Michael Spies

It happened at "Sally Portugal" south of Dakar.
A young Senegalese, "Basil", invited us to park next to his beach restaurant directly on the beach. A dream place, with him doing everything possible to give us an incredible experience. That evening he grilled the most delicious fish and shrimps for us, placing a small table and chairs directly on the beach. It couldn't have been more romantic.
The next morning I got up at sun rise to go jogging with Esperanto, we drank our morning coffee, and jumped into the sea Elfi went into the car to change, I stood outside. "Basil" sat directly opposite our open door on a chair and was messing around with a beer can.
AND THEN ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE!
Three plain clothes policemen appeared and accused me of dealing with drugs. (Senegal has draconic drug laws). I laughed ridiculously, asking them to show me their ID's, which they did, illegible plastic cards bleached in the sun. Then one of them showed me his gun, "anyone can have a gun here", I said. Then he pulled out his hand cuffs and wanted to hand cuff me, I refused, holding my hands above my head. At that moment Elfi came around the corner from inside the van, saw a white paper ball on the floor, picked it up and threw it into our dustbin, whereupon the policeman hectically screamed, "you are trying to hide evidence", jumped into the car to retrieve the ball and handed it to his colleague, who opened it. Inside was cocain.
Now all hell broke loose.
The man in the van started emptying all drawers and cupboards. I screamed to Elfi "watch what his hands are doing, he could plant something", while outside the car "Basil" was begging the police to leave us alone, we were his guests and were definitely not involved with drugs, he begged.
"We are going to confiscate your car, take you to the station and present you to the judge, you will be jailed until we have the source of these drugs".
My heart was thumping, my worst traveller Nightmare was comming true!
They tried to pull me into their car,
I insisted on driving my own car and that one of them sits next to me on the front seat.
I was taken into the interrogation room and presented to a plain clothes guy with blood shot eyes while Elfi was guarded in the car. .
"This is serious", he said, "20 years".
I insisted that as 68 and 72 year travellers we were definitely not doing drugs, but enjoying our pension. I repeated this a million times, and nsisted that the ball had been thrown into our car by someone who saw the police comming.
And then it dawned on me!
The previous evening, besides the friendliness, Basil had seemed very speedy, he was on cocain!!!
This had continued in the morning, the friendliness, the speediness, and he had been sitting in front of the open door of our van playing with a tin with holes he had made in it when they came.
I presented this idea to the interrogator. After half an hour of further threats he suddenly said that I can go.
I raced out to Elfi, shouting, I am leaving this country, NOW!!!!
and so we drove to the border.
My worst night had ended!Leer más