Niger
We drove into Niger a little disappointed as we had originally wanted
to visit Agadez and take the full 4x4 tour of the Air mountains and
the Tenere desert but now we were only going as far as Zinder. Because
of the continuing conflict between the Toureg and government forces,
the whole Agadez area is out of bounds and all the tour agencies have
debunked to the capital, Niamey.
But after the headlong buzz of Nigerian towns - the thousand of cars
cutting you up and the hundreds of friendly people wanting to talk to
you - it was great to drive over the sleepy border and step back into
a more rural, modestly paced Africa. The landscape changed almost immediately,
the cultivated fields fading to scrubland, the green hills to treeless
savannah. With less modernity and less visible Islam, the people’s traditional
way of life is less disturbed; the women wrap themselves in day-glo
coloured sarongs and drink in roadside bars alongside the men.
Despite falling short of Agadez, we visited Zinder to the south and
walked around its ancient painted walls. We slept in a mud compound
and woke to the song of beggars calling for alms through the gates.
We followed the NGO vehicles from their Zinder stronghold along the
main N1 road to Niamey. Neat desert villages line the road with walled
compounds of huts and grain silos; some made of straw, some of mud bricks
with straw roofs and some all baked brick and mud like gigantic oil
jars. The N1 skirts the Nigerian border to the south and each border
town is stuffed with smuggled goods including cheap fuel, the petrol
sold in old whisky bottles, lined up like targets on a shooting arcade
by the roadside.
In Dogondoutchi there is one hotel with a big bar and, when we arrived
on a Sunday afternoon, the entire population of the town was in the
bar and a little worse for wear. We sat under the lemon trees while
two paralytic musicians enquired about our trip and made up drunken
lyrics to accompany the proto-blues they played on two string gourd
guitars.
Niamey is a small city which has grown spasmodically depending on, amongst
other things, the international price of uranium (mined in the north
and what the Toureg are mostly fighting the government about) and the
number of active NGOs and aid organisations. The poor of the countryside
now walk around the city centre, begging at the window of every air-conditioned
Landcrusier Prado. We camped at the Camping Touristique, which is actually
just a huge bar and not a campsite at all. Each night the spacious outdoor
venue filled with drinking punters and loud music and the dark field
where we put up our roof-tent was dotted with un-lit thatched shelters
used for secret assignations. No one seemed to mind us being there so
we joined in the best we could (with the beer and kebabs – our assignations
are definitely not secret).
After long and intense periods spent in both Cameroon and Nigeria, we
barely touched Niger. We vowed to return after the fighting has finished
and get properly lost in the desert mountains.
Photos
Zinder compound
Grain silos
