25. Nigeria: Jalingo - Bambur - Pero

                                                           Jalingo-Bambur, Nigeria, Saturday, January 22, 1983

(DAN) We came to Jalingo because Carol Richart had asked if we wanted to go on a walking trip with her husband, Fred. He is doing research for his PhD dissertation on the history of the church here and wants to walk a road between Bambur and Pero on the other side of the Benue river that the earliest missionaries “braved” when they first came to Nigeria.  The missionaries often mentioned the walk and a pretty pass, he thought he would like to try it and Carol was relieved to have somebody go with him.  

Our plans as we knew them were the following: we were to fly from Jalingo across the Benue River to Bambur (too small for the map below) in the mission airplane at 0930, walk from Bambur to Pero (also a village), roughly 20 miles over the road that “the missionaries” built before WWII. Steve Quigg, the pilot, would be making his last flight from Pero to Bambur at 1650, and we were to meet him, fly back, and spend the night in Bambur. The trick would be walking the 20 miles in the 7 hours allotted.  According to what we were told, the road was mostly flat except for “Singe Pass”, so technically it was possible, especially without packs. If we did not catch the plane, we would have to walk back.

The part we walked is in turquoise dots.  Details from a Michelin Road Map of West Africa

The flight over was extremely interesting. We have seen quite a chunk of West Africa now, but all from road level. Almost all of what we could see had been burned, and there were a lot of cattle grazing in the hinterland. The flight lasted 20 minutes, but we only saw two villages in that time. Much of the land on both sides of the river is swampy and, among other things, harbors tsetse flies.

Bambur itself is a long village up against the mountains that run parallel to the river and rise straight out of the plain about 14 miles away. The landing strip is parallel to the mountains and very close so that to land the pilot has to descend straight at the mountains and make a 90 degree turn onto the strip.

We stripped down for the walk: 2 liters of water, corn chips and the camera, and set out. Fred was a bit more loaded down. Right away we found that the trip was not going to be that easy. Once we asked directions, we found that there is a path about 20 miles and a road “about 32” miles long. We had to take the path. At first we followed a valley through some old settlements and then started to climb. So much for the flat road because we continued to walk uphill until about 20 minutes before we were to meet Steve on the other side. By that time we were jogging.

Crossing the Mouri mountains, according to the Michelin Road Map

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It was a pity that we had the time constraints because the area was beautiful and generally “unspoiled”. The vegetation alternated between semi-wooded grass and open woods of acacia and baobab trees. There were a lot of sandstone boulders and outcroppings that had weathered to completely different shapes than the granite we have been seeing around Zing.

Even the two villages we went through were neat and unique. They were built on the only large flat areas on the walk.

Valley near Bambur, Nigeria

 The path was hard to follow, especially along the ridges where it went on top of the rock outcroppings. We caused the usual stir of “whitey in the sticks”, but the last village was especially unusual. When we stopped at a hut to ask directions, a whole herd of “natives” filed out merrily. We were served some guinea corn bran as they all shook our hands and greeted us. The women even curtsied low and kind of bobbed their heads to the side. When asked how far to Pero, the head man said not “near” or “far” but instead said, “I take my wife and children there.”

Pero plains seen from the pass.

Finally with 20 minutes till take-off we started going down. We went around a bend and saw that we were about 1500 feet up off the wide plain. We kept on stumbling down the path while watching Fred’s shoes disintegrate. Just at the bottom, one shoe came completely apart, so he took the other off and continued barefoot. Fortunately the soil turned from rocky to sandy right at the place where it happened. By this time we were all limping, half-walking and half-running. We were told that the airstrip was along a road, so we followed it for another 30 minutes, always expecting to run onto the strip.

Finally we caught sight of the plane, and it was moving. Fred yelled, “Run, he’s taking off !” I ran at an angle waving my cap, trying to get in front while Fred ran straight at it yelling at the top of his voice. It stopped at the end of the strip, but then it turned around, revved the motor, went a little way and cut off the motor. It turned out that he had said that he would wait 45 minutes for us and was turning to take off when he saw me in the corner of his eye. I have seldom felt so thankful. Sure, we could have walked back in the morning, but we did not have food nor were we prepared to spend the night, Fred was barefoot…

It turned out that we walked 20 air miles, not counting the ups and downs and twists and turns_.  It took us under 10 minutes to fly it versus 7 hours to walk it.[1]

We had incredible lemonade at the Quiggs’ house, and then spaghetti with mushroom sauce for supper at Jimmy Whitefields’.  Wow, I wish I could end on that blissful note.  However,

I slept out on the porch under an enormous, loaded mango tree, Sounds good, huh? Well, about midnight I was awakened by what sounded like a troop of monkeys up there. There was a lot of thrashing and fighting in voices that sounded like Donald Duck.  Every 10 minutes or so a mango would drop and hit the tin roof -- pow! That went on till 0500 hrs. I found out that actually it was a bunch of fruit bats of the magnitude of 1 foot wing span. Helena, of course, slept soundly!!!

                                                                       Bambur, Nigeria, Sunday, 23 January, 1983

(HELENA) I am not sure EXACTLY what Dan meant by his last statement, but the truth is that I can count the bad nights I have had on the fingers of one hand, while Dan has had a lot of them. I have a feeling that it is mostly due to the fact that he does most of the serious worrying.   

We were invited to Gail and Steve Quiggs’ for breakfast, but before going over, Jimmy Whitfield gave us a delicious cup of herb tea. By the way, the spaghetti and sauce last night was vegetarian --they do not even eat eggs or dairy products and they of course do not drink coffee or “normal” tea. After breakfast we all headed over to church. As usual, the choirs were the most remarkable thing. There was a young people’s choir (some 40 girls with four boys who played different percussion instruments) and the married women's choir. The girls came in in a shuffling, very graceful procession, all the while singing. All of the songs they sang were at least partly in two part harmony.  The voices are of an interesting quality because they feel NO shyness about singing out at full volume. I really enjoy the sound even though the songs are all quite repetitive.

Gail made us some peanut butter sandwiches and Steve drove the three of us over to the truck park in a long Land Rover that reminded us a LOT of our transport through southern Morocco and Spanish Sahara. We waited less than an hour because the driver did not wait until the van was full. We left at 1300 hrs and bounced over some “interesting” roads for an hour before arriving at our first stop. With almost no delay we continued on to the river (Benue) where we caught a boat across to Lau.

Fred Richart and Helena crossing the Benue River

The Benue River and a man in traditional dress.

 

Once across the river (we made quite a circle around a sand bar in the middle) we immediately got another van for Jalingo. That leg of the trip took three hours. We really did well with all of those connections, especially considering that some people thought we might not be able to get any transportation that day.

We walked the couple of kms out to the Richart house. I know I was a bit sore, but it felt so easy compared to the forced march we made yesterday. Oh, and Fred came back wearing Gail Quigg’s flip-flops.

                                                                       Jalingo, Nigeria, Monday, 24 January, 1983

Since the Richarts invited us to stay another day, we decided to stay and get some washing done and give the Ottemoellers an extra day to settle-in before we showed up on their doorstep. I got up at a little after six to help Carol with the washing before the lights went off at 8:00. You kind of wonder about the value of washing clothes these days, what with all the dust in the air, but I guess you have got to at least go through the motions.

Carol was good enough to find us jobs that made us feel sort of needed. Dan unscrewed the seats of their dining room chairs (the government housing provides them with nice looking furniture) and scrubbed them while I made granola for the very first time. In the late afternoon we all went over to Fred’s school (a teachers’ college) to meet some Indian friends of theirs, Susan and George. Dan and George played doubles tennis against Carol and Fred. Dan says to mention that Susan had absolutely gorgeous East Indian features._.

We went home for supper, and at about 2130, George and Susan came over to play bridge. Dan and I got ready to travel, and just the four of them played bridge.

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[1] In retrospect I think that we could have planned this a bit better.  The pilots would have had a good idea of the nautical distance between the two places, which were clearly more than would be walked easily in one day.  The road that he wanted to traverse was actually a two-day walk.  However, we were along for the ride, and to flag the airplane, as it turned out.