More than a couple of weeks later only one airline flies to Bangui again. With a short stop in Paris Christophe and Vincent eventually fly to Central African Republic.
Bangui is the conclusion of a 4-month long trip with a 15,000-kilometer piece of driving. Soon there'll be France with a lot of images and memories in mind.

A few more days driving south through Ngaoundere, Tibati and Baffoussam to reach Douala on the Guinean Gulf. The is the final destination for the car, again showing signs of "this is enough". The road to Bangui is unsecure so we'll fly there.

This has taken us one week to cross Nigeria from west to east. Here comes the border of Cameroon. But what a surprise when what was shown as a nice road over the river on the map, is just not there. Instead the large Faro river lays between the two countries. With the help of over 20 people we just cut through the river with water high up to the doors. On the other side stands the custom agent of Touroua in Cameroon, welcoming us.

Abuja is the capital of the country. Built 30 years ago by an american architect, it's like anything we've seen in Africa so far: large boulevards cutting through "zones" and "areas", big highway bridges, permanent lighting...

After hard negotiations for a Nigerian Visa, we hit the road again through Nigeria transiting to Cameroon. A first night in Lagos to understand that Nigeria is not of those countries where you can peacefully get lazy and rest. With more than 15 million people Lagos never gets quite.
We will only spend two days here because our 7-day Visa is barely enough to cover the 2000 kilometers to reach the Cameroonese border.

A 2-hours drive from Cotonou to reach another capital: Lomé. A visit to Louis, our "old" friend met on a road between Laayoune (Morocco) and Nouadhibou (Mauritania) two years ago. The Peugeot he found for us three months ago passed the desert without a problem.
A couple of "Sodabi" (beninese liquor) later, the afternoon was already gone.

In Christophe and Alice's backyard the engine is down once again. This time, the whole thing's been put apart. Here's a picture showing some pieces. Even the clutch came down.

It's been 15 days in Cotonou now. Christophe flew to Bangui for 3 weeks, the Peugeot has been sold to some cops who arrested us on the road to Porto Novo, Vinz and Jé, once again, work deep into the engine to fix some new noises, the weather is hot, so is the ocean...

After several days of hard negotiations the car's not sold. We decide not to wait any longer and starts driving towards Dosso and the border. We enter Benin the next day and drive until we hit the coast. We reach Cotonou on the 30th at 6am. The day is hot and humid. Welcome to the ocean.

We take a long break at François's place in Niamey. Guillaume flew back to Paris early this week, back to studying. We're now try to sell one car (505). Lots of offers and promises but very few actual buyers.

Were now at Francois's place in Niamey. This looks more like a town, and from now on there should be no sand anymore, no desert anymore. We'll rest here for a while after more than two weeks on the road. I mean camping next to it every night.
Abdoulaye, a touareg who sat in Niamey a while ago, brought his guitar. Francois plays the clarinet. The combination of both sounds really good. We setup our microphones and camcorders a and start recording the duo. A good memory and few songs that came out not too bad will remain of all this.

200 kilometers south of Tamanghasset is the border of Niger. Assamaka is a small village (about 1000 people live there). We're instantly surrounded by kids, insurance dealers, police officers (for the formalities), custom agents, people who want to change euros or dollars, car "specialists"...
Africa, the time is now!

5 days is the time we spent to cover the 500 kilometers from Djanet to Tamanghasset. We're about 10 days late on our initial schedule. But again we experienced a wonderful trip on a fantastic pist through a succession of sandy dunes, difficult trails and sharp mountains. Next step in the pist to In Guezzam last algerian town. More sand to come.

One long hike in the mountains around Djanet to reach the painting site of Jabbaren that Henry Lhote discovered back in the 50's.

Some pictures

Djanet is built in a large oasis in the Tassili area. A newly built road allows us to reach the oasis in less than 3 days. The red-ish asphalt sneaks into a fabulous landscape made of dunes and sharp basaltic peeks. I had never experienced such an amazing picture. All along the road we cross through the "Erg Bourharet" (huge sand dunes). Also the Fadnoun plateau offers some good scenic.

More...

We're in the road again! What a feeling to be free again and be able to move toward the big desert. The night already falls. Tonight is new year's eve but at the time we pull over and decide to stop midnight is already a couple of hours behind. Whatever. We will celebrate 2003 later.

After few days in Ouargla, we already have our habits. The "café crème" on the large terrace under the morning sun, the spicy potatoes at the little restaurant around the corner, some endless fussball game against local kids, visit to the mechanic just to make sure our van is ready before next year, the sunset from the surrounding hills.
We're basically just waiting to get out of here.

AGAIN!
Weird noise from the engine freshly rebuilt. Immediate stop. Yet another tow session. The next town is Ouargla. This time, one of the "bielle" broke and we're now stuck in Ouargla for a week, time to get the engine fixed.

We cross the border in the afternoon and stop in El Oued. We then realize it's Christmas... in Europe. We meet Foued, the waiter at the restaurant we eat another chicken. He's helping us to get everything we still need to get to drive in the desert. Very efficient.

Toujane is a small village hooked on the side of a little hill looking over the Mediterranean Sea. Bechir welcomes us in his little abode where he sells handmade carpets. We'll buy 4 from him. One each thinking of the sandy beds we'll have in the desert.

Today, we should have guessed something would happen. Friday 13^th was unlucky for us. Big heavy smoke at the back of the Hiace. The "joint de culasse" just gave up. Anyway. We eventually could manage to order a spare one from France after the mechanic went to Libya to get one. We now hope everything is ready next week so we can move on to Djerba.

Interviews just started. Baba Sy is the first to talk. This is a good test for us since we still need some practice to get the best of our microphones and stuff.

The last few weeks, we focus all our attention on the vehicles. We should depart from Paris to Genova on December the 4^th. Then 16 hours on the ferryboat before Tunis.

Map...