Introduction:The trip is over now and while I couldn't actively update my blog more than a couple of times en route, I did keep a journal (Africa provides ample opportunity to sit and write). I plan to transfer some of the memories from the journal to my blog along with photos of the trip. Click on any photo with a caption to be linked to my photo albums and the rest of the pictures.
July 24th - Thoughts on the flight over:
It's an interesting mix of emotions going into this trip. It's unlike any "vacation" I've taken before. Parts of Indonesia and China were the "Third World", so I've been exposed to some of that. But other than weekend trips in Indonesia everything has always been with a bus and an itinerary. I've never backpacked in the states or Europe let alone in the "Fourth World" (as my Round the World guidebook described West Africa). On the one hand this is a once in a lifetime opportunity since I have the connections in Africa to attempt the trip (Chris) and the lack of connections at home to prevent me from taking it. I have no doubt I will have memories from this trip that I will be grateful for the rest of my life... but I don't know what they are yet.
What feels more concrete at the moment is how difficult the trip is likely to be. I am traveling with a friend whose previous summer vacation included riding on top of iron ore in a railway car across the Sahara Desert, and we are traveling into a country where students go to the airport at night to study in the one spot with reliable electricity. Here are my questions which I will revisit and answer at the end of my trip.- Will I be able to carry my 46 pound pack on my back for the next 28 days?
- How will the communication work when Chris and I know no French other than what I've picked up listening to Pimsleur lectures on my commute for the past month?
- What will it feel like to not shower for perhaps an entire month?
- How will my patchy beard look if I can't shave for days (or weeks) at a time?
- What strange foods will I eat, and will I be able to get them down gracefully?
- Will I stay healthy both from minor issues like travelers diarrhea and more serious problems like Cerebral Malaria which is endemic in Guinea?
- Will corruption be an issue?
- Will we be robbed, scammed, or find ourselves evacuated (we already cancelled a part of the trip to Guinea-Bissau because of concerns that pirates were operating around the islands we wanted to visit)?
- Sadly my biggest concern is will I be able to find (or make) a bathroom when I need it, and will I be able to balance myself for long enough to be able to use it once I do?
- What will those priceless memories turn out to be that will make all of the difficulties seem insignificant?
Part I –
The theme of the trip was set the moment I got to Immigration at the
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| "Hotel Ali Baba" |
It wasn’t long until “things won’t go smoothly” recurred. About 20 steps actually. To the baggage carousel that went round and around but never produced my bag (which I later discovered had decided to continue on to
I decided to give my body a crash course in African food and drink to get acclimated (actually I decided to do whatever Chris did). On day one I drank the tap water (our room did have a sink, shower and toilet – with no seat), had an omelet sandwich on the street (the egg was readymade and was fished out of a pile of fried eggs in a plastic bowl) with lettuce and tomato. I did pass on the mayo though, which Chris later informed me keeps for years apparently. I drank some delicious bissap juice (with ice), and for good measure on the second day I tried the one thing which Chris admits still gives his body trouble: sour milk. To be fair I didn’t know it was sour milk at the time it was offered to me. It was orange and sweetened and tasted just like a push-pop smoothie (only the chunks gave me a clue as to what it really was). Completely unexpectedly, my body stood up to the test.
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| I love bagged water | Mmmm... is that sour milk you're holding? |
Over our two days in Dakar, we hiked along the beach where a hospital had been (the vials and syringes kind of gave it away), discovered I love bagged water (tastes the same as bottled water but its much more fun to drink), learned that you have to drink your bottled soda where you buy it (glass bottles are too valuable), watched as the street was lined with flags that were passed out from the back of a pickup to welcome the French president Sarkozy who was visiting, haggled for a toothbrush and shower shoes (flip-flops designed like the flag of Senegal), were offered Senegalese wives, and were treated to a family dinner by Chris’ extended host family (we shared one big plate of Yassa Poulet, and then watched Lost dubbed in French in their multipurpose foyer/hallway/TV room).
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| Chris' extended host family | Foyer, Hall, and TV Room |
The dinner was the highlight of my time in
Not all scams were directed overseas though. We had two women show up at our hotel room door (not surprising considering the other role of our “hotel”). They claimed they were from the bank and were looking for two Americans staying at the (fictitious mind you) Hotel Ali Baba. Apparently there was a problem with the money that had been exchanged. We hadn’t known if we’d have access to money for the next three weeks so we’d changed quite a bit at the bank – and given “Hotel Ali Baba” as our address. Normally I wouldn’t worry about the validity of my money, but as I heard the accusation I remembered where I got the fifties I had exchanged… I bought them from Darren… who had received $3000 cash from a stranger who bought his car last month. Getting imprisoned for passing counterfeit money was not how I planned to spend my summer vacation! Thankfully I was listening to this conversation from the other room and they didn’t recognize Chris so they didn’t pursue it (Chris felt it was probably a scam anyway since they weren’t dressed like bank workers) but nonetheless it was just one more reason I was grateful my bag came that night and we left Dakar the next day without another inquiry from the bank girls (or their police friends).
Part II – Ndangane (July 27-July 30)
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| Salt flats of Ndangane |
Chris planned our itinerary well for easing me into West African life. Our stop after
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| It may just looks like a hut... | ... but it was our nicest hotel in Africa |
Although we originally planned our boat excursion to the town of Mar Lodj for Saturday we were advised that it would be more interesting to wait until Sunday and go to the Catholic Mass on the island, which is about 1/3 Christian. This could explain why our typical “Salaam Alekum” greeting wasn’t as universally acknowledged as it was in other regions. This gave us Saturday to relax, which isn’t to say it wasn’t a memorable day. I tried my hand at West African laundry (tough on the knuckles), and got to try my first meal of Thiebou Diene. This was a special treat for me because I had learned about Thiebou Diene (though spelled Chebujan) when Darren and I put together a Trivia Scavenger Hunt at the Natural History Museum last winter. From the scavenger hunt story:
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| Oh yeah, no washing machines | But I love me some Thiebou Diene |
Clean and well-fed, Chris and I meandered through the surrounding farming communities until night fell. Cattle herded around us, we found a concrete well that had been poured that day, and Chris used his Wolof to get us offered a couple more Senegalese wives from one of the compounds. We’d met two of the sons working out in the field and gone with them back to their compound, where we were greeted by the mother (wearing a black bra as a top) and a couple of the daughters. There was also a much younger brother here who showed why most dogs in West Africa look so downtrodden, the boy was “tapping” the dog over the head with a large stick (apparently this was fairly common practice since the dog didn’t make any effort to retaliate – or even move out of the way). After Chris made the greetings, a voice invited us into a hut where the father was laying on a wood and straw bed avoiding the afternoon sun. After chatting (well just smiling for me) for a few minutes we emerged back into the sunlight, which is where we were ultimately encouraged to consider choosing a Senegalese wife from the daughters. This elicited a response from within the hut and the father emerged booming a few sentences that sent everyone into hysterics (including me though I didn’t know why I was in hysterics until Chris translated for me: “Hey, if anyone is going to be giving them away, it is going to be ME!”). After a few more minutes of conversation Chris politely excused us and we walked home still unbetrothed (I think).
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| Our prospective wives live here | Perhaps the cows come with them? |
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| Farmlands surrounding Ndangane |
Sunday worked out just as well. We started with a boat tour of the mangroves led my Badou and Mamadou (everyone seems to be named Mamadou in Senegal, this was the third Mamadou I met in just the weekend in Ndangane. There is a real talent in remembering African names and faces and Chris was clearly mastering this while I was virtually useless). It turns out mangroves aren’t what I had pictured. I’m thinking bayou swamps with huge mangrove trees. We got mangrove “bushes” along the edges of the river. Chris thought there might be crocodiles and hippos in the river like there are in The Gambia but apparently there is too much boat traffic in the area. What there are is birds. Plenty and plenty of birds. While Chris and I aren’t much in the way of bird watchers, just being out on the river for a couple of hours was perfect.
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| Watching birds | Jon is enjoying |
We pulled into Mar Lodj with plenty of time to see the mass (which seemed to run from about
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| How many sins can I commit... | ... during a single mass |
I was on quite a roll so when it came time for communion I decided to go for the full experience (even though I’m not Catholic). They only had the wafers and no wine or grape juice. As a result I had walked back to my seat without being able to swallow the wafer which had pasted itself to the roof of my mouth. I figured if I was ever going to convert it would be in this lovely church with the drumming choir here in
| Listen to the Mar Lodj Choir recorded July 29th 2007 |
I was sure the mass would be the highlight of my time in Ndangane, but of course I was wrong. When we’d first checked into Campement Palangrotte we’d met Maimouna, who worked around the campement. She and Chris established a quick rapport and were often talking while I relaxed around camp (e.g. writing the thirteen lost postcards…). He learned that she was 30 and unmarried (quite rare in this part of the world). Maimouna was originally from a village about 7km away but had recently bought a property on the main strip of Ndangane. She rented the shops in front out to “Big Boy Salon” and a tailor, and the room in the back was her house. She was working at the campement in order to save up enough money to open her own telecenter in the shop space she was renting out. She is a fascinating and ambitious woman and while tipping isn’t common practice in West Africa (e.g. you don’t typically tip cabs or at restaurants) when we checked out of the campement and the bill came to 44,000 CFA (we’d had a meal of local cous prepared for us on Saturday night in addition to our three nights), I gladly paid 45,000 CFA and had no expectation of change. However, I failed to convey this to Chris and therefore to Maimouna. Over dinner Chris told me he thought Maimouna had gone off for change (which is hard to come by in
Chris kong, konged on her gate (the African equivalent of saying “knock, knock” when enter someones opened door) and we found her at home and in the process of straightening everything. Without hesitation we were invited into her house. It was a single concrete room, sparsely but functionally furnished. One side of the room had two foam mattresses on the floor. One mattress had PetSmart™ sheets and the other John Deere: Nothing Runs Like a Deere sheets which also made up the curtains. We were directed to the couch (the John Deere mattress). The opposite wall had two refrigerators. One served as a fridge, and the other was for storage (pots, pans, etc. which she was in the process of organizing – and which nearly fell over when she went back to organizing after the conversation had died down). She had two suitcases, which served as dressers. In one corner was a Panasound (one of many knockoffs we saw on the trip) radio with an antenna attached to a wire which ran all the way up the wall to the sheet metal roof. The lone decoration was a framed photo that Chris and I thought was her mother. When Chris asked it turned out it was a photo of Maimouna (and she even produced the top she’d been wearing in it from one of the dressers). She didn’t seem nearly offended as I’d imagine most women would be if you mistook them for their mother. It was such an opportunity to get to see the inside of Maimouna’s house and I tried to absorb it all. While I scanned the room, Maimouna walked right out the door stating “I’m coming”, which Chris explains is exactly what people say when they are going. We discussed this peculiarity for a bit until Maimouna returned and we realized immediately the comical flaw we had made in coming by to tell her to keep the extra change from our hotel bill. She returned carrying a liter bottle of Coke to serve to her guests, which would have easily cost her more than we had stopped by to give her in the first place! When Chris did get around to telling her to keep the change, we found out she had already left it for us with Mamadou the night watchmen at the campement (as opposed to our river guide Mamadou). We told her we would be telling Mamadou to return the 1000 CFA to her (Chris had purchased Ataya tea as a gift for Mamadou already). After we finished our cokes and helped save her toppling storage refrigerator we said our goodbyes and left Maimouna’s having taken much more from the experience than we had given, including a lesson in African hospitality.
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| Maimouna was one of my favorite people on the whole trip | Pre-dawn in Ndangane |
Before dawn we left Ndangane on the back of a horse drawn cart that the campement had arranged (gratis) to take us over to the gare voiture to catch transport out of town. Rolling slowly across the salt flats, I heard the mosque begin the call to prayer and saw the belt of Orion hanging in the still dark sky. It was a magical blend of the familiar and unfamiliar, and I found myself once again trying to soak up the experience. We arrived before the cabs so I walked the sleeping streets of Ndangane experimenting with the manual mode on my camera to capture scenes lit only by the full moon.
Part III - Ndangane to Tambacounda (July 30th)
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| Ndangane is the green highlight in the middle on the left, Tambacounda is all the way on the right |
Leaving Ndangane, is where the “travel” portion of this trip really began. We had an ambitious plan to make it from this little fishing village to the city of
This mini-bus was just like the one we’d taken to Ndangane and I’d show you a picture except that it was deleted, and here’s why: One of the nice things about traveling in
I kept my camera sheathed for this portion of the trip and we reached the main highway to Tamba uneventfully and everyone piled out to wait for new transportation headed east. Chris didn’t seem worried, but this was one of the situations I had read about on Mark Moxon’s Travel blog before coming. If you weren’t at a place where empty buses departed you could be waiting a long time (remember buses only travel when full, except when they drop someone off along the way). And we were with about 20 locals who would all be vying for any empty seat on a bus that came by. Apparently that’s what saved us. There were so many of us that an empty bus bound for
I snapped a photo of the packed passengers and promptly rested my chin on the Camelbak strapped across my chest. I don’t meditate or study zen anything, but I was determined to enter some sort of zone to pass the time to Fatick. I either succeeded or it was a really short trip, either way I emerged in high spirits when we were funneled into a smaller bus for the rest of the trip to Kaolack (about half of the passengers were stopping in Fatick so they didn’t want to waste a whole big bus on us). I didn’t mind since it meant that we were yet again avoiding the long wait times I’d heard about for filling buses. I was beginning to wonder if those warnings were overrated and that this leave-when-we’re-(over)full concept might not actually be incredibly efficient.
We were quickly in Kaolack and were once again funneled into an ever smaller vehicle. This was my first sept-place bush taxi. Theoretically it has seven seats for passengers, one in the shotgun seat, three in the middle row, and three crunched into a mini seat in the back. The good thing about being the last two passengers in this car is that we were once again leaving immediately, and would surely now get all the way to Tambacounda in one day. The bad news is that we got two of the crunchy seats in the back. Undaunted we climbed into this back “seat”. Once seated I was feeling considerably more daunted. There is literally a four inch gap between the edge of the back seat and the back of the middle seat (the seat with the metal bars poking through the padding, and now into my legs). The back seat is also elevated, which means my head was titled at a 45 degree angle to not poke up through the (no longer upholstered) roof. Serenity now. Check the map. About 230K from Kaolack to Tamba. Highway. So what, about 100 KmPH? Couple of hours as a pretzel. I could do it... I think. And for the first 70K things are “fine”. Well it would be nice if the guy in front of me would roll down the window. Oh. I mean it would be nice if the window still had a handle to roll it up and down (this would become a common sight. If you were lucky – as in this case – the driver would have one handle that he would pass around to roll each window. If you weren’t so lucky he would have one screwdriver to attempt to turn what used to be the spot where the handle attached).
Once the window was down, and I had become fairly numb to my contortions, it wasn’t too bad. As long as we were moving fast and the breeze came all the way back. Except that for some reason we weren’t always moving so fast. In fact the breeze started coming less and less. It started with one pothole and then several and soon we were quite literally driving an obstacle course down the highway zig-zagging all across the road (along with all of the oncoming traffic). Luckily we weren’t moving fast enough for the oncoming traffic to be dangerous, unluckily we weren’t moving fast enough to generate a breeze. The highway seemed to deteriorate with each kilometer we crawled along. Do highways get worse the farther they are from
The driver got cocky and launched us into the air going too fast over a dirt ridge on this access “road”. On touchdown, the passengers all agreed out loud that the driver needed to slow the hell down. Not surprisingly it was shortly after his Dukes of Hazzard driving that we started breaking down periodically. Luckily it never lasted long enough that people bothered getting out of the car, unluckily it lasted plenty long enough to make me wish they would. Even the breeze of the 20 KmPH pace we’d been setting would seem blissful. And it would be nice to get outside and untwist for a bit.
Mercifully we eventually rolled into Kounghoul... the halfway point. And discovered the car needed to go into the garage for repairs. Well I untwisted at least. I was also treated for the first time to one of the nicest things about traveling in
Watching the repair process was nearly worth the breakdown. From what I can tell (which isn’t much) they were welding the radiator in some way. There were about six kids (probably between 8 and 12 years old) moving all around and switching off between providing tools to the mechanic and staring at Chris and myself. But the kids were definitely working. One of the kids took a piece of scrap metal and used a chisel to “cut” it into a square which he proceeded to pound flat and hand to the mechanic to weld into place. He must have made it correctly because we were soon on the road again (after they gave up their attempt to weld the cattle guard back onto the front and just strapped it to the roof with the rest of our luggage).
Our pit stop had been productive in a couple of other ways as well. For one, we’d been able to seek out a “bathroom” (the gas station attendant directed us to the wall behind his station), which was important because in my entire month in
Cramped back into the car I wasn’t any more comfortable, but expectations can be powerful things and I now knew what to expect in the way of West African travel. I settled in with my MP3 player and started listening to the “Conquest of the Americas” lecture series (music wasn’t going to kill the number of hours we had left) as I watched the faded and crumbling kilometer markers pop up from time to time. I prayed the first marker I saw said Tamba 31 K. Nope. It said Tamba 81 K. When we finally ground to a stop in the Tambacounda gare voiture 4 hours later I was truly humbled (and a little bit terrified - after asking around the gare voiture, Chris indicated he wanted to leave the next day for Guinea. We’d just finished a 12 hour travel day and he was ready for what the Lonely Planet describes as a 24-48 hour bush taxi ride! Keeping up with him was going to be as challenging as I’d imagined)
But as with everything on the trip, things have a way of working out. We found the Peace Corps house but were vigorously denied lodging for the night by the Senegalese watchman (who explained to Chris that The Gambia is not a part of
Part IV - Tambacounda to Labe, Guinea (July 31st - August 2nd)
It rained for the first time during the night in Tambacounda but this would become a trend of our rainy season travel. From that night on it rained virtually every night, but with a few exceptions, only at night. Tuesday was the lumo (market) day in the nearby town of
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| Ah, Bonne. How we loved thee | Places to visit in Manda, Senegal... |
I had resolved to stick to a travel day diet of bread, water, and Immodium (especially for 24-48 hour travel days like this one threatened to be). What I hadn’t anticipated was tacking on an 8 hour wait at the beginning of this trip. Chris and I killed the time by hiking through the surrounding farmland (with some impressive termite mounds) and eventually crashing on a plank bed in the back room of a rice bar (the offer of the bed was another example of the West African hospitality we received while waiting on transport).
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| A bus at the Manda Market | Taken just before I was eaten by a giant termite |
When we did set out that evening I was nervous (about bathrooms and border crossings) but excited to be entering Guinea, which is much more off the typical tourist path than Senegal (after all it was under a state department advisory as recently as April due to general strikes and concern over no real plan for succession). Sept-places like our “Bonne Chance” don’t ever seat seven in
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| "Is there someone on the roof on your side too?" | Outward Dog |
I had discovered the key (for me at least) to West African travel: Window seats (well that and my Bread, Water, and Immodium diet). Except when bouts of rain would force the windows up (and our roof guests into the taxi) I assumed what would become my official travel day position: head stuck right out the window like a dog. It was perfect. I got a breeze, a great view of the countryside (which is considerably more pleasant in
I popped on my MP3 player and watched the sun set. I was not merely surviving this trip but actually enjoying it. One of the happiest points of the whole vacation was when I was in my canine travel posture and the song “Lives” by Modest Mouse came on. The combination of the wind on my face, neon green landscape sliding by, and the lyrics filling my head will always be with me:
“It’s hard to remember, it’s hard to remember, we’re alive for the first time,
It’s hard to remember, it’s hard to remember, we’re alive for the last time,
It’s hard to remember, it’s hard to remember, to live before you die”
The lyrics may not seem the most upbeat, but at that moment when I truly felt I was taking advantage of an opportunity to really live, it was practically euphoric.
| Listen to the lines that will always remind me of traveling in Guinea |
This sense of joy stayed with me as we flew down the unpaved highway out of
The rest of the trip to
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| My least favorite hotel | This doesn't look good... |
We took a rest day in
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| What do you mean, closed? | Decorations at the Hotel de L'Independance |
Part V - Mali-ville (August 3rd-6th)
Our next stop was
Of course our trip to Mali-ville wasn’t without some adventure. A late coming passenger decided that he would ignore the bags on the seats Chris and I were reserving. Apparently he didn’t like the idea of being the third person in the shotgun seat for the 4 hour trip. And perhaps he felt as a policeman he might intimidate us into letting him have the seat. Chris of course was having none of it and masterfully redirected the policeman’s arguments over to the chauffeur, who defended our prior claim. So when we rolled off to
I figured we’d need to push the car back up the way it came in, but in West Africa, friendly (or bored) folk abound and before we’d barely had time to evacuate the car, a horde of onlookers surrounded it and simply lifted the side of the station wagon (still fully laden with luggage) out of the sewer and pushed the whole car sideways onto the road. It reminded me of a Guinean version of the old mentos commercial where the construction workers pick up a woman’s car who has been boxed in. It also made me wish it was more acceptable to take candid photos in
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| We never did find a map of Guinea | Welcome to Mali-ville |
We were right back on our way to Mali-ville, but I think everyone was relieved when the driver pulled a U-turn in the road about 15 minutes later and declared that there was something wrong with the motor and we had to switch cars (and therefore drivers). The policeman, who eventually warmed up to us, asked the question everyone was thinking… “Are you sure it doesn’t have anything to do with you driving off the road back there!?!”. “Nope it’s the motor” the driver maintained. Whatever the cause, our replacement taxi cruised all the way to Mali-ville with me leaning out the window, dodging branches, and singing silent karaoke to the passing countryside.
Mali-ville has three hotels listed in the Lonely Planet. L’Auberge Indigo which had jacked their rates up 300% since the book was printed, Campement Bev which overlooks the Dame de Mali rock formation… 7Km outside of town, and our eventual choice: room three in the hotel La Dame de Mali. Apparently this was the foreigner special because we would meet up with the previous residents of room three at our next stop on the journey.
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| Another casualty of the Guinean taxi system | What, you didn't like room three Susanna? |
Over the short weekend we spent in Mali-ville I experienced the best and worst days of the trip thus far (Alright second worst – the trip to Tamba was pretty brutal, but the Peace Corps house that night redeemed it). The worst was our first day of hiking to
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| The Dame. In person... | ... and in poster. |
The best day of the trip was the very next day, taking nearly an identical trip. We’d planned two day hikes. One to see La Dame de Mali, the next to see the Chute de Gelmay. The Dame is a 15km hike from Mali-ville, the waterfall is 30km. So Saturday we’d do the easy hike and Sunday the hard one. Of course we found out… on Sunday… that 15km of the waterfall hike is… to and from the Dame. It turned out the familiarity with the hike was great because it meant to made that portion of the trip alone (exactly as I’d hoped the day before).
Of course we weren’t really alone, and this turned out to be the best part. Sunday is Market (lumo) Day in Mali-ville. So as we hiked out of town people from all the surrounding farms and villages were hiking in with all manner of goods to sell. Most of the goods were carried in plastic buckets balanced on their head. This being the rainy season many people also had an umbrella stuck through their headwrap, like a giant hairpin. Of course they were happy to sell en route as well and we bought a banana for breakfast, an avocado for our lunch and told a woman selling traditional Indigo cloth that we’d buy some when we got back to town. Many of them were simply curious where we were off to and we stopped several times to exchange greetings. People seemed surprised we were going all the way to the waterfall and back in one day and we even got a “Bonne Chance” from one group. We hoped we’d fair better than our taxi with that name did.
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| Got balance? | Could I interest you in this fine chicken perhaps?. |
30Km didn’t seem like an overly adventurous hike for us… until I realized the elevation gain involved. The hike to and from La Dame de Mali was most flat or rolling. We discovered when we met up with our guides (two of Mr. Souare’s sons) that the rest of the trip was not. The day before we’d hiked to the top of
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| Now, see those little huts through the clouds? | No? Let me walk a bit closer for you................... |
Although it was challenging, the hike was well worth the effort. Our view across the valley stretched all the way to Senegal (I think. Sadly they don’t paint the boundaries on the ground in
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| Chasing Chutes | Grinding Groundnuts |
What really made the day special though was the trip back from La Dame de Mali to Mali-ville that evening. Chris and I were on our own again and our hike had taken so long that now everyone who’d gone to market was returning home. We passed our morning fruit sellers, our “Bonne Chance” man, and even ran into the Indigo cloth lady, who we happily bargained with to purchase some gifts. The one person I’m grateful we didn’t see was the cow farmer, because I can only imagine how pissed that cow would be if it hadn’t been sold and needed to make the trek back down into the valley. We’d learned enough of the local greetings now that our trip was filled with a chorus of “N’jarama”s (Hello), “Tanalatoon”s (How are the home people), and “Jam Toon”s (Well). The translations are my own and are not literal but I believe that was the meaning they conveyed. The friendliness and excitement from everyone we reunited with along this hike is the strongest memory I have from
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| Njarama... | ...Tanalatoon |
The day was so good that I intend to revise history and move the fact that in the evening I sliced my finger open on my pocket knife while trying to cut the duct tape free from my garbage-bag-backpack-cover, back one day. That unpleasant experience now officially took place on Saturday night...
To keep our streak of failed Guinean vehicles in tact, our sept place cooperated by breaking down three quarters of the way back from Mali-ville. We wound up ushered onto a passing lorry (the equivalent of a West African eighteen wheeler) that was loaded with goods (bags of rice, oranges, etc.) and about 40 people packed in on top of them. The lorry looked unappealing at first, especially when they wanted us to pay extra (Chris expertly rejected this request and insisted it was the sept place driver’s responsibility to cover any additional costs since we’d already paid him the fare for the entire journey). Once situated in the back on some rice bags that molded to our contours quite nicely it turned out to be my favorite method of travel in all of
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| The Tortoise... | ... and the Hare................... |
Part VI - Doucki (August 7th-10th)
From
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| Welcome to... | ... Doucki................... |
The Lonely Planet raves about Doucki, but the entry is really only there because of one man. Hassan Bah. Doucki isn’t so much a village as the locale where Hassan has set up a compound from which he offers a traditional Fula hut, three home cooked meals, and guided hikes all for just $16 a day. Hassan is a man of boundless energy, a speaker of many languages (including English thankfully), and a lover of acronyms. And he deserves every bit of the praise heaped upon him by the book. For a video glimpse of the man himself check out this YouTube clip that a previous guest posted:
Chris managed to get us all the way from Mali-ville to Doucki in one day. The only problem was that the taxi deposited us at the side of the Telimele road a little after
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| The irrepressible Hassan Bah ... | ... And his brother Abdul-Rahim |
B.F.H.B. That’s the acronym I heard from Susanna at breakfast the next morning. Big Fan of Hassan Bah. Susanna was a RPCV Guinea making her fourth trip to Doucki. She was traveling with her friend Alpha Oumar who she’d met while volunteering in his
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| Meet RPCV Guinea Susanna | Traditional Lodging |
And hiking is what Doucki is known for (other than Hassan). Although as much as I liked the hikes, I think I enjoyed Hassan’s names for them even better. We got “Wet n Wild”, where we frolicked in the region’s waterfalls, hiked to the overlook of “The Grand Canyon”, explored I.J.W. aka “Indiana Jones World” of vines and cave-like canyons, and finally tackled the hardcore hike named “Chutes and Ladders”. Chutes and Ladders got its name because you hike down into the grand canyon (past “Bob Marley Stage”) to the valley floor and then literally climb back up through a series of waterfalls (Chutes in French) using bundles of sticks (Ladders). Good Times!
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| "Wet N Wild" | "The Grand Canyon" |
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| "Indiana Jones World" | "Chutes and Ladders" |
The rocks along the hikes are like permanent cloud formations that have been weathered into such interesting shapes that Hassan and his guests have given them names like “The Camel” and “The Ninja”. I particularly enjoyed how pitted some of the cliff faces were because not only did it give me a chance to do some elementary rock climbing, but I also discovered several holds formed into shapes that I was certain only existed on the walls of my climbing gym (I am still fairly certain the light bulb, smiley face, and alphabet holds are unique to the gym… but who knows).
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| Climbing... | ... like a ninja! |
The week started better than it ended though as Chris caught some sort of illness which he jokingly attributed to our decision to “shower” (shampoo and all) in the “Jacuzzi” at the end of Indiana Jones World. As a result he missed the Chutes and Ladders hike which I did solo with Hassan’s brother Abdul-rahim (the other guests had gone on their way by that point and Chris and I had moved into a Fula hut). Between my blisters and Chris’ illness I was content to spend our final day in Doucki relaxing in one of the hammocks at the meal hut reading through Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” and Alexander McCall Smith’s “Tears of the Giraffe”. I had ribbed Chris a bit about the Tears of the Giraffe book which is in a series of detective novels with the ridicule-inducing name “The Number One Ladies Detective Agency”… I am of course now hooked on the series and was bitter to learn today that delivery of the five book box set I ordered from Amazon has suddenly been delayed until March. I will accept no harassment on the subject until you have read one of the books yourself!
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| The Jacuzzi... | ... and its aftermath................... |
On Saturday Chris was feeling well enough for us to embark on our trip to
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| Doucki |
Part VII - Conakry (August 11th-18th)
Sitting by the road in the tiny
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| Thank you Kevin! |
In
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| Baselines? We don't need no stinkin' baselines! |
There is a transportation shortage in
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| The woodworker who carved my "Nimba Woman", a Guinean national symbol |
That’s not to say we didn’t have plenty of memorable experiences in
- Ate at my favorite Chinese restaurant in the world (including the ones in
- Watched firsthand the arbitrary nature of African bureaucracy as Chris applied for a Ghanaian Visa (no problem one day, not possible the next)
- Shopped with Chris as he bought the hippest trousers on earth in Madina (they are so cool they are both Levi’s AND Ecko’s)
- Walked past the Korean embassy and realized it was the North Korean embassy (with the largest old school roof antenna I’ve ever seen)
- Studied a team of ants march a section of fishbone vertically up a wall at the local Coke distributor’s café
- Observed real Silverfish scurry across the sea wall as I leaned up against it (after years of incorrectly calling the House Centipedes at home Silverfish)
- Dined at an Indian restaurant on a platform so rickety that we spend the whole meal joking about our escape plans for when it finally collapsed (which resulted in hearty laughter that caused the platform to shake so violently that we nearly fulfilled our prophesy)
- Discovered that when the US built a brand new embassy in a quiet part of town, the only other new building in all of Conakry was a Chinese television station that went up shortly thereafter on the hilltop overlooking the embassy… (and was nearly taken out by an incoming jet)
- Was stopped by a policeman who chatted us up for a while before wanting to know “What we had for him”, in the only attempted bribe of the whole trip (we explained we had nothing – otherwise why would we be walking the 7 km back to the apartment - well other than to explore the city and because of the transportation nightmare that is Conakry during rush hour)
- Attended a candle making seminar at the embassy and was treated to homemade pizza during a movie marathon at another embassy employee’s apartment (although the highlight of my embassy day was hearing the Marine on guard say “I’m not about to harass two Americans here on
- Learned that embassy employees aren’t allowed to ride in local cabs… or on Slok Airlines which was my carrier back to
- Spent the day seeing the workings of an African clinic as Chris got X-Rays and bloodwork done to address the lingering remnants of his Doucki illness (which turned out to be Malaria – or at least it was discovered for the first time there that he had Malaria. But ever impressive, this hardly seemed to phase him and barely even delayed his solo expeditions on to
- Got sick. I mean what kind of trip to Africa would it have been if I hadn’t gotten Traveler’s Diarrhea even one (thankfully it lasted exactly one day, happened in the comfort of our most luxurious accommodations, and Kevin called the sweetest nurse Diana to come check on me when he discovered that it was me and not Chris vomiting in the bathroom. Really if you are going to get sick in
And of course, as I mentioned in a post from
Saying goodbye to Chris I knew I’d had exactly the trip I had hoped for when I decided to join him this summer, but I was also ready to head home. Unfortunately I still had two days left on my own in
Part VIII - Back to Dakar and Goree Island (August 19th-21st)
Anticipating West African travel quirks I had given myself a two day buffer between my flight from
I did manage to win a seat. A window seat right by the wing. Which gave me a perfect view of the loose bolt sticking an inch out of its hole. It made for an intriguing game to watch whether it would vibrate its way completely free on the flight. Thankfully I didn’t know what can happen when a bolt comes loose from a plane (because it didn’t happen until two days later). Luckily, the bolt held the entire flight, and despite my harassment of Slok Air, they got me to
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| Hey is that a... | ... loose ... | ... bolt?!? |
Unfortunately certain sensitivities prevent me sharing the full details of my time in
What I can share is that I spent Saturday night in the airport hotel (which I felt was a surprisingly good value for $50… with working air conditioning! I may have been biased by the fact that I feared having to pay $100+ for much less based on the description of other
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| Nothing fancy... | ... but it was clean and cool! |
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| Let's see I'm on the island from noon to 2:30... |
I decided I’d have to make do with the view of the ocean next to the Maison des Esclaves (as its called in the bit of French I translated). I walked down the path next to the building and realized that if I leaned out a bit I could see the portal from the outside. In fact if I walked down onto the rocks (which the waves periodically crashed over), I could get a pretty good view of the back side of the building. Actually if I walked along those slippery rocks at the base of the building I could even look back up into the portal. Theoretically the portal is so low that it wouldn’t be any problem to just hoist oneself up to sit on the ledge. And of course once seated in the doorway, why not just stand up? But I can neither confirm nor deny that that’s how I got my photo looking out the “door of no return”.
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| Just ... | ... a little ... | ... bit ... | ... closer |
I explored the whole island in my afternoon there and despite its decidedly touristy feel it was an afternoon well spent, and made me grateful I hadn’t gone directly home after
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| Goree Island |
On the flight over I didn’t know what my memories from the trip would be so most of my focus was on my apprehensions. Although most of this can be gleaned from the long rambling narrative above, I’ll provide some Top Ten lists (a very Chris-like thing to do) and address the questions I raised in the introduction.
- Will I be able to carry my 46 pound pack on my back for the next 28 days?
- I didn’t have to (and not just because Delta nearly didn’t deliver my pack). Since we did our hiking out of central locations the farthest I ever had to carry the pack was the 2 km to Hassan’s compound.
- How will the communication work when Chris and I know no French other than what I've picked up listening to Pimsleur lectures on my commute for the past month?
- If we’d had to rely on my French it would have been a disaster. However Chris spoke fluent Wolof which was understood throughout Senegal and his French (especially “travel” French) was much better than he’d let on (and much better than mine). Being essentially mute for a month (except to Chris) was one of the most challenging aspects of the trip, and one thing I noticed is that I felt as unfunny as I have ever felt in my life.
- What will it feel like to not shower for perhaps an entire month?
- Who knows. The level of hygiene we were able to maintain was one of the surprises of the trip. Granted some of the showers were from a bucket or in a stream but the result was the same.
- How will my patchy beard look if I can't shave for days (or weeks) at a time?
- Thankfully you were all spared from finding out in what could have been hideous photos of me because of how often I was able to bathe.
- What strange foods will I eat, and will I be able to get them down gracefully?
- I was shocked that the most unusual food I ate on the trip was the sweetened sour milk. China (scorpion) and Indonesia (frogs legs, octopus, prawns with the heads attached – when I didn’t eat any seafood) both provided more unusual food. Not that I minded except for lacking a fun story.
- Will I stay healthy both from minor issues like travelers diarrhea and more serious problems like Cerebral Malaria which is endemic in Guinea?
- I was amazingly healthy with a one day exception in Conakry. Chris wasn’t as fortunate and was diagnosed with Malaria but it doesn’t sound serious and he is continuing his adventures.
- Will corruption be an issue?
- Not a bit. Not a single bribe was paid during our trip and only one was requested in Conakry. From Chris’ blog it seems that isn’t always the case so I was fortunate for our experience.
- Will we be robbed, scammed, or find ourselves evacuated (we already cancelled a part of the trip to Guinea-Bissau because of concerns that pirates were operating around the islands we wanted to visit)?
- Pickpocketed in Conakry, potential attempted scam in Dakar and observed the behind the scenes workings of email phishing at the internet café. Nothing that proved to be a real issue for us.
- Sadly my biggest concern is will I be able to find (or make) a bathroom when I need it, and will I be able to balance myself for long enough to be able to use it once I do?
- Yes! Through the combination of West Africa’s colonial heritage (many of our accommodations had western toilets), my B.W.I. travel diet, the revelation that I could place my hands on the walls for balance while squatting, and the grace of God all potentially disastrous (ok, embarrassing) situations were avoided.
- What will those priceless memories turn out to be that will make all of the difficulties seem insignificant?
- Well below are the…
Top Ten things I loved about West Africa:
10. West Africans don’t smell bad, which is critical when you are packing 12 people into 7 seat cars.
9. Eating locally made sweetened yogurt from the Super Marche while watching American Forces Network PSAs.
8. Fresh baked baguettes and oranges are for sale everywhere and cost less than a quarter.
7. People let you sit (or in one case nap) anywhere while you are waiting for public transportation to be filled or repaired.
6. Senegalese food! Yassa Poulet, Theibou Diene, and the push pop flavored sour milk are all worth tracking down here at home.
5. Sticking my head out the window of a crowded taxi like a dog, listening to my MP3 player while the wind (and occasionally a branch) pounds my face.
4. Hassan Bah, and his unforgettable hikes around Doucki to Indiana Jones World, Chutes and Ladders, and Wet ‘n Wild.
3. Riding in a lorry and watching sept places fly by us only to have us lumber past them fifteen minutes later when they break down.
2 (tie). Listening to the Mar Lodj choir sing in the Senegalese church where I took communion.
2 (tie). The hospitality shown to us by Maimouna as what she offered us to drink cost more than what we had gone to her house to repay her in the first place.
1. Hiking in the opposite direction of the lumo traffic, conversing with people on the way to the Mali-ville market in the morning and then greeting them again in the evening as we all returned home.
Top 10 things I didn’t need in West Africa:
10. Sleeping pad: There was always some sort of mattress or pad to sleep on and whenever I might have used it as a seat or something to lie down on while waiting by the roadside… it was packed tightly on the roof of the car.
9. Bandanas: Brought two on the advice of Mark Moxon’s travel blog and never unpacked either (at least they were light).
8. Tape Adapter: I had naïve visions of Chris and I sitting in a taxi headed across West Africa and using this to listen to my MP3 player through the car speakers. I figured we could convince the driver to let us pick the music… I hadn’t counted on the other 10 people in the taxi…
7. French Lectures: Once it became clear Chris’s Wolof and French would be more than I could hope to provide language wise it sort of defeated the purpose of listening to these which took up space on my MP3 player that I could have used for more music.
6. Dress clothes: I never unpacked the pants and only wore the shirt because it was what I had on my back when I landed in Dakar without my luggage.
5. A ridiculous excess of bug spray, sunscreen and hand sanitizer: I brought 30 ounces of bugspray and used less than 2, 20 ounces of sunscreen and used 4, 17 ounces of hand sanitizer and used 1 ounce. The amount used even included both Chris and I on occasion. Hopefully Danielle, who took much of it off my hands in Doucki, found them more useful.
4. Garbage bag: I never needed to put this over my pack and the one day I put it over my day pack… well see number 1 below.
3. French Dictionary: I used it once (including the time I was on my own in Dakar). Chris and I looked up the word Malin (clever) out of curiousity while reading a Skol billboard once. Interactions were far too dynamic to bother trying to use the book, yet I carried it around in my Camelbak virtually every day just in case.
2. Dig-It Shovel: In hindsight this was easily the most absurd item I brought. Digging a hole if I needed to take a dump on the side of the road is just completely out of touch with West African culture. Thankfully I never had to use the roadside, but if I had I realized almost from the first day that I wouldn’t be digging a hole.
1. Pocketknife: Not only did I never put this to any good use despite carrying it around with me the entire trip, but it caused actual harm to bring along. Trying to cut the duct tape off my garbage back covered Camelbak the knife instead closed right on my finger and made a fairly deep cut (thanks go out to fingernails for keeping it from going deeper). The good news is that it was so useless that I’d never actually used the knife so it was completely sterile when it cut me.
Top Ten things I’m glad I had in West Africa:
10. Adventure Medical Kit: The gauze and ample supply of band-aids was handy when I sliced my finger open with my pocket knife.
9. Haircut: The shortest haircut since my sophomore year of college (when I briefly had the nickname “hedgehog”) was perfect for low maintenance travel in West Africa.
8. Sleeping bag: The +55 travel sack was my cocoon in some questionable bedding situations. It also meant I only needed bug spray on my face at night.
7. Everyday wardrobe: Ex officio shirts, Columbia zip off pants, Keen Newport H2 sandals. I wore them virtually every day and quickly established homes for all my essentials in the clothes. Back left velcro pocket = toilet paper packet, back right zippered pocket = loose change pocket, front right zippered mini-pocket = hotel room key, front right zippered inner shirt pocket = passport wallet. I’m particularly happy for the zippered inner shirt pocket because my wallet stayed safe even when my change pocket was pilfered. Plus the clothes dried quickly and didn’t smell (much… that I know of).
6. Camera: My Canon Powershot A710IS. Took AA batteries which was critical since I had almost no access to electricity all month (used about 14 total). Also had a working viewfinder which allowed me to frame shots once the LCD was crunched. Purchased specifically for the trip from Costco which turned out to be the most important part of all because you can return electronics there for 90 days for any reason whatsoever (like a busted LCD screen).
5. Moleskine and Zebra Pens: Compact and sturdy tools for recording my thoughts and activities on the trip (which served as the basis for much of the above entries). West African travel offers plenty of down time and I loved having these readily accessible to take advantage of that.
4. MP3 Player: Creative Muvo 2GB turned out to be the perfect choice. I got the advertised 18 hours of playback on a single AAA battery, and had enough music to make the long travel days enjoyable.
3. Camelbak: The perfect day pack. 3 liter pouch gave me enough water for any travel day and meant I had bottled water everywhere except for the end of the week in Doucki. It also held all my essentials (sunscreen, bugspray, MP3 player, Moleskine, camera, medical kit, rain jacket, Immodium and malaria pills). Most important though was that every travel day I would strap it to my front and in addition to providing access to water and essentials, it served as the perfect pillow for me to rest my chin on and nod off.
2. Immodium: One way I know it was important is that it was one of the only things that Chris asked to borrow. And given that my number one apprehension coming in had been finding a bathroom (I’d have been even more apprehensive if I’d known I’d be packed in bush taxis for hours on end) I’ve got to credit this with making that a non-issue.
1. Chris: Seriously, Chris should be the entire top ten list and then some if these reasons were weighted proportionately. I’d have never gone nor made it through without him and I can’t thank him enough for making this possible (Thanks again Chris!). He setup the itinerary, handled virtually all of our communication (including: ensuring I didn’t inadvertently get married, that I didn’t get accosted by an angry mob of peddlers who I foolishly photographed, and negotiated a reasonable price for souvenirs and for my oversized bag on every taxi trip), gave me the opportunity to meet his host family, to visit a family compound outside Ndangane, to see the inside of Maimouna’s house, to get rejuvenated in the Tamba Peace Corps house, to visit the U.S. Embassy in Guinea and to spend a week relaxing with an ocean view in Conakry (through his friendship with Kevin). None of the rest of this matters without Chris. All I can say is: This trip is gonna be great :-p
