz while we drove into Dakar. It was 5 rounds of 10 questions and we were
going to partner up with the people we were sitting with. I had Ollie with me, which I was happy with
as I was hoping he would be a bit of a brainiac and that we would score
okay. As it worked out we didn’t have to
worry too much as Cathy and Sian ran away with the wooden spoon and no-one came
close to Ellie and Rich who got 42 out of 60.
Ollie and I came in equal second with Lord Byron and Helen. It was a great way to kill some time and we
finally hit the main freeway into Dakar at 4pm.
Madge was able to let loose, cast off her cobwebs and we sprinted to the
finish line. The city of Dakar was what
you would expect of an African capital city.
It was busy, it was a little chaotic and it was a Friday and traffic was
heavy. After only asking for one
direction we found the street our hotel was on but the traffic policeman would
not let us turn down it and told us we had to go around the block and head in
the other way, which made me believe that it was a one way street. Well it sound easier than it actually was
when Zoe tried to turn a left into an intersection that apparently we were not
allowed to do a left turn and had about 20 people telling us this fact as Zoe
held up traffic waiting for the traffic cop to say yay or nay. It was a nay and we had to do another block,
down a skinny side street to get back to the same intersection, but from the
other way and we were then permitted to turn right, and then finally left into
our street that we drive past 25 minutes ago.
In hindsight it was the best plan, as we were comfortably parked in the
right direction, on the right side of the hotel which could not have been done
had we entered the other way.
So for the LAST TIME Madge was switched off and it was official,
my trip had come to an end.
70 DAYS ON A TRUCK-and we survived.
LP (Lonely Planet) had given our hotel a great wrap and
we were not disappointed when we were given our room keys and with a plan to
meet up at 7pm for dinner. I had to do 2
trips with all my 7 bags of stuff with Lord Byron helping with my last bag, which
happened to be the souvenir bag that also contained all the material that I had
been buying the last 7 weeks. I will
have to do a stock-take of everything that I have bought during the trip as I
get it all packed for airline travel in 2 days’ time. Well once I was in my air-conditioned palace,
and I was lucky I got a single share for the night, there was no time like the
present and I got everything out of the ‘shopping’ bag and I was able to spread
all the crap I had bought out and reassess and remind myself what I had
actually bought. I counted all the
material I had bought, including the skirts and dresses I had made in Ghana and
I have 23 pieces of fabric, some of it is 4m long some of it is 6m long so to
average it out 5mx23 makes a whopping 115 meters of material I had! Man that sounds like a lot and I think I
remember the Ghana guy telling me he used 4m to make my dress, so I could
literally get 28 dresses made! Holy
smokes!!!! I rekon I could get some
pillows thrown in there as well and still have some left over material. I may, just may, have gone a little crazy on
buying the stuff, but there are some beautiful fabric this side of the
continent and I couldn’t stop!!! By the
time I had finished doing my stock take, I had 20 minutes to show and change and
be downstairs at 7pm.
The return trip heading the 10 weeks back to Ghana leaves
on Sunday, today was Friday-Sam and Zoe get only one day to complete out trip
and start the next trip which I think is a little crazy for them to not even
get a day off as they have the welcome meeting for the newbies tomorrow morning
and with a FULL HOUSE (18 people) there is going to be a hell of a lot more
work on the return leg. So at 7pm, Zoe
and Sam were room juggling, trying to keep us in the same rooms for tomorrow
night, post tour, accommodate all the newbies and work on the rooming
configurations which seemed to be a problem as Zoe tried to get it all
fixed. She was now the tour leader for
the trip back with Sam as the co-driver and I think that is a great idea to
shake things up for them to keep them on their toes. I do have to mention that Sam completed his
last tour as a leader with us today. He has
been given a promotion in the form of an office job with Dragoman back in the
UK, and after 4 years that is a pretty big accomplishment and I wish him the
best of luck in his new role. He is with
Zoe for the next 3 weeks before the trainee joins Zoe in Freetown for the
remaining 7 weeks back to Ghana.
Things were wrapped up just before 7.30pm and the hotel
has a sister property just a 5 minute walk away and also a hotel across the
road from that. So with Lebanese on the
menu tonight, just our group headed out for our last meal as a group. The start of each of the tours, our final
dinners have included the new people, but with 12 of us and 18 of the newbies,
I am glad that we decided to keep it just us tonight, firstly so that we had
just us and secondly can you imagine waiting for 30 people to be fed in West
Africa?! There were times when it was a
stretch for the 5 of us, let alone 30. Sam
checked to make sure that the restaurant had room for us and when we were shown
in it was like we had stepped into a restaurant in London. I had to ask Cathy what country we were
in. There were fairy lights strung
around the place, first class table and chairs, an air-conditioned section or
an outdoor eating section and it just oozed 5 star. Now THAT is a way to end an overlanding
trip! So we were seated and offered
menus that had everything in French, but with the help of Rich and Sian I
worked out what I was having, which mirrored Sian’s choices and with a Blue
Lagoon cocktail on the way, we were sitting in paradise. Some of the gang had to go and use the ATM,
so with Sam 6 of them ventured to the machine and 20 minutes later they all
returned with a story that they had all been tried to be pickpocketed by a gang
of youths. They weren’t violent, but
they grabbed bags, did a pass on some pockets and they had to all stay close
and venture for safety. The LP mentioned
it was not safe to walk around at night time, but they always say that, but
tonight was a re-affirmation that they were not safe and that was a group
together, imagine if you had of been on your own!
The meal was 5 stars, the company was 5 stars and the
thank-you speech from Clem was also 5 stars.
You could not have asked for a more perfect night to end on. I also got my tip to Zoe and Sam I would do
tomorrow before things get to hectic for them before their departure on
Sunday. I have always been a lone tipper,
not wanting to contribute to a group envelope, as I always include a personal message
and an Australian hat pin for most people and I am proud as to what I tip and I
sometimes think people who want to do a group contribution generally don’t tip
the ‘going’ rate and want to lob it all in with everyone else’s money. We had also been given feedback forms which I
do intent to fill in, but I will try and follow up with a letter back to
Dragoman with some constructive criticism on the trip. I tend to say I will do things like that and
before I know it time ticks by and then I don’t get around to doing it, but I
am going to try as I think they definitely need the feedback for a tour where
they have not been to some of the countries before and some information to help
the next ones be better for them and also the clients.
So a MASSIVE shout out to my group 3 of the trip. You guys rocked. We had an INCREDIBLE, diverse bunch of people
and you really all did make the trip what it was ‘a trip of a lifetime’. In no particular order:
Rishard and Ellie-UK
Ian and Suzanne-Ozwi’s
Cathy and Sian-Australia
Clem-UK
Lord Byron-Australia
Karl-Australia
Helen-UK
Ollie-UK
And finally Zoe and Sam-the rocks, the glue, the
motivation and the driving force, literally, of the trip and for putting up
with me for 10 whole weeks, or should I put that around the other way?
THANKS A MILLION TO EVERYONE who was a part of my 10 week
journey:
Bean-UK
Harj-UK
Patrick-Australia
Ducky-USA/Australia
Eva-Australia
Patty-USA
And to finish with one of my favorite quotes from the
roof of Madge that Sam went to a great deal of trouble to sticky tape them all:
“Travelling is a brutality.
It forces you to trust strangers and to lose
sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends.
You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential
things-air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky-all things tending towards the
eternal or what we imagine of it.”
-Cesare Parese-
THANKS AGAIN and the best thing of travelling is meeting
and making new friends and knowing that you will see some of them again. That is the beauty of travel.
Nice one, Bernie! Hope you're having a great time back home in Kenya. X
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