7/6/05. Niamey, Niger.

The stomach cramps are coming at two-minute intervals. This allows me time to enjoy several mouthfuls of superb, freshly-made vanilla ice cream between gut spasms. Now I've finished and the waiter had better look sharp with the bill or he'll be needing a mop and a bucket of Dettol as well.

Between two hurricane-force bowel motions today, I have managed to
1. Acquire a visa for Chad
2. Visit Niger's Musee National
3. Enjoy a light lunch in Chocolat Raffine.
Now it's time to walk quickly and carefully to the safety and calm of the Catholic Mission's excellent lavatories, and hunker down for what may be a long and loud afternoon.
---

The Musee National is as bad as a museum can get. It consists of a dozen or so pavilions set in a large park with a zoo. In itself, quite tempting, no? Time to lower those expectations...
All the pavilions are shut, and the zoo is an exercise in degradation for both animal exhibit and human viewer. Here, a lion in a cage barely big enough to turn round in. There, a hippo wallows in green filth. Baboons stare blankly, their minds having snapped from boredom and isolation. Four gazelles trip over each other pathetically.
On the upside, it's only a pound to get in. Cameras are banned, not, presumably, to stop you saving money on postcards, but more likely to stop you causing an international wave of outrage by posting your horrific snaps on the internet.
---

8/6/05. Birnin N'Konni, Niger.

Have you, I wonder, ever had an eagle hit you in the leg at 55mph? No? I won't believe you. You must have.
Actually, up until this morning, neither had I. In this part of the world they like to sit on the road, d'you see, eating roadkill and bugs and so forth, and as you approach them, the thought process tends to be, "I am absolutely certain that those eagles will get out of the way before I get there", and they almost always do.

It's not as painful as you might think. Imagine someone throwing a labrador at you as hard as possible.
---

THE COWS ARE COMING!