Midnight Stroll

We woke up on our third day in Varela, hoping for some good news about the road. In the current situation (the huge lorries and 4x4's carrying the soldiers had further destroyed the poor road), we were waiting on a truck going back to Sao Domingo, or even halfway to Susannah. Franco said that he had asked, but there was no one going today. There was a Red Cross jeep, but they were staying put for another few days and we had to get a shake on to continue our journey to the Bijagos.

Franco suggested we waited till the afternoon, and if there were still no trucks we would have to hike the 18km BACK to Susannah in the early morning. No more news, so we spent the day on our little deserted beach again - soldiers were still rather off-putting. We had a few beach mates this time though: Kaka, Franco's dog, and a little boy from the village both followed us over the rocks. We eventually convinced the boy to go back home (Dree supervising), but we couldn't get rid of Kaka. He was going mental on the beach - was like a whole new world for him - but we kept him watered and in any shade we could find.

We prepped everything the night before and tried to get some kip in before our ridiculous moonlight stroll. Got up at 2am. That should suffice to let you know how we were all feeling! It was pitch black anywhere outside our little compound, but Franco did leave some bread, jam, tea and coffee out to give us some energy. Full of black coffee we set off with all our gear into the night. The path to the main road was not too bad - our torches gave us enough light to avoid potholes and mud. Well not all the torches... my wind-up head torch was pathetic. It was really pitch black once we got into the countryside. No lights visible. Clear stars and a very clear milky way.

We walked for about two hours before we came to the broken bridge at 5:30am. The sun was just rising so we took a rest. Twelve kilometres in a couple of hours; middle of the night on a horrendous road. Not bad. Carried on as the sun rose, and made Susannah out 7am. There were soldiers all along the roadside into the village, carrying old machine guns and RPGs. Most seemed to be coming out of villager's huts carrying mattresses. Still, was pretty uncomfortable to be waiting for the minibus to leave.

The journey in the bus was worse than the walk itself - there were live chickens on the floor, six to a four person bench, the road seemed worse as the driver took everything at speed and the poor girl next to me was violently carsick the whole way. All in all a fantastic ten hours by the time we arrived back in Sao Domingo.

Jumped straight into a people carrier for the next leg to Bissau (capital of Guinea-Bissau), as we just couldn't hack yet another minibus. Had a smooth road, quick driver and the only slightly annoying thing were the checkpoints around Bissau. We were told to get out, show passports and visas (fair enough), but then had to walk 100m in the heat to where the van had moved to. For no apparent reason, than to just annoy us! I suppose it's just because we'd had such a long day already that we were quite highly strung. We made it into Bissau regardless and found a nice place to stay near the port, ready for the boat to the Bijagos Islands the following morning