It's always disappointing when the writer of a blog you really like moves. People who become enlivened when describing the mundanities of getting on the bus in Equatorial Guinea become positively bored by the experience when returning to Surrey. I am on my way to London and unless the police have started directing traffic with Kalashnikovs, I imagine I will have little to say about it. Much about west Africa irritates me, but the worse fate of all is to be rendered apathetic by a place.

In other news, I have spent a lovely final week in Senegal, including a night on a house on stilts above a clear lagoon where the turning of the tide at midnight sounded beneath me like an incoming tidal wave. Croaking birds kept me awake beyond that, but the moon was full enough to read by. In the morning, four bedraggled young fisherman approached us on the beach.

"We are looking for our friend. Our boat turned over last night and he has disappeared. If you find him, please ring this number."

I wrote the number in the sand with my finger.

"Those men are pig-headed," said one of the men at the guesthouse to whom I reported the incident, lest they should find a dead body washed up on the shore. "They don't listen to the weather report and then they go out in their fishing boats at night."

On returning to land and our car, we saw another boat rocking slightly on its side in the lagoon. A coloured wooden canoe, a long prow, like a child's toy boat.

"This boat came up from Casamance full of illegal immigrants trying to get to Spain," said our boat driver as we sped past. "The boat ran into difficulties and came in here. The police jumped on it and arrested 25 people. The rest ran away."

The price for getting to Spain on a canoe has gone down. It used to cost almost £1000, but in 2006 went down to £450. Now it is possible to buy a passage for £350. It must be the only thing in Senegal which has gone down in price. A loaf of bread has gone up by a third since I last bought one.

*****

An over-heard snippet of conversation from the news room, recounted to me by a friend.

Journalist on the desk rings on-the-ground reporter over reports that 27 people have died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a leaking generator in a church in Nigeria.

"Look, the police say they found a generator leaking carbon monoxide. They were not killed by evil spirits."