These goats were lucky enough to make it to Agadez.
We set off early on the road to Agadez. Surprisingly, the road was in good condition and we didn’t have any trouble with the first checkpoints. We bought the toll tickets and again, no problem. It wasn’t until we were about two hours away from Agadez that the military checkpoint told us to turn back. The officer brought us over to the main office in the town we had just passed. We had to explain to about 10 officers why we want to go to Agadez. We showed them all of our guide books and the pictures from the Canadian magazine that we came across. We explained that we want to see the Air Mountains, the Tenere desert, and the Cure Salee; all of which we were told is impossible. There has been some unrest with the nomadic Tuareg people in the area and the area is considered unstable. The whole time, a Tuareg man was trying to sell us his trinkets and we ended up buying some necklaces.
Despite our explanations, the military would not permit us to carry on to Agadez and insisted that we turn around the way we came. We passed Birnin Koni nearly the same time we had arrived yesterday. We ended up finding quite a good campsite off the highway in the savannah here. We are in a small cluster of bushes and trees that is shielding as from the open areas and we are lower and further from the road. We will go to see the giraffes tomorrow and then to Niamey to restock; Bobby and I are out of money and the beer supply is out.
