JEFF McLEAN'S BLOG | MARTY POUWELSE'S BLOG
- 01/10/2002 - Warts and all... (Mali)
- 14/10/2002 - Timbuktu...Tomboctou...however you say it, it's bloody far away... (Mali)
- 23/10/2002 - Goin' birko over bein' in "Burkina" (Burkina Faso)
- 05/11/2002 - Ouagadougou to Bolgatanga (someone get me a linguistomy fast!) (Ghana)
- 11/11/2002 - Roast to Coast (Ghana)
- 26/11/2002 - Ghana get to Benin and finish this thannnnnnnnnnnng... (Benin)
- 10/12/2002 - Currently slumping in the couch...for a little bit anyway... (Australia)
23/10/2002 - Goin' birko over bein' in "Burkina" (Burkina Faso)
G'day all,
Never judge the people of a country by those that hang around the tourist traps. WOW! Hasn't Africa taken a turn for the better now we've been through the real "back blocks", and ain't electricity DAMNED exciting!!!
And I just have to say before I proceed that it's a good thing that I can finally send you a post with the prefix CC. Yep, we've done plenty of cycling in the last few days, that's for SURE!!
The last time I wrote to you all, we were in Timbuctoo. Now, we are out of Mali altogether, and (narrowly) in Bobo-Dioulasso after we were sprung filming at a police control post! But more on that later. There is so much that comes before that!
So the following mail will be in five parts :
- Timbuctoo to San
- San to Kimparana (Cycling day 1)
- Kimparana to Kouri (Cycling day 2)
- Kouri to Koundougou - exit from Mali to Burkina Faso (Cycling day 3)
- Koundougou to Bobo-Dioulasso (Cycling day 4)
Part 1 - Leaving the "cool" of Timbuctoo for the heat of riding...
Timbuctoo. This might sound mad, but to say we were glad to leave is probably a good thing. Sitting on the roof of the aptly named "Mac's Refuge" in Sevare (10 gruelling hours in a 4WD from Timbuctoo) it occurred to me that loving Timbuctoo would not have been such a good thing.
"The sun has screwed him!" I hear you cry, but fear not - in some ways it makes sense...
Imagine liking Timbuctoo. Where would it's romance lie?
It is a dusty place; it used to be the end of a great trade route, full of wealth and a great centre of Islamic learning. Now, if sand was wealth, this place would make the crown jewels look like plastic toys fit for a two year old.
But sand is all this place seems to be (oh, and Tuareg touts). The grandeur of its past is not completely lost; if you either REALLY set your imagination going, or take a few non-prescription drugs to help it along, you may see something of it's magical past.
But once again, that is not the reason we went.
It is hard to get to. It is a bloody pain in the arse in fact. Getting out is worse. You have to barter like hell to get a seat out of the joint if you don't want to spend another 3 days in a boat that loves breaking down. And if you do manage to get that seat, don't expect that the driver has any of the sense of urgency you may have to get out of the place. If the car ain't full, he ain't moving. You could be Michael Jackson in this joint (and boy, do some people love him!) but if the car wasn't full, Mr. Proprietor wouldn't give a tinkers cuss about you.
(Please spare me the obvious logic that one Mr. Michael Jackson would not only be able to pay to fill the vehicle with petrol many googles of times over, but that the proprietor may just bend to his wishes. And for those of you that thought I made a pun then, you're filth! :) )
In short, Timbuctoo was hard to get to, expensive, hard to handle because of the touts, hot, dusty, hard to get away from, hard to find something enjoyable in, full of sandy food, expensive low-quality accommodation - in other words, it was bloody ideal as the remote, detached, weird joint that Timbuctoo should be.
What's up with that place? What's up with my logic?
It was the tourism factor that made it a pile of you know what, and because it was like a pile of you know what, that made it good.
Go figure! "Nuuuuuuuuuuuurse!!!"
********************
Anyway, the trail back from Timbuctoo was just that. A trail. The word for it in French is 'piste' and the ride sure would have been better if I was.
After successfully negotiating a confounded seat, and then giving in and paying extra for the passengers we DIDN'T have, we were off in our remarkably hardy Land Cruiser.
The seat I had scored was better described as a perch - for the 10 hours (minus half an hour I'm about to describe) I had this bloody beam across my beeeeeehind that pummelled away until I was sure I'd never sit down again in a million years. Parents, take note. In this PC world, if you think your kids need a belt on the behind and you know you are not allowed to deliver it, go and buy a 4WD from one of the Tuareg nomads near Timbuctoo and go driving out bush. The little blighters'll soon learn...
But now to the half hour of "relief". To alleviate myself from the situation I had found my bum in, I decided to act on an urge to get horizontal. Above me was a roof with a roofrack, and bundles of luggage and packs that I just dreeeeeeemed about lying on. Ahhhhhhh! To look up at the stars as we sped through the desert. No cops to catch me. No standards to worry about. Bliss!
Just before nightfall I enlisted the help of our French-speaking mate, Max, to ask the driver if I could lie on the roof. He agreed. I was as happy as a pig in it's own excrement. Within the next few minutes I would almost provide my own.
Hopping on the roof was great. I lay down on the packs, gripped my hands on tight to the roofrack (nothing could throw me off then), and looped my feet as best I could under the luggage ropes.
Off we went.
Hmmm. Seems a bit quicker from up here.
Yep.
Wow! That insect buried itself into my eyes!
Was that a bump we went over at 473km/h, or am I just tired.
Maaaaaaaaaaaan! That guy hiked. What seemed like a relatively sane pace in the vehicle was totally insane on the roof. I was loving the first fifteen minutes, then started to think I may be crazy. My knees were getting scratched to bugge...butchery on the old tarp and at times I'd be hauled up into the air or forward or BOTH! How the young boy that was SITTING UP beside me managed, I will never know! In the last five minutes before returning to the cabin, I came to my senses; feeling quite sore, I decided that my fun should now be over, that Marty should be relieved of his tension, and that I should return to the perch of purgatory.
Wow! Did I get my squillion dollars worth with that little adventure!
When we got to Sevare at 2am, Mac (the expat American) happily took us in, and we liked the opulence of the place sooooo much we stayed another night. Ohhhhhhhhhh the pancakes. Ohhhhhhhhhhhh the breakfasts. You did the western world proud Mac!
From Mac's we hopped on a bus to take us back to San, where we had a very happy reunion with Pete, still sitting under the tree, just as we had left him. All our luggage and the trike was untouched, and the staff at Hotel Teriya were just as wonderful as the day we first met them. Another oasis in Africa. But boyyyyyyyy, that certainly was not the last...
Part 2 - San to Kimparana
Setting off in the early morning was lovely. The air was cool and sweet, and we had only about 50km to cover today. Nothing was strained about our efforts, and the day went by with all the 'coolness' that you could ever want in a cycling day.
I was (and certainly still am) amazed by Marty's aptitude to the cycling task in front of him. I expected to have to help him along the way - quite a lot in the first few days. Not once in the 300 or so kilometres since we began have I had to help him along. We set a cracking pace on that first day, and apart from some understandable slow patches, we have maintained that pace wonderfully. All hail Marty!
There was two wonderful highlights on this day.
Firstly we encountered our first village. Kids and adults came from everywhere. At least 100 must have milled around at some time or another. People were so exceptionally nice and friendly - and this is exactly what I had expected when I left home. I had (and still have) this faith that the VAST majority of the world's people are good, and Africa has shown it in bucketloads (over the last week especially.)
Second was the walk through the Kimparana markets after we had sorted a sleeping place. A far cry from the markets in the touristy destinations, this was a market of grass roofs elevated by gnarled logs, that was peopled by stall holders who were far from pushy, far from greedy (though they did get good prices out of us) and very amiable and friendly through all our dealings. We both had a great stroll down the main road of town after the activity of the day.
However, the great story of the day was finding accommodation. According to my map, and signs in the town, there was a hotel somewhere, but no-one in town seemed to know where it was. This bothered me - after a few minutes it had become apparent that there was nowhere to sleep, and I didn't know what we'd be doing. Thoughts shifted to shelter. That was all we needed.
I asked a local whether he knew where the mosque was. In Pakistan, Iran and Turkey, on my previous trike journey, it was quite acceptable (and even encouraged) to sleep in the mosques. The truck drivers did it, and there was never any HINT of what we may erroneously expect - that an "infidel" may not sleep in a mosque. (I HATE that term - it has never been used, or anything like it, in all my dealings with Muslims.)
I then asked if there was a church. Sure enough, the man pointed to the Catholic Mission behind the market. All we could see was big trees and no buildings.
Off we went. Off the road, down the dusty street, past the muddy kids playing with their wheels and leftover tyres, towards the first building we saw. Forget the fact that the sign pointed to Hotel de Ville! This town was quite obviously uncontaminated by hotels!
The first building we came to was the hospital. But Mr. Doctor man didn't seem to happy to speak to me. Was it because I "dragged" about 350,000 screaming children behind us into his compound?
There was nothing for it - we had to move on.
Out again onto the dusty road, completely and magnificently covered by overhanging trees. At the end of the road about 100m away was a door. As we approached, Raphael came out to greet us. What a lovely, welcoming and thoroughly charming man!
Not only did Raphael (an abbe - can someone translate for me? I think it means monk, but he didn't "look like one") give us a room, but he (physically) battled wasps in the shower so we could bathe in safety, provided us with two meals, and insisted that we were to pay nothing for everything he gave us. The meals were lovely, the place was an absolute Eden, and while the hygiene of the room was nowhere near hospital grade, it was a very necessary sanctuary in which to rest.
I have beautiful memories of Kimparana.
The roads that lead out of the place I consider quite differently... :)
Part 3 - Kimparana to Kouri
If yesterday was wonderful, today was the antithesis.
Completely stuffed up. That was the road condition, and my condition when we finished.
According to my map the road we took today was the principal route. It became blatantly obvious about 5km in, that the only principal to which it could be equated was a particularly angry school principal of the 1940's whose best friend was his horsewhip.
Pete handled the conditions very well. Despite the fact the chain came off five times in five km, we bumped and thrashed over 60km of road, sometimes quite fast. It was mentally very tiring to try to find a good path over the road when it was completely obvious in parts that no such sector of the road existed. It was bloody hot, sometimes the road had gradients, and we traversed over 80km. Once again, great thanks to Marty for pedalling ALL the way at the same time as recording all the stuff he could onto video.
It had also become apparent at this stage that I was not eating enough (much to the amazement of Marty who thinks I am shovelling it in...) As a consequence, when we arrived into a town I was often dizzy, prone to agitation, and it could take me quite some resolve to be nice, communicate in my limited French, and think all at the same time.
The heat at times was incredible. Hovering between 35 and 40 all day, and quite humid, at one point I stopped beside the road and wrung out my shirt to very good effect for the camera. It really surprised me how much I was perspiring, and re-inforced the importance of having enough water. This was something that I had stupidly neglected - my calculations of how much water we had, and needed, were way off the mark.
Needless to say (after this last point) the highlight of the day came at the 65km point where we stopped at a crossroads. It was actually more of two dirt tracks leading off the main road, but I won't let that point get in the way. By this stage we were out of water - our nowhere near enough 3 x 1.5l bottles of water were completely empty, and I was nearing a case of real dehydration.
I half wandered, half staggered over to the group of about 10 people squatting under a tree (waiting for hell knows who - we encountered about four vehicles for the entire day on that "principal" route) and made a gesture for drinking some water while pointing at my bottles. One old guy pointed me further down the dirt track so I plodded off.
Sure enough, we came to a little clump of mud huts with grass roofs (so common here) and encountered a couple of ladies and about 6 kids. Once again I made my gesture and we were guided to the water pump about 30m from the village.
Pure joy was all I could feel. We doused ourselves 'til we were nearly singing with pleasure, and filled our bottles. I gulped the water down at an almost dangerous pace (I know it can be dangerous to do this when you are dehydrated) but stopped when I realized what I was doing. The water was clean (as I now expect all pumped water from a closed well to be), cool, fresh, and so completely needed that I will still be smiling as a result of it when I land at Tullamarine in a few weeks time!
As we neared our finishing town, Kouri, we passed a police post. Amazingly, they exit-stamped us out of Mali, even though there was another 25km to go, including a town and overnight stop, before we were to hit the actual border.
Part 4 - Kouri to Koundougou - Hello "Burkina"!!
Today was noticably better than yesterday, but still it was hard because of the sun. The things that characterized the day were that the road condition was very good, the gradients got a little steeper (though they are still far from bad) and accommodation was so hard to find.
You see, Koundougou has NO electricity. Absolutely no evidence of a generator anywhere, no accommodation, and seemingly there was no hope for us.
By the time we stopped there, we had done 68km and we were both pretty pooped. Again, I had not eaten enough, and I don't think I'm quite fit enough yet. Still, what we are doing is quite posssible, and we can only be getting fitter.
We plonked our gear in a bar and wolfed down the soft drinks. After bludging and thinking of NOTHING for about an hour, I headed off in search of somewhere to sleep. The 'bar' had been offered, but I didn't relish the thought of some massive, intoxicated bloke expurgating his tummy contents all over us as we battled to sleep through umpteen hours of loud, African pop music!
Off towards the Mission I went. Somehow, after 1km of walking, I found it, but it was certainly uninhabited by people that wanted anything to do with me. After trying (completely unsuccessfully) to get any sort of usable reaction from the kids there, I went in search of the Imam (teacher) at the mosque. Bzzzzzzzzt number 2! No such individual was to be found. Traipsing around in that heat for so long in the middle of the day ignited my thirst again, so I returned to the bar.
Marty's brain was in fine form. "Let's go to the Prefeture Administrator, or whatever that sign says over there." (Or something like that.) Off we trundled, and came to the school, where shock-horror, someone spoke English and sent us in the direction of the head honcho of the town.
Now, I hate to kill any of your imaginations, but no, the head honcho did not have shrunken skulls around his neck, nor did he brandish spears at our arrival. He didn't cover himself with paint like a walking Taubman's advert, nor did feathers constitute a crown. (He was however without electricity - go to the top of the class if you made that assumption...)
In short, he let us sleep in the "council's rooms" and told us if there was anything we needed, we were to come and see him - in typical Muslim fashion.
After feeding ourselves up in town at one of the little dodgy food stalls (and I became somewhat of a chef in the town that night...) we moseyed over to say goodbye to him and thank him for the evening's lodging. Wait - hang on! You don't expect that we could just say thanks and turn around and leave do you? Nup.
He had us sit down, then he gave us more food and we stayed until our eyes could remain open no longer. That was about 7:30pm, dare I add!
That night, we slept on the patio of the offices, because the rooms themselves were just too damned hot. And with the dual help of the mozzie coils and a very slight breeze, we drifted off to a comfortable sleep, safe from the little malaria carrying cads that can still put fear into me at the slightest hint of them...
Part 5 - Koundougou to Bobo-Dioulasso
Once again, a great day. 82km, and the gradients got steeper again, but still, they were very manageable. The points to note about the day were many, but I'll finish with two of them only. The border police, and the opulence of our accommodation.
First the border police.
With about 5km to go to get into "Bobo", we were both tired. It was really hot that day. We had struggled to the top of this "hill" (actually, just a long rise in the land) and were completely spent by the time we hit the top.
In front of us was a flat stretch. Marty had the camera out and was shooting.
We passed a police / customs post. Every post we had reached until this point was happy with us filming (amazingly). Marty just kept the camera on. I made a cursory look. No-one was waving us down or stopping us. There was just the standard waves, the "hooop"s and the friendliness. I waved back and kept going.
About 500m later, a rather corpulent bloke rides up beside us and belows at us to return. Hmmmmm - have we done something wrong? I wasn't really pleased with him, but I made no comments. (Smart move I hear you say. Thanks! :) )
We returned, and as I got off the trike (sorry, that's Pete) I said "No placard - no sign - no waving" to the police staff there, and made the gestures. "Here comes a bribe," I thought.
We were asked for passports and our details were taken. The staff seemed grumpy. We had our passports returned, but I was thinking that it may look better if we seem not that keen to get away quickly, so we hung around and read the guidebook, giving us some idea of what we may encounter when we got into town.
Well, that was a dumb mistake.
In about two minutes, activity started mounting. They wanted to see the video. People - sorry, guards with guns - started to mill around. Poor Marty was in the middle of it, having to fast-forward, play, pause, rewind the video and record over whatever they did not like. I tried (extremely unsuccessfully) to lighten the situation by making some slightly funny faces into the camera as it recorded over. Bzzzzzzzzt! WHAT WAS I THINKING?
So, as soon as that was over (and I had spent waaaaaaaaaaaay too much time looking at the blokes' guns and wondering if they would want to use them at all!) we were shown back to the trikes and our passports were requested....AGAIN!!
Oh Lorrrrrrd! Heeeeeeeere it comes - the bribe to end all bribes. Will it be $450,000 you want, sir? Sorry, don't quite have that on me at the moment. Will 40 cents be enough? With the volumes he was writing in his notebook about us, I was sure that a fine was to be forthcoming, and Burkina Faso's national debt situation was about to be resolved.
But no, we handled ourselves exceptionally, and co-operatively, and the man even smiled as we left. I apologized, again, for our mistake, and the guard's return smile was a genuine smile - not a "suffer - we screwed you THAT time" smile.
To say the hills became easier after that would be a complete and utter understatement.
And so we find ourselves cozy and happy as a pig in its own filth as we slotherate (that's my word I've just made up and I'm happy with it) in our air-conditioned comfort. I am recovering from a particularly uncomfortable bout of prickly heat, so UNFORTUNATELY I have to use a device we have come to know as a shower, quite often. Sure beats a bloody bucket and trough that we've been using for the last few days!!!!
So, that's it for the moment. As for the future, if you'd like to get out your atlases, here is our proposed itinerary...
- Wed Oct 23 : Bobo-Dioulasso (we're in Burkina Faso until further notice)
- Thu Oct 24 : Bobo-Dioulasso
- Fri Oct 25 : Bobo-Dioulasso
- Sat Oct 26 : Ouagadougou (don't you just love that name)
- Sun Oct 27 : Ouagadougou
- Mon Oct 28 : Ouagadougou
- Tue Oct 29 : Ouagadougou
- Wed Oct 30 : Ouagadougou
- Thu Oct 31 : Toesse (65km)
- Fri Nov 01 : Po (91km)
- Sat Nov 02 : Navrongo (30km) (now in Ghana)
- Sun Nov 03 : Navrongo (rest day)
- Mon Nov 04 : Bolgatanga (29km)
- Tue Nov 05 : Walewale (53km)
- Wed Nov 06 : Savelugu (85km)
- Thu Nov 07 : Tamale (20km)
- Fri Nov 08 : Tamale (rest day)
- Sat Nov 09 : Yapei (the next three days could be different if we can't get the Lake Volta boat...)
- Sun Nov 10 : Boat to Yeji
- Mon Nov 11 : Atebubu (66km)
- Tue Nov 12 : Ejuru (61km)
- Wed Nov 13 : Ejisu (84km)
- Thu Nov 14 : Ejisu
- Fri Nov 15 : Nkawkaw (86km)
- Sat Nov 16 : Koforidua (85km)
- Sun Nov 17 : Accra (32km) (Capital of Ghana and finish of cycling)
- Mon Nov 18 : Accra (slack day - to be taken up if plans alter earlier)
- Tue Nov 19 : Accra (slack day - to be taken up if plans alter earlier)
- Wed Nov 20 : Accra (slack day - to be taken up if plans alter earlier)
- Thu Nov 21 : Lome (now in Togo)
- Fri Nov 22 : Lome (now in Togo)
- Sat Nov 23 : Ouidah (voodoo capital - forget the stereotypes)
- Sun Nov 24 : Ouidah
- Mon Nov 25 : Cotonou (now in Benin)
- Tue Nov 26 : Cotonou (on the way home now!)
However it pans out, if the first four days of cycling have been this good, then we will have some great material to show those of you that are interested when we get home.
God bless you all.
Love,
Jeff
P.S. If you want to read Marty's posts too, I have added them (with his gracious permission) to the webpage at http://au.geocities.com/oilsbloke/africa_postings.htm. They are chock full of stuff that I have missed, and excellent to read!
Enjoy...
"Here comes the impossible sun
workin' on the bones, in the dry old creek bed"
- Midnight Oil, "Poets and Slaves", 2002