Crowded market street in Kano

Today was a relaxed day; the only thing on the agenda was to pick up our passports from the Nigerien consulate.  David spent the day doing maintenance on the car.  Kano has a lot of different ethnic restaurants.  On the same street as the camp alone, there is an Indian place, Lebanese, and Chinese.  Today for lunch we tried our luck at the Lebanese.  The schwarma was decent but they seemed to have forgotten our fries, took 20 minutes to prepare them and then by the time we got them they weren’t even cooked.  Everyone had long finished their schwarmas at that point.  Such is life.

One of the non-street signs

The roads are a nuisance here.  When we were driving back to the consulate to pick up the passports we had to navigate through the mess of traffic circles and market streets where everything just comes to a standstill.  Even worse, our city map showed streets coming off the traffic circles that simply did not exist.  Streets were not necessarily marked with the names that are written on the map but instead the street signs state inspirational Islamic adages.  We passed by a few “There is no God but Allah” streets.  So we got a little sidetracked trying to get to the consulate; but at least we got there on time.

When we arrived at the office, we then had to wait while they filled out our visas in front of us; I guess they wanted to get the money in hand before they filled the visas out.  Our visas are now in order and we will leave for Niger in the morning!

Our room with no electricity or running water

Today was LONG.  It was an early start so we could get to the Nigerien consulate before they close at 3.  It didn’t matter about waking up early, nobody slept well anyhow.  Our swanky hotel had no electricity or running water and it was boiling hot during the night.  Instead of negotiating for lesser prices I had to negotiate to get two buckets filled with water per room rather than one bucket per room.  The cold water from the bucked came in handy later on to cool off.

The road was excellent to Kano; we were flying at 100 to 120 kph.  Kano was exactly as we all imagined Nigeria to be; hectic, dirty, and packed with people.  We arrived just in time to make it to the Nigerien consulate.  They took us right away to fill out our papers.  It is the same story in each embassy we have been to.  They began a policy to charge US citizens reciprocal rates as they US charges African citizens.  The visa for Niger cost us 250 USD per person.  We won’t even be able to enter into the most beautiful parts of the country because the military took it over.  We will still need to get visas for Burkina Faso, Mali, and Mauritania.  Luckily for Senegal and Morocco we don’t need visas.  We don’t have many more to get, the cost is just such a shock.

The hotel is past its glory days in Maiduguri

After we handed in our passports and applications, we went over to the Christian district to get some food; the only place to have food out since it is Ramadan.  Ate some more gloopy fufu and spicy stews.  The woman did not charge us for the food, only for the drinks.

After driving across town to get to the tourist camp, we came across and official gas station….WITH DIESEL!  We used all of the money we had on us to get what we could.  Luckily the tourist camp has a money changer on site and we got there just in time to change money before they closed so we can pay for our exorbitantly prices visas since we cannot pay in USD.  At least the campsite is a bargain, only 350 naira, about $2 a person.  Tonight we will celebrate our success at a nice Indian restaurant.  It seems that we will leave for Niger on Friday.

Crossing the bridge that is now a waterfall

Where to begin?  We left this morning at 5:30 am.  We tried to follow the roads on the map, which didn’t actually work out but a nice guy on a motor bike led us to the right road.  We got to Mora quickly and uneventfully.  Driving down this road seemed to carry on and on; we realized that we had already driven enough kilometers to be at the border already and there was nothing in sight.  We then saw a sign for Waza National Park, nearly at the border with Chad, and we then knew we were officially on the wrong road.  After turning back we finally found the proper road; no wonder we missed it since it was nothing more than a sand trail.  Everyone in sight confirmed that the mucky, muddy, pocked sand trail is indeed Banki, the main border crossing with Nigeria and Cameroon.

Pulling out on the of unlucky cars that got stuck

One of the bridges had turned literally into a massive waterfall and the actual concrete part was impossible to see.  We luckily got across that fairly easily.  I had my emergency plan in mind; our windows were open so we could have jumped out and swum for safety.

Crossing the flooded road to reach customs

After crossing the water bridge we came across a section of mud where there were a few cars stuck.  We pulled one out and then followed another 4WD, who clearly knew their way around, through back roads to avoid the worst parts and stuck cars.  It was quick getting through immigration but it turned out that the road to the customs office was completely flooded and you can only get there on boat.  So Bobby went off with a guy on a motorbike to get to the boat and then the office to get the car’s carnet de passage stamped so we can officially exit Cameroon.  It felt like an eternity for Bobby to get there just for a stamp.  But, once it was done, it was a short hop away to Nigeria.

Everyone was excited and relieved to finally reach the notorious Nigerian side.  Bobby was so excited that he, of course, whips out the camera to immediately take pictures of the “Welcome to Nigeria” sign.  As soon as the clicks of the camera began; an immigration officer comes barreling out shouting “You cannot take pictures here, why did you take pictures? I SAW you take the pictures”.  I’m sure we were all thinking “oh shit, not now”, I know at least I was.

The picture that caused such a ruckus

When we entered the actual building, the guy who yelled at us was unfortunately the officer in charge of processing our entry and kept on repeating to Bobby “you cannot take pictures here, I can deny you entry into Nigeria because of that”.  I did my best to schmooze with the other officers and Bobby was preoccupied with groveling and apologizing to our dear officer.  The female officers were all very friendly and I did my best to chat them up to at least try to win some people over in the office that may be able to help us.

While our documents were being passed through the ranks, David was called in and there was a great deal of laughing coming from the room.  Even our angry officer and Bobby began chatting like old friends. Based on the advice I got from Wendy in Congo that women have less power in Nigeria I kept out of the conversations that we being held with the men.  This proved to be the right thing, as they called David in to the office, the officer told me “you stay behind”.  At least these new cheery male conversations seemed to indicate that we would be allowed to enter.  We were all stamped in for the one month that our visa permits us (we heard the rally people only got a transit visa despite having the month long tourist visa).

Line of trucks waiting for the water to subside

The road to Bama from Banki was impressively terrible, deep potholes of pavement, and we had numerous checkpoints along the way.  At one checkpoint, we kept super cheery while the armed men who were obviously on some type of drug approached the car.  They were very excited approaching the car and wanted to shake everyone’s hand.  They then asked us if we had any bibles.  This was a trick question, this state in Nigeria is a Sharia state and it would be illegal to proselytize.  Fortunately we have no bibles, only some smuggled beers; but we didn’t tell him about those.  We suspected the drug use was also to help them get through their shifts without feeling the hunger of the fast for Ramadan.

After that checkpoint we finally reached the proper paved sroad and the trip to Maiduguri was much quicker despite there still being the occasional checkpoint.  Maiduguri is a small city that isn’t even mentioned in the Lonely Planet but much to our shock it was the most populous city we have come across.   Nigeria has 140 million people, the largest population of any African nation.  This little backwater town has more people in it probably than the entire population of Gabon!

One of the many abandoned gas stations

We worked our way through this sprawling, crumbling city the best we could considering we had no map or information.  All the more luxurious hotels were built in the 1980s and are all falling into disrepair but continue to charge luxurious rates.  We managed to talk them into discounts but the whole place is depressing.  This big mega city doesn’t even have electricity or running water.  Some places have generators and fewer still have enough business to justify the cost of running the generator.

Nigeria is one of the world’s top producers of oil but there doesn’t seem to be a drop here.  Coning into town there was a ridiculous amount of gas stations, nearly every other building, and all were abandoned.  There is NO diesel in the country, only available on the black market.  I have no idea where they get it from.  I can’t imagine what Kano will be like; Nigeria’s third largest city.  We will leave our hotel early to make sure we get there early enough.  Nothing is going as quickly as the other over-landers have told us.  The rains have really made everything grind to a halt.