Cameroon is stunning

After our epic journey through the mud we headed down to Limbe on the coast to relax for a couple of days. The country in beautiful with a thick cover of rainforest. It rains fairly relentlessly at this time of year, but when the sun comes out it is all worth it.

We are now in Yaounde, the capital. We have fixed our car. Our mud adventure had written off the brakes and we needed to replace all our filters. We have also ripped a piece off the side of the car but its only cosmetic. Later today we head down to the Gabonese border, after which we cross into Congo, DRC and then Angola. We met a South African couple coming north who have given us all the info we need to get down to Namibia without straying into bandit territory or getting stuck on terrible roads (or, as they did, both at the same time!). We feel confident about the rest of the trip south, although securing visas for DRC and Angola may be a little tricky.

The main road from Nigeria to Cameroon has seen better days

We crossed the border from Nigeria to Cameroon near Ekok at about 2pm last Friday, intending to spend the night in Mamfe, about 40 miles further on. A day and a half later we limped into Mamfe, having spent the intervening time in a giant mudbath. The road from Ekok to Mamfe goes through the rainforest. It is a stretch to call it a dirt road. In fact it is a stretch to call it a road. It is more like a swimming pool. Or a construction site. After 10 minutes on the road we found ourselves stuck in a mud hole about 15 feet deep with 5 feet of water at the bottom and no traction for our wheels. It was raining, and the only way out of the car was to climb out of the window. Still, with smiles on our faces we broke out the shovel and hooked up the winch to a conveniently located tree. Within an hour we were free. This was fun! 10 minutes later we were stuck again. On about the 10th time the fun started to fade. Still it was an amazing experience. We only managed to get through the whole thing because we got so much help from locals. Every time we got stuck people would emerge from the jungle, dive into the mud and start pushing. We carried on deep into the night as locals had advised us it was too dangerous to bush camp. We were covered in mud. The car is coated with mud inside and out. Overall, however, it was one of the most memorable experiences of the trip.

A race through Togo, Benin and Nigeria

We are now under a little time pressure to get down to Johannesburg so we can fly out to the US at the end of July so we decided to start moving south. We raced across Togo and Benin. We crossed the border between the two just as Colonel Gaddafi was in town with a huge Libyan delegation. Despite our best efforts we didn't get to meet him, but we did get to meet the huge numbers of troops on the road from the border to the capital Cotonou.

Nigeria was not the most pleasant place. Every few miles (literally) we were stopped by police who asked for money. We managed to get through the country without paying out once, mainly by offering them our love in place of hard cash.

Nigeria is a strage place. Once you get over the money thing - everyone is looking to rip you off (no surprise to anyone who knows Tunde) then the Nigerians are very warm and friendly people.

We miscalculated our trip from Lagos to Benin City. Expecting it to be just a couple of hours drive, we went out for a rather late night in Lagos and planned to leave late the following morning. Our 3 hour trip ended up being a 9 hour nightmare, when cars driving on the wrong side of the road, overturned trucks and stomach-churning potholes conspired to create the worst traffic jam imaginable. Driving late at night on Nigerian roads feeling a little tender from the night before is not for the faint-hearted!

Sponsor a Mum researches maternal mortality in Hodzo

We decided to meet back up with our friends from England, Antonia and Toby, and go to one of the villages outside of Ho in which they are doing some research for the charity they are starting named Sponsor A Mum. So we took Heather out with us for the day and had a first hand experience listening to some of the broad range of issues these women deal with regarding maternal health. This happened to be a day when the govt was sponsoring a free clinic with immunizations and weight checks for the babies, so there were plenty of women to interview. Heather and I sat through ten heartbreaking stories while Antonia asked the questions. These women typically do not have money to get to a hospital because the transportation alone is too expensive, and the fathers of the children refuse to help them out in most cases. They must earn the money themselves just so that they can have a birth attendant in their home when they deliver, and they typically do this by carrying 70 pound jugs of water on their heads for many miles back and forth to the villages for up to 1 dollar a trip. All this and they are 6 to 9 months pregnant, so one can imagine the problems this poses to their actual delivery. One particular women was in labor for one week and gave birth to twins, at home. Should she have had any major complications (even though she bled for 5 hours after giving birth), she would have died due to the fact that she could not afford transport. And this was in a relatively wealthy village compared to what Antonia and Toby had seen thus far. It was an extremely emotional day that affected all of us deeply. Rob and I plan on getting much more involved while we are here and after we return, and they are setting us up to go into some villages on our own and conduct our own research along the way. Toby and Antonia are now off to Afghanistan to continue their work. We are thinking of you guys!

Tafi Atome Monkey Sanctuary

Our second attempt to find some monkeys was rather more successful. At the Tafi Atome Monkey Sanctuary, rather than walking around hoping to find the monkeys they bribe them out of the trees with bananas. While not so good for the long term health of the mona monkey population, it provides great viewing for the white american monkey population (as well as the dirty brown british monkeys). The monas are very tame, lack sharp nails and don't bite (much) so you can feed them bananas straight from your hand. They are very human. They are quite shy, and keep their eyes nervously locked on your own as they edge up and then grab banana from your sweaty hand.

A nature fix around Ho (its actually a town in Ghana)

We headed back from Lome into southeastern Ghana and the beautiful countryside around the town of Ho. We started off in the Kalakpe Resource Reserve, which is described as being rich in birdlife, monkeys and antelopes. We were slightly disappointed that the monkeys and antelopes were away in New York for the weekend and the birdlife consisted of two chickens. Still we had a nice walk with our armed guide Godwin. North of Ho we checked out Mount Gemi and the beautiful Ote Falls.

Ghana is an incredibly religious country. Every aspect of life has a strong religious influence. Taxis usually have religious phrases on the back ("Trust in God" is a common one since the brakes rarely work).

A visit to the Fetish Market in Lome, Togo

Togo and Benin are the countries where voodoo originated, and the fetish market in Lome (the capital of Togo) is the place to go to buy all the latest voodoo accessories. The fetish market is to Lome what Harrods is to London. Except it smells a bit worse. It is rather a ghoulish place featuring body parts of just about any animal you can imagine, all of which are used to make potions to ward off evil, bring luck or secure love. It is quite a sophisticated business, with an international network of suppliers and a monkey as the security guard. Less amusingly there are plenty of endangered species there including gorilla hands, leopard heads and an elephant foot.

Kakum Rainforest Park - followed by lunch with crocodiles

Kakum Rainforest Park is a 360sqkm reserve of relatively virgin rainforest. It contains hundreds of species of butterflies and many mammals - although we didn't see many of these since our guide was on the phone with her son. He used to be a farmer near Kumasi when she spoke to him last year. She was surprised to learn he was now in Italy.

For lunch we stopped at the curiously-named Hans Cottage Botel, which doubles up as a crocodile farm. Fortunately we weren't on the menu for lunch, although some of my chicken kebab did end up in the water as crocodile bait

Cape Coast and Elmina

Ghana's coastline is dotted with colonial era castles, initially built to control gold and other commodity trading operations but then transformed into hubs of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Cape Coast's castle alone saw more than 1 million slaves pass through the door of no return onto the slave ships anchored just offshore. The majority of them died. It made for a slightly chilling visit.

From Timbucktu down to Accra. A sandstorm hits us near Mopti

Wendy's friend Heather was flying in from NYC to Accra so we had to call an end to our adventure in the Sahel and head down to pick her up on the 31st. The journey from Timbucktu to Accra is about 3 fairly long days of driving, so we livened it up a bit by stopping in various villages along the way and breaking up the trip in Ouagadougou where we saw some great live music (and Wendy even managed to persuade me to dance which doesn't happen much). The villages were quite tough. The current high prices of food and fuel are hitting these areas hard, since many of the villages are too dry for them to be self-sustaining in food. Many have sold their animals (which act as an insurance policy against hard times) and so have no protection against continuing food shortages. Already signs of hunger are everywhere. On a brighter note we were hit by a sandstorm just before we got to Mopti. The sand cloud built on the horizon and grew until it hit us, with strong winds lashing the sand against us. The light was an extraordinary orange. All driving was out of the question, so we just stopped and watched. For days afterwards we were cleaning sand out of our ears, eyes and clothes. Actually it is still in my clothes because I haven't washed them but that is another story.