Oh, i can tell you a few more stories from visits to Niger, Nigeria, South-Africa, Senegal, Myanmar/Burma, Russia, Georgia etc. But then i was never really scared to go anywhere i was asked to go, I was just happy to travel the world and i got paid for it as well.
Cans are produced in virtually every country on this planet and there are some really nice places like Seychelles, Fiji Islands, Mauritius etc. but then also some really rough ones. I traveled to some 150+ countries so far but very, very rarely had to fear for my life.
I went to Abidjan because none of the other engineers wanted to go and the first few visits were quite OK although you could feel and see the tension building up in the country. Massive demonstrations in the streets, some 150-200,000 people at times, street fights and the likes. I was mostly staying at the Ibis Hotel close to the factory and that was on one of the main roads into Abidjan. At all times i had my essentials in a backpack to move quickly if needed.
On the last visit though i had to stay far away from the factory at the Intercontinental Hotel as that was the only one the Blue Helmets were guarding. Seeing the sand bags and machine guns in front of the hotel got me thinking that it has become really serious which then indeed turned out to be.
