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April 30 - Nigeria - Cameroon

Nigeria.

We are heading for Baga at the shore of Lake Tchad. The road is really getting bad now, the pavement is sometimes totally gone and where once was the road are now bush and even trees growing. We reach some villages and the enthousiastic people give us cold mineral water. It is being sold here in small plastic bags.

In Baga we hope to find a boat that could bring us to Tchad so that we don't have to go to Cameroon without having visa. Baga is a busy town without electricity or telephone. Damn, I was supposed to call my mother today as it is her birthday. Strange as in Niger, a much poorer country, there was telephone in most places but in Nigeria in a big town like Baga there is nothing. After some searching and asking we come to the "fish dam" where there should be boats to Tchad. However, People here don't really seem to know when, how and where the boats go to. Some say they go to Bol, still very far from N'djamena. But then they don't know if boats go from Bol to the capital. It is not as easy as we thought it would be so we decide to go further by bicycle hoping that the border guys of Cameroon are nice. But first we have to find some place to sleep over here. We ask around but nobody knows a hotel. You should ask the police, they tell us so we head for the police office. A policeman brings us to a very cheap "hotel" without signboard. How would we ever have found this hotel?

We are on our way to Dikwa. A cyclist is coming towards us and joins us. He is a teacher in the town 30 km further down the road. Nice company, and we have lunch with him. The road to Dikwa is not good. Once it had been a nicely paved road but now cars are driving next to it on the mud. We can still us the remaining parts of the tarmac, not bad.

In Dikwa we stay in some strange "bungalow parc", must have been a nice place in the good times. It is Saskia her Birthday, we decide to have a nice breakfast in town, sweet bread with Omelet. Then we go to the market. We want to buy some fruits. Suddenly from all sides children appear. We are surrounded by a mass of curious people. Must be at least 300 of them. Saskia tries to buy some peanuts but the pushing crowd causes the peanut stall to fall and all peanuts fall on the floor. Some children are getting almost crushed and some fall on the ground. We decide to leave and push our way through the mass until we reach the main road where we can jump on the bikes and paddle away swiftly, towards the Cameroonian border.