Solo Traveling and the Desert City (Part 2)

The trip out to Diffa required a stop in Zinder. From Dosso, Zinder is typically a 12-hour bus ride. From Zinder, it's seven more hours on broken tarmac to Diffa. There aren't any bus companies that will ply the route from Niamey to Diffa direct. I didn't mind the stop though. It gave me some time to see friends I hadn't seen in months, and Zinder is just a great city to kill a few days. It has some beautiful architecture in the old quarter, and, if you ever need a diversion, you can visit the cookie factory. Thirty or so women making honey and shortbread cookies everyday. It's awesome, but that's beside the point. I stopped off in Zinder and caught a bus out to Diffa at the "what am I doing up this early?" crack of dawn.

As a result, I missed the first half of the trip out to Diffa. It was still early, and I wasn't really concious. The road changed that. It's an old highway, and, while I hear they're going to repair it soon, it's in a pretty dire state. I was fortunate to get such a rude awakening though, as the ride out to Diffa was beautiful. The desert encroaches a bit further south than the rest of the country, which means that instead of subsistence agriculture, you're dealing with subsistence pastureland. Plains stretch to the horizon and are dotted with acacia trees that have all been grazed up above the level of hungry camels. It reminded me a lot of how I feel Kenya or Ethiopia must look: dry savannah interspersed with short, scrubby acacias. If you've ever been to Montana or maybe the Dakotas, they might look pretty similar. And the horses. These were the first horses I'd seen in country that actually looked healthy and well-fed. And why not? You could conceivably ride a horse for days in that landscape, camp under the stars, and never have to worry about food or anything else really. I don't deny I was dreaming of such things, despite the fact that I've never ridden a horse, nor do I have the money to buy one.

We reached Diffa a little after noon, and while I didn't take a long time to explore, I did get to see some beautiful marshlands. Diffa used to be close to Lake Chad, but environmental degradation, repeated drought, and climate change have all had noticable differences on the size of the lake. Diffa, though, is an important wetlands for migratory birds, and the flood plains around the city teem with life during the rainy season. I, however, was anxious to get on to N'guigmi, so I hopped a Land Cruiser bush taxi that afternoon, and, after six excruciating hours in cramped quarters, I arrived at night in the desert.

The trip took six hours, and N'guigmi is only 120km from Diffa. I'll let you imagine what the "road" was like. It's been a long time without any repairs, and with big trucks hauling from Nigeria to Libya, it's taken quite a beating. My bush taxi didn't even use the road for the majority of the trip, and after we passed Kabelawa, we left the road all together, shooting through the desert on paths only the driver knew. This of course takes a dramatic environmental toll on the desert, as eventhough it is a vast sea of sand, it's held in place by short grasses. When the trucks and Land Cruisers tear through the desert (as they have to in deep sand), they rip up the grasses and churn the earth into vast washes of deep sand. Desertification at its finest. We got stuck in one of these churned up chunks of "road," around 8:00 at night. I was not looking forward to spending the night in the desert, but I must say, the moonlight reflected from the pure, white sands reminded me a lot of a quiet winter night at home and looked quite comfortable. We managed to dig ourselves out, which was probably a bit better, as I'd completely forgotten the danger from snakes and scorpions in the desert.

We finally made it to N'guigmi around 9:00 at night, and I somehow managed to wrangle a place to stay. I still have no idea how I managed this. One minute I was talking to a shop owner and the next I was installed in a project rest house with air conditioning and a shower. Not too shabby for the first fifteen minutes in town.

N'guigmi feels like a city at the end of the earth. There's only one main paved road through a provincial town that gleams white from the desert sands. I'd like to say I did more than just take a few bush walks in the desert. I'd like to say I hooked up with a camel caravan and got to see the Grande Tal, an enormous sand dune that stretches over 30km from end to end and 2km across. In reality, however, these things cost money, money I didn't have. The bush walks were beautiful though. The white sand is as fine as powdered sugar and is peaceful and calm at night and deadly during the day. The temperature was well over 120F (48C) during most of the day, and this is during the rainy season. I could not imagine living there during the hot season.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the city though is the diversity. N'guigmi is forty-odd kilometers from the Chadian border, and they deal with Nigerian currency so much that within minutes I was carrying the Nigerian naira, the West African cfa, and the Central African cfa. The people were also a mix: Zarma gendarmes, Arab traders, Toubou herders, Kanouri farmers, and Hausa merchants. And one white guy. The most common question I got from all groups?

"What are you doing here?"

I'm seeing the desert!

"...Why?"

Seems the thing that can best unify Africa is the realization that white folks are just plain crazy.

Anyway, this has turned into a long post, and I didn't mean it to be. I had an amazing time out in the Diffa region, and I definitely plan to go back, despite the pain of travel and the stresses of being in such a remote location. It's beautiful, and I can't stress that enough. This trip was my practice backpacking trip, and I loved it. I think I'm finally ready to get started on the serious stuff come December.