29-Aug-2004 -- Saturday, 28 August at 1:30 pm, Armin, our driver Matthew, and myself left Abuja for Kano. I had worked out the routes to visit confluences 12N 8E and 12 N 9E. Our Mercedes pickup truck had been loaded with our enduro bikes and a coolbox filled with drinks and food for the journey.

We left Abuja heading for Suleja and from there took the A2 to Kaduna, Zaria, and then to Kano. We had made arrangements to spend the night at the Dantata & Sawoe lifecamp, which conveniently lies on the A2 a couple kilometres before Kano. We arrived there around 6 pm and shortly afterwards had the keys for our accommodation. Kano is one of the largest cities in Nigeria and to save time for the next morning, we asked one of the security guards to show us the way through the town onto the road leading us to Gwarzo where our first proposed visit to confluence 12N 8E is situated, and then again through the town onto the road leading us to Wudil which is situated near our second planned visit to confluence 12N 9E. We recorded all this data on the GPS and arrived back at the lifecamp around 7:30 pm. We experienced a very friendly and warm welcome at the clubhouse, and after a couple of beers we joined Adrianu and Jose for supper in town. We went to Prince Hotel and had a very good Lebanese meal, which lasted till midnight, and from there we went to another place and had some drinks. At around 2 am we decided it was better to go back to the camp and get a couple of hours of sleep and be ready for the next day's early start. It was a really good evening out and one could hardly believe that this area is under Sharia law.

Sunday, 29 August, 5:45 am. Armin and myself, being still very tired from our evening out, and our driver Matthew left the Dantata & Sawoe lifecamp. At times like that you really appreciate having a good driver with you. Armin was directing Matthew through the town onto the road leading to Gwarzo. At Gwarzo we took the turn-off to Shanomo and stopped after a couple of kilometres and offloaded our bikes. It was a very beautiful morning. We were 2.8 km to the Confluence and passed towards it along a small path amongst fields of groundnut, maize, millet and beans. We parked our bikes 60 meters from the Confluence. The last meters we walked through a maize field. On the bank of a small river we found the Confluence. It is a very beautiful and peaceful place with various tones from the abundant bird life in this serene ravine.

On the way back we were stopped at a village called Dorobo by anxious villagers who had been taken by surprise at our early morning passage. They were very friendly but their eagerness to know our mission was hampered due to the communication gap, as none of them understood or spoke English. We were invited to sit with them and somehow through gesture and other sign language we interacted and they took us around their square settlements. We took a lot of pictures from them and their village, as they were totally fascinated by their images on our digital camera.

At 8:45 am we were back where we had parked our vehicle, loaded our bikes, and were off to the next confluence 12N 9E.