In may I started a 5 month journey along the west coast of Africa by bus and taxi. I gave myself a mission: as an African and a human being, I would bring water filters to people in need. I crowdfunded money from people that I met through surfing around the world, sold my part in a little fast food business and started flowing through the continent, crossing Mauritania, Senegal, Mali and Ivory Coast by bus, then flying to Monrovia from Abidjan ebola had caused closed borders.
It’s tough to program a trip through West Africa, with almost no helpful information on the net and hectic situations: the war in Mali, bombing in Ivory, Ebola in Liberia. But I believed the closer I stayed to the local populations, the safer I was. The vibes were great pretty much everywhere I went.Ivorian love dancing and partying; they are among the happiest people ever. Senegalese are easy going, Malians are really friendly. I was blown away by how strong spirited Africans are through wars, epidemics, famine, and drought. But in spite of all this they’re still smiling, dancing, sharing and partying.
After a good surf in the Liberian jungle one day I started to feel pretty sick, noticing symptoms of Malaria. I decided it was the time to continue on to Ghana, not wanting to be hospitalized in Liberia. For a week, on my hospital bed, I suffered through a dream of surfing Skeleton Bay. I battled to get my Namibian visa and flew there, still recovering slowly from malaria and waiting for a swell before having a liver failure.
Once again, I was hospitalized for a week, this time with Hep-A. My life was on the line nearly dying from my sickness. My body was already weak and I didn’t want to die next to the best wave in the world without surfing it, so I waited 70 days for that one good swell and eventually I was surfing the gnarliest wave I’d ever seen (while in the worst shape I’ve ever been).
I have no regrets from it all though. It’s all a part of my learning curve. Next time I’ll make sure I make my way down to J-Bay.
