We left Fada N'Gourma heading for Benin and quickly Tim became quite unwell. This meant we changed our route somewhat and a coupla days later my bike stopped while riding through a small town. Wouldnt start. Of course if i could have done with this problem like i do with most others on the bike i would have ignored it but i wasnt going anywhere. With Tim sick and me having a busted bike we stopped in town and i got searching for the problem. Turned out to be that the battery had simply died. Hopefully its not gonna happen again. Thats 2 failures in only 2 days (had a hole in the radiator the day before)! Anyway i jammed in a small battery i bought locally which got me to Abuja (capital of Nigeria) and have since replaced it with a sealed one since it was leaked acid and putting holes in my jeans! The roads in Benin were very dusty, the people friendly but we passed through fairly quickly due simply by the small size of the place. Crossing into Nigeria was a nice change since the main language is english. First time that ive been able to communicate freely with locals since northern Europe! Nigerians are very friendly and overwhelmingly curious it seems. We have had huge crowds gather whenever we stop. (there is no such thing as sneaking through unnoticed!) We spent New Years eve drinking with local politicians in the far west of the country at a very small town that doesnt ever see tourists (mainly due to the state of the road ie impassble to anything but motorbikes) My enthusiasm for the party whaned somewhat with the nasty fever id been putting up with though and spent my evening in bed, waiting for the antibiotics to kick in. The other thing that i noticed immediately upon entering the main roads of Nigeria is their complete lack of sensibility on the roads. Ive driven in a lot of countries and the reckelessness here is like nothing ive seen before. Its not just loose, they really dont care about killing themselves or others it seems. Loose driving i can deal with and actually quite like it, but reckless driving is another matter!

We have been obtaining visas here in abuja staying with a local family for a few days who's backyard we have made ourselves home in. Again fantastic hospitality. We moved out for our own space though to the Sheraton. No, its not what you think. We are camping round back! Sounded good tho didnt it!

From here we go south, pushed now for time as the deadline for ben and kate to begin work again draws near. Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, DRC, Angola, Namibia the to SA! Oh and i have no idea why the Angolan embassy guards turned me away at the gate telling me to return more appropriately dressed! I guess my filthy riding gear had met its match! Gave it a bucket was thismorning to sort that out!