Gareth In West Africa: Just Another Weekend in Benin

The plan: Drive down the coast, pick up some friends, carry on to an estuary where there’s loads of place for kiting. Sounds simple? Absolutely.

The best laid schemes of mice and men go oft awry

We hit a snag. After two hours of driving, we see our goal, about one mile away: The broad river sweeping into the sea, with a nice wide and slow moving river mouth.

Ideal. Of course, the road was not a road, and the sand was a little loose, but it had hardly been the M25 since leaving Cotonou. And with Patrick’s mad driving skills at the wheel, what could go wrong?

That’s when we start skidding.

No problem, let’s get our rally heads on, and plough through this stuff. Remember, failure is not an option.

That’s when we stop skidding. Oh, and we stop moving too.

No problem. Just gonna slide the car into 4x4 mode, and – “Oh, no, this doesn’t have a 4x4.”

“What?”

“No it just looks like the sort of car that would have. Clever, isn’t it!”

“Well, yes, now you mention it, I always thought it was a 4x4. You must have got it at a very reasonable rate, and yet it gives a very satisfactory performance through the ruts. A little choked in the higher gears, but – WAIT A MINUTE HOW ARE WE GOING TO GET OUT OF THIS MASSIVE SAND TRAP NOW!!!!???????”

You see, our enthusiasm for rally style driving had carried us a good two hundred metres across what can only be described as a massive sand trap. In fact, if giants played golf, this would be the little bunker, just after chipping the ball across the Atlantic and before hitting the fairway of the Sahel.

Locals to the rescue

Luckily, we were near a fishing village. And the locals LOVE helping stranded white people. I have no idea why. Just for the fun of it, no doubt. Don’t ask questions, just get out of the sand.

So began our 20 minute wrestle, Patrick revving the engine beyond the red zone while attempting to reverse through the sand, and 20 local fishermen, women and children pushing the car for all their worth (after we got all of them pushing the same direction, and in the right direction...).

At midday on one of the hottest days of the year, on a sun-baked beach, with burning clutch fumes pouring out of the engine compartment as a thick black cloud straight in my face, my feet burning as I heaved the car across the scolding sand, I had a GREAT time.

A note: Patrick got us into this trouble. Completely and utterly him, no urging from anyone else. Yet he stays in the car and presses a couple of pedals while we basically carry him to safety? Typical.

So begins the wild, celebrating cheers from all around, as the simple joy of overcoming adversity fills us all with a common link, to be one together, helping your fellow man in the most altruistic sense of the – “So, you pay us for the help.”

“Ah. Yes. Rather burst my bubble there, old chap. Never mind, should have seen it coming. Not enough? No of course not, it never is, is it? Let me just get in the car and get out some more of my DRIVE DRIVE DRIVE!”

What a lovely picnic scene

In adversity lies opportunity

Regroup. Come up with a plan. Lunch. Definitely.

So, rather than a radical, extreme, mental afternoon of kite surfing crocodile-infested waters, we stop on the beach outside a small hut to have our picnic. And I play petanques with a couple of elderly local fishermen by the side of the road.

M-E-N-T-A-L.

To cap it all off

We head back, with one final drinks stop before the last hour’s drive home. We get a call:

“Are you guys ok?”

Of course, why?

“Only there’s been a huge deluge in town and we were wondering if you’d been caught in it and whether you could get home?”

Look up: bright sunshine – check. Look at my shoulders: lobster pink, verging on tomato red – check. Look around: beautiful equatorial scene generally with not a care in the world – che… actually, what’s that dark bit in the sky over there?