02 jenuary

REST IN DOUALA

Today the day started very badly. With Pier we went to town to buy the ticket for the ferry to Calabar. Unfortunately the news was of those that I did not want to hear, the ferry is no longer there, it sank some time ago with several deaths among the passengers, and the state decided to stop any ferry or boat that carries passengers or goods to the Nigeria. Pier has contacted a person, who wants $ 350 to accompany me to the border with Nigeria, but that’s not all, I have to disassemble the wheels and bags to load them on a small bus and the rest of the bike on another vehicle. This, according to this clumsy swindler, is because the police seize me on my motorbike and seize me, being on two vehicles, nothing is done. First of all, I don’t agree to disassemble the bike and secondly, $ 350 seems to me really out of my mind. Moreover, the subject is very similar in the ways of doing that thief who extorted $ 230 from me to Kinsasha to cross the Congo River, there were no alternatives, perhaps here. I’m considering whether to go up to Banyo and cross the border there, but apart from the road which is in pitiful conditions, there is the problem that after the border there are gangs of rioters ready not only to take the bike and all my things , but perhaps even worse. Now I will evaluate what to do, another solution is to load it on the plane and get it to Porto Novo in Benin. But it is a solution that I will adopt in the extreme sense. In order not to miss anything, there is a power cut and I ran out of internet credit, there are about 37 ° with an eighty percent humidity, you practically sweat to stand still. In the afternoon I can top up the internet and take the opportunity to update the site, Pier informs me that tomorrow we go back to the port to see if there is another boat that leaves for Calabar, otherwise I just have to go up into the mountains, hope for the good weather, but above all not to meet bad people.