18-Dec-2005 -- Sunday morning 5 a.m. - I am making the last preparation for this day's trip. My aim is at last to visit the confluence 9N 9E. This confluence is situated in a very remote and inaccessible area in the middle of the Ngolo Hills. For a couple of months during and a short while after the raining season, with the rivers carrying a lot of water it is difficult and sometimes impossible to cross these rivers. Waste areas are not accessible by the average 4x4 drivers. All these facts make the visit to this Confluence a real challenge.

On the previous Sunday I was riding my Honda 600XR from Wamba and searching for a possible way to get as close as possible to the Confluence with the bike. I managed to find the closest point possible to ride with the bike on this day and it was 2.3 km from the Confluence. From there on it was only possible to walk up a hill on foot. Knowing from last week on how to get close to the Confluence, I left shortly after 5 a.m. from Abuja along the A234 to Keffi, and then further to Akwanga and Wamba. At Wamba I took the bike and rode the 70 km via Jimiya and Ambakar to the foot of the Ngolo Hills.

There I parked the bike and went in company of some villagers who had been eagerly waiting for me up the hill, following a small path leading in direction of the Confluence. First, the path was leading through a field of Guinea corn where the villagers had started to harvest, then through a bamboo forest always further up the hill and closer to the Confluence. 400 metres from the Confluence lay a small hamlet. From this hamlet the walking got easier.

I found the Confluence at 10:20 a.m. in the middle of a field of Guinea corn, the only one in this area. After the visit to the Confluence we stopped at the small hamlet and had a rest before the walk back to the bike. Near to the Confluence I discovered a huge tree, which had been cut down. The locals where busy carrying the planks down the hill to the place where my bike was parked.

I was back at the bike around 1 p.m. in the middle of the hottest time of the day. There was no shadow and it was pure agony to get back into all that biking gear in this heat. But there was no time to be spent and once I was riding again, the wind was cooling me a little bit, or at least it felt like it in the beginning. After riding for 35 km in this heat I stopped the bike at a river and took a refreshing bath with all the motorbike gear still on. I could have been bothered at this stage to take some of the gear off. Refreshed like this I continued and reached the car completely dry again around 3 p.m. From there it was a casual 2-hour drive back to Abuja.