Abby leaves, Nicki arrives

28th April – Dakar

Today’s diary will be a bit dull, as I’ve not done very much. Abby and I went to the airport last night, a 5 minute ride in a taxi which cost CFA 1,000 (£1) to get there, and after protracted negotiations, CFA 2,500 for me to get back. The West African attitude is that you either pay in time or money, so if you want to get the cost down, you have to be prepared to invest some time in the discussion. I’m hoping to get the return part of the trip down to CFA 2,000 this evening! I wasn’t able to go into the departures area, so we said goodbye at the door and Abby went off to sort everything out. I heard from her this morning that she got back without problems. Tonight she’s celebrating her birthday with Clare and Ben.

When I got back from the airport, I went for a shower. There’s no shower block here, but there is an open-air shower for people using the beach to wash the sand off. As I’m the only person on the site, apart from the Guardian (a chap employed by the hotel to keep an eye on things), who was settled down elsewhere, I had a shower in the open air, under the stars, watching the Atlantic waves gently breaking on the beach. As a bonus, even the water was quite warm.

We are parked under some pine-esque trees with fine filigree leaves, with shade in mind. Overnight, the trees caught a surprising amount of water droplets out of thin air, so that this morning, lying in the truck, it sounded like it was raining lightly. The trees seem to have a very effective strategy for capturing the available water in this hot climate.

I had a bit of a lie-in this morning, before wandering down to the local internet café (CFA 500 for 1 hour) to post the blog entries for the last few days. I’d decided to do a service & oil change on the truck, but needed more oil, because I’ve used up some of my on-board reserves replenishing what we’re losing through the various oil leaks. The Shell service station sold it, at CFA 7,500 for 4 litres, but even though I did my bit and invested the time, they weren’t open to negotiations on the price, which, to be fair, was printed on posters on the walls. I tried a local mechanic, who said he got his from the Shell station (although he said he pays CFA 6,000 for 4 litres – oh well!), so went back and bought 12 litres, viscosity 20W50 as far as I can tell. I changed the oil and the filter (spilling oil everywhere, as usual – good job I’m parked on a big patch of dust) and greased up the various prop shafts (we have 4). I also replaced the oil drain plug with a thing called a Drainplug (bear with me on this) by a company called Difflock. It’s a cunning device which allows you to release the oil through a pipe (supplied), controlling the flow precisely, so you don’t get oil flowing down inside the sleeve of your overalls, drop the drain plug on the floor, lose the washer in the dirt, and spray oil all over the shop, which as any amateur mechanic will know is exactly what normally happens during oil changes. I’m almost looking forward to the next oil change, to try it out.

I also replaced the air filter, which wasn’t looking too bad, considering we’ve been driving through deserts and dust-bowls for weeks, and the air intake on the 101 is cunningly situated behind the front wheel, at the exact point where all the dust gets kicked up. Everything looked OK under the truck, except at some point one of the prop shafts had lost two grease nipples. Fortunately I had spares – thanks, Dad! Also, the exhaust was breaking loose from one of its rubber hangers; I contemplated taking the whole rubber hanger to the local mechanic for a replacement, but instead I bodged the existing one. I’m not sure if it’ll stay there for long, but if not, there are good mechanics’ shops in Banjul, Gambia, where we’re heading shortly.

By the time I’d done all this, most of the afternoon had disappeared, and I was covered from head to toe in dust. After a cleanup I read for a while and went for dinner, which was strongly fish-oriented; as Abby has already pointed out, my vegetarianism is, pretty much by necessity, on hold for the duration of the trip. From the restaurant on the beach, I watched one of the employees chasing a roving pelican around the sand. Pelicans are bigger than I expected, about the size of a swan, but a bit more burly, and a lot less regal. During a dusk walk around the beach, I noticed the white-clawed crabs had all gone to bed already, but there were some larger crabs patrolling the shallow rocky areas which moved like the wind itself when they saw me coming. I never knew crabs could leave a wake.

Nicki texted earlier to say she’s got a place on a flight from Madrid, but is delayed, so I’ll mooch back down to the airport around half nine and see what’s going on. Meanwhile I’ll count the money, like a modern-day Scrooge, to work out if I’ve got any left or whether we’ve blown the whole trip’s budget on the first month, which certainly feels like it might be the case!