08-Aug-2004 -- Obajana, 8^th August 2004, Sunday morning 6:30 am, Armin and myself are ready to go and visit confluence 8N 6E, and at the same time also eager to visit another Confluence while we were in this part of Nigeria.

The trip did not start that well already the day before. During the preparation and loading of the vehicle, it was revealed that my rear brakes did not function as they should. Luckily, I managed to get another bike. Unfortunately, our driver did not arrive. So we left Abuja with some delay but still early enough to reach Obajana before dark. It is not advisable to drive after dark in this part of the world. We drove along the airport road to Gwagwalada along the A2 to Lokoja and taking the A123 to Obajana where our company is involved in the construction of a cement factory and we managed to get an accommodation for the night.

7:00 am - We left Obajana with Armin driving the Mercedes pickup truck (our driver never arrived) heading along the A123 to Kabba. We reached Aiyetoro and, referring to the map, the Confluence should have been in the vicinity of 1 km and a couple of 100 meters off the road. We drove backwards and forwards with the GPS always showing around 6-7 km distance and not making any sense. Armin took his GPS but the setting was slow and he had forgotten his glasses at Obajana. After he managed, we were 1.4 km away from the Confluence. By this time, I also had found the mistake in setting the waypoint and made the correction.

We drove with the pickup via some bush roads close to the Confluence. The last 270 m we walked through thick bush and high grass always following some small paths. Because it had been raining before, our shoes and clothes were soaked with water when we reached the Confluence. With still nothing to worry, we tried to take the picture of the GPS. What a performance - the Confluence was surrounded by thick bush and the sky was very dark and heavy with rain clouds, and as my camera was set on automatic to activate the flash, it was impossible to get a picture from the GPS reading without any reflection on it. After some very nervous consuming of time and changing of batteries of the camera and trying all sorts of things, I finally managed to get the picture at 9:10 am.

We returned to our vehicle, made a couple of pictures, changed our clothes and carried on to the next confluence 8N 5E, wondering if we would get it.