Stranger happenings in Varela

The next day turned out better and we headed for the beach, even though it wasn't exactly what we expected. Further along the shore, the debris cleared and we ended up being the only ones on the beach the whole day, bar one or two fishermen passing with machetes.

Went for an eventful swim in the ocean. It's the Atlantic, but wasn't too bad at all. Played about with a ball we'd bought until me and Dree both stepped on some kind of urchin that left spikes in our feet. Really painful and they're still wedged in there now - two weeks on! Made it an unsuccessful hat trick by Barney losing his sunglasses as well. No way to find them; the water was just too murky to see. Sunbathed for a bit and discovered I had a very fetching "wife beater" tan from wearing my vest for a few days. The clouds started to cover over in the afternoon and we headed back. To add the proverbial insult to more injuries I cut my foot on a rusty bit of wire on the way back. Joy!

The rave reviews that we'd read about on the net were turning over in our mind - was this the place they were talking about? It was nice, but not as good as we were expecting. Also we were wondering how we would ever get back to Sao Domingo to continue our journey as we hadn't seen ANY other cars heading back down the awful road.

The next morning it was raining and to make things even more worrying Barney had seen a couple of truck loads of soldiers pull up out of his window. The rain cleared and we headed down to the beach again. The armed soldiers had driven down to the abandoned houses on the beach and were hanging about, setting up camps and unpacking equipment. We took a quick rain check on the same beach - no idea who they were at this point! We clambered over the iron ore and rocks, eventually ending up at a really nice little cove where there was literally no one else. A deserted beach TICK!

Spent the afternoon in the sun, getting ridiculously burnt (unparalleled heat) before returning to the other beach, which gave the soldiers a bit of a surprise to see us three clambering towards them. There were a few awkward 'Bonjour' and 'ça va's' as we passed by (thankfully) without incident. Back at Chez Helene we asked Franco about all the soldiers. There had apparently been some trouble in the Cassamance region that we had just come from, and so the soldiers had been deployed all along the border to look out for any rebels fleeing Senegal. All rather exciting!

The soldiers were part-time and Franco believed that they get paid for being called up, so the Government makes a bit of a fuss over nothing, calling on reservists. The troops are okay in small groups, but after a few beers they can get raucous. They turn up with no food, water, bedding or accommodation, demanding things from the locals (who are quite poor themselves and have to share their homes and food with the soldiers)


Two years ago the troops blocked the so-called 'road' from Varela back inland due to more Cassamance violence. Franco was not even allowed to go to Sao Domingo to get food and water, turned away at the end of Varela by armed troops. Franco's wife seems to have a rebellious streak of her own, as she called q contact at the UN to try and pull some strings. The food was able to reach some way along the road, but had to travel the rest by canoe, and arrived at the beaches where it had to be carried the kilometre inland!

The soldiers this time were using an old hotel that is right on the coastline to stay in - a resort that was abandoned in 1993, which were the abandoned, overgrown buildings we saw. It was apparently a very nice place; 160 rooms, seafront views etc. But then the civil war started in the nineties and it was just abandoned.

"Terrible shame," said Franco, "It was a really nice place - politics!" Sounds like Varela could have equalled Cap Skiring in Senegal and brought in a lot of tourism...

STRANGE times in Varela.