Calabar....what to say. Well, if there were a Head Quarters for scams, lies, blags, con men, racism and violence. Calabar is where it would be !!
You are not a person with a name. You are simply ' the white man,you are rich and I want your money' . At no stage was I in the minority, I was simply ' the only white man '.
I was in a half decent hotel in Calabar. It had wifi, all be it intermittent, due to the power cuts. Which was on ,off , like Morse Code.
I was in Calabar to buy my Visa for Cameroon. The border of which, was about two hours away. Cameroon, like Nigeria, has a lot of armed illegal road blocks. They have logs across the road, then long planks of wood with six inch nails coming out. Attached to rope. If you try to go through the road block, the rope is pulled, the plank with nails blocks the road. You ride over the nails, the bike tyres will be shredded. Then the vigilante come at you,armed with machetes.
You are not in the UK. You are not in Europe. Nobody is coming to help you. There are no police to call. It's kill or be killed.
Which brings me onto a very tough decision I had to make. My bike needs fuel, petrol. I need fuel,it's called donations. Due to hitting saturation point, my challenge has barely had a donation in six weeks.
Whilst in Calabar, I decided that to risk my life daily. And risk it I did,was futile. The whole point of the Challenge was to raise money for our wounded servicemen. And despite mine and others best efforts. We could not get the Challenge into the national media.
So with tears in my eyes,I decided to sell my bike in Nigeria. And make my way back to the UK. Total raised so far.....nearly £7,500. Not too shabby. With this,we have definitely helped to improve the lives of our wounded servicemen. Many of whom are without arms and legs. Can you imagine that ??
"No money for you ",say our politicians! ! All whilst they give away £12,000,000,000 of our British Tax payers money. To countries like India and China. Both of which have Space Programmes! ! Disgusts me to the very core.
I am going to do two more blogs. Next one will be the numerous incidents I was involved in. Whilst in Calabar. To give you a taster. They involve constant scams. Demands of money from Police. A 9mm Browning pistol at someones head.Machetes at mid night. Selling my bike to an under cover cop. Oo the list goes on.
The "thank you's " are coming.
Will
