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On 8th April we set off from Cotonou in Benin to Lagos, the capital of Nigeria. We had arranged to rejoin the overland tour in Kano in northern Nigeria. After considering our schedule carefully we decided that we would fly from Lagos up to Kano since the journey sounded boring and time consuming. On arrival at the domestic airport in Lagos we found that there was a flight to Kano leaving in twenty minutes. We frantically rushed around to change money on the black market and buy the tickets. A few minutes before the scheduled departure time Paula and I were running across the tarmac to get to the waiting jet before they pulled away the boarding stairs. Exhausted we rushed up the stairs, the crew closed the main door behind us and before we could find our seats the plane was taxiing to the runway - only in Africa!
1992 Diary - Africa (Part 2)
Gjcmcclurg2005-12-23 14:25:40
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place pleasantly cool. The tiny pygmies made us all seem like lumbering giants. In the afternoon we went out hunting with the men and caught a small forest deer called a Dic Dic. Although interesting we felt somewhat intrusive in their village and I didn't really feel comfortable. We also had to spend the night sleeping in a small pygmy banana leaf hut which wasn't long enough to keep our heads dry once the rain came. All in all I was glad to be trekking back to the truck the next day, I didn't really fancy spending another night in that damp, cramped hut!
After another 3/4 days drive we arrived at Lake Edward on the border with Uganda, here we visited the Virunga National Park. In the park we spent some time watching a hippo wallowing in a pool with her calves. We also spotted Lion, Colubus, Baboon, Warthog, Topi, Gazelle and a good selection of birdlife. After the park we continued to the waterfalls of the Chutes Rutshuru, where most of us took advantage of the river and had a good wash. For the evening we stopped in the grounds of a lodge overlooking the Virunga Plateau so Paula and I decided to take a room for a 'Luxury Fix'.
Our next adventure was a two day hike up to visit some active volcanoes. We began the hike from Tongo which is near the point where the Zaire, Uganda and Rwanda borders intersect. We set off each with day packs and 7 porters to carry the tents and cooking equipment. The arduous 6 hour hike took us up through some small banana plantations, forest and finally across a recent lava flow. We set up camp just 200m from the cone of a volcano that had erupted 2 months ago. We climbed the cone and form the top we could see 3 small active volcanoes spewing lava into the air just a mile or so from us - spectacular! The cone we climbed was covered in a loose volcanic scree and still warm to the touch, in places one could see red hot embers glowing just a few steps away. We stayed up
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See photographs from:
Zambia Gallery
,
Tanzania Gallery
,
Malawi Gallery
,
Kenya Gallery
,
Zimbabwe Gallery
,
Cameroon Gallery
,
Burundi Gallery
,
Botswana Gallery
,
Nigeria Gallery
