What You Don´t Know,
Does not Hurt You

Campsite

Darkness comes all at once on the equator, as though you threw a switch, and it was imperative to find a campsite and get the tent up before you were swallowed by the night.

The rainforest in the heart of the Congo Basin was a stark contrast to the barren desert of North Africa where we could put down our sleeping bags or pitch our tent just about anywhere.  It was always difficult in the thick vegetation of the jungle to find a small clearing and we usually started looking a few hours before dark.

Nocturnal Prowlers

Any crackling or rustling in the underbrush was a warning not to leave the tent in the darkness. The African night was alive with animals that hunted in the dark, everything from scorpions and snakes to leopards and blood sucking insects were on the prowl and where the tangled undergrowth could conceal any number of deadly, or unpleasant surprises.

Snakes and scorpions were the most active at night so it was a rule never put your hand someplace where you couldn’t see. There were fist sized scorpions hiding in unexpected places and if you were unlucky enough to be stung, you probably wouldn’t die, but might wish that you would because the pain was so intense.

Scorpions

In this case we were good students and it took only once for us to learn our lesson not to be careless with our cooking pot and tin plates. One evening we left them unwashed, and in the morning found half a dozen scorpions crawling on them attracted by the strong smell of the sardines that we had eaten for dinner.

Hippos

Even if we were careful when camping, there were a few times that we inadvertently put ourselves in the way of danger.

We were traveling along the Ubangi River and camped on shore in order to watch the hippopotamus that were nearby. Knowing nothing about their habits or that they were not the peaceful giants you see in a zoo, we put up our tent in the middle of their feeding ground.

At the time, we didn’t realize that Hippos were nocturnal feeders, fiercely territorial and aggressive, and the animal that was responsible for the most deaths in Africa.

Crocodiles

I didn’t realize when we camped by a river that there might also be crocodiles in the in the vicinity maybe just a few meters from our tent, and when I got up at sunrise to wash that they might have had me for breakfast.

Fortunately, I never saw one, but I learned later that it was the ones you couldn’t see that were dangerous.

Termites

We were always looking for a flat, smooth place to put up the tent. In the jungle there were four legged predators, others that slinked through the bush or lived in the rivers, but we never thought about the subterranean kind that could chew through anything softer than metal. 

When we rolled up the tent one morning after a good night’s sleep on the soft ground, the floor was full of holes. We had put it up over a colony of termites that obviously thought that rubber coated nylon was a nice snack.

Blood Thirsty Insects

One evening we had difficulty finding a camp site even though we had begun several hours before sundown. On the equator there is no twilight.  The change from dusk to dark took place in a few minutes and it was imperative that we found a clearing in the jungle where we could pitch our tent.

'Even before we got the tent up the mosquitoes and gnats swarmed and began biting, causing an allergic reaction from the saliva that they injected into us. We were lumpy and swollen and the bites were so numerous that it was difficult to see them individually. The welts on our exposed skin and face aggregated into itching, swollen lumps.

That night we wished we were somewhere else.

Safety

African cities were very expensive and dangerous. Ironically, we felt safer in the jungle, and a sleazy hotel room in Lagos was not just expensive, it was astronomically so.

We were used to sleeping under the stars, and thinking about our budget, we laid out our sleeping bags on the beach in Lagos and made ourselves comfortable. Doing so, we didn’t realize that we were risking our lives.

Luckily, we were warned by a group of men who saw us. They told us that there were bandits who roamed this stretch of beach and that there had been a murder and robbery a few days earlier.

That was a night that we were more than happy to spend in the police station.

Avoid putting up a tent in the middle of a road

The clouds came in quickly and hung like thick grey oppressors waiting to open over us. We were warned by a rumble of thunder and the swaying of the trees. We had only a couple of minutes to unpack and pitch the tent. 

While the wind whipped sky began to pour buckets of water over us from all sides, we quickly put the tent up on the dirt track, the only place we could find in our panicked effort to keep our gear dry. It was only after the storm subsided that we considered the consequences of putting up a tent on a road. 

Highway Robbers

We had crossed the border from Cameroon into the war-torn Nigerian province of Biafra. The rusting wrecks of military vehicles were still standing by the roadside a few years after the fighting had stopped.

Gangs of former soldiers were roaming the forest robbing mining and logging camps of their payrolls. We began seeing warning signs saying “Beware of Highway Robbers” and “Highway Robbers will be Hung” accompanied by a graphic drawing of a man hanging from a gallow. 

We would have been easy prey sleeping in the jungle with cash and an expensive motorcycle.

After seeing those grim warning signs, we slept in guarded camps or police outposts and we agreed that the most dangerous animals in the jungle were the ones on two legs.

Don’t put up the tent on a Spanish beach regardless of how good the view is

Coming down along the Mediterranean coast before crossing into Morocco we were reminded that Spain was still the in the grasp of the brutal dictator Franco.

A pair of the notorious Guardia Civil dressed in traditional uniforms complete with three cornered hats and riding boots, unzipped our tent flap and poked a rifle through the opening.

These policemen didn’t seem amenable to a polite discussion when they told us that camping on the beach was forbidden.

Hygiene

We washed our hands in the water that was left when we cleaned the breakfast or dinner pot, usually no more than a cup or two, sparingly used because water was as scarce petrol.

Finally - Tent life

You learn a lot about someone by living in a small tent with them for months. You can form a durable relationship or never want to see that person again.

Kersti and I functioned like a well-oiled machine.

We could unpack the motorcycle, set up camp, pump up our Primus stove and put on a pot of rice in a matter of minutes. The same went for breaking camp and packing. We were experts.

In retrospect

When I look back on it, everything about living in a tent was difficult and inconvenient, from finding a safe place to camp, going to the toilet, cooking and bathing. But despite the hardships, we found something undeniably satisfying about the nomadic life.