Blogs from Calabar, Nigeria, Africa

Saturday June 16 We had packed everything up and were on the truck before the rain became heavy, waving goodbye to villagers who came out to see us off. Back onto the main road, most people settled in to sleep, read or watch the world go by and it was quiet. We arrived in Osogbo after midday where trip notes gave us directions to 'Okonfo's house'. With nothing else mentioned, we had no idea who - or what - Okonfo was so at the bottom of the street, Toby took off on a moto-taxi to investigate. Returning with a thumbs up, we navigated the narrow path with deep crevices and low wires and coming over a final crest, arrived at Okonfo's house. What a character. Okonfo is of indeterminate age with an abundance of energy. A ... read more

Well, this isn’t exactly how I’d planned to write my blog, but unfortunately it’s the way it’s panned out! Lack of internet access, lack of bandwidth when you do have the internet (one dial-up connection shared between four people anybody??), and lack of electricity through constant power cuts over the last 6 weeks or so mean that its been impossible to keep up to date with this blog. So rather than try and kill myself writing up entry after entry now that I’ve eventually found an internet café, I’m going to scrap the hurried bits and pieces I’ve started and let the photos tell the story, while I concentrate on mentioning my highlights and impressions of West Africa! (By the way, I don’t plan to continue like this for the entire trip, but hope - ... read more

From Benin we crossed into Nigeria and we have spent the past few days driving almost non stop to Abuja, stopping only for eating, sleeping and buying food. It was a long few days! Nigeria has been great so far, not that we've seen much. The people are awesomely friendly, especially the kids, but the adults too, shouting and waving whenever we drive past, kids jumping up and down, its great!! The kids would stop whatever they were doing and run to the side of the road, screaming and waving at us. We stopped in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, stuck in the never-ending quest for visas. Our passports visited the Sudan embassy, then Chad and Cameroon. So we had to sit around and wait. We didn't get up to much, shopping, eating out (we all ... read more