Into the Tenere...

After a week of sinful living, we got up before the sun and headed all groggy and dehydrated to the bus station for our trip to Niger. A former Peace Corps from Niger now living in Ghana, told us it would be four to six hours to go from one capital to the other. She must ride on a magic carpet, because it took us 10 hours.

Crossing the border was painless and the differences between Niger and Burkina were subtle but important: Niger is at the bottom of the UN Human Development Index while Burkina is a couple spots above it. Still, at Burkina there was no hassle. At Niger, there was a huge gaggle of dusty, dirty, scraggly boys, all with tomato tins around their necks, all looking for "cent francs" or "un cadeau" or something.

Niamey was wonderful. Hot and dusty, but really laid back, yet really vibrant. We made a second home of GG's, a bar with rotisserie chicken and chips and cold bottles of Flag beer and basically wandered and explored and finally figured out that to get a cab, one has to shout their destination at any cars that pass. If the driver speeds away, he's not going in your direction. But if he nods, you get in and wait for him to drop you and the other passengers in order of destination.

We spent a morning with the last herd of wild giraffes in the region, loading into two cars with three other backpackers and finally -- FINALLY -- getting away from the city after more than an hour of dithering and dickering. There was the usual annoyance at the gate: the fee for entry, the fee for guide, the fee for the vehicle, the fee for a blue sky and an intense sun, the fee for simply breathing. And a drive with the guide up on top of the car, looking for what have to be the tallest giraffes I've ever seen, camoflaged brilliantly in the sandy terrain.



A day later, we were sardined into another bus, this time pointed north in the direction of the fabled salt-trading city of Agadez, the gateway to the Tenere desert. The same expat told us expeditions into the desert could be expensive -- around $1,000 for a week -- and we scoffed. We'd only be gone a couple days (who needs to see a week's worth of sand?) and so it might be a couple hundred bucks. Of course, we only discovered that there are no ATMs in Niger after we'd already set off for Niger, so we'd already sent off a request for a Western Union transfer. We were counting our pennies the whole way and annoying the artisans in the process. But after a morning of to-ing and fro-ing with Dan the Man and Trevor Whatever, our traveling companions for the following eight days, we'd bargained the cost down to $500.

Emily and I, dry and dusty and exhausted from the bus ride, flopped back to the concrete cell that was our hotel room and discussed the choices we've made in life. "This is going to be the hardest traveling I've done," I remarked, at which Emily blanched and said, "Seriously?!" We were spending eight days camping in the desert, with a driver and a 4WD and a cook that would make us mutton stew with couscous, mutton stew with rice, mutton stew with potatoes. Still, I've never had to poop outside before.



Our first night was came with a brilliant salt-and-pepper spray of stars, but was brutally, brutally cold. I woke Emily up with my shivering. We were sharing a blanket, huddled in our little tent, trying to ignore the ridges of sand digging into our backs. The next day I bought two pairs of socks and that night I wore everything in my backpack, including silk long underwear and two pairs of pants, with a pair of pants wrapped around my neck like a scarf. I'm considering writing to Gap about this, as it's the perfect thing to do with gauchos, which are likely long out of style. I wore them around my neck most days until well after noon, when I had finally thawed, and I looked smashing.



Overall, Niger was gorgeous. Lots of rocks and rock art, including some amazingly detailed giraffes carved into a rock face some 8,000 years ago. The people were gentle and generous and I learned a new card game, Huit, which demands to be played in French and is an even funner version of Uno. Yes, funner than Uno.