The Thing About Freetown.....

When we last left our heroes they had narrowly evaded capture by the Gambian drug squad and subsequent interminable incarceration in unspeakable squalor. Now, after weeks of silence, they return with news from the steamy wilds of Sierra Leone…

Flying into Freetown we had no idea what to expect. Okay we had some idea what to expect. Scenes from Blood Diamond and passages from wartime chronicles, ‘A Long Way Gone’ and ‘Ambushed,’ sprang to mind. We’d be lying if we said we weren’t a little bit nervous. To ensure a safe and smooth entrance, we thought best to arrive in the Sierra Leonean capital, a city with intermittent power and no reliable water supply, at 2300. The ferry from the airport pulled in to the dock three feet short, requiring a flying leap into knee-deep water. Apparently this was standard procedure as there were plenty of boys ready to give us piggyback rides. We politely declined and waded ashore into the heart of darkness. Walking up the unlit road, lined with ghostly faces illuminated only by small propane burners grilling chicken, we were unnerved to say the least. Nervously and thankfully stumbling out onto the main road we hailed a cab - a disco cab stuck in the early 2000s when Christmas LEDs were all the rage. We dodged container trucks and motorbikes into the downtown core, occasionally foraying into hilly, cratered side streets, only to slide back down into the thick traffic.

*Pulled up to PZ around 0007 or 0008, said to the cabbie, ‘yo holmes, smell ya later.’ Looked at throbbing mayhem we were finally there. To sweat our balls off – princes of humid jungle air.*

Our search for a hotel was longer than expected as homophobia in Sierra Leone generally bars same-sex groups from sharing a single hotel room. In our desperation we found a kindly night clerk, presumptuously named The General, who was willing to look the other way and let the three of us share a king sized bed. Snuggle Town!

The next morning, despite the previous night’s apprehension, we quickly warmed to the open demeanor of the Freetownians and the vibrant clamour of their city. An aspect that Dan fell in love with was Mama Africa and her sizzling street food operation. On the same corner of downtown Freetown, the winning combo of rice and sauce has kept loyal customers coming back to this sister-run bench and cauldron for eighteen years! And, to Evan and Peter’s delight another sister served Fanta and Coke across the sidewalk. We were regulars in no time.

The thing about Freetown is it’s best served hot and sweaty with a side of rice and sauce.

The Thing About Drug Squad Interrogations......

After waiting 3 hours for the bus to leave and then a jarring and cramped 8 hour ride from Dakar, we successfully negotiated the border crossing into The Gambia. Border officials were surprisingly friendly, making jokes about hidden swine flu and bombs in our bags. All-in-all, it was a very cursory search. Home free.
A routine passport check at the Gambian River ferry terminal quickly got awkward when we were ushered into a side room by a pair of undercover officers from the national drug enforcement squad. Naturally, we had nothing to hide, however our copious amounts of unmarked pills in plastic bags caused a great deal of suspicion. Things started off with a stern talk about the Gambian Drug Act of 2003, 'the full extent of the law,' and thorough bag searches where we were queried as to the exact function of each drug, cross-referenced against a hand-written bible of illegal tablets.
The only minor confiscations were some of Dan's birthday chocolate, Canada stickers, and Pete's unmarked blue sleeping pills. Things took a turn for the comical when the 'interrogation' devolved into Pete getting invited out to the pub by one of the officers and Evan and Dan whipping up a batch of water purification drops for a very elated and thirsty drug squad member.
The thing about drug squad interrogations is, armed with chocolate and mystifying water droplets, things can quickly turn into sweet hang time.

The Thing About Dakar...

In the small town of Rufisque, Senegal, we hunt for a car to take us the final leg of our Pete-less adventure. Not just any car. Da-kar.
We easily find a friendly driver with a shared taxi at the right price and hop in for the short jaunt. Problems. Immediate problems. The engine won't turn over and, no matter how many unpaved back alleys we are pushed through and how many donkeys our motorless car dodges, nothing is doing. Finally, out of nowhere, Dr. Dakar replaces our driver and expertly starts da-car in second gear without breaking a sweat.
We're then on our way into the thick smog soup of the autoroute. Just as things start to get congested, our driver deftly swerves into a side alley. Nothing like a secret shortcut - problem solved. Alas, the secret is not so secret and everyone is onto us. Imagine the back alleys of your neighbourhood all of a sudden filled with buses, trucks, regular traffic, and donkey carts. Not an ideal route. Our driver, forever the optimist, pulls another trick out of his sleeve in attempting a daring bypass of a line of da-cars. Trouble resurfaces as the route is blocked and we are now blocking all traffic. Apparently, in the mayhem of it all, this was still a ticket-worthy offence. One traffic fine later and we're back on the autoroute.
Gridlock once more but now the eight lane highway also has eight lanes of walkers filled with hawkers for all your rush hour needs. For the next 45 minutes, inching along, our driver desperately bargains out his window, with any passing car, to try and make change for a large denomination bill.
Last hurdle over, we settle in our beds to the smell of schwarma and wait for our glorious reunion with Pete.
That's all for us. Over to the man himself.....

Whats it like arriving in Dakar at 2:30am? Pure gold if you have two hairy faced besties waiting for you on the otherside of a fence. I started my journey in Van with connecting flights to Salt Lake City, Paris, London, Casablanca and finally Dakar...big day to say the least. Along the way I encountered Rabimovich, who had knocked himself out on the bathroom floor of London customs, he proceeded to go into minor cardiac arrest, while bleeding from the face. With no help from Londoners, who continued their normal bathroom activites, I sprung into action. Finding the nearest airport security we got "Rabi" (as his screaming Serbian wife called him) on his knees. Seeing as this was customs I had a line up to attend to. Not to worry though Rabi was okay and where might you ask was he traveling to? Canada of course!

The thing about Dakar is... no matter how you get there, in da-car or in da-plane, there are crazy adventures to be had!
Off to the Gambia!

P, D, and E

An Open Letter to Mr. Hartwick...

The following is an open letter to Mr. Peter Hartwick, in light of the fact that he will soon be joining us. His addition to our adventure team is highly anticipated and hotly discussed, finally we will be complete.

Dearest Peter,

Please bring the following from home, we trust you will have enough room in your bag.

- One spicy tuna roll, eight pieces of salmon sashimi, vegetable tempura, two chopped scallop cones, and one miso soup
- 150 pairs of underwear (one for each day left, so we never have to wash them again)
- Canucks car flag (for future bush taxi rides)
- One Grandville Island summer mingler
- A pillow that isn't made of plastic bags, hay or cottage cheese
- Three empty kleenex boxes and eighteen elastics for making box guitars (we miss jamming)
- Hugs from our dads - we'll catch our moms en route (and make sure to not hug anyone else in between us and our dads)

Can't wait man!


PS. We're in Sengal in a city called Saint Louis and heading south, we meet Peter in Dakar in a week. Woo Woo

The Thing About Camel Trekking ...

All saddled up and nowhere to go. Well, no where in particular. Leaving from the town of Chinguetti in Mauritania, we commence our three day Saharan camel trek. Prepared for heat, thirst and plenty of walking, but there was something we could not have prepared for; something crazy.

Dunes stretching into the horizon, each day we walked in the morning beside our two camels, stopping before the heat of the day to rest under the shade of a thorn bush, for at least 5 hours. Our very quiet guide, Solimann cooked us a lunch feast of rice and veggies, eerily similar to our dinner meal of pasta and veggies, no complaints though. And every morning we woke up to a breakfast of bread cooked buried in the sand under coals from the night's fire.

Most of each day's walking was through an ocean of picturesque golden sand dunes, and wadis. Each night we bunked down in the desert expecting a glorious apparition of innumerable stars. Here is where things get weird. After a normal weather day on the first day and night, as we settled down for the second night we both felt something falling on our faces. Something wet. We assumed at first that each of us independently had become spitty talkers, but the reality was far more shocking. As our sleeping blankets and mats became increasingly soggy, we realize what it was. Rain!! In the desert! In the Sahara desert, the big one!! It pourned off and on all night, and we woke up damp to a beautiful sunrise. Weird.

The thing about camel trekking is, apparently sometimes you get soaked in the desert. Who would have thought?

The Thing About Iron Ore Class ...

You may have heard about first class, maybe second class, some of you even third class. But
Mauritania has a different class all of its own. Iron ore class.

So we find ourselves waiting to board the train leaving Nouadhibou, a wait which lasted 6 hours and was highlighted by our refusal to give a policeman a bribe. When it finally arrived in all its glory, over 2 km in length and dusty as hell, fridges, goats and people are frantically crammed into the passenger car. This is where the ore class comes in; we had opted for the free ride, also we opted to take it easy. Ore class means clamouring onto one of the empty ore cars, immediately being coated in a seemingly permanent layer of pinkish red ore dust.

We attempt to make a break for our own private car, but our neighbours insist we join them. We all climb aboard, gear in tow and we're off into the Saharan sunset. By the time we realize what's happening, and that everything, including us is covered in red dust, our car mates have set up a carpet and fire and are offering us sweet mint tea. We settle down in a circle on the carpet and the food is ready, goat and rice for dinner, eaten with our red ore stained hands, delicious and amazingly unexpected. We're on an ore car for gosh sakes!

Finally, with the food finished, we are literally tucked in under a blanket with our Mauritanian travel buddies. We settle into an amazing starry Saharan night.

Now at this point there are no downsides. You might even think that this free ore car class could be better than the crammed in steerage class. But there is a glaring downside besides the dust. Due to the fact that this is not a passenger train, when the engines change speed, a shockwave caused by the cars smashing into one another reverberates along the entire 2km of train. The terrifying sound of the cars colliding along the length of the train can be likened to the approaching whine of an incoming bomb. The explosion of this 'bomb' is the violent shaking of the entire ore car. Jarring physically, traumatizing mentally. For the few days after we suffered a mild case of post traumatic stress, grabbing at any solid object for support at any abrupt noise.

All in all, we agreed that this was by far a highlight of our trip so far, not to mention waking up to watch the sun rise over ther Sahara, enjoying yet another three cups of mint tea. We make it to Atar pink and exhausted.

The thing about iron ore class is may not be high class, but it could just be the best class there is. Except for the PTS.

Cheers

The Thing About No Man's Land...

Apologies for the delay in our blogospheric contributions. A combination of gargantuan battles against tiny parasites, inordinately long bus rides, and juvenile behaviour has kept us from purging our story stash. But we digress...
We were all set to move south from undisputed Morocco into disputed Western Sahara. Things go south in more ways than one as, 9 police road blocks and 14 hours of bus riding later, our patience is thin. After passing a surprising number of empty prefab concrete communities in the middle of nowhere, we begin to wonder what all the fuss is about. The dispute has lasted 40 years, Morocco is blatantly in the wrong, and wasting money to save face isn't helping.
Another digression. Apologies.
We recharge in Dakhla and arrange a ride for our final kilometres across the border into the mysterious land of Mauritania. Aren't you excited too? Next morning we depart: Evan, Dan, one short quiet Mauritanian, another big jovial one, and our perky driver Issalamo. Against better logic and judgement, according to us, Issalamo decides on a departure time of 10am, perfect for driving in the hottest part of the day through the oven they call the Sahara. Of course, windows shan't be opened and A/C can't be workin'. Broken only by a quick tea and camel tajine stop, we reach the border 6 hours later soaked in sweat and just a little thirsty.
Now, nothing of major note transpired at either border, but it was what transpired in between that was of note. Five kilometres of land-mined, roadless, discarded appliance and gutted automobile strewn no-man's-land separate the borders of these desert nations. Our faith in Issalamo builds as he navigates the maze with cool confidence under his cool shades. Alas, we crest a hill and what do we find coming at us from the other direction but a truck with driver leaning out the window, waving frantically in our direction. Brakes slam. Confidence shattered. We reverse slowly, Issalamo shaking his head all a bit confusedly. After our detour we are assured it was only a sand pit but, eyeing up the twisted wrecks all around us, assurances were not going cheap. Talk either.
Headachen, dehydrated, and exhausted we arrive in Nouadhibou only to proceed for an hour to stop at various homes to pick up people, hunks of dough, bottles of cooking oil, and to say hi to Issalamo's friends dodging goats and children the whole time on the sand streets. As you might imagine, the hotel beds never felt better.
We've made it to Mauritania. And this feels a little more like the Africa we had imagined. The thing about no-man's-land is, you won't find us behind the wheel. Boy Howdy.

Photos to come, stories as well. Patience. That's what it's about here.

Heartwick Cup scores: Evan 3, Dan 4