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N'djamena, 14/04/03
Three days of hard desert driving have taken
us around Lake Chad, and we are now resting and cleaning the feche, a fine
powder that gets into everything, from the car. Our camp site is in the car
park of the Novotel which offers safe parking; an important consideration in
what we have basically found to be an inhospitable country.
The driving itself has been tough, with deeply
rutted truck pistes and soft sand, but luckily enough we had no punctures
until I awoke to a flat tyre (read trashed tyre) this morning. Will emailed
me to say that the truck crossing was marked by loads of thorn punctures for
which the route is famous. We got to work out with the spade and sand
ladders a lot, and are now experts in deep sand recovery... and in getting
stuck, apparently.
From our arrival at Nuiguimi, which is a
sleepy village just over the border that offered us a camping spot for the
night, we travelled to Liwa, then on to Bol where we managed to blag our way
into the governors compound for the night. In the morning the man himself
came out to greet us, and it was a delight to meet such a hospitable and
welcoming gentleman. Unfortunately he seems to be pretty much on his own -
our usual departure from villages where we have stopped for water, air or
fuel, seems to be a swiftly executed withdrawal, usually with me riding the
tailgate to stop anybody climbing aboard as we escape, and more often than
not amid a shower of whatever can be thrown at us (fortunately stones are in
short supply in the desert, and the children responsible are poor shots...)
Often the vehicle is mobbed by children while
the adults stand by watching in amusement - the atmosphere varies from
unpleasant to outright hostile, and the sour flavour that this country is
leaving with us is compounded by corrupt and misleading officials who try to
shake us down at every opportunity.
We finally arrived in what feels like the
sanctuary of the Novotel late on our third day of travelling in a state
close to exhaustion, and with firm intentions of moving on as soon as
visas allow.
In spite of everything I've heard, the capital
itself is not really so intimidating, and certainly seems more laid back
than the villages we passed through en-route, but once we have a replacement
tyre and Cameroon visas it's going to be time to get the hell out of
N'djamena |
