After a month of hitchhiking across the Sahara (from north to south), arriving in the old trading town of Zinder signaled the end of my long desert journey towards Nigeria.
CONTENTS
The last few days had been weird.
Saying ‘goodbye’ to the guys who gave me a lift across the 400 km of sand and unmarked track sweeping Algeria and Niger, to part ways at Niamey as I headed west across the Sahel, alone.
Traveling to Zinder Old Town
I remember my 25th birthday, and passing the entire day either on the side of the dusty road waiting for the shared-taxi to fill, or bumping along fast – squeezed amid three passengers in the backseat.
And during that waiting time, a bicycle-vendor cart had passed with stereo blaring.
I liked the music, and bought the cassette to play in my Sony Walkman.
The musician was Ali Farka Touré (a blues singer from Mali, who Ry Cooder later collaborated with on the album “Talking Timbuktu” in 1994; this was 1991).
Birthday Evening Massacre
The evening of my birthday was nothing special, either.
The owner of the bare concrete room said, “Just remember to close the window before you go out, as the power will come on at dusk and that’ll attract insects into your room.”
Well, maybe I was too tired from the taxi trip and starving, wanting to go out for some roasted meat and the chance of beer to celebrate … something slipped, because when I returned – STUNNED.
Opening the door, swarms – 100s of mad flying insects like moths or locus’s were bouncing off the walls of the bare-bulb-lit room.
INSANE.
I spent 30 minutes trying to kill them all in a swirl of sarong-flapping action that crashed them onto the cement floor before kicking them outside.
Sleep would’ve been impossible – without such mass murder.
Taxi Stop Scene
Earlier, it’d been a shared-taxi ride from Konni, waiting in the sparse shade of a spare parts shelter that served as a shop.
Under a metal-frame tarp, with a plastic chair on the dust of the street, the two of us sat, the owner and I, avoiding the heat.
Maradi was a chaotic city, but a place where you could watch the street all day without feeling bored.
Drinking Coke or Pepsi – it didn’t matter, as long as they were cold.
Eating snacks that resembled dry rat bait.
Talking to strangers who were endless and friendly.
Watching a young taxi driver spend hours washing, soaping, washing, scrubbing, polishing and caressing his car.
Not an inch of the chassis missed. Hubs shone. The engine washed free of its grime and oil. Car radio antenna wiped, and the small Niger flag straightened. Thick set of wheels, dusty but now gleaming-black again. The interior immaculate.
Yes, this car was his girlfriend.
Or maybe just the asset to attract a future wife?
Wandering Lost in Zinder
One afternoon, I was wandering the streets of outer Zinder when I crossed over a slight dirt hill, stepping over a strand of down-trodden barbed wire on route to what I thought was a historic tower.
But as everything came into view, I suddenly entered a village and women and kids smiled and greeted me from the doorways of their simple concrete houses before I realized my mistake.
This was no ordinary village – but a military cantonment! – as I now clearly saw ahead gates and soldiers standing there. Oh, sh*t.
How do I explain that I’m just wandering around an army camp to those guys? A real problem, since I’d already been pulled from the streets of Algeria and accused of being a foreign spy by soldiers (and it happened again later in Lagos, Nigeria).
I decided I couldn’t just turn around and head back the way I’d come as I was now the center of attention on this dusty road, so I kept casually wandering towards the gates, smiling and saying “Hi” to all that caught my eye.
Including to the soldiers at the gate, who to my surprise, didn’t even stop and question me.
Travels in Niger – 1991
