Hello from Douala! Sorry for the delay, but TIA (this is Africa) and this is what happens when internet is slow and experiencing a new place is more fun than sitting in front of a computer and blogging.

Anyhow, today I come to you with a story of the awesomeness of Mom. I’m sorry to say it seems that half of the “excitement” we’ve found time to blog about is the poor behavior of others and I hope to rectify that soon by blogging some more interesting and happy tales from the road. For now though, a quick story of Mom’s un-fun market moment will have to do.

So, Douala is known for petty crime and and is certainly not the prettiest or most lively African city I have visited. It isn’t really known for site seeing either, but Mom, Kiran and I decided to make the best of it and go for a wander around Douala’s main market. The market is really bustly and we enjoyed watching people haggle over the price of meat, fish, produce and household items. The smells and colors at the market, like most open air markets I’ve visited in Africa, will linger in my brain forever.

So, we were walking along the main road by the market and a truck was blocking the road. We were standing there with a bunch of people, waiting to cross, when a man in a red baseball cap ran up to mom and tried to grab her purse. Luckily, she had a firm grip on it and because it was over and across her shoulder he didn’t manage to steal it. Instead, he tumbled into a muddy puddle, splashing us all and knocking over a motorcycle, then ran off. Mom was really proud he didn’t get it, as were the ladies in the market. Unfortunatly, the purse string was pulled so hard when the man fell that it bruised up her arm. Aside from the little bruises, Mom is doing great and with a modified purse set-up even ventured out again to another market today!

Apparently locals get their purses and glasses snatched here often, as do the white folk, and our experience was sadly not unique. The only reason I really wanted to tell this story was to say “GO MOM, way to show that guy how strong an old white lady can be!”

It is important to say that although Douala is a rough city, the people we have actually spent time with here are very nice and we have really enjoyed their company. Special thanks to all the staff at the Foyer du Marin where our cars are being auctioned, they have been really awesome!

Best wishes from the final stop on our adventure! More pictures and blogs to come shortly …

Our ever so slightly insane roadtrip took us across a wide assortment of driving surfaces - from a highspeed motorway in France, to a non-existent dirt road through a minefield in Mauritania. Nothing we came across, however, compared to the red clay-turned-mud that we encountered on our drive down through Cameroon.

Our last few days on the road, the Cameroonian sky opened up and the rainy season decided to show us who’s boss. Dancing in the rain is one thing, but driving in the muddy jungle up against the slightly unstable Central African Republic border in the rain is another story.

Thankfully both Doug and I have driven in snow and ice, because that is exactly what this slippery red stuff felt like. Aparna, who was sitting in the back, somehow managed to get sprayed with more mud than Doug and I combined. Slipping and sliding around for hours, struggling especially on the hills, we managed to make it back to the paved portion of the road. The best part is that a team who traversed the same route two days before us said driving on the DRY red clay was a breeze. Ha!

Although the red clay was challenging, the consensus in our car is that we easily prefer sliding around on mud over the brain damage caused by bumping over  the painful, ”paved”, pot-hole ridden roads.

Internet is being impossibly slow today (goes without saying, right?) but we will post pictures of our beautifully red stained Suzuki soon.

Steve, if you are reading this, your car had a really good time on the Cameroonian roads and wishes you were here!

The rumors are true! Our little SPOT messenger is no longer updating because WE MADE IT to Kribi, Cameroon! The same cannot be said for many teams (more to come on that later) but on August 13th, 2008, THE SANDBOX SAVANTS FINISHED the inaugural Adventurists’ Africa Rally!

Sorry we have not updated the site until now, the town’s power was knocked out due to storms and we were unable to access internet until just now.

We have so much to share with you and so many photos. Please stay tuned over the next few days as we work hard to update the site. This, of course, is electricity dependent but please keep visiting the site because we have more reflections and photos to share!

LOTS OF LOVE AND GRATITUDE,

APARNA, DOUG AND JESSIE

We are in Cameroon!  Don’t rejoice too soon though, my friends, as we are only in the city of Garoua, in Northern Cameroon.  We still have a lot of mud, rain and pothole-ridden roads to go before we get to Kribi, and then Douala.

You may have noticed that we have been posting a lot today, and those of you who have been diligently following our route page have noticed that we have not gone anywhere in quite some time. Well.  Let me open the curtain to that mystery for you.

Do we ford the river? – We crossed into Cameroon at the village of Kerawa on August 9.  The road to Kerawa from the Nigerian village of Pulki was 16 kilometers of mud and craters.  It was a lovely and pleasant hour of being bumped around and almost losing everything from the top of the car.  We crossed the border without issue.  THEN.  We drove, just after dark, to the city of Mora, which involved some more potholes and bumpiness…and also a bridge that has been submerged by a FLASH FLOOD. The bridge was only about a foot under water but the water was rising fast and we knew we had to cross immediately if we were going to cross at all that night. Luckily, some village boys agreed to walk in front of the car so we could follow them over the invisible bridge.  Amazingly, we made it into Mora that night.

Why don’t you girls get out and push? – The morning of August 10, we were so ready to get as far south in Cameroon as possible.  We were feeling great and ahead of schedule, even after a morning of being bounced around from town to town by customs officials to get our car paperwork completed, requiring us to cross the only slightly less submerged bridge twice more. 

So we’re driving along in our automobile, about halfway between Maroua and Garoua, making great time, when the car started jerking, almost like it’s running out of gas, except we had half a tank left.  We weren’t really sure what was going on, but the car contined to drive fine as long as we stayed under 40 miles per hour. So we decided to slowly head on to Garoua, where we could visit a mechanic.

OH. IT. WAS. SO. SLOW.

The speed our car was willing to tolerate continually decreased, until we were topping out at about 10 miles per hour on a flat road, 20 miles per hour going downhill, and a number that was not registrable going uphill.  At one point, as we were driving uphill past a small village, the car slowed to a halt and stalled out. 

So Jessie and I jumped out, Little Miss Sunshine style, pushed until Doug could get the car started again, and then ran up and jumped in. 

Luckily there was no danger of us not keeping up with the car after it started moving again. 

When we finally rolled into Garoua a full 6 hours and approximately 211 kilometers after leaving Maroua, we were lucky enough to find a hotel to crash for the night — after pushing the car into the parking lot, of course.  For once, camping was not an option for us.

But all is well again.

As has been our amazing luck, we met some great people on arriving here, including a British expat and his Cameroonian coworkers, who helped us find some great and honest mechanics to fix our car.  As it turns out, the problem was a plastic bag that some hilarious soul decided to shove into our gas tank. 

Also, while we had the mechanic looking at our car, we also had him remove the plastic jerrycan nozzle that got stuck in the neck of our gas tank when we were refilling the tank a few days earlier.  It hadn’t been causing any problems, but we thought it was best to get it out of there.

We will be on our way south again tomorrow, hopefully getting a lot closer to the finish line. 

In the meantime, thanks for all your support and keep thinking good thoughts!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DOUG!

On August 7th, 2008 Doug celebrated his 24th birthday. 

Happy, Happy Birthday Doug!!

We celebrated the day of Doug’s delivery to this earth munching on “Laughing Cow” processed cheese and baguette, driving over 300 miles through Niger.

So sad, right?

Don’t shed too many tears for our red bearded friend: we knew we’d be traveling hard on his actual birthday so we celebrated two nights beforehand by throwing him a birthday bash in a field in Burkina Faso before breaking away from our convoy with Kiran, Anthony and Kevin. The bash included makeshift cornbread/nutella cake with match candles, local beer and awesome presents we bought on the street in Ouaga. The next night, Aparna and I bought him a delicious Chinese food feast, followed by ice cream in Niamey.

All in all, we were lucky to be able to celebrate this awesome guy in a beautiful country, surrounded by good people, yummy food, a gorgeous sunset and lots of cows.

We have collected a large handful of entertaining stories about our experiences in the torrential African rain (yes, it is the rainy season), but for now I will quickly share with you an exchange Doug and I had during a downpour in Mali which sums up our thoughts on camping in the rain:

ME: “Man, I’m so glad you brought the dry sack. Putting all our sleeping gear on the roof would have been impossible otherwise. It’s nice to climb into a dry sleeping bag.”

DOUG: *sigh* “I wish we could climb into a dry sack.”

Since our last set of posts from Ouaga, we split off from our convoy and took off on our own, crossing Niger in a couple of days and entering Nigeria this morning.  It’s been fabulous.  
 
It’s been a while since we’ve been on our own, and we’re enjoying it.  We loved traveling with Kirin, Deathwish, Tom & Steve and the others we’ve met along the way.  They provided some added support and companionship during the tougher stretches of our journey, and were just really fun to spend time with.  What is nice about traveling on our own, however, is the increased interaction we have with the people around us. 
 
When there are four or more cars zooming through an area, we become an overwhelming group of outsiders.  The greatest interaction usually occurs with the people who provide us lodging or when one of us manages to stray a small distance away from the group.  Thos interactions have been valuable, but are few and far between. When there is just one car, the three people inside become a manageable set of individuals who bring different stories and might be worth a welcome.
 
Since entering Nigeria this morning, Doug, Jessie and I have been lucky enough to make some amazing friends.  At the border, while Doug and Jessie were taking care of some form-filling, I learned Yoruba from a border guard and off-duty soldier.  As I type this, the people around me are teaching us Housa, another local language.  We met many more curious and helpful people in our one day here. Joseph and Samuel, two men who took pity on us poor, tired and lost foreigners, unselfishly showed us where to find a good meal and the road out of the very busy and unnavigable city of Kano. The incredibly gregarious and interesting people here in Azare are teaching us about their culture as they are simultaneously trying to learn about our own. 
 
I know we still owe you lots about Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, and that will come soon, I promise!  In the meantime, lots of love from this incredibly lively and diverse continent.

Location: Nouakchott, Mauritania

Date: July 31, 2008 (around 9:00 am)

Local Temperature: 90 degrees Fahrenheit

Total Journey Mileage: 3,214 miles

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As we back track over the past week or so, I’d like to take a minute to pay respect to Mauritania. We had a horrible time crossing from Western Sahara into Mauritania, but instead of blogging about those 8 hours of hell in the heat of the desert at the border, I’d like to give a quick mention about the rest of our time there.

Mauritania has a small population of just over 3 million people, but it is the world’s 29th-largest country. Because the majority of the population lives in Nouakchott, Nouadhibou and Kiffa the vast distance between towns was really noticable as was the poverty and isolation.

Because of how long the border crossing took we ended up our first night sleeping in a large room adjacent to a petrol station between Nouadhibou and Nouakchott. The following day was spent in Nouakchott taking care of car repairs and enjoying a little rest at the lovely Auberge Sahara. Our friend Kirin got some chocolate ice cream on his way back from the Malian embassy. He was nice enough to give me a bite and to this day I wish I had gone and gotten myself some! Sigh. So, we took care of some business and then enjoyed the company of our convoy. It was a nice break before heading towards Kiffa, a city not far from the Malian border.

We were really struck by the heat as we headed east from Nouakchott towards Mali, the weather and lack of resources clearly have had an impact on the agriculture and livestock. As we drove, we noticed that the countryside was littered with dead cows, donkeys, camels and goats. All were at various stages of decay, but many had recently died.

Back in Nouakchott we ate delicious Senegalese fish, grilled up whole and spiced just right. Outside Nouakchott the food options were limited. Another thing we noticed was how expensive goods were. It seems it was a combination of us being overcharged as foreigners,  combined with the difficulty and expense of importing goods. Local food away from the fresh fish on the coast was limited and we ended up eating lots of eggs, bread and cheese (when it was available).

Thanks to kindess of strangers and our awesome convoy we made it through Mauritania. It was not a wowing experience, but it was memorable because of our crazy experiences and the nice people who helped us in Nouakchott and the beautiful mountains in the east. 

Dealing with the corrupt police and some persistent and aggressive people was not fun, but we made it through to Mali and everything worked out! Someday I’d like to trek in the mountains here, and enjoy tea with locals who could better help me find reasons to like Mauritania. This time through was a bit of a bust, so until next time …

More to come on Mali soon ….

Location: Dakhla, Western Sahara

Date: July 29, 2008 (around 7:30 am)

Local Temperature: 68 degrees Fahrenheit

Total Journey Mileage: 2785

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Hello all from lovely Ougadougou, Burkina Faso.  Since arriving in Africa, we drove through Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania and Mali to get here, and yet we’ve only so far managed to tell you about our first few days in Morocco!  Egads!

This is me trying to catch us up just a little bit - 5 days in one post.  Are you ready?

25 July - We left Marrakech in the late afternoon, deciding to head out to Essaouira and then as far south as possible before finding a place to stay.   The road south was beautiful, and we caught an amazing sunset after almost running over a pack of dogs and a camel who all burst onto the road as if out of thin air.   

We stayed at a lovely beachside camground, where we experienced only a small misfortune.  But we don’t have time to dawdle over small misfortunes on this journey, and we soldier on.

26 July - After eating breakfast with some of the Berbers who worked at the campgrounds, which involved some bread and incredibly tasty almond oil laced with honey, we drove down to Agadir.  It was all work and no play for us in Agadir, as we had to find a replacement gas cap (that story will come soon) and find someone to patch up our tent.  Luckily for us, we met Goudachi Abderrafia, an absolute sweetheart of a mechanic/car parts salesman, who managed to modify an existing gas cap to fit our car and get our tent patched up by a friend of his in under two hours.  He also donated two wooden planks to the cause, just in case we beached ourselves in the Sahara. As I’ve mentioned before in my emails, we have been meeting some really great people on the road and they’ve made our trip that much better.

Later that day we meet up with a bunch of other ralliers, and everyone makes camp at a campsite outside Guelmim.

27 July - We crossed into Western Sahara!  This is markedly different from Morocco, and we felt a little bit like pioneers entering a new frontier.  The scenery was amazing, as we drove through a lot of mountains and desert.  There wasn’t much along the way, but the towns we did see were all very pretty beach towns catering to adventure sport tourists. 

Our destination was Laayoune, but on the way we stopped in Tarfaya and had lunch with Team Deathwish, where I ate fish that had been fried whole.  Yes, you read that right. I, Aparna, ate from a fish that still had its head and eyeballs (granted, they were fried) while I was eating it.

[PICS TO COME]

We made it to Laayoune that night, an incredibly windy coastal town that also hosts a number of UN offices, where we camped with Deathwish, the Sandbox Warriors (from this point forward, known as Kirin) and If It Don’t Work, Hit It (Tom and Steve).

28 July - Next stop, Dakhla, a veritable treasure chest for the windsurfing enthusiasts out there.  This was another beautiful beach town we reached only after driving through what appeared to be endless sand.  We manage to get into town early enough to have a relaxing dinner while we look out on the water, and later bond while having a few beers (which are not easy to find in this highly regulated region) before going to bed.

29 July - We hit the road at 7:30 AM.  Next stop, Mauritania!  That one is coming soon.

Just in case you were wondering what a day in the life driving behind the wheel of our Sam is like, here is a quick list of things we have had ample chance to run over during the past few weeks:

•  
  • Donkeys
  • Horses
  • Cows
  • Cats
  • Birds
  • Bats (we actually hit a few of these at dusk one day)
  • Landmines
  • Dogs
  • Rodents
  • Snakes (we ran one over today)
  • Small Children
  • Local Cars and Vans
  • Other Rally Cars
  • Men on bicycles, converted to mopeds

Donkeys, camels and cows have been our biggest and most often encountered road hazard. So far, we have made it 4,500 miles without denting the bumper. Here is to a few more thousand miles of safe, collision free driving!!

Anyone interested in taking the wheel?