Night in Tima and leaving the mountains

I had promised the teams a sheep (the favorite meat) to celebrate when they finished the survey, and they held me to it. Only problem is that sheep are pricey in Timia! I shelled out 80 bucks for a sheep, which they decided to have roasted. I was a little apprehensive (fortunately I never had to see the sheep in one piece), but it was delicious! With all the teams, drivers, and military, there were 22 of us, so the meat was divided into platters that we all sat around.

Pouring tea - love that stuff! And loved watching him make it.Our platter of sheep :)

In hierarchical Nigerien society, the drivers and the military were sat down together, so I decided to turn the hierarchy on its head and sit with them. Gotta love all of us with our bottles of Coke beside our now empty platter - we made short work of it!

I did pay a visit to the gals.

Bed time - there weren't mattresses, so the girls just put a mat and a blanket on the ground and all piled on. Timia was the first time I was cold. I looked down at the thermometer in the cold early morning and it was down to a bone chilling 78 degrees. Oh well - I was still happy I had brought a jacket, and glad to crowd under a blanket! The climate is much milder in the mountains than the surrounding desert.
Peole started getting up at 4:30 the next morning, and we were on the road by 6 am. It took us eight hours to drive the 130 miles back to Arlit - you'll see why.

At one stop, I had a chance to jump in back with the military guys for a picture. The guy who took it cropped our heads, but I just love it. The two I'm sitting between are Akadam Bougnasse and Damotane Adebamba (he's the one who was always making the tea).
Apparently, when it rains in the desert, the fine sand turns into the worst mud imaginable!

Our vehicles made it through this OK, but then ran into trouble....

Our land cruiser was the one that kept getting stuck and having to be pulled out.... (note the window replaced with wood - that's the one that got caught in the riot in Niamey and had a window knocked out)

but at one point 3 of the 4 vehicles were stuck and the fourth had a flat. Idrissa managed to get us all unstuck and back on the road, but it took a lot of team work.

Moussa and Sanouna with their pant legs rolled up.