There’s only one thing that scares us in Africa and that one thing is travelling at night.

Three out of the four times we’ve travelled after dark, we’ve had near misses on the road with the fourth being a safer experience in a legitimate chartered coach. We know, we thought we were just unlucky too.

Being delayed by boggings and breakdowns on the road to Timbuktu forced a twilight drive through the dunes. If the first time wasn’t bad enough, the second time the overloaded four by four almost rolled over certainly was as the passengers on board descended into pandemonium. We blamed the roads.

So we attempted a second road journey by night, hitchhiking 220km in Burkina Faso. We’d heard rumours of bandits operating outside Ouagadougou but we’d heard worse stories before and the chances of them stopping local transport – low. Anyway, there’s nothing better than a driver tearing off into the pure darkness at speeds in excess of 120km/hr 5 minutes after you’ve just met. Usually, it wouldn’t be phase us, but when you can barely see 20m in front of the car, there are no reflectors or signs to indicate the bends ahead, it’s not ideal.

Passing an oncoming truck at 115km/hr with blinding high beam headlights, there stood the biggest donkey we’d ever seen. Seriously, it was big. We’ll never know how we missed it, we’ll never forget the squeching sound of brakes and we’ll never forget the whites of the drivers eyes and the disbelief on his face.

That aside, third time had to be a charm and on the road to Accra, Ghana we narrowly avoided a head on collision in a bus. We know, that pales in comparison to the above but after escaping the last 3 from 3 night expeditions unscaved, we’re going to try really hard not to push our luck any further.

It’s pretty simple really – don’t travel at night in West Africa.

For the most part, roads are horrific during the day and they only get worse as the daylight dims. It’s not the drivers you need to worry about, it’s the lack of infrastructure, incredibly poor roads, the condition of the cars and the unpredictability of the dozens of animals you’ll see running the gauntlet every trip you take.

We should also mention, after dark you’ll barely see any other vehicles on the highways. Why? Well, the locals are just as scared driving on the roads at night as us, we just found out about the dangers the hard way.

I hate to say I told you so!
We wrote the above article on the 7th of May. On the 9th of May we were faced with a decision to travel to again at night.

Yep – you know it.

The 5th and almost certainly final time we ever travel at night, returning by tro-tro (15 seat mini van) to Accra, Ghana we were involved in a car accident. We were hit by a drunk driver on a highway – it totally destroyed the other vehicle, but luckily we avoided any injury onboard and in the subsequent arguments which followed street side after the shake up.

Just to make sure we’d learn our lesson, about an hour later on a dusty highway, we hit a speed bump at 80km/hr. It was the first time in our lives we were totally airborne in an automobile. We’re not going to lie, the impact of a packed van with 15 people on board crashing back down to earth isn’t gentle – a point proved by the battle scars. Nothing quite like a bit of blood spilt on board to make new friends and seriously, when you build a speed bump one afternoon and don’t put up a sign, that’s not cool Ghana.

The moral of the story – don’t drive at night in Africa.