The Time’s Ticking For The Two Toubabs...

First and not so simple things first is that the word ‘toubab’ is a West African term used to describe a white guy, with the translation apparently meaning either ‘gentleman’ or if you believe Wikipedia ‘rich white traveller,’ or probably most likely refers to how much the colonial Englishman paid the girl after use…’two bob.’ Interesting that there doesn’t seem to be a name for the many western middle aged women here doing pretty much the same…
So then, having finally got to the Gambia and hooked up with Mick and staying with David, the first couple of days were had catching up on food, beer and sleep. In between this we visited a reptile farm and met an expat named Ray who’d broken his hip nine weeks earlier and needed to go back to the hospital as the ‘treatment’ that he’d received was, as expected, third world. Despite the people being a far lot cheerier than those that I’d encountered so far on the way down Gambia is still an extremely poor country. This couldn’t have been highlighted to me any more than the visit with Ray and the boys to the hospital. God forbid either of us become ill here or anywhere else (except SA) for that matter as the conditions were absolutely dreadful. Ray’s outcome was basically go back to the UK to get fixed asap.
Next up was a visit to the Nigerian embassy for our visas. Once inside, confusion reigned as to why/where we were intending to go there and what we needed for our application, whilst being told that the 60 euro application fee is not refundable should they not be approved. In order to straighten all this out we had to wait to see the consulate who after what seemed like an interview, a security brief and a presidential speech rolled into one informed us to put in our applications which would take a week (A WEEK!) to hopefully be approved. At this point I started to think about the possibility of jumping on a plane to return home to sort out my still ongoing second passport issue but…of course they have my passport so there was nothing else for it other than to wait around and be part of a robbery.
Yes a robbery. It had to happen at some time and will no doubt happen again, however as a nice little warm up it was only David’s laptop computer that was taken from the room in which I was sleeping. As well as David’s computer, all mine and Mick’s possessions were half on show including GPS’s, ipods, netbook computers, documents and money. Maybe satisfied with his/her (there’s equality for you) booty or maybe scared off by David’s wife that saw a torchlight and shouted out they legged it. Leaving a shocked household checking what else was taken along with discovering that the padlocked outer doors were, despite their appearance, not actually all that secure. After that particular episode we stumbled upon a local political rally which was kind of interesting seeing all the different tribes in costume playing and singing their different songs.
Since then the bikes have received a half service, mine’s washed and (especially for you Scott) I’ve had a repack which has included moving a few spare parts around the bike to spread the load and make the panniers and roll bag more manageable. Des’s rear tyre is pretty much worn out but with Mick’s ‘Lonely Planet’ showing just over 7000 miles still to go to Cape Town I reckon with a bit more out of this one along with my spare I should be OK. Should.
STOP PRESS: We’ve finally got our visas after 4 days, my passport has been approved and should be at home by the end of the week and we plan to get moving again tomorrow (30/3) morning…