05-Nov-2005 -- Continued from 12N 14E.

It was around noon and we were back in Maiduguri and on the way to Damboa. At Damboa we inquired about the way to Gumsuri, which we found in no time. We parked our vehicle, off-loaded our bikes and went in the direction of Gumsuri. At Gumsuri we turned off to Kulari-Lawanti, from there we went to Bulagarga.

At this particular moment we were already riding 34 kilometers through a beautiful scenery with many Baobab trees along a path not so easy to ride. At Bulagarga, it turned out to be their market day and because people in this area are not used to strangers, they were very astonished to see us. The smaller children started to cry and were running away. We found our way through the village and found a small path leading in the direction of the Confluence through a swampy area. After we had crossed this swampy patch, the little path split into several other smaller paths but we managed this way to drive right to the confluence 11N 13E.

On the way back to our vehicle, Babs did her bit in stunt riding. She was driving fast, got off the path and hit a tree stump in the high grass and bruised her shin, but luckily did not fall. After this episode, she hit a deep pothole at high speed, got thrown up with the bike into the air only to land in the next pothole, which repeated the process, and of course, the next pothole was willingly waiting. Only God knows how she survived these potholes without crashing the bike - or was it real stunt riding? We were back at Maiduguri after 5 p.m. and that was the end of our annual biking week. The next day we came back to Abuja.