“Stand by me; nobody knows the way it’s gonna be” – Noel Gallagher.

I certainly didn’t go to Niger for a booze up or even to pub crawl it, nobody does that do they? But somehow in the madness of it all we actually still managed to drink in 5 different bars in 4 days (plus on a flight and in a bus) anyway despite not even looking for it. A second and final Thirsty Thursdays on Niger exists then, for this timeshell as I’m unlikely to be back in Niger. Of course it helps that three of these bars were in our excellent hotel, the Hotel Univers 3 Aeroport Luxe in Niamey! And that still makes it a Thirsty Thursdays regardless of where I drank them. I also had a Libs Sorgho Beer on our mini-bus to the airport and a cold one on the way in, and way out.

“It’s funny how your new life didn’t change things; you’re still that Ulster boy you used to be” – Henley/Frey.

So I will start by naming the hat-trick of bars in the Hotel Univers 3, which is THREE by name and nature – the hotel name has three in it there are three bars here and three swimming pools and we also stayed three nights! This certainly reminded me of my days backpacking North Korea. For many reasons, Niger felt similar to North Korea, on the tourist side of the die roll. It’s quite a closed country, difficult to sort your trip in and out, they hold onto your passports, and as of my Pyongyang best bars article and Thirsty Thursdays on North Korea, more than one bar on the list was actually in my hotel!

Let’s get tore intill this list, in a country where for once I wasn’t bar crawl focused. It won’t be a regret that I didn’t backpack or drinkpack more than this five. Be at ease with your barmy life.

1.The Lobby Bar (Hotel Univers 3 Aeroport Luxe)

Your first beer in a country often tastes the sweetest as you are buzzing to be in a new country and to try a local beer there for the first time ever. My first ever Nigerien (not Nigerian!) beer was a Sorgho here at the wonderful Lobby Bar in the Hotel Univers 3 Aeroport Luxe.

2.The Poolside Bar (Hotel Univers 3 Aeroport Luxe)

Being from Northern Ireland and Danny Wiffen territory, it was obvious that I would both swim in the pool and drink by the pool. The bar here was open early doors for us – just brilliant. For once on our African trip, we actually just had a chilled out day here by the pool – reading, writing, blogging, swimming and drinking. Again it was part of our hotel complex at Hotel Univers 3 Aeroport Luxe.

This was the bar where I first tried LIBS, the National Beer of Niger. The previous night on arrival at the Lobby Bar I had only tried Sorgho. They are made by the same company, but the Libs tasted nicer. And since I care, it has a nicer label.

Then of course I did the Danny Wiffen loyal at Niger Away in the main pool. There are three pools here. This bar has good staff, cold beer, three pools, loungers for sunset and a television.

We met Ide, the main boss here too and hung out. Due to the swimming pool and the relaxation of it all, this was probably my favourite bar and bar memory during our time in Niamey, although meeting Kennedy Star was also cool.

And of course my tribute to Northern Ireland’s 2024 gold medal winner at the Olympics, Daniel Wiffen. Danny won our first gold medal since 1988 and I celebrated by swimming like a beast in the pool here at Niger Away.

3.The Restaurant Bar (Hotel Univers 3 Aeroport Luxe)

To complete the hotel hat-trick pub crawl we also had to drink in the hotel’s third bar – The Restaurant Bar. In fact, we drank beer, wine, coffee, water and even spirits in here! We were actually in here on each of our four days in Niger, so realistically this one was more of our local than the Lobby Bar! We ate dinner and breakfast thrice each in here. I haven’t done a Friday’s Featured Food on Niger yet, maybe to come.

The wine we had was a French Red Wine and the spirit was Bailey’s Irish Cream! We also tried Togolaise beer here, which we had also tried in Togo a few days earlier.

4.Bar Caupa Bangou, Niamey

On the final night, Augustine, the Junior Manager of the hotel invited us to watch local band Kennedy Star in a nightclub called Caupa Bangou. This was a great night – we met the singer and chilled out with beers after the madness of an attempted hijacking of our taxi in the darkness of Niamey. We hung out in the courtyard of the very trendy Bar Caupa Bangou, which also has a hotel next to it. That hotel is not even on Google or Google Maps – I didn’t take a photo of it nor write its name down but there you go…

We again had the local Sorgho beers here – cold and fresh and we relaxed at Bar Caupa Bangou and watched Kennedy Star.

5.Apty’s Cafe, Niamey International Airport

For a final beer in the country, we ended up at Niamey International Airport (Diori Hamani International Airport) three and a half hours before our flight as we had to collect our passports and check-in. We expected that would be enough time for a beer pre-departure lounge and maybe grab one in the departure lounge. Oh and there is a massive dinosaur at the airport…

Here was a mad one as we went for a bottle of Guinness for $11 US Dollars! Nuts in itself!! This was because we got to the airport 3.5 hours before our flight and yet the check-in desk didn’t even open until 1 hour 50 minutes before the flight! The only bar open before departures had Guinness in bottles for $11 US and they had no local beer! It was Apty’s Cafe, which was another wild coincidence as a year earlier (almost to the exact day), I had also drank in an Apty’s Cafe at the international airport in Lungi, Sierra Leone! That featured in my 11 bars in Sierra Leone post! I had a Guinness in that one too but a year earlier I snuck it in and it was £2.

After that Guinness, we still had loads of time surely…or not. Leaving Niger was nuts. We had 7 separate safety and security checks…

1.Getting into the airport. Then retreiving our passports.
2.Queueing to get our boarding passes. I ended up with two boarding passes exactly the same!
3.Passport check and departure stamp.
4.Bag check through the scanners.
5.Bag check after Duty Free.
6.Another bag check before the gate.
7.A final boarding pass and passport check at the gate.

In part 2 I was given two exactly the same boarding passes – nuts! What was annoying was we had no time to do anything. We were at the airport 3.5 hours before the flight. We had our Guinness and by the time they had opened the check-in desk, the flight was in 1 hour 50 minutes.

We wanted to have a final beer at the airport in the cool sports bar – which looked decent, and buy some souvenirs (I have none from Niger) but we were ushered through quickly by the guards and we were watched. We were still the only tourists anywhere in sight – the airport is the one place where you expect you might finally meet another tourist, but no – just the two of us. We couldn’t even take photos of that and then we were finally told to walk down a lonely isolated corridor and board the aeroplane a whole HOUR before it took off. Odd security but that is the Niger system. We were their only two European tourists for those 4 days. Finally, we flew out direct to Abidjan, Ivory Coast. On the flight, we took a slight advantage of that madness by nabbing two beers each onboard. Bocks from Ivory Coast and a tasty chicken roll.

Thanks to Niger for the memories and these 5 fast bars. Here are some videos from my days drinkpacking them: