Friday, 22
December 06
I reach the Togoleese border
after 290km and approximately three hours of travel.
The completion of the formalities runs down normally
and I take a deep breath as the border official gives me the entry stamp.
I am happy that I could leave
As I want to start the engine again, something
unbelievable happens.
The starter revs up and for some inexplicable reason
doesn’t stop starting. Shortly after that it begins to stink and smoke comes
out under my tank!
I can just prevent the service-station guy from
spraying me and the motorcycle with the fire extinguisher.
After the first shock I take off the tank and check
the damage.
A probably faulty starter grilled my electrics from
the starting relay to the battery and back to the starter. That is already one
of the more improbable damages you can have and for sure not easy to repair!
If I have very bad luck, besides the starter and the
wiring harness also the starting relay, the diode board and the generator are
in the bucket.
That would cost a lot and probably could not be
repaired without spare parts from
As I sit next to my machine thinking about all these
things, suddenly my mood betters. Who knows what it was good for.
When fate stops you in such a way it must actually have a reason.
Who knows, perhaps some kilometers
down the road the man with the scythe would have waited for me, in whatever
kind of danger.
In addition my electrics could have choosen substantially more unfavorable
places for burning down. I think of the lonely Westsahara
or the uncertain situation in
What happens now is going so fast that I do not have a
possibility to affect anything.
The owner of the gas station and a
policeman have just stopped the traffic in order to find a truck that
would take me and the motorbike to
The men lift my heavy machine on the truck within
seconds. There it is put next to bags with bulbs and tomatoes as well as some
goats.
From here the distance is approximately 600km to
My original plan was to go to this shop for a set of
new tires. Now I must hope that they get my motorcycle working again.
The following truck travel is going to be an adventure
and I hope that we get through without an accident.
I sit down next to the driver, together with the owner
of the truck, who does not drive himself but kind of supervises the driver. Between them, sort of squeezed in another friend of the owner takes
place who doesn’t have any other recognizable task except polluting the air
with cigarette smoke.
The journey begins around
As it gets dark the driver cranks up the radio. The volume
is so high that the engine sounds of the MAN Diesel can not be heard anymore.
That is really something else.
Between other trucks, pedestrians and bicycles we move
on with a speed between 20 and 50 km/h.
Again and again we must stop at the numerous custom
and police controls where the driver normally has to pay for all sorts of not
comprehensible things.
At one of these controls I stand directly next to it.
That does not seem to disturb the police in any way. The policeman
lies in a sunchair besides the road and calls the
driver. He snaps with his fingers and says money, now. How much money he does not
say. As the
man gives him 1000 CFA he snaps for money again. With the next 1000CFA he is
content, the cash disappears in his breast pocket and without leaving hie sunchair he signals us to
drive on.
These encounters normally remain hidden for the normal
tourist, if you experience them they however say very much about a country and
the arbitrariness of the authorities.
Saturday, 23
December 06
In the break of dawn the driver suddenly falls asleep.
We drive through the morning mist and suddenly his head sinks forward. I
immediately seize the steering wheel and hold straightforward, but he laughs
and says that this is normal in the night. Sometimes he is just very tired but
he has everything under control. That I’ve just protected us from an accident
doesn’t seem to come to his mind.
The truck wrecks along the road speak a clear
language, so do I mean.
Shortly thereafter the owner of the truck awakes from
his sleep as well. He tells the driver to stop. I assume, he will continue
driving now and tell the man that he must stop when he is too tired.
Far been missing, the sun comes up in the east and
that is the time for the morning prayer.
The men are Muslims. They unroll their carpets, wash
their feet and begin to pray. In the middle of the road, with
trucks passing by only a few centimeters besides
them.
Ten minutes later the journey continues. As we arrive
in the next village we take another passenger on board. With three dead
chickens we now sit in the cabin and there hardly remains any air for
breathing.
The truck suddenly does a strange curve and the
steering wheel begins to run jerkily. The driver is brightly awake this time
and as it looks our right front wheel did not survive one of the sharp tarmac
edges at the roadside.
So we have to change the tires. With little technical
support, but with African Power! It is amazing to see with how much energy the
men sort out the problem.
After approximately 22 hours and 600 kilometers we reach
A customer is addressed, a taxi is called and the
goats are immediately shipped into the trunk.
Soon the truck ride is also over for me. We unload my
motorcycle in front of Tony Togo’s repair shop.
Unfortunately his flight to
So we do not have the possibility to talk. Actually a
shame, for I’m the first Austrian who has ever driven a motorcycle down to his
place.
To repair my bike could become more difficult now. In
In
There I have substantially less possibilities than
here.
If no time as well as cost justifiable repair can be
made, the machine would have to be flown to
The parts from
I will first try to repair the existing starter and
the wiring and see if I can possibly get any spare parts here.
If that should not be possible, I will weigh the cost
and time factors of the other possibilities against each other and decide what
to do.
However, tomorrow is Christmas, and I look forward to
spend the holidays at Chez Alice. Actually one of the best
known traveler’s lodges in whole
Meanwhile,
In the evening I would gladly talk to her a bit longer
but after two sleepless nights I tiredly fall into the bed.
Sunday, 24
December 06
Today I ask what happened in
In any case what happened was that a policeman shot a
soldier wherupon the military started a mobilization
towards
The armed forces attacked and burnt down 20 police
stations in their own capital city! and additionally opened
the prisons and released over 60 dangerous criminals! These men could also take
weapons , as it was as „gift “for the police to make
it harder for them to catch the gangsters again. Even in
Not wrongly people are now seriously concerned about
the security of the country, the conflict between military and police has
calmed down again, the criminals and traitors are still free and dangerous.
This story clearly shows me that it is highly interesting
to travel through
Thomas Bernhard once said that us modern Europeans
think geometrically and see no order in a form, which misses any regularity.
This chaos without recognizable forms however
determines the life in
After these philosophical considerations I go for a
run.
It is a special experience to do your christmas run among palm trees on
lovely beaches.
In the evening we celebrate Christmas and have a big
party. A band plays some traditional music and even one of the approximately 78
sons of the president is part of them. He is the bass man and only the bodyguard
behind him points out his origin.
Today I meet another Austrian, the famous ethnologist,
Apart from his friendship and cooperation with Albert
Schweitzer in Lambarene the professor is an internationally
recognized capacity of the African Voodooculture. He
is the author of many well known publications and lives in
In Schwarz in Tirol/Austria Gert Chesi has a museum that
shows a broad cross section of his work.
I am glad that I could meet him personally and have a
chance to speak to him this evening.
All in all I spend a great christmas time. Unfortunately not with my family at
home, but with
many new friends here in
Monday,
25. 12. 2006
In the morning I go for a run and later on the beach.
I spend the evening with interesting conversations
again.
Professor Chesi comes to
visit and tells us about his earlier journeys through
40 years ago he drove an old Volkswagen bus through
the
We speak about the problems coming with the lack of
self coordination of today's West African states and the development since the
colonial age.
Frantz Vanon, one of the
ideological fathers of Che Guevara tried to explain
such development processes and changes of cultures and countries in one of his
books.
Due to long cultural submission by the Europeans, as
well as the arbitrary allocation of the countries without consideration of
peoples and habitats, many African tribes lost their origin and their cultural
background.
This process can easily be understood if one considers
that it was always necessary to think collectively in the original culture of
It was also normal for most tribes to see their wealth
and reputation in the possessions of their kings. If a king was rich and
decorated with gold, also his people felt so. Each individual was ready to live
in poverty and work hard in order to support this process.
Self coordination and selfinitiative
were not demanded at all.
By the introduction of the colonies, all the
dominating became westernised.
A basic law of nature is the law of the adjustment of
organisms to new circumstances of life. And that was exactly what happened, the
people tried to live up to the expectations of their new ideals. Unfortunately very often by giving up their own identity, values
and skin color.
That goes so far, that it is natural today that an African
Head of State readily cashes economic allowances from international companies
while he makes prestigious business in order to enrich himself with little to
no benefit for his country or his kinsmen. It works out good for him, it works
out better for the international economy and it doesn’t work out at all for the
people who end up suffering. However, in
That is an interesting theory and helps to understand
things here much better.
Today I need to go to the office of immigration. I
only have a transit visa for 7 days and I must change it into a tourist visa
for my stay will be longer than expected.
I spend the day in
When the sun disappears behind the clouds and the
humidity rises to 95%, I believe to be in a sauna.
That doesn’t seem to disturb the people here too much, wherever they can they rest and sleep.
Today I go to the immigration in order to collect my
passport again. I arrive there at
There are still approximately 100 passports on the
table and per hour maximally
4 of them get stamped.
Obviously there is no way to fetch the passport today,
things are stuck.
After approximately one hour all of us are sent out of
the building to wait outside to be called.
When the official comes out to call some Russian
sounding name, I wait a bit and as nobody answers I simply raise my arm and say
Karaschow.
Once in the office of the immigration secretary again,
I claim that I was called and say my correct name. Since the man inside has no
idea what is happening outside they don’t notice the gag.
No problem says the official, takes out my stamped
passport and returns it to me.
It is sad, but without insolence really nothing can be
reached here and in addition I nearly spent two whole days in order to get a
stamp into my passport. That is what you call African bureaucracy then.
In the evening I drive back to the lodge and become a
witness of a terrible accident. A family father, his two children and his wife
ride on a moped down the main street towards
The moped can hardly be seen from behind as it has no
lights and everybody on the road gets blinded by the upcoming traffic.
Loaded with 4 persons the speed of the two-wheeler is
probably not higher than 30 km/h.
From behind a bus with approximately three times that
speed rolls up and it comes to a tragic collision.
The moped and the family are hurled through the air.
The father and the older son don’t move anymore, the
woman and the baby got thrown off the road.
The guilty bus driver doesn’t reduce his speed at all
but continues with full power. Since he has no readable numberplate
on his vehicle he manages to escape, whether and/or how often he became a
murderer doesn’t seem to make any difference for him.
If people would think about their actions first and
also try to see possible consequences a lot could be avoided.
Sole responsibility in thinking seems to be missing
everywhere.
The traffic is like children playing robber and
gendarme with real guns. Russian Roulett.
I spend a sad evening.
This morning I go for a run and then I meet up with
Sean.
Sean is a car electrician and together we will try to
repair my bike.
He is one of the few craftsmen in
So Sean and I go shopping. We need to replace the old
wiring harness with new cables.
In the city there are some Lebanese shops that
cannibalize all sorts of damaged cars. We simply cut out the wiring of an old
Toyota Starlet and start replacing one cable after the other.
After seven hours of work we are finished and also
know the source of the problem. A faulty starting relay caused the electrics to
burn off. Stupid enough but quite easy to understand.
If 30 amperes of battery power fully run into the cables without going through
the relays first it works like a welding set.
For us the exciting moment comes as we want to start
the bike.
We are all quite surprised as suddenly one of the
other mechanics shouts Stop.
I press the emergency stop immediately and already see
myself wiring up the whole thing again. But it’s something else this time. One
of the inlets of the oil cooler became leaky and I lose engine oil.
On my truck travel the men lashed the goats to the motorcycle.
Apparently one of the animals worked too badly on my radiator and it became
leaky.
Now we need a new inlet for the oil cooler and that
will have to be manufactured.
But not today, it meanwhile became night and we will
continue tomorrow.
Sean fetches me at
In front of some rusty Royce Royce
marine engines we stop and enter a sheet metal hut. Here all kinds of pressure-resistant
hoses are manufactured. Mostly for ships and trucks.
As expected the patron ask for far too much money so I want to turn around and
leave again. By the intervention of Jean we finally get an acceptable deal. As
we replace the inlet the machine starts and everything works fine.
Only the left cylinder suddenly rings badly.
I wait until the engine has cooled down and check the
valve play. As I open one of the adjusting screws I see that the thread revved
itself up and I will need a new one. That’s crazy, already the third breakdown
within one week.
Odds are that I will have to use DHL to get a screw
from
Saturday, 30
December 06
As I go for a morning run some people are already expecting
me along the route. It apparently got around that a sporty tourist is in the
area and some dealers run after me and want to sell me their goods.
As I come to some more remote place, suddenly a man
runs next to me and grabs my arm. Then he shouts at me: White man give me money! As we both try to decide whether that is
going to be an assault or fun it turns out to be fun for me. I simply increase
my speed and he can not follow me in the sand. Sorry for him! Tomorrow I will
probably run somewhere else, I don’t want to find out
what he plans next. Else, the coming days will be rather silent for me.
During the next three days nothing is going to happen
here. People already start celebrating new year and
the Muslims have their Tabaski.
They start fires in the backyards and traditionally
slaughter the sheep.
The blood runs into a pit in the ground and the
children joyfully jump around.
Different countries, different customs!
Sunday, 31
December 06
Most people have already been drinking since Christmas
without a break and this evening is the big party. La Fete.
Cheap liquor is sold at the beach and the business
with the alcohol is booming. A bottle of Whiskey costs 1000CFA, 1,80 Euros! In the morning I already see passed out people on
the streets.
No matter what religion people have, when it comes to
drinking all are united. The traffic becomes even more crazy
and street crime increases for people need money to buy alcohol. Actually it is
very sad.
I spend New Year's Eve at Chez Alize
having a nice party.
I traditionally start 2007 with a New Year’s run. I
run around town and wish everyone I meet a happy new year.
Some of the people are still very drunk and shaking their
hands can sometimes be quite challenging.
In many places parties are not over yet as it is
considered as a status symbol to still have money and be able to get drunk. I
prefer to spend the afternoon in the garden and play with the monkeys.
This morning I drive to the repairshop
to find out whether someone could find a screw for me.
Unfortunately there is no suitable part available and
I must order one over DHL.
My mechanic has such a part in his workshop and I should
get it within 2 days. Then I will be able to completely repair the motorbike
and continue my journey.
Later today I take a taxi to the Embassy of Gabon. The
visa can be obtained without problems and if luck is on my side, I might get
the Angolan visa in
There is an embassy and the Ambassador will be back
from holidays after the 5th of january.
Now the situation on my planned route looks like this.
At the moment
If I should not be able to get the
Angolan visa here in Lome/Togo or then in
Abuja/Nigeria, I have a problem.
That would mean that the way overland to
As an alternative option there still is the
possibility to cross the Democratic Republic of the Congo from the north to the
east in order to get to Uganda and then to East Africa. This option is
definitely not to be favoured for over 2000km of bad pistes
await and the country has not yet calmed down after their elections.
Today I drive to the best hotel of the city hoping to find
a working internet connection.
For crazy 2500CFA you buy one hour of Internet surfing
and the moment I want to log in the net breaks down.
As I get up to ask what happened I already hear the
loud complaints of the Lebanese businessmen.
So I will have to come tomorrow and can only hope that
the internet is working then. In the evening a group is performing at Chez
Alice and life looks good again.
Fortunately my parts arrive during the next days and I
can repair my motorbike.
Getting the Angolan visa turns out to be more diffcult than expected. The Angolan Ambassador of
So I get a letter of recommendation from the embassy
to make it easy for me to collect the visa in
I spend some more days in