I WISH THE BEST FOR MY WEST AFRICA TRAVELLERS

So my West/Central Africa trip starts in a week and I was supposed to be leaving in 4 days to travel to Ghana to obtain a few visas before the truck arrives.  This unfortunately will not be happening as I had to make the decision at the end of November 2014, whether I would be travelling at all, not solely based on Ebola, but the closure of certain borders, being the main reason behind the cancellation.

I had never thought about cancelling my trip based on Ebola.  After having travelled West Africa last year, the contact we have with local people is minimal, our food was mainly tinned meat and whatever vegetables we could find along the way, which were always washed and cooked.  I was also not joining the truck till Ghana, so I wasn’t passing through any of the infected areas this trip and there was a 23 day window from the truck leaving Guinea, the last infected country, to getting to Ghana, so I figured that I would be okay based on the Ebola issue.  I think people travelling the same route from Senegal to Ghana via Guinea and Sierra Leone will have a different experience to what we had last year.  I picture less people around, less people being friendly as they would be scared and the possibility of seeing temparory Ebola hospitals/tents/units.

It is sad to see that there are now over 20,000 people infected with this virus and with over 5,000 people that have died, that it seems that the issue is now out of the news as the disease is still spreading and there has been a spike in Sierra Leone the last 4 weeks of over 180 deaths.  There seems to be more news on the UK nurse at the moment that contracted Ebola during the week, and is currently in a critical condition in a London hospital, than the here and now of the current situation.  I applaude the health care workers for their time and their courage to enter a country with a virus that is as vicious and unrelenting in its spread and without international aide and their workers this disease would have gone unharnessed and I don’t even want to think about the implications if the world was to turn its back on these countries in need.  I also want to point out that as sad as it is that so many people have dies, but I think there are a population of people that are being forgotten, the family members of the deceased.  I watched a documentary that interviewed some people and a woman had lost 2 children, her husband and her mother and there was a child of 10 who had lost his mum, dad and sister and his simple question was ‘what happens to me now’?  The knock on effect of the disease is that people are shunned if they had a family member die of Ebola, there are fields of food that are not being harvested or also shunned, new planting are not happening and come next season, there is going to be a lack of food and another catastrophe will be on our hands.

But as the virus seems to be under some form of control, if you believe what is being reported, Nigeria has been declared Ebola free and the few cases in the Congo Republic, the travel warnings and restrictions are starting to open back up again to the countries that I was actually travelling to.  The Australian Government has kept a close eye on the growing concern and have started to issue a travel bulletin just for the Ebola outbreak.  I have signed up to these updates and they seem to come through every 15 days or so at the moment and this is what started me second thinking my trip.  Up until then, I was still in like Flynn.    

The biggest concern for me was I have done 5 of the 11 countries already.  The Australian Government had summarized what other Africa countries were doing to try and stop the Ebola virus spreading and this is what is currently having an impact on my tour.  It is more the border closures than the virus itself and if the borders are closed then we are going to have to fly over countries.  If we have to fly over the countries I HAVEN’T been to and I am going to travel through countries I HAVE been to, it just doesn’t make any sense and to be honest it will be a waste of money.  There was the final payment of the trip, the cost of the visas and the airfare to and from tour, not taking into account additional airfares should we have to fly unexpectedly, and knowing African airfares, they are not cheap.  Add all that up and it just seemed a waste of money.  The countries will still be there next year, or the year after and I decided it was best to cancel off.  It was very disappointing that I did it, as it was to be my ‘last’ trip for a while, but I think it would be even more disappointing being on the trip and being turned away from a border and having to skip what I actually came on the trip to do.  I am also not sure if I would have enjoyed my trip 100%, at the back of mind thinking about the killer disease and the damage it is doing around us. 

I was impressed with Oasis’s reply after I had sent them an email asking them to cancel my spot on the trip.  I knew my deposit was non-refundable but there were a few options which they hoped that I still look forward to another overlanding trip. I was offered to transfer on to the same trip next year, and I had to pay a £50 transfer fee, moving my booking over to the 2016 departure date – that way I wouldn’t lose my deposit, it would just go towards my trip next year.  Or, they offered me 10% off the trip cost of the same trip or similar if I booked within the year (so by the 4th November 2015).  At least it wasn’t a big fat no, which by their terms and conditions they could of easily have done, so thankyou to Oasis and I am still to decide what I will do at this point.

So I wanted to wish my fellow travellers a safe journey from Ghana on the 14^th January.  I have just this week completed my photobook of my West Africa from last year, and it stirred up the travel bug and for a moment made me think if I had done the right thing.  But I do know deep down it was the right decision for me, and I will get another chance at another time to travel this section of Africa.