#1: [30-Oct-05]

19-Feb-2008 -- On a trip in far northern Nigeria with colleagues and two vehicles, we were to pass near the town of Gashua in Yobe State. I spotted a Confluence some 15 km north of the town, and knowing that the terrain in that area is pretty barren, suggested that we find the spot. My friends, none of whom had previously "confluenced", were enthusiastic, so we planned to leave the road at Bukarti and head north and east. I warned them that the point might already have been found but since we did not have access to the internet we decided to chance it anyway (we found that night that it had been visited in 2005).

The day was very cool, windy, and dusty, with visibilities on the order of 3-400 metres. Upon arrival in Bukarti I looked for a track leading north but never saw one. So we turned around and took one of the village "streets". This eventually was blocked, so we turned until we found a track leading out of the village, heading due north. There were no motorized tracks, so we found ourselves often following cattle trails and would have to head out across the bush to spot another defined track.

Eventually we headed northeast directly toward the Confluence. At one point we were in deep sand and had to use four-wheel drive. At about 2 km from the point we spotted a well-defined track headed in the direction of Gashua and determined to follow that back to the main road when we had finished. We drove directly on to the Confluence after weaving around through some bushes for a time. Chris spotted the point with a dried cow pile and we photographed it, as well as the zeroes on his GPS.

After photographing the area, we headed south until we intersected the promising track head towards Gashua. This was heavily travelled and deeply rutted but with four-wheel drive we had no problems other than an occasional scraping under the vehicle. On the way we spotted a group of camels and riders and stopped to chat with them. They were headed across the border to Niger. After around 15 km we came upon an improved road heading northeast, and we turned southwest and intersected the (more-or-less) paved road to Gashua. There we ate lunch in a restaurant which memorialized some alhaji. We wondered among ourselves whether he had died from eating in the restaurant! But the food was good and we continued south to Gombe, where we were able to access the internet and find that the Confluence had already been visited.