IN 1987 I visited Equatorial Guinea as Pakistan’s Special Envoy. I was the first Pakistani official ever to visit the former Spanish Colony. Pakistan needed African votes on Afghanistan and Equatorial Guinea was one of the 14 countries that I was directed to lobby. I have kept a diary of my stay in Malabo, the capital, and my stay at the Great Impala was decidedly memorable. The Great Impala finds itself at the other extreme of my reviews of hotels that I have stayed in across the world.

The hotel where I was to be met by protocol, itself was something reminiscent of the famous Park Hotel in Rawalpindi's Raja Bazaar from where we used to pick up Ghulam Farid Sabri and his large party for Qawwalis at my house in Islamabad. Once Haji Sahib and his party piled into my car after an all night Qawwali and as the first light of dawn broke after a freezing night, we were stopped at zero point by a suspicious policeman on the look out for car thieves. I was dressed in a pyjama and shawl and realized that the only way of getting past the check-post was to show the policeman my famous companion, the late Haji Sahib who with his long flowing mane was soon recognized and we were waved on.

Having checked into this terrible, run-down hotel, I was shown my room which I entered with a shudder. There was a bare, unmade bed, a fan with wires all over the room - a wooden chair and a cracked mirror - a smell of olive oil and worst of all a tub, half-full of water - clearly indicating that it was my daily share. The fact that I have known worse - the Shahdadpur Sarai - or the Rohri Majestic - was no great comfort. So I strolled down to the reception to await the protocol. Here I ordered coffee and rolls but my earlier fears about the bread were true. There was none on the island! The sleepy looking boy behind the counter said that there were only cakes. So I had coffee with tinned milk and a cake. In the hall I met a jolly, 6 ft, heavy-weight Togolese businessman. He had come on business and was about as aghast as myself at the amenities. He was a delightful, open hearted man and our paths were to cross again later. All I could guess was that my Togolese acquaintance was probably involved in some high-powered smuggling!

The protocol soon arrived of in the shape of the splendid Mr. Biko. A young man - smartly dressed - who was to be my companion for the rest of my stay. We first had to negotiate a common language. French was clearly not the answer as Biko's French was inadequate. His English was even sketchier - and so, eventually, we agreed to use sign language aided by my Spanish which began to come back to me quite rapidly. Biko said I was to be transferred to the "best hotel" which brought some colour back to my cheeks and we were soon heading for the Great Impala Hotel which struck me as being, at least in appearance, slightly inferior to the Hotel I had left behind.

The Great Impala was run by a slimy Greek - who was clearly straight out of a 1930s movie. My ‘official suite' was 5 stories up with no lift. The rooms wee grim - perhaps at par with the Park Hotel in Pindi. The sitting room was sparsely furnished. There was no telephone in the room. No restaurant - not even a cup of tea, no lounge and no radio or television. There was an acrid smell in the bedrooms and I noticed that the sheets were soiled and unchanged from the previous occupant. however, the bathroom was clean and having lugged my baggage upto the fifth floor, I was left there by Biko who said he would return with the programme after consulting the President.

Normally on arrival at a new place, I like to walk about, to absorb the atmosphere in the streets, see the shops, look at how people behave - children at school - the bustle in the restaurants. Here, I held hack - partly because of the 5 stories climb and partly because of the view I could get from the window down in the street. I looked down on a sad and desolate scene. Everything seemed terribly run-down. There were pye-dogs, a broken down car - piles of rubbish - women walking slowly up and down - perhaps they were prostitutes. On the other side of the street was a little hut with an aluminum roof - in which a small, poor family lived. The father was a sort of garage hand - he had 6 children -and a grandmother. They lived in 2 small rooms - one to sleep in and other to cook and eat. One of the children was an albino and one could feel the stench and squalor in the languid heat. I sat at the window for hours watching life in the street below. The better dressed women carried umbrellas protecting them from the sun. Childhood memories took me back to Bhopal and recalled British Mem Sahibs using umbrellas against the sun.

After meeting with various officials during the course of the morning, I returned to the Impala by 1 p.m. As I entered the reception hall, I saw half a dozen women who obviously belonged to the hotel, ‘waiting around'. They were black, skinny, poorly dressed and predatory. They eyed me like a hunter would his quarry. Slightly alarmed, I hurtled up the 5 floors passing pye dogs sleeping on the landings and was relieved to shut the door behind me - I felt tired and drained. There was an insecurity and eeriness about the place that was unnerving It was hot and the humidity so high that nothing seemed to dry. The prospect of eating - or at least going up and down the five stories was so daunting that I decided to lunch on the cheese and biscuits my wife had sent with me. Then I smoked my Cigarillo and did the Cricketer cross-word to calm down. As I lay down, I noticed there was no electricity. The sheets were dirty' and there was a stench of olive oil which exuded a horrible mustiness that was over-bearing. I wondered how I would pass the three days before the flight to Sao Tome which, Gods knows, might turn out to be worse.

In the afternoon, I met with the President of equatorial Guinea and Foreign Ministry officials. After the interview with the President, Biko took me on a tour of the town and by dark, I was back at the Impala. Biko had informed me that the only restaurant in town was The Beirut, 200 yards up the road. rather than climb up five floors, I decided to proceed directly to the restaurant.

The Beirut was straight out of a Bogart film - like Casablanca - you entered through an open door with a lattice of beads that announced your arrival with a swishing, clicking sound. I was the first customer, and the Beirut was getting read for its nightly round. There were about twenty tables and a bar with dazzling red lights. The juke box music was definitely pre-war and at the bar sat a young, attractive high-skirted, mestizo clearly the in-house femme fatale. I expected Peter Lorre or Sydney Greenstreet to make an entrance but, instead, a rather slimy, Levantine manager came ostensibly to take my order but really to size me up and pigeon-hole me. Shortly afterwards the patronne, an aggressive Lebanese woman who was obviously the boss, took charge of the place. She was on good terms with the mestizo and soon I had completed a simple but adequate meal.

As I walked out into the street, I noticed it was now pitch dark. There were no street lights, no bars or shops that would light up the street. It gave me an eerie feeling. I thought of pye dogs and pot holes on my way back to the Impala which now seemed a welcome haven. Before I had gone 10 yards, I felt a bony hand touch my arm I jumped at the touch and in the darkness I made out the face of wizened, old woman. She wanted to sell me a match - I gave her all the loose change I had and charged off.

Back and safe at the Impala, ensconced in my eyrie - I smoked the last of my dwindling supply of cigars and contemplated sleep. This was not an easy proposition as the electricity, along with the fan was expected to go off. I opened the windows, threw away the dirty sheets, put a towel over the pillow, sprinkled some after-shave to smother the smell of olive oil - and out of sheer exhaustion - fell asleep. In my distant youth I had been a hardened traveler, sleeping in train corridors, grim European hostels, in the outback of Sindh and Punjab but the first night at the Impala was probably the most horrifying, I could recall.

The next morning I found I had managed to sleep even after the electricity had gone off and the fan had stopped. I must have been too tired to notice the mosquitoes and by far the greatest problem was the stale sheets smelling of oil. Going down to the hotel Beirut for bed tea was out of the question - so I stayed and made tea out of hot water and a tea-bag.

By 9 a.m. a gaunt, black, middle-aged woman came to clean my room. She could have been one of the women that I saw in the reception hall the day before. She had sad eyes but a friendly demeanour - her Spanish was as bad as mine - but we struck up a conversation mainly because I wanted to know about her life. This is what I pieced together. The woman came from the island of Nabon - about 100 miles further out to sea from Malabo. Her family was desperately poor and not being members of the two major tribes, they had no sense of belonging to any tribe. Her husband was a fisherman who scraped a bare living. She had four children born soon after an early marriage. Finding it difficult to make a living, she had taken the plunge and sought work in Malabo. Life was hard - very hard - and the wages were poor - about £7 a month - but it was better than nothing. She was grateful for the job because she could buy clothes for clothes for the children. There were no schools in Nabon and her children would probably grow up to be fisherman like their fathe

It was a sad and desolate story full of despair. The woman from Nabon was much younger than her appearance probablv because she was obliged to augment her wages by extra money. I felt a deep sympathy for this woman with whom, I talked at some length for the remaining two days that she cleaned my room. She appreciated my friendliness and relaxed, smiling perhaps more frequently than she probably did in her turgid daily round. I gave her a large tip when I left and noticed her eyes had moistened. As I trooped down the stairs, and finally checked out, I looked back at the extraordinary kaleidoscope of images that I shall never forget.