Bobo's Old Town

After a bite to eat at a very friendly omlette stand (loving the lemon tea), we hired some motos, aka mopeds, from an association across the road. The association seemed to be focused on the musical side of life, with bands playing and people dancing every time we went in. We carried on for a little way down the road and saw a sign saying that the Barcelona vs Real Madrid match was being shown in a shack at 6pm - tonight's plan's sorted. We headed further and went past the bustling fruit and veg market before visiting the stadium - a pet peeve of mine, to see as many shabby stadiums as I can. If it's on the map, I'm there!

On the way, me and Dree stopped to get our hair cut at a place called Young American's Haircut. We should have known. Asking for him to shave my head, I ended up with a number one, and Dree, who asked for about a "four", watched nervously as more and more hair came off. He came out looking like Barry Chuckle -a nickname, we are all trying to make stick. Help needed from home please! Thankfully, I've had a shaved head before, so the damage didn't seem too bad.

Turning back on ourselves we went to the Old Town area. The old mosque was in a similar Sudanese style to others we had seen across Mali, notably Djenne, but was white washed. It wasn't as grand as those in Mali and was surrounded by quite a few touts who were trying to get us to accept tours. We carried on into the Old Town, which was lauded as a highlight in the Bradt guidebook. We shook off some annoying guides, who tried to tell us that we needed a guide, otherwise we'd get lost! Had to pay 1,000 CFA, again said no thanks to a group of guides, who followed us for a few minutes regardless, and went into the old town - the humble beginnings of Bobo, before it expanded.

There was a maze of tiny streets, with raw sewage flowing down the middle of them and crumbling mud buildings either side. We continued to the river that flowed through the middle, expecting a cute, picturesque little scene as laid out in the guide. But what we actually got was a canal route, a thin black stream of sewage and waste running along the bottom, and banks of rubbish piled up on both sides to the top of the walkway. It was pretty disgusting, but was cool to see the catfish (symbols of Bobo) swimming about in the filth - they can apparently survive on very little at all! That's lucky then.

Pigs roamed in the rubbish, young girls washed clothes in the river water (not too sure how that works!) as we walked across the river on a makeshift crossing. The main river could be a very nice sight, if people took care of where they lived; the setting was nice, with the river passing through the tightly packed houses. After more guide problems we exited the old town on the opposite side of the river and took a few final photos.

There was one highlight for Barney; an old woman was washing clothes topless. Barney is still owed a village of bare-breasted women from Dree after being promised them in Senossa, Mali, where there weren't any! So a couple more to add to the tally! A woman on a pushbike came up and told me to stop taking photos, and then said I had to pay. I explained I had not taken photos of anyone in particular and showed her the pictures of the surroundings. The town had a very hostile feel to it and we left to more catcalls from guides. Glad that we'd seen it for ourselves, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone at all!

We headed to the train station, where we checked the times for trains to Banfora, a town in the middle of the south west corner of Burkina, where we had a lot of adventures planned! The train was more of a cargo one, and the times were very vague. We decided to not take the train this time, but all agreed to get a train in Ghana or Togo if we could.

We changed back at the room and went to watch the football in the shack near the mosque. It was similar to our Guinea-Bissau experience, in a hot sweaty shack crammed full of African footy fanatics. Poor Kez must've loved it! To make matters worse the power cut out after 30 minutes and so we headed into town to find a maquis for tea. We didn't have much luck there either - Foyer Onatel probably was the worst service I've ever had, we had difficulty ordering four cokes - and afterwards eventually got some guinea-fowl and chips. Not a particularly successful day, but motos tomorrow!