High Ridiing on the great Football Safari

I come to my senses strewn across the hotel bar back seat, hanging all over it like a dirty slut. Corey and Tarzan were nowhere to be seen, the bar was still closed and empty, as I reared my head to see if any form of civilisation was about and to recall the time. It was mid afternoon and a storm was brewing outside, darkening the interior of the hotel lobby and reception.
My eyes felt as if they were hollowed out – a striking characteristic of an early all day bender, which somewhere along the line has burnt itself out, allowing the participants to mellow out, slowly falling into a deep afternoon coma, never fully recapturing the jovial mood of the day’s beginnings, with no livener at hand to bring the proceedings back to life ready for the nighttime’s entertainment. And now I was sleepy, ready to knock out some more zeds and retreat back up to the room, when random flashbacks entered my frayed mind, it was all the leaves’ doing.
The situation ended in narcotic laughter, Tarzan leaving with all three of us crying, the instigating one liner of ‘Tarzan arrives, eats, shoots and leaves’ implying heavily on the pun of our great African warrior both chomping on these wondrous bitter to taste drug induced plants, whilst simultaneously exiting the building...priceless banter in this drunken conversation. I also remember downing more drink and enjoying loud telephone crack via Tarzan’s mobile.
Ah yes now I remember...it was fucking Ernie – the hack from Cameroon on the line. I remember arranging some future rendezvous, which was somewhat interrupted when the mobile I was holding turned into a lizard – that will be the leaves again then? I threw the beast at Corey in a fit of surprise more than anything else.
There is a knock at the door. ‘Sam, Sam – you there pal?’ – It was Corey.
In two minds whether to answer, still in the realms of a transitional state of mind, I shouted ‘Be with you in an hour mate’ unsure of the time.
‘You’ll need to hurry, we’re meeting Tarzan and Ernie in fifteen minutes’ answered my American hack friend.
‘What fucking time is it like?’ I pondered.
‘Just after mid day, I’ve been knocking on your door all night and again this morning – you were totally out of it brother!’ he quipped.
Fuck me; I’d slept through from waking up in the bar, to reaching my hotel room. Bastards! I’d missed the first night of action through the chewing of those pesky leaves. It turns out Corey spent most of the night in the hotel bar watching the opening game of the tournament which ended in a 4-4 draw between the hosts Angola and Mali, I think.
Togo’s involvement in the games meanwhile had been on and off like an epileptic playing with a light switch. Captain, Adebayor appearing on TV in a fucking Arsenal shirt, having now signed for Manchester City from the Gunners and after nearly inciting a riot, by celebrating scoring for City, lauding it in front of the cockney contingent. What on earth was going on? Was it the Khat leaves playing tricks again? Never mind, I needed to pull myself together to meet Ernie downstairs, for something I had arranged doped up with this African natural amphetamine. I was both anxious and inquisitive at the meeting with my Cameroon friend.
There was a commotion downstairs in the lobby, I could hear it on every floor the lift stopped and opened its doors, echoes of Tarzan’s deep African bass tones reverberated through the open plan front of building, rising all the way up to the top floor. God knows what was going on down there. I was in two minds whether to abort the descent stop the lift and head back to the 20th floor and some realms of relative normality. When in Rome and all that, however we were in Luanda, Angola, half cut still from booze and crazy plants about to embark on a meeting neither Cory or I have any recollection of. For all we knew I could have organised our own personal firing squad through our local contacts, we could be two stops away from our death! He who dares, he who dares.
Ping. The elevator doors opened and there stood Tarzan, Ernie, an assortment of minions and hangers on and what looked like a big fuck off Python or Viper, squirming its way through Ernie’s palms. It was Tarzan and our mad Cameroonian who were at odds with each other; Tarzan not being a big snake fan and all. I would hasten to add that I was on the side of our local guide on this one. God chopped snake’s legs off for a reason for meddling around with the human woman, where she would inherit the punishment of child birth, the snake would forever spend its days slithering around causing mischief and shedding skin, or so the notion goes.
‘What the fuck is that?’ pointing to the slimy creature in question, I ask.
‘It is an Angolan Python my friend, found today, it bring us luck on our journey today’ proudly boasted Ernie, his smile beaming with excitement. ‘A beautiful specimen no?’ he asks.
‘I’m not a big fan of snakes to be honest Ernie, no offence and that...anyhow what journey are you on about?’ I dare to ask.
‘Ha ha, what journey am I on about? Man you arranged it all yesterday remember?
‘Err no Ernie, I had one too many drinks, whats been organised?’
‘You want to see the Indomitable Lions – I take you to go see ‘em’ he answers, raising the bemused snake aloft in the air.
Doing my research on the flight out, I understand the indomitable Lions to be the colourful nickname of the Cameroon football team and so put two drinks and two chews of Khat leaves together to make out that we are on about to put our faith into Ernie’s hands, to go watch his team play their first game of this tournament.
‘Come on maate’ – meaning his take on the English word – ‘mate’ – ‘let’s go our transport awaits’, Ernie now pointing towards the Hotel exit and out into the bright sunshine.
Transpires Ernest has a chopper booked, taking us from Luanda to Lubango to see Cameroon take on Gabon. My fear of snakes was about as comparable as my fear of the Angolan transport infrastructure, particularly their air travel’s health and safety record. However, I had already pissed on Ernie’s parade, insisting the fucking snake stays behind and after all I’d supposedly organised the whole trip, so what could I do?
‘We’d be delighted to accompany you up to Lubango to see your team Ernie, lead the fucking way my good man, are we bringing along any beer or Khat leaves?’
We arrived at Luanda Airport to have it revealed that the mode of transport was a Super Puma, normally reserved for oil workers travelling to and from offshore, at least the thing had plenty of flying hours – this country’s main bags of dosh lay in those oilfields. Victor the pilot seemed to know his business – an ex Angolan Air Force elitist, or so I’m told. I was unaware there was such a thing as the Angolan Air Force. I feel someone, somewhere is telling me lies, but if the story gets covered then lets fucking crack on.
I’m not the best of flyers, be it planes of choppers, it was probably mainly to do with the enforced tactical landings during the Iraq war, in which the RAF’s Hercules transporter aircraft, often nosedived towards the deck, leaving one’s innards in mid air, whilst the rest of your body was drawn to the floor. And so when I was somewhat startled at the fumes filling the cabin prior to take off, I put it down to my personal paranoia and decided not to point out this obvious safety hazard to any of the other wayward imbeciles on board.
Using the luxury of hindsight, I wished I had raised my hand and asked Victor just what exactly the fuck was this gagging, intoxicating smell, especially when all manner of alarms kicked off like British holidaymakers in downtown Ibiza. We were an hour into the flight, when all hell let loose. I had until then been sat in a bewildering trance, buzzing off the precarious situation we had agreed to let ourselves in – just what the fuck were we doing on an oil workers’ helicopter, dashing over barren wasteland, accompanied by hyper African journalists and a minder called Tarzan? The moment didn’t last long, as the smell came back in abundance, then the alarms, then smoke, then the smell of panic, more worryingly that Victor the cool as fuck, laid back pilot, was the biggest culprit of fear.
Fortunately, his navigator was the typical placid African man, yet poised at the same time to take control. We needed an airport and fast, I can only imagine the horror on everyone’s face must have matched my own facial features. The sweat soaked my clothes, especially so down my back and off my nose, I could smell the toxins releasing from my pores. If this was Ernie’s idea of cold turkey treatment, then surely this was a tad extreme.
‘Lubango, Lubango’ Ernie shouted across the cabin through all the chaos. ‘It’s OK, we’ll ditch at Lubango airport’ I was impressed at his optimism, if not choice of words, the ditching element not sounding too up my street and weren’t we going to fucking Lubango anyway?
I could see the outline of the airport runway ahead of us through the smoke, through the cockpit windows. It was like the sight of an oasis to a desert traveler, like a spoonful of warmed up skag to a junkie and it filled me with an illicit sense of joy, if we were to crash, at least we’re not far from civilisation, from aid. The cry of ‘brace, brace’ was aired, the same catchphrase you hear on charter flights to the Costa Del Sol, the same pairing of words you ignore on a business flight to Brussels, all too real now, never before listened to and carried out more significantly. And that was all I could think of as I stared at the cold grey metallic floor of the chopper, which could cave in and come crashing up towards me at any second, should fate decree this to be my final flight. All I could think of was the sheer guilt trip of not listening all those times on standard flights, when pretty young trolley dollies flashed their skills, amidst plastered on makeup, I promised to myself and the hand of fate that I would in future be listening in surround sound, the next plane I stepped on, if I were allowed to survive this episode, knowing full well it was a fake gesticulation and that I’d been scanning through the selection of on board drinks, next time the cabin crew talked through the safety spiel.
The engines by now were on their last legs, sounding like a bag of hammers, tossing the copter from side to side. A couple of the locals on board were saying hail Mary’s and therefore not helping matters and then a screeching sound pierced the ear drums, the chopper now scraping along the deck, with a seamless mix of shudders, jolts and bumps. I was strapped in holding on for life, as we turned onto the side, kicking up ploombs of dust, gravel and asphalt, making it hard to see what was happening outside the cabin, perhaps it would be better not to see death come knocking for you. I prayed for the whole drama to stop, but the torturous saga continued, sliding along on our side.
Eventually, the aircraft came to a standstill. After everything that had occurred in the last five minutes – the noise, the dust, the fear – just as quickly everything became still. The rotors had long snapped off, thank god, meaning everyone could escape without the knowledge that a wrong turn would chop one’s head off. I looked over to Corey, he was motionless. I unstrapped myself and fought my way across the sea of carnage that were bodies exiting the interior of the Puma to the septic.
‘Oi, Corey, hey you OK mate?’ shaking the moron violently, as if the poor sod hadn’t had enough violence for one day.
‘Easy buddy, easy, are we alive then?’ the perplexed Septic asked.
‘I fucking hope so son, I hope so, we’ve still got the match to get to yet.’ I offered some crumbs of comfort.
The Puma, had just come short of the runway at Benguela airport, luckily for us halfway between the capital Luanda and our required destination of Lubango, a back of beyond airport which serves the nearby coastal port city. Personally, it could have been the underground layer of Bin Laden, I was alive and anything else was a bonus.
There were UN staff nearby, busy loading a light aircraft, who had made their way over in their brilliant white land rovers, complete with gigantic black lettering – UN – on the side. We would make the remainder of the trip by road, it was agreed, with Ernie spouting some local lingo shit about me and aborting the hotel snake’s trip, after all the little blighter was a good luck charm.
‘Fuck off Ernie, you can’t tell me that ‘cos we left the fucking python, the chopper crashed! More likely shoddy fucking workmanship of the thing, you wouldn’t get this in England’, I snapped back at the mumbling prick. Maybe this was both our ways of dealing with the near death incident, but before long it was all forgotten and we were drinking beers on the back of a safari jeep on the way to the game, although we’d be late for the start, we were alive.
Ernie’s day got gradually worse, as we arrived at the Estadio Alto da Chela, not exactly brimming with people, around 5,000 seats spare and with Gabon already one goal to the good, Daniel Cousin breaking the deadlock and Cameroonian hearts, with what turned out to be the only goal of the game, still our friend was gracious he still had all his wits about him after our helicopter encounter.
Corey and I made a conscious decision that we must abort this fucking dreaded mission in Angola. The Togo team had been shot at, with several dead, they had withdrawn from the tournament and subsequently ludicrously banned from entering for years to come. Our transiting chopper had crash landed on the way to our first game and whilst the people here had a welcoming charm about them and the Khat leaves were fucking good stuff to munch on, the yank and I did not have a warm feeling about the remainder of our stay. We felt that someone or something was telling us not to stay and there was a bit of bad feeling about the place.
We headed for Lubango airport after the match, our ad hoc flight back on an internal route was delayed 24 hours, but we were too exhausted to care, a feeling of acceptance had washed over us, our African mission was over, but we’d tell the sheikh at a later date. Lubango airport was like an airfield from the 1950’s, complete with Sailors and waving girls and ancient aircraft from that era. Two Soviet built Mig fighters brought us up to at least the 1980’s and the realms of Top Gun. Corey had promised himself a whore to celebrate cheating death and his opportunity came as we arrived back in Luanda for our final nights’ stay at the Presidente.
Two hookers graced the hotel bar and they were instant targets for the pair of us and why not, we had life to celebrate and what better way to start than by kicking these dirty sluts’ back doors in, even if we had to pay for the pleasure. Dressed up to the nines, these two pro’s were suited and booted for instant loving, complete with glittery tight mini skirts, wrapped around tight toned thighs and slutty boob tubes that screamed filth. Marina and Dexy weren’t your average local names, but they could have been called Frank and Doug, as long as they had tits and slit and were rotten in bed, such was my enthusiasm for having some casual intercourse.
A few shots of Wild Turkey and a bottle for the room and we were sorted, Corey and I going our seperate ways, him with Marina and me with dirty Dexy and her midnight runners. All things considered it was just what we needed to round off our trip; at least we’d leave Africa with decent memories and something to tell the young ‘uns down the boozer. Not even the sight of a stray tapeworm, creeping its way out of Dexy’s bottom, slithering out for a look to see what all the commotion was, before heading back inside to the warmth of this night ladies’ insides, was enough to put me off, as I ploughed on regardless, double bagged with padlocks tied to me knob, of course.
We were out of Africa and off to Spain, but a trip to Blighty first to see a man about the plane ride over, now how hard could that be?