Saturday, November 05, 2005
On a truck outnumbered by goats.
Our Tuareg coordinator informed us that we could leave Agadez for Bilma on Friday evening. Some complications involving a deplorable internet café and shifting timetables gave us a late start. We had to board a push-starting, beaten pick up taxi and rush past the military checkpoint for Agadez, chasing the truck seven kilometers out into the desert, hoping to catch it at a staging point for its evening voyage. The truck's driver was already in possession of our money and would be departing whether or not we were aboard. Fortunately, we found the giant machine surrounded by lines of people, presided over by a soldier with an interest in paperwork, not yet depareted. It had eight tires in the rear and two in the front, large "all steel" sand tires; they were clearly enough. It looked healthy and armored, sort of like a reinforced, open topped, grey uhaul tank, like a military transport vehicle. Plastic water containers, sewn around with burlap hung from either side, where troops would've lashed rucksacks.
There were between forty and fifty people around the truck. We were concerned that we might not be given space, that these people might have preceded us. But after sitting idly in the direct path of the truck for five minutes or so, we were encouraged to load our supplies (60 liters of water, 5kg of natural gas in its battered cooking stove, a duffle bag with five to seven days of food and three personal back packs). Sean's elbow is still troubling him so it was my job to cart this stuff up the welded steel ladder just behind the passenger side door of the cab. As soon as I reached the top of the ladder my enthusiasm for the trip dropped a notch or two. There were approximately forty goats milling around in the back. Of course. That's why there wasn't an improbable amount of nonsense spilling over the sides of the truck, piling into the lower atmosphere. It should have been obvious, but the animals weren't making any noise and they didn't smell, so it came as a surprise. Just as I finished hoisting the last of our things into the area with the goats some sort of invisible whistle triggered a stampede of all the remaining passengers who clambered into the vehicle from all sides. I tried making a tiny wall with our three water bins to keep the goats away; but the space behind me was suddenly full and Sean and I ended up sitting on them.
The car started up long before anyone was settled and the message became clear within minutes of bouncy and high velocity movement that sent goats, passengers and baggage slamming into one another: the driver has one priority; the priority is reaching his destination quickly; the passengers are not even a variable.
Thankfully, a row of bodies seated themselves between the goats and my shins. Sean and I were not the first line of defense against these beasts. The three Nigerians to our right were protesting, "This is nonsense. Leaving us to sit with the animals. We are not animals. We are paying money. This is nonsense." A less articulate protest was voiced by a Chadian man who began projectile vomiting, first on himself, then on the other passengers and finally, after being shoved in their direction, onto the goats. I had expected this ride to offer opportunities for talking with aspiring immigrants and other interesting characters. But the task of maintaining balance (our plastic water containers were hardly bolted to the floor) and the essential vigilance with regards to goat horns (some of which were easily a foot long on either side and all of which were sharp) made it difficult to focus on other people. Plus, with this little space at our disposal, those nearest to us were quickly turned into rivals and I was again glad to have the most bony elbows of any non-starving man.
To my surprise the truck came to an abrupt halt after four or five hours of very rapid driving. The Nigerians discovered that we would be staying the night in this place and informed us. We waited for the other passengers to disembark and then passed our things down and sat beside the truck on our sleeping mats. We were in a small town called something like Tankan. It was the last inhabited place that we would pass; there were more than 500 kilometers of Sahara between this ten hut watering hole and our destination. The shepherds slaughtered one of the goats a few meters in front of the truck then strung it up from the grating of the radiator, switched on the headlights and butchered the animal within fifteen minutes. The driver and his crew were going to be well fed. We were too tired to cook and decided to eat only those things that had been smashed open by all of the people who stepped on our food bag. This included one can of hummus and some biscuits.
Our Tuareg coordinator informed us that we could leave Agadez for Bilma on Friday evening. Some complications involving a deplorable internet café and shifting timetables gave us a late start. We had to board a push-starting, beaten pick up taxi and rush past the military checkpoint for Agadez, chasing the truck seven kilometers out into the desert, hoping to catch it at a staging point for its evening voyage. The truck's driver was already in possession of our money and would be departing whether or not we were aboard. Fortunately, we found the giant machine surrounded by lines of people, presided over by a soldier with an interest in paperwork, not yet depareted. It had eight tires in the rear and two in the front, large "all steel" sand tires; they were clearly enough. It looked healthy and armored, sort of like a reinforced, open topped, grey uhaul tank, like a military transport vehicle. Plastic water containers, sewn around with burlap hung from either side, where troops would've lashed rucksacks.
There were between forty and fifty people around the truck. We were concerned that we might not be given space, that these people might have preceded us. But after sitting idly in the direct path of the truck for five minutes or so, we were encouraged to load our supplies (60 liters of water, 5kg of natural gas in its battered cooking stove, a duffle bag with five to seven days of food and three personal back packs). Sean's elbow is still troubling him so it was my job to cart this stuff up the welded steel ladder just behind the passenger side door of the cab. As soon as I reached the top of the ladder my enthusiasm for the trip dropped a notch or two. There were approximately forty goats milling around in the back. Of course. That's why there wasn't an improbable amount of nonsense spilling over the sides of the truck, piling into the lower atmosphere. It should have been obvious, but the animals weren't making any noise and they didn't smell, so it came as a surprise. Just as I finished hoisting the last of our things into the area with the goats some sort of invisible whistle triggered a stampede of all the remaining passengers who clambered into the vehicle from all sides. I tried making a tiny wall with our three water bins to keep the goats away; but the space behind me was suddenly full and Sean and I ended up sitting on them.
The car started up long before anyone was settled and the message became clear within minutes of bouncy and high velocity movement that sent goats, passengers and baggage slamming into one another: the driver has one priority; the priority is reaching his destination quickly; the passengers are not even a variable.
Thankfully, a row of bodies seated themselves between the goats and my shins. Sean and I were not the first line of defense against these beasts. The three Nigerians to our right were protesting, "This is nonsense. Leaving us to sit with the animals. We are not animals. We are paying money. This is nonsense." A less articulate protest was voiced by a Chadian man who began projectile vomiting, first on himself, then on the other passengers and finally, after being shoved in their direction, onto the goats. I had expected this ride to offer opportunities for talking with aspiring immigrants and other interesting characters. But the task of maintaining balance (our plastic water containers were hardly bolted to the floor) and the essential vigilance with regards to goat horns (some of which were easily a foot long on either side and all of which were sharp) made it difficult to focus on other people. Plus, with this little space at our disposal, those nearest to us were quickly turned into rivals and I was again glad to have the most bony elbows of any non-starving man.
To my surprise the truck came to an abrupt halt after four or five hours of very rapid driving. The Nigerians discovered that we would be staying the night in this place and informed us. We waited for the other passengers to disembark and then passed our things down and sat beside the truck on our sleeping mats. We were in a small town called something like Tankan. It was the last inhabited place that we would pass; there were more than 500 kilometers of Sahara between this ten hut watering hole and our destination. The shepherds slaughtered one of the goats a few meters in front of the truck then strung it up from the grating of the radiator, switched on the headlights and butchered the animal within fifteen minutes. The driver and his crew were going to be well fed. We were too tired to cook and decided to eat only those things that had been smashed open by all of the people who stepped on our food bag. This included one can of hummus and some biscuits.
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