The four of us drove to the beach - to a place called Asserie that can only be reached by ferry (as there is a lagoon that runs parallel with the sea) or along the beach. All packed in the Land Rover we set off through the African world and then came to a stand still as they tiny road ahead had been totally washed away for about ½km. We detoured and soon found ourselves driving on the golden sands - long stretches were totally untouched. Then there were intermittent areas segregated with either Africans living a paradise life on fish and coconuts and pineapples or the plastic money lined tourists villages with beach house “pergolas” that would house 3 African families comfortably. We drove through these extremes of lifestyles until again there was no-one in sight and enjoyed our first swim in the strong sea. The sky was clear blue and the warm sea was a welcome way to cool off. We all caught a little too much sun and hungry we stopped at a Vietnamese eating house on the way home. Dad phoned when we got home to wish me a Happy Birthday then April rang with some very bad news. Last night 7 people including Robert had an accident and rolled a Land Rover. A French boy, who we had spent the evening with last week was dead and the driver, who didn’t know yet, was in a bad way in hospital. Numbed with shock, John and Claire went to see Robert who had stitches in his head.

It’s May Day bank holiday here too and Claire went to do the rounds in hospital. John went into the office as he leaves today for a 2 week business trip. We stayed in as Garry doesn’t feel well - a touch of sunstroke I think.

Claire and I took John to the airport at 2pm and I was surprised to see how small it was. After we said goodbye we went to April’s and Robert was there, looking a sorry sight. April and Chris share a flat with Neil who seems very nice and made me welcome. Lots of people kept coming and going, trying to sort out the consequences of the accident and Rick, Nigel and a nice Dane (name slips my mind) (Otto), went to fetch Dumper (the driver) from hospital, he arrived looking quite ill, not surprising as it was less than 24 hours after having a 2 hour operation to save his hand. Claire, April, Robert and I played Yams but I felt really uncomfortable in the presence of this poor bloke who still didn’t know what he had done and dreaded someone slipping up and telling him. He was being put on a plane for London that evening. After getting some videos we got home to Garry at about 7 and Claire cooked us a delicious dinner of fish fingers and chips. During the night there was a deafening thunder storm that cut the electricity.

Yoseph came back to work today and either had got over his bereavement quickly as I heard is the way in Africa or covered his mourning well. Garry still feels rough so we haven’t done much.

At lunchtime there was another bad storm and again it cut the electricity, so we ate dinner in darkness. I’m feeling very guilt about continually taking everyone’s hospitality but we just can’t afford to live here otherwise.

In the afternoon we tried to find a bank and after finding about 4 closed, the one open one wouldn’t change travellers’ cheques without my passport, that was still with John’s office to arrange visas.

That evening I went with Claire and April to aerobics and then Claire went out for the evening with April and stayed at her house.

Garry feels a lot better today and so we have been to the bungalow and de-sahara’d the contents of the cupboards.

The driver from John’s office came round to say he needed more money for the visas and it got most confusing with Yoseph trying to translate for us.

Claire came home for lunch as April’s gone away for the night, and we had our daily fix of Yams.

We whiled away the afternoon watching videos and then when Claire got home from work we went to the University for a nice cheap Vietnamese dinner.

Thursday passed without much event.

Claire lent us some money as we still don’t have our passports and in the morning we went in search of Barclays Bank; map in hand, to change Claire’s cheque.

From there we bought hot chocolate croissants and ice creams.

Claire and April went to a Reggae concert but I had a terrible migraine and didn’t go. In the evening Claire and I went to Benetton and she bought 2 dresses and wanted to buy me something from there for my birthday. I took this as a compliment but embarrassed to choose as everything there was expensive, so asked for a surprise.

While Claire was out we went to get a takeaway burger and the shop was fully kitted out with Christmas decorations. It was dark when we left and got lost! As we dithered in a back street a car pulled us over and it was Robert who escorted us home and stayed for a chat.

A quarter of a century is too old for my child mind to accept let alone celebrate!

Claire bought me a musical birthday card and two lovely baggy tee-shirts. And Mum sent me a beautiful card.

Robert came round and he took us to have our Rover totally cleaned and engine greased for £10. We went to his house, met his mother and then, with his French friend Alex, smoked by the pool. We then went to the Scotch Bar and I got blotto on 3 G&Ts. Garry bought me the hugest bouquet of exotic flowers for £1! We staggered home and I gave a bird of paradise bloom to Yoseph who immediately threw it over his shoulder!

Claire was going out in the evening and I smudged nail varnish on her nails and fingers for her!

Alex invited us to dinner at his house. I had to sober up immediately as was introduced to his French parents in their palace of a home. They all made us welcome but the language barrier was too much and it became a little uncomfortable. We left at 12 and Claire didn’t come home that night.

What a different Birthday this year.

Claire came home at 10. A little later she took Garry to get his trousers that he had made for £7. They made a beautiful job of them and fitted perfectly.

While they were out Robert came round and stayed the afternoon. Claire and I went out to buy April’s birthday present, a pair of earrings, in a gorgeous shop. Then we went to buy my birthday present from Dad and I hoped to buy a dress to wear that night. Claire showed me a tee-shirt and skirt for £100 and said that would be the cheapest I could get - I was amazed and miserly instincts couldn’t let me agree to it. We ended up walking from shop to shop looking at gorgeous French clothes but my mind was not with them and so we went home empty handed.

We got to the Hotel Ibis at 7 and ate and drank our fill by the pool. We left there at 10 and went to the Vatagan, an African eating house, for dinner. There was a great party atmosphere amongst the 20 of us and Chris, Nigel and Robert sang to me! From there the rowdy party went to 3 different night clubs and bogeyed the night away. Claire left early though. Apart from that a good time was had by all and Nigel took us home at 6 as it was getting light.

We didn’t wake until 11 and Claire had already been out to the supermarket.

Chris rang and invited us to his to sit by the pool and we accepted. First though, as we felt so rough we went to have something to eat. A huge American breakfast was the order to settle our stomachs! The pool on top of their apartments is magnificent but deserted and blissfully dived in. Shaded by the palms and giant spider plants, Garry read, slowly recovering.

Booby Claire and April revealed all but bashful me kept covered.

We had a game of Yams and slipped into the pool as soon as the game finished to cool off.

We went back to their flat for tea and everyone except Garry and I fell asleep for a few hours. We came home at about 8 and Claire cooked some lovely crepes Suzettes. We played Yams and then went to bed early.

Garry offered to cook a chilli and Claire invited about 15 people round for the evening. So we went with Yoseph to the supermarket and spent a fortune of Claire’s money for food and drink that evening.

After another lovely lunch by Yoseph we did some more work on the van then did some shopping of our own after having a coffee at the Burger bar. The food costs about 3 times UK prices so our £50 only went as far as a small box.

The chilli was a great success and we enjoyed a relaxed evening with the drink flowing. We finished the evening off with silly games. The last, a cake of flour has a coin pushed in the middle then each person cuts a slice off until the coin finally falls and the unlucky person has to pick it out from the flour with their teeth.

Yan, a polish-English man took us on a business trip to see the saw-mills in the forests by Gargao and it was interesting to have the different trees explained to us. He also said that only a small percentage of the trees were cut down to use and most were just destroyed to clear the land for farming. There is an alarming amount of large trees left standing and the plantation of small trees is worryingly few. On the way back there was a violent storm that stopped as quickly as it started, leaving rivers of water behind it.

Ken range from the States to say he had been delayed and Sylvia will arrived on her own next Wednesday. That evening we stayed in with Claire and had a heart to heart to make sure we really weren’t outstaying our welcome.

Wednesday was another non-event, we put the seat covers and curtains back in Rover. We worked on the Rover and went shopping again after cashing our travellers’ cheques. The Caleb-Brett driver returned our passports and they had arranged the visas for Ghana, Zaire and Cameroon. We still have several more to get before we leave and we will do those ourselves before we leave.

We went again to the Vietnamese restaurant with Claire in the evening and then settled down to watch the epic film “Peter the Great”.

We didn’t leave until 7.30 and were leaving Abidyan in the sunshine by 8am. It was a release to get into the bush again and out of the force suspension of Abidyan.

On the way we stopped off for a coffee at a French owned hotel and met a haughty old colonial boy who lives in Ghana and it transpired we had already met at Nigel’s the week before. He was however really friendly and invited us to visit him while in Ghana.

We stopped for lunch under the shade of a mango tree and were quickly joined by two jovial vendors dressed in tatters but rich in spirit. They grew and then sold cucumbers and gave us 2, then a mango fell on one of their heads and they presented that to me as well. We game them a beer and cigs and we had a good laugh with them.

Had a good drive to the nice Campement that we stayed in before at Niakodougou. Arrived at about 3.30 and the patron was pleased to see us again and he was in the middle of organising the celebrations for the end of Ramadan.

Ate a nice meal in the restaurant and then retired to have a nice shower and relax.

We left Niaka at about 9 after a breakfast at the Restaurant.

Drove on a fairly good road to Ferke and was surprised how small and non commercial the entrance to the park was. A game warden took our money after assuring us the Hotel was open but when we got there it was all closed up for the season and an African offered to let us stay in his compound along with another hundred people, so we declined and drove further on the outskirts to Wingo but we couldn’t find any hotel there and ended up at Bouni where we asked a mechanic and he got in to show us a little back-street hotel called Hotel Elephant.

Everyone there was falling over themselves to help us and it was clean and friendly.

While having a drink a Belgian couple asked if they could join us. They were on a 3 week holiday here and travelling around by public transport. We joined them for dinner which was a real muscley chicken and couscous. We got on really well with them and they spoke perfect English as well as Flemish, French, German and Spanish. They wanted to go to the Safari Lodge Hotel but as we told them it was closed they asked if they could come with us into the Game Reserve.

We got up and had breakfast at 7.30 - as we had arranged to see the policeman who wanted to go south and act as our guide, but after a lot of discussion we discovered he was at Church and that we couldn’t go into the Reserve from here as we needed an authorised guide, which you hired from the South-West at Kakpin. We all drove down there which took about three hours. It was a bumpy dirt track but very pretty with many small villages.

When we finally got to the hotel it was really plush and for the privilege it cost 20,000 CFA so we decided to go back about 10kms where we had already spoken to the guide from a small African run campement. We had a lovely little thatched round hut with mosquito nets over the windows and beds. The restaurant was an open air Pergola and from there we watched in amazement as a group of 20 Baboons played, swinging on the trees and staring at us at about 30 feet away. There were a few young babies with them and it was a great sight. At 3.30 the guide took us out and we saw baboons, white faced monkeys, apparently rare, iguana about 5 feet long, lots and lots of gazelles and antelopes, beautiful different birds, vultures and eagles feeding on a gazelle carcass and the finale at the water hole, which we scaled up a bank to see - Hippos. At first we just saw their eyes about the water, making a ripple on the water, but gradually they got closer and closer with much noise and blowing ???? water - they were most intrigued by our presence.

Had a cool nights sleep with no air conditioning and got up in the dark at 5 to find we had no water or electricity but when we opened the door there was a pale of water waiting for us. We had finished breakfast by 6 and were on our way back into the bush. It was crisp and cool with dew on the fauna, as we all perched precariously on top of Rover and left pool Garry driving the pot-holed track. We feast our eyes on many, many gazelles, baboons and then through the trees we watched two hefty water-buffalo’s noses in the air sniffing out any danger. By 9.30 the sky had cleared to cracking hot blue and most of the animals began their retreat to a shady area. It meant we had to head back without much hope of seeing anymore wildlife. The guide still talked us through many of his experiences and the clear sky gave us an opportunity to take sunny photos of the flower and trees and giant termite hills. We had the usual discussion with the guide who tried his luck at getting more money out of us. We drove to Katiola, about 50kms away and the road was so rarely travelled that women lay their washing out to dry on it. We had to use a most idyllic push-me-pull-you ferry, where the shores of the river was swarming with all different types of butterfly. Women and children were washing amid them and the only noises were birdsong. We found a simple hotel to stay over night in Katiola and had a laugh trying to order our meal from the elaborate menu that we finally discovered the only choice was Chicken and Chips again!

Met Peit and Catherine early for breakfast and arranged to meet them in Abidjan before bidding farewell. As we were outside with them we witnessed an old carnival ritual! - The whole procession was women but wearing huge modern bras! They beat a rhythmic tune on drums and sang in harmony - their totam was made of copper cooking pots on end and placed on top was a child’s Donald duck rubber ring - most symbolic and obviously originated from the old tribal ceremony! The drawback was that when they spotted the 4 of us they all decided to visit us and ask for cadeaux’s, we back a hasty retreat disappointed in their priorities.

Had a good drive back to Abidjan that took about 6 hours. When we got home, on the final day of Ramadan, Claire met us to say everyone was round Rick and Sylvia’s to celebrate Thomas and Otto’s birthdays. They had a barbecue and everyone was quite merry. I suppose the group totalled about 40 and by the end of the evening everyone had been thrown in the pool, fully clothed or not.

Had a good educational talk with Chris and Rick, explaining about different tribes and their mentalities.

We left at about 7 and squelched into dry clothes. John Taylor is now staying at John and Claire’s - so we have a house full.

I got up early and let Garry sleep in. He had been up half the night as he got transfixed with a Le Carre book.

John, Claire and John Taylor joined us for lunch and we learnt Ken and Sylv would be delayed by another week. Robert came round at about 2pm to go to the hospital but couldn’t get an appointment for his brain scan until tomorrow, so we went into Plateau for a drink at Scots Bar and a look around the shops.

We went round to Alex’s but he was out so we went to what they call the desert and watched the cattle wandering aimlessly. There was a small calf having a mad half hour.

In the evening we got a take-away pizza and watched the movingly depressing film “The Wall” by Pink Floyd, played by Bob Geldof most touchingly.

Chris came round to cut Garry’s hair but he was very subdued as he has to return to the UK on Monday.

Garry went out with Robert to the hospital at 9 and I had a lay in and leisurely shower. They didn’t get back until 12.30 then John and John returned for lunch.

During the afternoon Robert and Garry watched videos while I wrote a letter to the bank.

In the evening we went out with John and Claire for a Vietnamese and then had an early night as we are both heavily into John Le Carre books at the moment.

Robert came round at about 11 and we went with him to collect the results of his brain scan.

After some time, as the hospital initially said they had lost them, we go the results and x-rays that showed no problems. Robert though is still getting a permanent headache. We left the ultra modern immaculate hospital that can only be afforded by the privileged few.

From there we went to the Kontici to play squash. This being the first time I had played with Garry I got really annoyed that I just couldn’t play with him. We played about 6 games and he thrashed me every time. It was the wrong time of day of play such a sport and we left there dripping wet.

We went for a drink at the Zinc Bar and there were about 12 of the crowd there. Garry, Robert and I went to see Alex and the German, had a real laugh with them, then as arranged had to go to the Hamburger House to meet a very straight Yan and his colleague just arrived from England.

We were woken by Peit on the phone, to say he had arrived early and could we meet them at the Scots Bar. Garry went to collect them and I met them at the bungalow. They had travelled overnight by public bus and arrived in Abidjan at 5am in the morning. A policeman’s brother took them home to his compound to wait until the city was awake. Obviously they were very tired so we left them for a few hours while we had lunch to sleep. Later that afternoon we took them to meet the crowd at the Zinc Bar and as they were already tanked up they saw the expatriate set at their best, singing and ribbing each other.

We left after a few hours and went to the store to buy food as Catherine had offered to cook us dinner. She made soup, then pork chops with cheese and pineapple and a mushroom sauce, it was delicious and we set the table with flowers and all - finished off with some scrumptious cakes from the patisserie. We talked until late in the night then left Rover there and walked home.

Got up at 10 and went to Peit and Catherine’s for breakfast. After collecting our beach things we set off with them to the coast. We found a great African bar on the beach that appeared to be for mixed families only.

It was pavement cracking hot and thankfully the sea was calm to let us bob about in the waves. Still not swimmable but at least we could do more than paddle. I couldn’t find my swimsuit so I did a “Miss Wet T-Shirt” but the heat made me not care. There were many sellers on the beach and I felt sorry they were reduced to parading the beach taking abuse from whites on a Sunday.

After 4 hours of cooking and cooling in sequence we ran to the bar for a drink. Ran because the sand was too hot to stroll.

While we showered, Catherine made some great pancakes, then we went to the Flippocampe for a drink and ended up staying for a pizza. We talked for hours mainly about the differences in our cultures and left them at 1 in the morning.

We woke up late and rushed around to Peit and Catherine’s to take them to the bus station for a few days at Grand Larou to end their holiday. But they were making sounds about not wanting to go and sure enough when we got there they said there weren’t any buses from there and could they stay in Abidjan at the bungalow. We were a little offended that they even asked and decided not to even ask John’s permission, so we took them back to the station for a bus to Grand Bassan, after spinning them a yarn for not letting them stay.

We went for a game of golf with John, Claire and Carl and practised on the driving range first. We met Thomas, Keran, Las and Corrine up there and I had a terrible 18 holes. The heavens opened twice during the game but it was still warm and quite refreshing. This time we had 2 caddy’s and they helped us with our game.

Carl invited us to the Vietnamese for dinner and we enjoyed a good discussion on education sitting in our soggy clothes and munching tasty crevettes and all sorts of goodies.

We got up late and watched videos then Robert came round and stayed for a few hours.

After dinner with John and John, Garry and I went to see Mark about Rover’s weak spring. He said we could probably take the spring from the crashed Rover and he would get back to us. Its going to be expensive but we have no choice.

In the evening Garry and Robert played a game of squash at the Kontici and I went along to watch. They had a good game but Robert beat Garry, who was melting rapidly.

After a non-eventful morning, we had a good lunch with John, John and Claire.

Then we decided to take ourselves off to the Hotel Ivoire for a game of snooker. It was actually a dilapidated old pool table and the balls had huge chunks missing. There was not much going on there and we were therefore the centre of attention. With an audience my game was worse than ever, it was different and I enjoyed it all the same.

When Claire got home from work we went for an ice-cream and sat outside, John Taylor, the twit, came too and bought us gin and tonics.

Drooped around the house all morning then after lunch Garry and I went shopping for Claire’s birthday present.

I had to change some more money at the Socopao office, Amex rep. All I wanted was CFA but the girl said I had to pay French Francs. After an hour I got the form from her to take to the Bureau de Change. The first man said I had to have travellers cheques then go to another desk to change them to CFA! What an elaborate performance. During this time Garry was getting hassled by a man selling silver jewellery. He ended up buying a silver necklace and 5 bangles for £2. We finally bought Claire 2 tapes “The Joshua Tree - U2” and “Terence Trent D’Arby”.

It was Jan’s birthday and we went bowling at the Hotel Ivoire - there was about 20 of us. Had quite a laugh and Nigel coached me - I ended up getting a better score than Garry. After, at the Scotch Bar under the influence, everyone sang rugby songs. We left at about 2.30 and went to the Airport to meet Ken and Sylv - they arrived at about 4 and after chatting and catching up on gossip, we didn’t get to bed until about 6am.

Got up at 10 and felt awful. I had a nasty case of gippy tummy.

When Claire got home we all went for an ice-cream - just the thing when you don’t feel well. Sylvia - John’s mum came too and John Taylor bought a bottle of champagne.

In the evening, everyone dolled up, we went to the Trente Sept Deux for dinner. John and Claire, Ken and Sylv, Rob, Sylvia, April and Carl. Its a French restaurant with lovely food but the service was terrible and as I still felt rough the going was slow. We ordered a gateaux as a birthday cake and when it arrived it was an apple pie - so burnt it looked like prunes.

We made our apologies for an early departure at about 12.30, which didn’t go down too well as the others were going on to Night Clubs.

Had a lazy morning and I still felt rather rough. Taught Ken and Sylv how to play Yams.

After lunch we went out to the beach while Claire and John slept. We went to the bar owned by the french and had a few drinks after Sylv and I took a long walk along the beach collecting shells. The sun was covered in clouds and it was pleasant. As we left it was getting quite windy. We took a drive to the craft market at Grand Bassam and enjoyed chatting and bartering with the traders. Their work is really good quality and you could buy anything in wood, ivory, jade or cloth. Ken bought Sylv a beautiful hippo in Ebony. Garry bought a snakeskin wallet for only £2.

In the evening we went out to St. Tropez, a pizza restaurant, and we all ordered King size prawns grilled on kebabs. Scrummy! I had lasagne but it was very rich and I had to spend the rest of the evening in the loo.

Claire and Sylv went to buy some material but I really didn’t feel well so stayed at home. Ken has become a Yams addict so we played that for a while and then at about 12 we set off for the beach. We found a café that was supposed to do nice lobster, but they didn’t have any and it was a choice of pasta, pizza and chicken. Ken and I opted for chicken and we waited for an hour - when it arrived it was a typically scrawny african chicken.

We ordered coffee and fruit salad on the beach under a thatched parasol.

The sea was really rough but I managed a paddle and got soaked. There was no sun again and it was quite cool. Garry started chatting with a beach vendor and ended up bartering him down from 30,000CFA to 5500 for a lovely mahogany elephant.

In the evening Garry cooked a nice Chilli. We watched videos and then played Yams.

I felt really rough and the diarrhoea was worse.

After lunch we had a phone call from Claire and she had had an accident in her car. She was OK but the car was a bit worse for ware and the taxi driver who had hit, disappeared to get the police, never to be seen again. We met her and Claire in the Escalier just where it had happened. We were on our way to go shopping but while in there I had an accident! and had to get home to the loo quickly.

In the evening, we all went to the Kantici and Garry and John played squash. John beat him but it was a good game.

After we left there we went to the American Hamburger house for take-away burgers. When we got in Claire was asleep in bed, so they woke her up for her burger, but when we served them up they had short ordered us and she didn’t have one anyway, so went back to bed burgerless.

Ken had to go to a meeting today, so we planned to go to the zoo, but I was still rough and Sylv caught it too, so it was a relay with the loo.

She got really bad and was sick so spent the afternoon in bed.

Ken stayed in with her and we went with Rob and John to the Scotch Bar for Mark’s birthday. We had a good evening and then at about 12 Garry announced he wanted a burger so off we went with Rob, we ended up having a row and Garry drove us home at 100 mph, poor Rob didn’t know where to put his face and offered to take me for a drink. When we got in, still arguing, Garry though I was locking him out of the bedroom and burst in knocking me to the other side of the room. The end to a perfect evening.