Tag Archives: Nigeria

Travel Advisories

April 11, 2008 – 12:32 pm

The US state Department does a pretty good job of issuing travel advisories. Travel advisories provide information to US citizens traveling abroad to let them know that either the area they are in may not be particularly safe or to make would be travelers to a particular region reconsider their plans to go there in the first place. The recommendations in these advisories range from telling people to be “vigilant and alert” to recommending against all “nonessential” travel to a particular country or region all together.

At the beginning of the expedition, we were paying fairly close attention to these travel advisories. Our proposed route around the world had us going through at least a dozen or so countries where the State Department had current travel advisories in place. I guess the travel advisories serve a useful purpose, but they also seem to give you a fairly negative impression of a place, especially if you are going there. When you read that there are terrorists operating in a certain country, active abductions and hostage takings, and the general potential for something bad to happen to you, it can start a vicious cycle of negative scenarios popping up in your mind and you can find yourself walking on eggshells when you could be enjoying the experience. Eventually, for better or worse, you start to take these travel advisories with a grain of salt.

Maybe the advisories have served their purpose by placing the possibility of something bad happening in our minds and subconsciously that affects our behavior in a certain country. To date, we have been through at least half a dozen countries on our trip with active travel warnings and about half the time, we are driving through the region of a particular country that directly applies to that advisory. Fortunately, we have had no problems whatsoever. In fact, we have felt quite safe in some of the places that have been issued particularly serious advisories.

We drove through the northern part of Mali where we were led to believe that Tuareg rebels were lying in wait, ready to ambush us on the road and kill us, and we passed through the Niger River Delta region in Nigeria where we thought it would be just a matter of time before we were kidnapped and held for ransom by militants there. Maybe we have been lucky. Maybe it is because we have our own vehicles and have more control over our movements than someone traveling on public transport. Who knows. Whatever the case may be, we actually felt pretty safe there and in Nigeria, we were treated with the utmost hospitality and even more so it seemed because we were Americans.

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We made lots of friends in the Niger River Delta States

To the credit of the State Department, I guess some of the areas we were traveling in were dangerous. One night in Nigeria, some security forces on patrol stopped by our campsite with AK-47’s at the ready. They found out what we were doing and suggested we follow them and camp in front of their headquarters where they could “ensure our safety.” I think they were going a little bit out of their way to make sure nothing happened to us, as the potential danger was not from rebels, but from local farmers hassling us because we were camping on their land. But at the same time, this was in a part of Nigeria that had no current travel advisory in place.

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There are more prominent risks to your health in some places than gun-totting rebels

I can sense that I am rambling here a little bit so I will get directly to the point. I do feel the State Department has an obligation to inform its citizens traveling abroad that there is the potential for danger. At the same time, I think the language in the advisory itself can sometimes be a little strong and does people a disservice. The bottom line is, use your head. Common sense can go a long way to ensuring your safety. (Maybe the State Department feels that citizens traveling abroad are total morons)

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Mark and Shoppman seem more concerned with what the street food will do to them…

By reading the travel advisories, you are meant to think that the rest of the world is this terribly dangerous place where people are lurking around every corner waiting to turn your trip into a total nightmare, and by traveling to these places, it will ensure that your photo is not only on your personal blog, but on CNN as well. Yes, there are dangerous places in the world and you would serve yourself well not to go for a roadside picnic in Somalia. But at the same time, I would also be wary of pitching a tent for the night in a park in East Oakland or taking a midnight stroll in parts of St. Louis, but you do not really see advisories on these domestic places where the homicide rates exceed those of some of the “conflict zones” we have been through.

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By Steve Bouey | Posted in Nigeria, Observations, Trip Prep, Trip Thoughts, World News | Also tagged , , , , | Comments (1)

Something Is Not Right Here

April 10, 2008 – 12:54 pm

The number one expense on The World by Road is fuel. To date, we have spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $23,000 on fuel. We thought that Africa was going to be cheap, and compared to Europe, it is, but it is still fairly expensive to fill up here in west central Africa. As a result of the higher fuel prices we have been encountering in Africa, we were looking forward to making it into Nigeria where we heard that gas is relatively inexpensive.

Gas is cheap in Nigeria costing only about $2.25 per gallon compared with prices that exceed $5 per gallon in neighboring countries, but in order to get gas in Nigeria at $2.25 a gallon, you must pay another price: a huge commitment of your time. I would estimate that over 90 percent of the gas stations we passed in Nigeria were either abandoned, shut down, or out of fuel. When you do come across a gas station that is open and has fuel in it’s pumps, you are forced to wait in excruciatingly long lines. Sometimes, the wait for fuel at a service station can occupy three or four hours of your day.

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One of the countless closed service stations we passed in Nigeria

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People wait for fuel at one of the few open stations near Gusau, Nigeria

Nigeria is the number six producer of oil in the world, but most of the oil that is pumped from Nigeria’s territorial waters is exported. Despite its position as an OPEC heavyweight, Nigeria is forced to import gas to meet it’s domestic demand. Refining capacity in Nigeria is almost nonexistent and the refineries that are operating in the country are run by the government which even admits that they are poorly managed, inefficient and plagued by maintenance issues.

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Signs of Nigeria’s dilapidated energy infrastructure

In some regions of the country, like the state of Sokoro, none of the service stations had fuel available, so one is forced to search out fuel on the black market. Sokoro was where we entered Nigeria and we were totally amazed at the fuel situation there. No one had fuel of any type and no one expected to have any for days. One service station was expecting a shipment in two days, and already there was a line of more than 50 cars outside the gate. We obviously did not want to wait for two days for the fuel to arrive and then spend another day waiting in line, so we found some illegal fuel for the trucks at a roadside black market stash.

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Black market fuel vendor in Zaria, Nigeria

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We were not willing to wait so black market fuel it was

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Fortunately for us, black market fuel in Nigeria is still cheaper than legal fuel in other parts of West Africa

Nigeria has a well established black market for fuel and some people’s sole income is derived from selling illegal fuel. Most cities have an organized group managing black market fuel and you can even spot local authorities purchasing fuel from roadside vendors. Because it is black market gas, you can expect to pay more for it. Throughout Nigeria, and depending on the overall availability of legal fuel in a region, you can expect to pay anywhere from 90 to 140 Naira per liter on the black market compared to the fixed price of 70 per liter at a service station. This is a pretty significant price difference, but a difference you are willing to pay when confronted with a seemingly endless line of cars in front of you at the service station. Unfortunately, for many Nigerians, this is a price difference that they can not afford, so they must either find alternative means of transport, or dedicate a large portion of their time to filling up their vehicles at legitimate stations.

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Waiting for fuel in Gboko

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You can make a good living buy legal gas in one state and reselling it for double the price in the next

The situation here is pretty bad and the black market also perpetuates attacks on pipelines and refineries that are operational by rebel groups who sell fuel on the black market to finance their activities. The demand for fuel in Nigeria far exceeds the supply (the power grid is so unreliable in Nigeria that many hotels and businesses run generators which further reduces the available supply) and this is strange coming from a country that has so much oil to go around. If there is one positive, I have one more for the I never game: “I have never bought black market fuel from rebels in Nigeria…”


By Steve Bouey | Posted in Africa, Nigeria, Observations, Trip Thoughts, World News | Also tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Challenge of the Week

March 25, 2008 – 6:54 am

I am starting a new series of blogs called “The Challenge of the Week.” Back in the early days of the expedition, I tried to spend a good 20% of the time trying to present the real side of this expedition that most people do not know. After a couple of weeks of presenting these problems to people, I started to get numerous emails from the viewers telling me that I need to lighten up and that I am taking everything too seriously. That was back in New Zealand and since the audience comes first these blogs went away.

Now that we have been on the road for over a year and are in Africa, I think it is time to resurrect these blogs. Why? Over and over we hear things like, “That is the sweetest job on the planet.” or “How do you get a job like that?” I will not deny that no place or job exists that I would rather find myself in right now; however, this romantic notion of driving around the world is far from what is conjured up in most peoples heads. In an average week much more of our time is spent doing things like fixing holes in tires, changing oil, getting visas, and researching than it is spent seeing the sights, drinking beers, or taking strolls on the beach.

Now once a week or so we are going to try to keep you updated on the latest challenges we encounter. Not only will it give a more accurate representation of what we go through each week, but hopefully it will give you a window into what the lives are like for the the locals and the problems that they deal with.

This week the challenge has been visas. The visa of note most recently is for Nigeria. While in the USA, all embassies seem to be required to post up to date information and at least maintain a basic website, abroad it is a whole different ball game. In Bamako, Mali our plans originally set us to get Niger visas. We knew that in Niger we could get our Nigerian visas, but when we were in the Niger consulate I decided to ask, “Is there a Nigerian Embassy in Bamako?”

Bouey replied, “No, I already checked.”

So I insisted, “Let’s ask the nice lady here, maybe it was not listed.”

There was a secret little unlisted Nigerian embassy in Bamako after all. We use a few different methods to plan out the web of visas that we must get to keep the trucks moving. The two most used are the Lonely Planet guidebook and a website called http://embassyinformation.com/. Most of the time these are accurate, but when you are in a city that has less than 30% of its streets paved, it is safe to guess that these modern methods may fall short.

So once you find out that there is an embassy, then you must find out where this embassy is. Is there a directory for Bamako? Ha. You are lucky to find a street sign, let alone a book listing the locations of everything in town. I managed to get the phone number for the embassy and gave them a call in hopes to get directions, but the connection was so bad I could not hear anything the man on the other side of the line was saying. All I could make out was…”find a taxi and ask them.”

Out on the street there are always a plethora of taxis waiting to get your business. We had to ask about 4 taxis before one admitted to not knowing where the embassy was, but would be willing to drive around and ask people until he could find it. This gentleman was a true asset to Bouey and I on this day of visa fun, and after a while I think he started to feel like part of the team as he got an idea of what we were dealing with. He drove the streets of Bamako asking person after person for the location, all of them pointing in some different direction. After about 45 min, we managed to find the long dirt road to nowhere that was marked as the way to the goal. For most of us when we think of embassies, pictures of fortified buildings with armed guards come to mind. Nigeria does thing a little bit differently.

Half a mile down the road leading to the embassy there is a little maze of small streets that leads you to entrance, the whole time doubting that this could possibly be the right place. Even the cab driver was still asking for directions when we were only 50 feet away from it. Then I hear Bouey yell out, “There it is!”

“Where.”

“Right there.”

My little American eyes are not trained for this, but see for yourself if you would notice this embassy…

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We made our way inside and the man at the “gate” immediately said, “You must be the guy I talked to on the phone earlier.” Clearly this embassy is not often very busy. We were told to sit down in the front room just behind the white door you see above. Two mangled chairs with a half broken blades exposed fan set the mood for the waiting room, along with broken window on the wooden door. We were told to sit down and wait. A nice young lady came out from around the corner about 10 minutes later with forms and instructions. To keep things simple we needed the following items within the next two hours:

1. Our passports

2. Photocopy of our passport

3. 2 passport sized photos

4. Photocopy of our Mali visa

5. Photocopy of the title of the car

6. Photocopy of the Carnet documents, front and back

7. One four page visa form for each of the four of us.

8. 55,000 Francs per visa

P3150449After a little pleading, our situation was left to this…If we could simply get all of these materials by the time they close this afternoon, we could get the visas at 3 pm tomorrow. Not before 3 not after 3, if we were late we would not get the visas until Monday. So now the clock begins, we must come up with all 8 items within about 1.5 hours, the temperature outside is a comfortable 106 degrees, our taxi has no AC with black interior, and our ATM cards only work in one of the banks in the whole city.

First, we went to get the money. This one worked out easy, there happened to be a branch of the right bank randomly around the corner. Next comes all the photocopies. In Africa photocopies are a big deal and there are little shops all over…easy. Ha, Ha. The power for our entire section of the city was out. Our cab driver drove us all over in the hopes that one place would have power. Finally we gave up and decided that all the power was out on that side of the river. The only place for copies was 5 km across the river and into the center of the city.

We raced over the bridge and made the copies, at the same time filling out the visa forms. Where have you traveled in the last 6 months? Where are you going after Nigeria? How much money do you make? What is your profession? It is just Bouey and I, so we are trying to fill out 4 of these forms while bouncing around on the dirt streets. My handwriting looks like a 4 year old with the turbulence. Then we get the my favorite question of the day. Have you ever forged or fraudulently filled out papers to get a visa in a foreign country? Um…not in the last week other than on the form I am filling out right now for Brook and forging his signature.

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Our friendly cab driver for the afternoon. He helped me communicate what we needed to the copy people.

Just in time we raced back to the embassy, dropped off all of the papers and documents, and were informed again that if we were not at the embassy at 3pm sharp tomorrow, we would not get our visas until after the weekend. It turned out to be a pretty interesting afternoon, but certainly not a relaxing walk around the local park. Each day we deal with something like this, sometimes fun, sometimes ultimately frustrating. This day worked out at the end, but countless days are just as full of action and end with disappointment. There is not anything much more draining than running around like this all day only to accomplish nothing. Each day that we deal with the embassies or getting the cars fixed we realize just how difficult it is, not only for us but for the locals. Just another day in the life on The World by Road. Oh and one more thing, most of this day was conversed in languages we do not understand.

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Our trusty ride for the day.

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Exhausting at 106 degrees.

 


By Steven Shoppman | Posted in Challenge of the Week, Mali | Also tagged , , , , | Comments (0)