bugsonmyboard

As I sat at the Nigerian police station I wondered how in the world I’d managed to land myself in such a tight spot and when I would finally be able to go to sleep. The day had started out well enough getting on the road at 6 AM and finding some water within an hours ride after a thirsty camp the night before. I knew that I was in for a long day, but as the road changed from dirt to broken tarmac and then some sections of good tarmac with less massive craters to weave around, I became hopeful about making it to Abuja before nightfall. If I’d know what the day had in store I may have simply stayed lying thirsty in my broken tent on the forest floor.

No one seemed to have anything good to say about Nigeria. The north is awash with rebel militias and stories abound from the south of aggressive bandit type folks stopping people on the road.   Consensus amongst overlanders seemed to be that the safest path was to shoot straight through the middle, via Abuja.  At one checkpoint a soldier asked me what I thought I was doing riding here on a motorbike alone.  “Have you not heard of Boko Haram? Is it not safer to stay home?” he asked.  I said that I supposed it was, but then I would have to see Africa only on television, which got a laugh from him. Boko Haram is an Islamist group with links to al-Shebab and al-Qaida, responsible for numerous bomb attacks and thousands killed over the last few years in Nigeria. The group is known for attacking Christians and government targets,bombing churches, attacking schools and police stations, and kidnapping western tourists ^[1].  I had believed their exploits were constrained to the north of the country, but  I apparently I need to do my homework a bit better.

I rode 16 hours before reaching the outskirts of Abuja, long past nightfall.  The last section of road before Abuja felt like the most dangerous thing I’d done on this entire trip.  Taxi bus drivers hurtled through the darkness with no lights, dodging the deep road craters however they liked, no matter what was coming the other direction on the narrow road. In the dark, you barely see holes in the road and whatever random thing coming from the roadside before it is right in your path. I’m rather used to chaotic driving by now, but what I found myself in that night seemed like a reckless abandon of all sense whatsoever. As I looked down at my map, with the distance still to go to Abuja, my heart sank, knowing how long the previous stretch had taken.

I was elated when 20 miles outside Abuja, the road changed from that chaotic mess to a brand new, perfect modern three-lane freeway with very little traffic.  I was flying. And then, as if that wasn’t enough, beautiful shining streetlights appeared over the road to light my way.   I couldn’t believe it – I was home free.  I had been riding for 16 hours, only stopping for gas and to pound a couple sodas.  And now I was going to make it.  I hooted loudly in my helmet.

Five miles from my exit the bike sputtered and died.  She would start, but would die under any throttle. After a few desperate attempts it was clear that I wasn’t going anywhere quickly. I put the bike on the stand, leaned against it and put my head down.  I’d spent everything I’d had and hardly had anything left to care about what was wrong with my bike.  I was at the roadside in the dark in the middle of a Nigerian city. This was exactly the kind of exactly the type of exposed situation that I wanted to avoid.  I let the whole scene of the road blur out in front of me and shut my eyes.  I just wanted to sleep.

Then I got up. I started pushing my fully loaded bike up the mild grade ahead. There was simply nothing else to do.  In Accra I’d met a guy named Bill who lived in Abuja and invited me to crash at his place when I arrived. His house was only about 5 miles away, but it was uphill and I didn’t know the best route to get there.  Sweat streamed off of my face, and the last of my water was gone before I made it a mile.  After two miles I could see the grade steepen ahead and decided that I would need to figure something else out.

While looking for some bushes to hide in by the side of the road I found 6 young guys sitting on their motorbikes and convinced one of them to give me a tow.  Neither of us had ever towed a bike before and the first attempt nearly ended in disaster. Eventually we figured it out with me doing a lot of shouting “slowly, slowly!” I was moving again. Slowly, but there wasn’t far left to go.  Maybe this was really going to work out OK.  I dreamed that Bill had a cold beer waiting for me. Then the police showed up.

They officer demanded that we come to the police station with him which first involved towing my bike the wrong way down an off ramp straight into oncoming traffic. It was an incredibly stupid thing to do, with cars swerving to avoid us at the last second.  But he was the one with the gun, so we did what this moron ordered. Once at the station, the officer explained to me how that I had committed very serious offence and that I was in quite a lot of trouble.  Mind you this is a place where you regularly see people riding on the highway sitting on the roofs of cars.  They put on a show of concern that I was who I said I was and going where I said I was going.  They insisted that we call my friend Bill to vouch for me.  Even with Bill’s diplomatic status as a US AID worker and a confirmation that his place was indeed where I was headed, there were plenty of other reasons manufactured that I should be detained. I tried the usual approach of contritely acknowledging my wrongdoing and offering that perhaps I could simply pay the ‘fine’ and be on my way, but to no avail.  There were 8 officers in the police compound that night and it seemed that I was to be the entertainment for the evening.

After 3 hours with the police going round and round in circles trying to figure out what in the world these guys really wanted I nearly lost my cool.  It was past midnight and I was exhausted and very thirsty.  Finally I let them know that we could either figure this out in the next 10 minutes or I was going to go curl up right next to my bike in the police compound and pass out.  They finally released me on the condition that I had a police escort to where I was headed.  I arrived at my destination at nearly 1 AM along with my policeman friend who now had his hand out for payment of the escort that he’d provided me. My day was finished. I was incredibly grateful to Bill and his family for the hospitality they extended to me as I arrived late at night looking like a bum with the police in tow.

The next day I got to work fixing the bike. After a thorough carburetor and air filter cleaning she fired right up and pulled strong as I rode around the block.  I congratulated myself on a job well done and went back to enjoying some air-conditioned socializing with Bill’s family and friends who all seemed to have interesting paths that brought them to Abuja.

Nigeria is a wild place to be working as an expat.  Nearly the entire economy is based on oil revenues and the system is so corrupt that hardly any of those proceeds get where they are supposed to and mostly end up a long series of official’s pockets. The US government has a massive AID mission in Nigeria, but the corruption endemic to the existing power structure makes it difficult to gain traction on the most important problems.

Security is an ever-present concern for the workers as foreigners are often the targets of attacks or kidnappings by characters like Boka Haram.  One morning we were set to leave for the park, but were stopped by the security guard as he listened intently to his radio.  A few blocks away, a crew of Boko Haram had tried to bust a few of their homeboys out of prison, which resulted in a shootout.  Before it was over, 20 Boko Haram suspects lay dead. I was having a much nicer time in Abuja than might be expected from reading the news.

Monday morning I loaded up my gear to get moving, but when I tried to start the bike there was no happy thumping Dyna’s single cylinder.  After reluctantly unloading everything to get to the engine, a spritz of carburetor cleaner carburetor at the air inlet gave her the kick she needed and I was on the road again, but not for long.  Before I’d gone 10 miles she started stumbling again, killed, and wouldn’t restart. I really didn’t feel like taking my bike apart again in the street, but few other options presented themselves.  I found some fuel in the airbox and the carburetor full of gas up to the overflow leading me to believe that I had a problem in the float bowl of the carb. On the last disassembly I had replaced the o-rings of the float, but not the float needle which blocks further gas flow into the carb after it has reached the correct height.  I took the float apart and replaced the needle with a fresh one, although the existing one looked fine to me, and checked the float height. I put the bike back together and she started but still ran like crap.  Since it was already 3 in the afternoon at that stage, I decided that a retreat to Bill’s place was the most prudent course.

I couldn’t believe that after 4 times disassembling the carburetor I still hadn’t managed to fix the problem. There were only so many things that could be wrong!  I felt inept and my gumption was sapped. I checked for vacuuming in the tank, verified that fuel was flowing from the petcock, looked for a vacuum leak at the carb, looked for loose wire connections, used a clear hose connected to the float drain to determine that the float was indeed shutting off fuel at the correct height, and I had already checked for compression and for a strong spark on the last go-around. Spark. Oops, I had spark, maybe I no longer did.

When I removed the spark plugs the next morning I found that they were absolutely caked with black carbon.  As it turned out I had probably solved my initial clogged jet problem on the first try, but reinstalled the float carelessly so that it hung up and wasn’t shutting off fuel flow. The 20 or so miles that I had run with the float stuck created a super-rich condition, and the black as soot plugs turned out the be the new running problem with very similar symptoms to a clogged jet.  A good cleaning of the plugs and I was good to go. My head had been so stuck in the groove of a carburetor problem and I was so ready to believe that I’d failed to solve it that I failed to see the simple solution.  A silly mistake, but I was happy to have it solved.

I had shown up  late at night looking like a criminal to the door of a guy who I’d met only once before.  As I failed fixing my motorbike day after day I felt as though I was wearing out an already undeserved welcome, but Bill and his wife Ida just kept helping and telling me not to worry about it.  I had a safe place to sleep while I sorted out my bike and Ida pretty much fed me three meals a day. Bill and I drank beers on the back porch and solved the problems of the world while his three boys ran around finding trouble to get into. Again and again on this trip I’m met with kindness from strangers when I need it most. It inspires a state of gratitude that I get to carry along with me for the miles ahead.

State of gratitude or not I absolutely hate how people drive in Nigeria. It’s a maddening mix of aggressiveness, unawareness of surroundings, and lack for regard for consequences.  The evidence presents itself frequently enough as semi truck and busses smashed to oblivion on the side of the road. During the 11 hour ride from Abuja to the Cameroon border I was run off the road 4 times by oncoming trucks occupying my lane either passing someone or avoiding potholes.  Once was on a blind corner, but the others were straightaways.  They could see me coming a quarter-mile away and just didn’t give a shit. Getting out of the way was my problem. One of these instances I had to jump off the road into sand and loose rock at about 45 mph and could easily have crashed. That time it was a police truck that forced me off the road. Can’t say that my stay has made me a fan of Nigerian police overall as they seem to be either arresting me, asking for money, or trying to get me killed in traffic.

Leaving Abuja I stopped for fuel more frequently because stations were often out of gas or had massive lines to contend with. Ironic that the people of a country with nearly all of its revenue from oil have to endure fuel shortages with regularity.

As usual I drew a crowd at every stop.  The demeanor of the Nigerians I encountered could best be described as aggressively friendly.

As I approached Cameroon, the landscape became lush and hilly and I was happy for a change of scenery.