Niger
A man strolls through an alley toward the Grand Mosque of Agadez, my
favourite out of all of the legendary Sahara gateway cities.
Looking out over a section of the Agadez old town.
What are these Agadez locals speaking about? Perhaps the visit of
Muammar al-Qaddafi and his entourage. I didn't get to meet
Muammar but I did pick up one of the plentify Qaddafi posters plastered
around town and snagged a free Muammar T-shirt from the Libyan
consulate in Agadez. He came to Agadez, his mother's home town, to
boycott the Arab league meeting going on at the same time.
African unity is his theme now of the 21st century. He also made
one of his usual outrageous media-baiting statements. This time
he claimed that Jesus Christ wasn't the one cruficied -- it was some
guy that looked like Jesus.
Baleyara, site of the best livestock market that I saw in West Africa.
I have to include a picture of the famous long horned bulls from West
Africa, also in Baleyara.
The Niger River as it passes through Niamey, the capital of Niger, and
a fairly airy and surprisingly pleasant city. If you can handle
the 45ºC heat in April. The Niger river is the lifeblood of
the deep deserted interior of West Africa, finding its source in the
mountains of Guinea-Conakry, arcing it's way around Mali and
Niger, just skirting the periphery of the Sahara, and then snaking back
down to Nigeria where it finds its outlet in the Gulf of Guinea.