Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride

The Final Chapter: Suits and Kidnap

2010-02-10T11:11:00.000-08:00

We arrived in our final city, Cotonou, after hailing a private taxi by the roadside in Ouidah; once again we couldn't be bothered with the hassle and cramped space of a minibus, and were willing to pay a little bit more for comfort on our last big journey on four wheels.

On the way to Cotonou (where the national Beninese airport is, not in the nearby capital of Porto Novo) we saw some crazy vehicles that had been overloaded to the brink of collapse. Boots overflowing to the road below, furniture piled up on the roofs like jenga and people playing some kind of weird game of twister in the back seats!

The transport didn't improve in Cotonou. Thanks to a ridiculously incompetent map in our Bradt guide, we had no idea where we were, and chose to get some motorbikes to go to our hotel. With huge backpacks on the handlebars in front of the drivers, and each of us clinging onto the back seats, we set off in an unorthodox convoy through back streets, across dual carriageways, through puddles of murky liquid and zooming across very busy junctions with no braking... At one point we cut across one lane of fast moving traffic, jumped up the kerb to the central reservation and hopped down the other side before cutting through another lane to the 'safety' of the loose-sanded avenues. Terrifying!

After getting lost we made it to our hotel and decided to not pay the extra money the drivers had asked for (we had asked them to take us to one hotel and they had said they knew it). Unfortunately we were shoved on the fifth floor of this gigantic building, and had to go up/down just over 100 steps each time we wanted anything like a drink or something to eat. Lot of work, but think we all worked out our thighs going up and down a few dozen times!

Kez was unfortunately feeling unwell, and fainted whilst we were filling out our forms. Went white as a sheet, but Barney did well to catch her. After that, Kez rested for most of the next day or so, while us three checked out the market, looking for a few presents and trinkets for home. Specifically we wanted to get some of the loud 'suits' that most African men and women sported. There are literally hundreds of thousands of designs on print, in varying patterns, made up of any colours you could dream of. You chose the material and then took it to a tailor who got it made for you.

We spent about two hours looking around at all sorts of material, and after what felt like another two hours of bartering with stubborn women (I hate shopping), me and Barney left with some particularly loud pieces of material! Dree was a bit disappointed - he really wanted a piece of Barrack Obama material that he'd seen someone sport. Unfortunately, it wasn't to be found anywhere, but to make up for it he bought a couple of Obama bags - complete with the President's face plastered all over it! Stylish!

Me and Barnes went across to opposite our hotel, where there was a row of tailors working late into the night. On second thoughts, this could have been a sweatshop. The man in charge (slave master?) offered us quite a good deal to make the whole suits and I asked to have another shirt made up from some extra material I bought. We went around a few other places trying to barter for a better deal, but most weren't interested in our custom. Or maybe it wasn't the done thing to waltz into a factory and ask them to make a special suit for us tourists! we went back to the original man and were told to come back on our final full day in the country to collect them. They only took a few measurements, including not measuring waist. Concerning to say the least. What on earth would we get?!

The next day Kerry was feeling a bit better and so we headed to Ganvie - one of the apparent 'highlights' of Benin - a stilted village on the edge of a giant lake just outside Cotonou. Perfect for a day trip we thought. Quick taxi out to the lake's edge and we couldn't find any office or anything to lead us to believe this was anything more than a fish market. Then, out of nowhere, six or seven smartly dressed guys brought out a school exercise book and told us it would be about £15 each. One helluva chunk of our budget. We dillied and dallied, but eventually paid. It was our penultimate day, and we'd heard about this stilted village for quite a while.

Onto the boat and we were pushed out onto the lake. The man at the back pushed us along like a gondolier in Venice, while the man in front turned around to us and told us to pay an extra £1o each, or something equally ridiculous for the guide. we had already asked if the £15 covered everything, and they had said yes. We argued with this guy for about fifteen minutes, while floating in the lake. He was an absolute....you-know-what, and we shouted and voiced our anger in French and English. He refused to take us back and was essentially kidnapping us!

We couldn't believe what was going on. Barney got up to stop the 'gondolier' at the back, who was still pushing us further out into the lake when we were asking to return. The 'guide' at the front wanted us to pay more and said we couldn't go back. He eventually backed down after a lot of shouting and we headed off to the stilted village, not feeling particularly happy about the situation! The 'punt' to the village took about an hour, in the morning sun, with two kidnappers taking us on the way. Even when we got to the village it wouldn't have been worth having a guide; he only spoke French and didn't explain anything at all! To make matters worse, he kept annoying us by saying "Don't cry, don't cry", because he'd obviously ripped off tourists like this before. There was an opportunity to get off and stop at a restaurant. We declined as we didn't trust the guys to wait for us, and then we would have been truly stranded.

The village was okay: a few boats were around selling wares to other boats (each family had two boats each, to get to work, the market, to the school, in the same way we'd have two cars!). It was interesting to see how the houses were built - on mud banks in the middle of the lake. According to legend, a man had been transported there by a stork whilst trying to find a place for his family to hide from the King of Dahomey, who wanted to turn his family into slaves. Quite a likely story if you ask me! Sadly, the trip was tainted by the a***holes that wanted to steal our money. Shame really.

Back on dry land, and after NOT tipping, we headed to the artisans' market to buy some goodies to take home. We all wanted specific things, but mainly we were looking for some wooden carved masks and voodoo type things. I, as previously mentioned, hate shopping with a passion, and as the market involved walking in and around a maze of tiny shops each with similar stuff in, apparently carved out of the most precious trees in existence by genies hundreds of years ago (therefore explaining the extortionate first asking price - over £200 a couple of times...).

Every 30 seconds it was a new shop and someone else saying "hello my friend". i am getting worked up, just thinking about it! Angry Dum came out and I ended up going back after a night's sleep and bought some African art and masks. Because we'd all bought so much, we had to buy another bag to keep our souvenirs in. Kerry and Barney set off to find a suitable one, and came back with the biggest, vilest burberry holdall imaginable. But it did the trick perfectly, and we padded the sides with clothes and plastic bags.

(On the way back, Dree, in his Mr Bean-esque way, ended up walking smack bang into a tree branch, causing a deep cut in his head. It was pouring blood and we were thinking about getting stitches for him! He was okay in the end, but sported a lovely red gash on his forehead. Keep your eyes on the prize dribbley!)

Back at our hotel we had to check out, as our flight was that night, but there was a problem - our suits weren't ready... and we were due to leave the country in about 9 hours. We carried on with our original plan, as we were told the suits would be done in a couple of hours. The original plan was to go to the poshest hotel in Benin, leave our bags in a side room, and use their pool. This plan had two main plus points; a) we could use a pool and b) we could use the showers before we got on the plane! After yet another poor taxi journey, we blagged our way through the $250 room-per-night hotel and chilled out in the pool for a couple of hours. It was brilliant!

I left after a few hours to go and pick up the suits, which went surprisingly well, as there was nothing we could have done if they were wrong/not ready, and we even got the extra material back! Two perilously moto journeys later, almost dying a number of times, including a lovely overtaking manoeuvre facing an oncoming lorry at a crossroads, I made it back to the hotel and we all set off for the airport. After some incredibly expensive soft drinks (costing the same prices as in a bar in London) we said goodbye to Kez, who had to go via Kenya, and although she set off one hour before us, arrived home one whole day later!

Barney mentioned something to me about the cost of the flight, and it being wasted by falling asleep, and not taking advantage of the films and TV shows on offer... I took this to heart in an overtired mood, and ended up staying up the whole night, creating a messed up sleeping pattern that has just about got back to normal!

Oh one last 'funny' little thing - as we waited for our bags at Heathrow, the carousel (only time I'll probably ever use that word in a blog haha) stopped and the lights went off. "Right" we thought, "this cannot be good". We only had one rucksack and (somehow) the Burberry monstrosity! After a quick chat with the AirFrance desk, during which we were told that we were "lucky to get any of our bags", we filled out some forms, and my and Barney's bags arrived in one piece about 24 hours later. The excuse? The cold...

Well it was a truly awesome trip, seeing some sights that I shall forever hold in my memory (Voodoo festival, Senegalese wrestling, Dogon country views, Timbuktu sunset, River Niger ferry, Burkina adventures on bikes, masked dances, seeing a wild elephant up close, climbing the highest mountain in Togo on New Years Day... the list goes on). I would like to thank the guys that I went with, for making it such an unforgettable experience, and saying to anyone reading this, just take a chance, go on an adventure... get ready for a cliche...

...just buy the ticket, take the ride!

International Voodoo Festival 2010

2010-02-04T04:21:00.000-08:00

After a breakfast of stew sandwiches (very spicy and oily, but they are fantastic with fresh bread), we wandered around the town looking for signs of the extravaganza we'd been promised. But there seemed to be nothing going on anywhere in Ouidah. Moto drivers kept asking us if we wanted to go to the beach, and we eventually headed there. It was the place to be. Hundreds of cars, minibuses and motos crammed the Slave Route to almost walking pace and we walked the last little bit. The beach had been transformed from the dead place we'd seen only 24 hours before, to a vibrant festival with dancers an musicians. Huge marquees boxed in an area the size of a football pitch just behind the Door of No Return, and there were as many tourists with cameras as there were locals in tribal dress! Again, this made us think about the authenticity of the event. Maybe it had been years before, but money does strange things to people, and the amount of cameras, and therefore camera fees, must have been running into thousands!

The international festival was set up years ago by the president when he was 'saved' from death by a Voodoo priestess. events take place all over the country, but the main festival kicks off on the beach in Ouidah, so we were in the perfect place! We watched all sorts of things during the day, but the main ones were involving a group of people wearing only shorts. Their numbers grew as more people became 'possessed' and rolled around on the sand after drinking some unspecified liquid. After being sat on by their friends, the person in question took off their tops (yes, even the women) and smeared bright yellow paint over their head and chest.

Then they began doing some crazy African dancing to a fast-beating drum, kicking up sand and running around like madmen! Then came the weird stuff - cactus's tied to their backs, beating their bodies with said cacti, drinking the paint and spitting it over each other, rolling around in the sand, smashing glass bottles over their heads and cutting their arms with sacrificial knives (the latter two drew a lot of blood).

Other events included some member of the voodoo royalty blessing the sea, meaning hundreds of people then blessed themselves with the water, lots of crazy dancing from different tribes, from different countries (including Kez joining in again - she loves the African dance moves!), and finally a goat sacrifice! I was lost after going to watch some people light branches on fire and hit themselves with them, and luckily stumbled upon a small group of people preparing the goat. I was just in time as a massive congregation turned up, including some dignitaries from the area, followed by TV cameras and people holding umbrellas for them!

In the front row I had a great view of the Voodoo King blessing the knife and goat, before feeding it some concoction (also blessed!). then as the goat stretched its neck to reach the leaves, a man grabbed it's head and the knife was sawn (not cut) through the poor thing's neck. I'd never seen anything like that at all beforehand, and it was pretty amazing to witness. The blood poured out as the goat struggled and was left to drip over a metal figurine and into a bowl. Someone also collected some in a glass bottle. Some internal piece of the goat (possibly an organ) was then diced up into very small pieces and washed around with the still-twitching goat's blood. Pieces were then dished out to people in the crowd, turning it into a scrum!

It was a pretty amazing thing to see, but as I've mentioned before I am not sure about the authenticity of the event. TV cameras were present to capture some government ministers, or local dignitaries, giving speeches and there were army guards complete with machine guns to make sure that the event didn't get out of control... The amount of tourists also put me off. It was about 1:1 tourists to locals.

That evening back in the town we went for dinner at a place on a sandy side street. The choice wasn't great, but we all went for the standard pintade (guinea fowl) and rice. However, the rice was running low and we had to go for a few bowls of pate as well. This isn't pate like Brussels, this is similar to fufu or kenkey - fermented maize in quite solid, gooey lumps. It tastes like it looks: grey. There is no flavour at all, but its okay for sustenance, with pintade or chilli paste. Another food I am glad to have tried but won't miss!

After a few beers at a bar, with the loudest sound system in the world, and all the locals having a blast after a hedonistic day of smashing bottles over their heads, we grabbed some more stew sandwiches and oranges (cheap as you like and so tasty) before packing for our final days of the trip in Cotonou. Sad times - an epic trip coming to a close.

Ouidah - Vodou, Slaves and Python Temple

2010-02-04T03:01:00.000-08:00

The next morning we left the auberge and trekked to where the bus station was on the map. It had obviously moved and so we each took a moto (with full backpack and daysack) through the streets of Porto Novo to the relocated site. We were coming towards the end of the trip, and were not up for anymore stressful journeys, rammed in the back of a falling-apart minivan, so we booked a private taxi and had an enjoyable hour or so drive to Ouidah - home to the biggest Voodoo celebration in the country (more than 60% of Benin practices Voodoo, which is admirable as this is where the strange religion has it's roots).

We arrived at Hotel Oasis, sans reservation, but were able to be fitted in because we were a few days early; the festival started on the 10th and we'd arrived on the 8th. The hotel's dimly lit corridors reminded me of The Shining, but on the plus side we didn't pay for air-con as they were broken, but Barney worked his (Voodoo?) magic and got it working. Sweeeet!

We spent the first morning having a wander around Ouidah, a small town that has become as famous for Voodoo as it has for being one of the most famous slave routes across the Atlantic. The Dahomey kings (from Abomey) sold thousands of slaves here, and the most well known 'middleman' was Francisco Felix de Souza, an African-Brazilian, whose house and family are still in Oudiah.

We visited the old Portuguese fort, that had been turned into a museum for the area. Slaves were held at the old, whitewashed fort, before being sent down the 'Slave Route' - a 3.5km trudge in full shackles in boiling heat before being loaded onto the ships at the beach. Inside the museum we were shown around by a guide speaking in rapid French (none of us understood any of it), but there quite a few interesting Voodoo pieces on the ground floor - art and statues. Then, as tourists, we were shown round the shop and 'artisan' market. We got chatting to a guy who spoke English, who said he'd take us on a guided tour of the Slave Route for an extortionate price. We decided to just do it ourselves the next morning before it got too hot.

That afternoon we were wandering around when we heard, and then saw, a Voodoo ceremony! A few hundred people had gathered in an opening just off the main road. In the middle were two giant haystacks, which had people in (sorry to break the Voodoo dream) who span around very quickly and in random undulating circles. The locals seemed to be petrified and scattered whenever the spinning haystack came near; flailing strips of string/hay like a dancer's dress that spins horizontally.

Barney went to take a photo and a fat man in a revoltingly tight, white tshirt came over and began shouting at him. We calmed him down after a while and he said we'd have to pay 10,000 CFA to take photos! That was about £13. We agreed not to take any. There were so many tourists about snapping away that we could easily just get some off the interweb when we got back. It made us think about the authenticity of the festival. They must be raking in thousands of pounds from all the tourists around taking photos and videos. Also the people involved in the haystack dance were playing up to the camera, drinking gin and posing in front of the stacks... It was still cool to see the dance though, and we hoped for a lot more things like this in the coming days.

That night we had goat brochettes (kebabs) whilst sitting at a bar on the roadside. Ghanaian service from the bar - no soft drinks and no beer, although we'd witnessed a delivery that day - but fantastic service, and price, for the kebabs. Sooooo good and for almost nothing at all. Still cracks me up thinking of kez eating kebabs with her fingers, picking off each piece and picking it apart!

The next day we walked the Slave Route (after a huge breakfast of an omlette AND porridge, due to a communication breakdown!) at about 10am. It was getting pretty hot already, and the walk wasn't made easier by the loose sand underfoot - that'd be fun on the moto drive back! We walked past a supernatural healer's place with a voodoo statue outside, palm trees, and a number of dubious statues relating to the slave trade. There were plinths at the side of the road, some with 'modern' art on, and others with overgrown deities on top. There didn't seem to be any info, and some plinths were without anything on top.

Crossing a river, via bridge, we saw the beach unfold before us. It wasn't as spectacular as we'd heard (rumours of one of the best beaches in the country), but it was nice to see a beach. As we walked off the sandy road we had dozens of hawkers shouting at us, banging drums and ringing bells - "my friend, my friend". We carried on and had a look at the Gate of No Return, a huge gateway engraved with carvings symbolising the slaves' struggles; it was pretty impressive. Walking along the beach (with litter) we saw the Door of Return - an equally large statue that had a cross in front of it, and the 'doorway was carved in the shape of Benin. Pretty cool. We sat in the shade to try and get out of the sweltering heat, and drank some milk from the coconuts...not sure if we were meant to eat them too...

We decided to get motos back, after having some drinks in a bar, as it was too hot to do the return journey. As usual we were asked to pay about 800% of the going rate and began to walk. Some of the moto drivers backed down and offered us a normal price, and so we took a scary ride back, drifting across the sand! Back in one piece, we had a nice cheap lunch and then decided to get the rest of the touristy sights out of the way so we had a full day to enjoy the Voodoo Festival tomorrow.

Firstly we went to the Python temple. We had been warned about this, but thought we'd better go see it regardless. We paid about £2 each, and had a guide. He took us into a courtyard, showed us a big tree, a spherical sacrifice block and then opened the 'temple'. There were about 50 pythons (harmless) inside in pretty drab conditions and barely any water. The guide put some pythons round our necks, we took photos, pythons were returned. Then he asked for a tip. That was it. Tour over. Absolute rip off, but very funny nonetheless! Probably the single worst tourist attraction I've ever been to!

Then we got motos to the edge of the town and went into the Sacred Forest (oooooooooooo - meant to be a ghost sound). Our guide showed us some statues that were depictions of Voodoo gods and explained them quite well in English. Then we saw a tree that, according to legend, a king had turned himself into to escape from his enemies. It was said that if you put a gift down for the king (i.e. money) then you could make a wish. I'm a sucker for things like that! Hasn't come true yet...

Tomorrow - Voodoo Festival!

Few days at the Auberge

2010-01-23T17:21:00.001-08:00

As there was no train back down south, we got a taxi back to the gare routiere and a few guys helped us into a taxi heading to Porto Novo (the capital of Benin). We had a few days to kill before the Voodoo Festival in Ouidah, and unfortunately didn't have enough time to head up north and get back down beforehand. Just before the taxi departed from Abomey, we picked up a pretty well off kid from a house on the outskirts of town and from the way he was talking to the taxi driver, and the clothes he was wearing, we thought he was a prince!

Passing quite a few crashed, overturned and burnt out lorries on the way, we arrived in the capital and headed straight for the Centre Songhai - a sustainable agricultural project just on the outskirts of the city centre. In our guide book it was said to be the best place to stay, with over 80 rooms, a recommended restaurant on site and the fastest Internet connection in the city (which obviously didnt help me too much getting this up to date, as I'm still writing this after I'm home!).

Unfortunately, the Centre was full, but we had a very nice lunch of pintade (guinea fowl) and, yes you've guessed it, rice. We then had to try and hail down a taxi to take us back into the city centre to find somewhere to stay. This may sound quite simple, but in Benin there are very few car taxis, most taxis are zemidjans (aka zemi's - motorbikes that zoom back and forth across town for a very small fee). They are a great idea, but very scary or exhilarating depending on which way you view the journey! As we had all our bags, we waited till a four-wheeled taxi pulled up and got taken to the Detente Hotel. Which doesn't exist anymore.

We walked further up the road, just as the rain started up, and arrived at the Auberge Malabo. This seemed more our price range than the almost-palace next door, which we found out was a top government minister's house. The auberge was a really nice little place, run by a friendly chap who helped us out with directions etc around the city. Actually, that night we weren't sure where to go to eat, and the guy, who spoke a bit of English, flagged down a couple of zemis and showed us to a nice little restaurant a few minutes away.

We thought he was going to sit with us for the whole meal, but made his way back after making sure we were okay. The food was fine, but the service went back to Ghanaian and we had a lot of difficulty getting any drinks! Returning back to the auberge we discovered that there was no electricity. Not so bad for any rooms with windows, but mine and Barney's room was a veritable cell - it was in the middle of the building, with only a small window leading to a corridor for ventilation. When the fan was off it was a sweatbox; too hot to sleep.

The next day, we went to the city centre and found an omlette man down a side street. Dree went off to change some traveller's cheques while the rest of us went into a dubious museum called La Musee Da Silva. In the guidebook it said that the museum was a bit random and had a strange collection of objects. We went inside and found an English-speaking guide called Gerry. It turned out that Gerry was born in Benin, but his parents had left for Gabon because of the problems with communism in the 70's and 80's. Gerry had gone to university in Philadelphia in the USA and it was really good to have a guide we could chat with.

The Museum was created by a former government minister who had Brazilian ancestry, and was filled with all sorts of random items - from old cameras and typewriters, through hundreds of pictures of family members and famous people, to a Rolls Royce, a mummified turtle and some dubious artwork from around the world. It really was an unexpected little tour, but was very interesting. The former minister had collected all these things in his old house, which was in the original Afro-Brazilian style of architecture, but the tour itself was made by our guide.

Gerry was very, very funny, walking around explaining about the exhibits, and sometimes turning to us and saying "Now I'm only saying this because it says so on the label, but I don't think this is right!". One memorable one was the 'Thai' art section, which had some Western nude women in erotic poses. Very Thai! I was taking photos of some things on the way round, and Gerry kindly allowed me to, but became quite nervous towards the end. Probably because he'd been walking around chatting to us for about two and a half hours - when the tour was only meant to take an hour max! Poor Gerry got a rollicking when we got back (we obviously tipped him), but poor Dree had been sitting outside for the whole time!

After a cheap bite to eat we hit another museum - the museum of Entomology - but the Beninese lady who showed us round seemed frosty and annoyed at first. She was a bit aggrieved at having to speak English, although the employees were being taught to do the tour in both French and English. She was quite friendly toward the end, but the museum itself was more to do with families and the upbringing of children, and quite different to the eclectic-ness of the da Silva!

I spent the evening back at Centre Songhai, catching up on a few weeks of blog from over Christmas, and had a couple of very scary moto rides back and forth! The zemi riders zoom in and out of lanes at speed, and the Beninese as a whole don't seem to get the idea of roundabouts...they stop ON the roundabout to let others on. It all makes for a hair raising adventure!

The next day we'd planned to leave. However, things weren't going to plan. The ONLY time we'd paid for three days up front, rather than day by day, and we'd been stung! We asked to leave a day early, but apparently the 'police' had been informed of where we were staying and the 'tax' had already been paid... We couldn't afford to give up a night's paid accommodation, and so spent a very cheap day reading, eating from the street stalls and repacking our bags. Bit of a downer at the end of such a nice stay that we were kind of kidnapped, but compared to what would happen in a few days this was pretty mild!

Ye Olde Kingdom of Dahomey

2010-01-19T09:04:00.000-08:00

After winning the game of cards to win the coveted "bidet-bathroom" and air-conned room, we had a pretty good (if expensive) meal of chicken with rice and sauce. Of course before all of this, we had to have a mammoth shower to wash off the extra five layers of red dust from the day's open-bus journey!

The next day we walked the twenty minutes into town (with no help from the useless Bradt map; which held no resemblance to the actual town) and took a wander around. Abomey was the capital of the kingdom of Dahomey that is now known the Republic of Benin. The kingdom is notorious for being at the heart of the Transatlantic slave trade that we'd learnt about in Ghana. Dahomey supplied slaves for the Europeans by raiding villages and capturing enemies during their many wars.

Before we headed to see the famous palaces built by the Fon people (another UNESCO site), we found some lunch. Eventually. For some unknown reason, Abomey had very little in the way of restaurants, chop bars, street food or any kind of vendor of food products. We did find a place after about five or six rejections and ordered some of the local grub from the variety of pots outside. We ordered (were given) a plate of rice and some sauce with some deep fried things. Everyone else worked out that it was deep fried cheese way before I did. It was really nice to have something different - a change from anorexic chicken!

Now craving cheese, we made our way to the royal palace. Firstly we walked into the wrong high-walled area, and were confused when a lady said that the museum and palace was round the corner, as there were maps and signs for the palace inside. Once we got to the museum/palace, and the woman had woken up from behind the desk, we were ushered out into a main courtyard, which had been turned into a craft market. Cue hassle. It wasn't too bad to be honest, and after the tour we bought a few things that had been woven there. The looms were pretty cool - the guys operated them barefoot, with the thread tied to their toes!

We asked about an English-speaking guide and were told that there was only a French man available. We joined a French lady, and had the huge locked doors that led to other courtyards opened for us by a very old caretaker. He followed and locked the doors behind us as we walked through the palace. The tour guide spoke rapid fire French, but did speak some English pretty well when we asked him to. The basic overview was that the palace was the home of the kings of Dahomey, who lived there along with their hundreds of wives and mistresses, and personal army.

As we wandered through each enclosed area, we picked up a bit of what the French guide said. The gist of it was that the kings were very strict, and subjects who got even slightly out of line had their heads chopped off! This included people who looked directly at the king's favourite mistress, and the executioner, who would also be decapitated if he didn't behead someone in one fell swoop! It was basically quite hard to KEEP your head! Furthermore, the high walls surrounding the palace were apparently coloured with the blood of enemies.

One particular group of warriors also caught our eye. The Amazonians were a unit of women that were renowned for being ruthless in battle, and were not, as I thought, anything to do with the Brazilian rainforest! They apparently fought with more passion and anger than their male counterparts, and were the kings' favourite battalion.

After about an hour of wandering around the separate enclosures (seeing cannons, probably a new addition, low buildings where people were buried, and some funny artwork from back in the day which showed warriors stabbing their enemies in the bottom), we came back out to the craft area and saw some overpriced tat. For example, there were old bottles that had been taken from a rubbish tip, painted some colour, hung from a tree and then were being sold for 10,000 CFA - about £13 - for a discarded bottle...

We did find out that the train wasn't running to the cities on the coast, and so had to re-evaluate our plans. We headed back to the auberge and ordered dinner (as there was nowhere else to eat in the city!), before deciding to leave the next morning for Porto Novo, the capital city of Benin.

Country Number Eight!

2010-01-13T12:27:00.000-08:00

We all fell asleep pretty quickly that night, after a hectic, action-packed few days, but as usual Barney got up for the first in his toilet visits during the night, as he'd drunk two Cokes. I get woken up just after, by a crazed Mr Webb saying "We're locked in!". It was true - the deadbolt lock was broken and the key just turned loosely. There was no way out apart from a high drop from the small window to the house below. We tried for about twenty minutes to break open the deadlock, and eventually resorted to cutting into the woodwork with our penknives. But the nails went too far in! After even more hard work, and bending of the lock, the door swung open but not without injury - I sliced my poor thumb... At least Barney could go pee!

We left the Auberge pretty early, as we had to make a lot of distance to make it across the border to Benin, our final country. It was a shame to only have a few days in Togo, but we had plans in Benin for the next week before flying out of Cotonou. We hiked down the checkpoint before the village, and a very nice army sergeant helped us get some motorbike taxis back to Kpalimè. The bike journey was pretty nerve-wracking, as the route back to Kpalimè was all winding roads, with steep drops over the side. Not to help matters, the driver had my big bag on his handlebars and insisted on doing some pretty quick 'superbike' turns (with his knee close to the tarmac) and leaving it till the last moment to dodge potholes.

We all met up for breakfast in Cafè Bel Air in the centre of town, after Barney's driver got lost, and Kez and Dree managed to wangle a taxi. From there we arranged a tro-tro from the gare routiere, but had to wait for an hour or so before enough bodies got on board. The cramped vehicle drove down some very dusty tracks at speed, and we all got completely covered with red. This was mainly because there were no wheel arches on the minibus, and holes underneath. The inside looked like a Sahara sandstorm for most of the journey, and I ended up breathing through a towel.

From our drop off at Notsè, we found a driver willing to drive us to the border town of Tombè, for more than we'd normally pay. However, there were no other vehicles going that way, and it was the private car or stay in Notsè. The road there was... standard for Africa, and we bumped along with the windows stuck open. The driver was an idiot and drove through Tombè and to the border, which we'd asked him not to as the price was too much and we needed a minivan going ACROSS the border to the Benin side. We said that we'd only pay him 10,000 CFA, not an extra 3,000 from Tombè (only 2km).

After being checked through by the grumpy officials (unsure why, as it seems a pretty cushty, well-paid job) there was a bit of a fracas between Dree and the driver, who tried to pick up one of our bags. He knew we didn't want the border, and we argued for a while. The sergeant in charge at the border called us over and Dree did a tremendous job of explaining what happened in French. The guards seemed on our side and told the driver to take the 10,000. He kept complaining and we just paid and left, Dree subtly calling him a thief along the way.

On the Benin side, after a few formalities with a slightly less grumpy Benin official, a really, really nice couple of blokes had pulled over and waited for us in their van, after chatting to us on the Togo side. We'd been about half an hour and expected them to have given up and left. But they were so friendly, such a contrast to our last few minutes in Togo, and they took us to a local town where we tipped them and thanked them again.

From there, it was just an hour's drive or so to the notorious city of Abomey, capital of the old empire of Dahomey. A pretty uneventful journey in the wide, 1970's Peugot 505; apart from hitting a dog we arrived just before dusk at the Residence Marie-Josè, and after a few photos for the scrapbook - we were filthy from the dusty minibus earlier - we played cards for who would get the room with air-con and bidet. Yes, you read correctly, a bidet!

Waterfalls and Butterflies

2010-01-13T11:56:00.000-08:00

The next day - 2nd January - we packed all our gear up and left our bags in the rooms. Jumping on a tro-tro for another village twenty minutes away (for which we weren't ripped off - yay!), we arrived and instantly saw the huge waterfall from the roadside, as it cascaded down the ridge a kilometre away. We shrugged off the attention of a few hangers-on who said we had to pay in the village, we wandered down the straight track as the waterfall grew in front of us. It was massive - about 150 metres high, maybe more!

Paying at the gate (what a surprise), we walked a bit further and gazed up the vast, sheer rock wall at the water cascading down. We stripped off, not all the way, and perilously wandered across slippery rocks till we were underneath the fall itself. The smooth rocks were so slippery underfoot, and the power of the waterfall was incredible after falling for so many hundred feet. We took a few pictures and had a muck around in the water, before taking one of our standard group photos with Barney's timed camera. This time it didn't go too smoothly as his flip flop broke and he missed one of the pictures - ironic as he was fine climbing over rocks and waterfalls in Burkina, but had trouble over even ground in Togo!

Back in Kpalimè after a bumpy ride in a tiny pick-up, we grabbed our bags and left for Kouma Kounda village, in the shadows of Mount Klouto, Togo's second highest peak. Don't worry, we weren't about to try and scale this one too! The taxi to get there was a bit of a strange one. As we sat in the gare routiere (bus station), we joked about being in the car with fat people, mainly because there was a MASSIVE lady behind us - about five times the size of Kez! As we got in the sept-place (ah, like old days) we were four across the back seat. Then the fat woman got in the front passenger seat along with another, not particularly small, lady. So it was three in the front, four in the back. The driver tried to get a boy of about 13 into the back too, but we protested. Where would he go?!

The car eventually left, but pulled up after the police check and the boy got in the front seat! Next to the driver. No idea how they managed it, or how we actually drove anywhere. The boy hopped out again before the next police check, and we made it in one piece to Auberge Papillion in the village of Kouma Kounda. The place was highly recommended, with good food and good guides to do a butterfly tour with around the mountain. The truth was that it was not very well run, and the guide that talked to us was drunk and toothless.

We did find another guide, who took us on a three hour excursion around the forest/jungle on the mountain. He had a butterfly net, and caught a number of colourful specimens to show us. they were everywhere. Dree seemed to take it all in his stride, firstly trying with the net, but having more success catching them with his bare hands! We were also shown some plants that were used by artists because of their vibrant colour (crushed leaves oxidising and turning blue, and bright orange and white sap). It was all really interesting and we also tried fruits and fresh kola nuts - far better than those tried in Senegal. The next places we visited were a cave and a couple of waterfalls that we dipped into, before realising they were freeing cold!

We heard some drumming and singing in the forest valley and our guide kindly took us down. It was part of the area's New Years celebrations (as the days after New Years are celebrated more than the one evening; a great idea!), and we paid a small fee to head down. There were hundreds of villagers in an opening near a river, along with a DJ and speakers, bullhorns, whistles, drums, and all kinds of food and drink, including a Fan Milk man and a woman dishing out palm wine and other booze. Everyone was having an excellent time, probably because of the aforementioned booze, and we stayed for a while.

However, dusk was closing in and we wanted to get back before dark. We'd been climbing steadily down for a few hours and were pretty tired after a full few days walking. Walking back along the twisting main road took a while, but when we got back we were in for a surprise. We had ordered some spaghetti and chicken for dinner before we left, and as we got back I confirmed with the 'chef'. Then half an hour after we were meant to have eaten, we realised that the kitchen was locked up, lights all off. A kind man in the village cooked up some rice and sauce for us, no thanks to anyone at the auberge.

We called it a night after polishing off some gin we had left over from NYE - it's good for the health/ bonne for la santè!

What to do on the first day of 2010...?

2010-01-13T11:08:00.000-08:00

Sometime in the last few days, we had planned what we would be doing in Togo on New Years Day 2010, mainly because we only had a few days left on our visa from the friendly border guard. Therefore we got up, had a quick (but hearty) breakfast, bought bananas and water and then got a taxi to a small village 20km from Kpalimè. There we got out and were faced with our task for the day - climbing the highest mountain in Togo!

Now at only 986m it isn't wouldn't be officially recognised as a mountain if it were in England (thanks Kez - by the way what's your favourite hill?!), but as we stood at the bottom it looked bloody enormous! We politely declined the offer of a guide - how hard could it be right? - and set off up the steep road leading towards the mountain. With the beauty of hindsight, we should have got a guide, and ended up getting lost ten minutes up the winding track. The track just stopped adjacent to a few buildings (where Christian rock blared out) and we chose to head up some wide, concrete steps that we assumed was the way.

Briefly stopping for our first of many breaks, as the heat and humidity was killing us, and the physical exercise and hangover was killing me, the terrain changed into thick jungle, with a tiny path going past a disused, open-air church. Further on, the steep path disappeared and we decided that this was not the way. the guidebook was quite clear in saying that we'd pass a village with schools on a set path before moving into banana plantations on the mountain side. Little did we know we'd started in the wrong place!

After some assistance from a very kind, and multilingual, Christian, we took an even steeper path at the bottom of the steps. The walk wasn't too bad in itself, but the heat and absolutely ridiculous humidity was killing us. We carried on, and took a number of wrong turns, where the path that was barely a foot wide, ceased being and left us in the middle of thick vegetation.

We did find one almost-path that we kept climbing (not walking now) up; feet skidding on loose rocks, and knees and shins brushing plants to the side. Thankfully we'd all decided to wear walking boots! After about quarter of an hour of climbing up we cut through yet another banana plantation (no path now, just through the undergrowth) and stopped when we heard water. In front of us was a huge rock, too big to climb around or up, and we thought that we were quite close to the peak.

We went back down to where there was a distinctive path and followed it round the side of the mountain. The walking was much easier, as we weren't going through the jungle any more! We paused to eat the bananas and wring out our clothes - my vest was literally soaking wet. It was so humid. After another few attempts to climb higher up the mountain, we decided to head back because we didn't want to be stuck in the village overnight, and there were only a few motorbike taxis around when we arrived. It was also New Years Day; who would be crazy enough to climb Mount Agou!

We tried one last time to get higher, and got a great view of the village and valley stretching below, but the banana trees and thick canopies above blocked a far better panoramic. We returned to the bottom of the mountain (it's a lot quicker going down than up) and sat by the roadside waiting on a taxi. Our thoughts that we'd almost reached the top were dispelled when a local man explained there was an antenna at the top, and also a road leading up to it. We'd gone completely the wrong way! But I'm definitely stating that we conquered the highest point in Togo - we wandered around there for hours!

Dree and B went to try and sort transport back to Kpalimè, while me and Kez regained our composure watching some locals dancing and singing to some drum beats. We were invited to dance along, and joined in the slow-moving circle, doing a kind of two-step shuffle with the occasional bum wiggle. It was a good laugh, but we didn't know the words or the dance moves so tried to copy as best we could. The guys returned to find us getting down with most of the Togolese village!

They had done well, and found two motorbike taxis for us (meaning we would be three people per bike...). After a heart-to-heart with a very, VERY drunk Togolese man who called us "the same: brothers with different skin, we got on the bikes for a nervous journey. The bike that me and Kez were on seemed to have some trouble stying in gear and the bike that guys were on kept coming up very close behind and bumping our rear tyre, possibly joking around, possibly jump starting... The short journey took about 15 minutes, but I didn't let go of the bike once, and we slammed through a couple of pot holes. We got off white-knuckled from the experience at the edge of town, because we didn't fancy going through chaotic junctions like that, but at least it made us forget how tired we were from hiking round a mountain with a hangover.

Next stop; waterfalls and butterflies.

Last few days of 2009

2010-01-12T12:56:00.000-08:00

Lomè was our home for the next day at least, as our passports were held at the Benin Embassy for the visa. We did the usual wander round town, passing through markets and flagging down Fan Milk salesmen (thank God they still have these guys; lifesavers in the heat, dishing out cheap ice cream and frozen lollies). The one thing that Togo didn't have was taxis. Almost all of the vehicles in Lomè were motorbike taxis, that zoomed dangerously in and out of the traffic at speed, ferrying passengers all over the city for about 100 CFA (15p). Some were terribly overloaded, and every time we tried them out we had a pulse-racing few minutes going the wrong way down roads, cutting across busy junctions and squeezing past giant lorrys! Good for the old heart though!

The beach was quite wide, but because it is in the city itself, it has problems with crime. We checked out the sea one afternoon, and were immediately joined by a shady couple of characters. We headed through the cramped market, where Kez bought some material to use as a sarong/skirt. This reminded us to get some funky African suits made up. Most men wear a trouser, open shirt combination made from bright and vibrant colours. Pyjamas here we come!

We returned to the Benin Embassy to pick up our passports and visas, after a sweaty day hiking across Lomè. Little did we know what was about to happen. After being made to wait silently outside the snotty woman's door for five minutes, she came out and took us into an adjoining room, where the Ambassador of Benin sat behind a huge black desk. We were in no way prepared for this and must've looked like right states! We were polite as we could be, as the large man looked over the visas and signed them off. His office was massive with lots of souvenirs from around the area, and he had four phones on his desk. A very important man!

After having a wash and recovering from meeting a dignitary, we splashed out a bit again and had pizza for dinner. It was nice to have a change, and afterwards we played a game of pool in a room next to the restaurant. Tomorrow was New Years Eve 2009, and we were heading inland for the celebrations to Kpalimè!

Pronounced Pa-lee-may, Kpalimè is a large town a few hours above Lomè, and was going to be our base for excursions during our time in Togo. Unfortunately, we didn't have too much time in the country, because the impromptu visa on the border meant we had to leave by the 4th January. No matter, as we certainly made the most of it!

The bus ride was a little uncomfortable, as we'd left Ghana and its great rule of only three people to a minibus row, and were back to standard African "You can fit four or five on there"! Me and Kez were sandwiched between two massive ladies on the back row. Popping out of our seats, and nursing bruised hips, we arrived in Kpalimè and went to Domino Hotel, a small establishment in the centre of town. Looking back it was a very good little place, clean, with running water and electricity - essentially luxurious for us!

We took the afternoon easy, as it was New Years Eve and we decided to start in the traditional fashion by buying a bottle of gin to see in 2010. The gin only cost around £1.20, the same price as the bottle of Sprite cost to accompany it - bargain! We firstly went out for a three course meal at a hotel, before returning to our room for pre-drinking and an increasingly rude game of charades! As the last hour of 2009 came upon us, we went into town and had a few beers at a local bar. No one else seemed to be celebrating, but we did a countdown, cheered and then tried to sing 'Auld Lang Syne' as best we could - a few mumbled lines!

Another border; Another border guard

2010-01-12T12:13:00.000-08:00

At about 4:00am we left Hotel Ingot in Accra, and tried to find a taxi to take us to the bus station. One hailed us from a side road, before going back to where it had been, and paying a scantily clad woman some money outside a house. Drugs or prostitution we obviously decided! He didn't really seem to know where he was taking us, and it was lucky that we left plenty of time before getting on a 5:30am coach to Aflao - the border town on the Ghanaian side. From there we could walk the 500m or so across the border into Togo. Country number seven!

We changed whatever cedis we had on us back to CFA (the common currency, like the Euro, for most of West Africa), and then had to try and get rid of a guy called Larry who "wanted to help". We kept trying to say thanks but we can walk there by ourselves, but he tagged along. It didn't help matters that he had a voice like Joe Pasquale!

After the Ghana exit stamp, we headed for the Togo side (although the general chaos at the border made it difficult to know where to go). A guard asked to see our visas, which we knew we could buy at the border. He started off incredibly angry ("Why don't you get before?!"), but calmed down and took an incredibly long time to do his JOB and issue the seven day transit visa. At the end of it he was joking along with us, possibly to do with the crazy Catholic minister reading from some magazine and praising God, but also possibly due to the 'Driver is Chauffeur in English' joke. Always goes down well with the Frenchies!

The border was scam central, with hundreds of people passing through every fifteen minutes. Anyone who looked slightly wealthy was stopped and had to pay a 'tax' to the lazy guards; sitting in the shade with their feet up, doing nothing at all, apart from fleecing people. They took bribes of about 1000CFA each person, so must have taken in about 50,000 while we were there for under an hour - £80, for a country as poor as Togo. Terrible really.

Lomè, capital of Togo, a very thin country squashed with Benin between Ghana and Nigeria, is right on the border, and we were in Hotel Gallion within minutes. The main road in Lomè was under construction (as most things seem to be in some state of over here), and was just a wide, sandy track running parallel to the beach. The French-run hotel we stayed in was quite expensive, but was in a capital city, and they were probably shocked at the amount of washing we gave them after ten days on the beach! Had to be done though. We'd usually do our own, but a) it stunk and b) our sink was the size of a tea cup!

After a strange encounter with a possibly diabetic Ghanaian man, we ate some cheap riz gras in a small restaurant before heading to the Benin Embassy to sort out our visas for the final country. We eventually found the embassy, after a bit of a lost wander around the sandy streets of Lomè, possibly down to the quality of the map, possibly Barney's map reading skills... The receptionist was very friendly, but that is more than can be said for the lady who issued the visas, but more on that next blog.

I shot off to send my Christmas postcards off 3 days AFTER the day itself - somehow I don't think they'll arrive in time, maybe for next Christmas haha! Another cheap maquis (street food) dinner for about £1 and we were well on course for budgeting well in Togo.

Expensive Accra

2010-01-12T11:58:00.000-08:00

Leaving Stone Village at dawn, saying goodbye to a very sleepy Rastaman, and leaving behind a few items of clothes in my early morning daze (D'oh), we got to Agona Junction and straight onto a tro-tro for Accra. We didn't really want to spend any time there - no need for a visa stopover at all - but did not fancy doing a REALLY long day to get to Lomè, capital city of Togo.

Somehow we were in Takoradi by 8:30am, and got on a bus for Accra by 9:30! A journey that went to plan, you'll all be glad to know (he says with a sarcastic smile)! Once there, our luck changed again, as every place we tried to find a room in was either shut, full, or out of our budget. Seems that the author of the guide book didn't update any of the 'Budget' accommodation in this edition. Most of them were priced at over $25 a night (almost our daily budget), and even the Catholic Mission didn't have any room...in the inn, but did have the same old Ghanaian service. After a lot of little taxi journeys in Fiat Cinqchentos, we found Ingot Hotel tucked away. It was good enough for one night's stay, but we had an idea of what kind of place it was when we saw a giant bowl of condoms at the front desk.

After some Internetting in a very plush setting, where I discovered I'd been banned from Facebook (grrrr, an inconvenience), we stopped off at a Chinese and had a massive plate of fried rice, sweet 'n' sour chicken and spring rolls for about £2, at a great little place called Wok Inn. Back at the hotel, we discovered that the televisions worked, if only for one channel, and relaxed by letting our eyes go square to some awful, imported American rubbish.

More Christmas at the beach

2010-01-11T12:19:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas!!!

Once we had all had a sufficient lay in, from all the dancing the night before, Beagle brought us a complimentary omlette for Christmas, only one. Bless him though! We spent the whole of Christmas Day relaxing in our secluded section of bay, and after nipping into town quickly, we phoned our families from Kez's mobile on a Ghanaian sim card. We thought it would be really expensive, but only cost a few pounds each. Absolute bargain!

In Busua there are three men who you will come to know - Daniel the Pancake Man, Joseph the Lobster Man and Frank the Juice Man. They are all a novelty, and then become pretty annoying as you see them a few times a day and each time they ask you if you want a pancake/lobster/juice. We decided to check out Daniel the Pancake Man for a late breakfast. He brought out some banana and chocolate pancakes with a thin chocolate bar still in the wrapper. he'd obviously just thrown it on the heat after the pancakes!

We spent the rest of the day swimming and enjoying our version of a Christmas nibbles table (tonnes of sweets from roadside shacks - popcorn, lollies, chew sweets, chocolate etc), before heading to Busua Inn for a 3 course Christmas dinner. The main course - lobster! It was a really good meal, but more than we've eaten for the past few months together! We went to Sankfora afterwards for a drink and watched some of the local kids doing fire spitting ( any excuse for them to drink gin I think!) and then doing some somersaults and jumps over a line of fire, and a brave man standing on his head!

For Boxing Day we headed to the beach to see the surf competition. The waves picked up as we sat there, and it was cool to see some locals get involved! They were all far better than I could've been! We went to Alaska (resort not the place) for lunch, which was overpriced for a basic BBQ chicken menu, but almost everywhere else was shut. Barney tried kenkey - one of the dozens of fermented-maize-type, grey blobs - and immediately regretted it. Gotta be tried though!

That afternoon me and Barney took a wander (getting to be a regular thing now....) down the beach to the other end. It didn't seem too far, but was a good kilometre if not more! By the tile we got to the end, we were too knackered to climb the hill to the white house we could see from a distance. Instead, we got chatting to a few local kids, who were digging for crabs in the sand. Wherever a hole was, there was usually a crab. They dug down with bare hands, and usually the crabs made a run for it to the sea. This was the best part of the exercise, as we all then ran after the crab, trying to flick it back up the beach, diving all over the place! Great fun.

Then the kids challenged me and Barney to a kick around. We were trying all sorts of keepy-ups, but they made two ridiculously tiny goals and carved out a pitch. 2 on 2; England versus Ghana; me and B versus two 13 year olds.... Guess what happened. We got trounced. They were just too quick, with too much energy. And I have two left feet. Sorry dude.

Another meal at Okorye Tree followed, and we headed to a shady bar called 'Sly Joint' to buy some sachets of gin. Double shots of 'Striker' gin were only ten pence per sachet! We took a fair few back to the hut and sat outside playing cards and chatting. Some people also went for a skinny dip as well....

Barney got up early for one of his walks, and I had agreed the night before to go. Reluctantly I dragged myself out of bed, and we headed around the beach before cutting through a small path in the undergrowth that led up to the ridge where the white house was. The heat was ridiculous for so early in the morning, and I had to take a few leaps into the sea along the way. Climbing up, we arrived at the house, or set of small bungalows, that had washing outside and tyre tracks leading up to them. Looked a lot like a drug dealer's place so we carried on. Heading past some guys chopping up palm trees for either palm oil or wine, we were treated to a great view back across Busua and our bay. We could have gone down an even steeper decline on the other side, but we'd have had to come back up it! Therefore we headed back for some breakfast.

After a quick breakfast on the beach at Okorye Tree, watching the surf and chatting to a couple of US Peace Corps volunteers, we met up with Kez and Dree at the 5-star resort at the end of Busua. We thought we'd 'splash out' (get it?) and pay a few cedis to use the pool. The resort was well out of our budget - rooms going for about US$200 - but we made good use of the pool for a day! However, as it was Christmas there was a DJ blaring out hip-hop at a ridiculous level; it was like being in a night club. I asked him to turn it down, and he did, but just enough to hear each other speak. Seemed kind of inappropriate music too, about being very friendly with a lady, in the morning with kids about...

That evening we went back to Daniel the Pancake Man for a dirt cheap fish supper: tuna, rice and plantains for the magical price of 4 Cedis (£2!). I do love the Ghana prices, and the fresh seafood. Shame we had to leave tomorrow, but Togo and Benin were beckoning.

Christmas Eve at Stone Village

2010-01-11T11:32:00.000-08:00

After a ridiculously sweaty night's sleep, we left Blissjoy (feeling neither bliss or joy-ful) and moved our gear to Stone Village, an inexplicably bright yellow hut, right at the end of the beach, cut off at night-time by a river that swells with the tide. But there is a bridge that leads across and up to Black Mamba - the resort which is currently closed and the one that our Rasta friend didn't deny his was!

Next to the hut was a wooden structure where a couple of tents were placed on, under shelter. The hut itself had a really nice double bed, obviously Dree and Kerry's, with me and Barney having the floor in the adjoining room with a couple of mattresses. Weirdly, the Rasta man who was in charge at the place (called Black Eagle.... real name Azulo) said that we wouldn't need a key because the door wouldn't lock. With Danielle's words ringing in our ears about keeping our wallets shut, we asked to have the key regardless and all made sure we'd have money belts and passports with us at all times!

I got chatting to Black Eagle a few days later and found that he and his German wife had started up Stone Village, which was a really nice plot of land at the edge of the beach, far enough away to not be disturbed, with it's own little swimming area away from the fishermen, before she fell pregnant and wanted to return to Germany for the baby. Beagle (Black-eagle) was looking after the place and renovating it ever so slowly. He was a really nice guy, although he seemed to be stoned most of the time, and came out with some phrases like 'Rastafari' and 'Serious?!'. One day we had no water in the tank to flush the loo or shower (both in a separate yellow block to the hut). It took a while to get some from the village, but he was really apologetic.

Once we'd moved in we went down the beach to a surf bar called Sankfora and got some lunch. The guy who was running that was called Brett and used to work for Ripcurl, before travelling around the world looking for the waves. He was looking after the bar for a friend who was back home, and introduced us to Yao, a deaf and dumb young lad from Busua, and the dancing baby, who reminded me of Ella as he bopped along to the African hip hop!

Brett told us about the surfing competition that was happening on the 26th and 27th December, which was strange as I didn't think the waves were that good, and more importantly about the whole pig that Brett was planning on roasting on a fire on the beach for Christmas dinner! It sounded mouthwateringly good, but unfortunately it didn't happen as the butcher backed out of the deal for some reason.

After a good lunch, we returned to Stone Village, which involved a climb over some smooth rocks after the river; which a lot of people seemed to use as a cut through to go around the bay, so not too private... While we'd been gone for lunch, Beagle had unlocked the door and put some more pillows inside. I don't think there was a bad intention in just opening the door to our hut, and he was just trying to be kind. It was weird though; having a key that was, in effect, useless, but we just left it.

The water close to Stone Village was really clear and was just sand underfoot. It meant for some good swimming away from too many harsh waves - how it was for the rest of Busua beach, where the surfing was going to take place. Then we chilled in the sun, reading some National Geographics that were in the hut. Pretty random but Beagle said he liked them!

As it was Christmas Eve, we decided to go out for a few. Starting, and finishing, at Okorye Tree, a restaurant on the beach, Barney started in true Kronenbourg fashion and had three beers before the food arrived. After a particularly nice Red-Red (jollof rice, fried plantain, mmmmmm, and spicy beans) we ended up dancing with some of the staff (the lovely Esther) after the restaurant closed, and had a few dubious shots. Then I showed the guys that I'd ripped a SMALL hole in my trousers and Dree went in for the kill - ending up in a massive rip across my crotch. Pants exposed and dignity lost, I ended up heading home soon after. Barney had left before most of the dancing due to his intolerance for beverages, and so couldn't have shown us his moves!

A surprise before back to Busua!

2010-01-11T06:26:00.000-08:00

After a good topping up of the tan, and power reading of the book, we headed through Akwidda, back to Green Turtle Bay for dinner. The food was okay at Ezile, but nowhere near as good as we'd had before. As we walked up the beach into the resort who did we see but Mathilda, who had travelled with us through Mali! It was really unexpected to see her, but was great to catch up on the past month of travelling. We shared a few stories before getting some drinks and sitting on the beach.

Tilly's friend, Valeria possibly, joined us. She was Swiss and had the job that I want. She worked for a travel company, and part of her contract meant that she had to got to various countries. She even had allocated time off! I'm not too sure how old she was, but she'd been to some cool places - Iran, Uganda, Colombia, India; all over the place.

We all had some food, before us four racked up a handsome tab on the old cocktails, and played another game of Trivial Pursuit. A lot of fun when tipsy. We left late that night, think we were one of the last tables to turn in, and agreed to meet the next day at Green Turtle for a proper catch up. I really wanted to find out more about this magical job! We staggered home, mainly because of the sand though...., and hit the hay.

Unfortunately, we had to leave Ezile Bay that next morning because there were no more free spaces. It was a long hike back to Green Turtle to explain to Tilly and then come BACK to Akwidda to try and get a tro-tro (minibus) from the main road, so we headed straight through the village, sure that she would understand. Bit of a shame, but hey-ho.

The village was strangely built, and we couldn't find a main road. Asking some fishermen, they pointed up by the side of a building and off we went. Then another guys stopped us and asked why we were going a route that we didn't know....After some confusion, a boy led us to a small opening inbetween some huts, and then finally down to the main road. We caused quite a stir in the village, with both children and drunk men coming over for a chat.

Eventually got on a cramped minibus (with customary screaming baby goat under the seats) and took a bumpy route to Agona junction, the crossroads a few km from Busua. Once in Busua, we found out that Stone Village was full until the night we'd booked, so we checked into Blissjoy Lodge, in a maze of backstreet houses. Quite sure we cut through someone's backyard everytime we arrived and left.

The strange owner - Phil - had an infected, bandaged up foot and was overly helpful ("You'll have plenty of water and all the lights"). Should have rung a bell. That night, after checking places in Busua for Christmas dinner, including the 5 Star hotel at the end of the town, we came back to a hot, sweaty room, no electricity and no water. We asked what was going on and were told that it was getting sorted out. We don't mind roughing it with bucket showers (maybe Barnes does...) and no leccy, as we've done a lot of times on this trip, but he was insistent that we would have running water and a fan. He got some engineer over to 'fix' a generator. When me and B went to check what was going on, we found a man causing sparks by fiddling with the fuse board, and then wrapping a plastic bag around a bare wire, leading to a generator that was on! SAFE!

Got a bit fed up waiting after an hour, as we were promised water as soon as the electricity came on (still unsure how that would work...), and went for dinner at Nana's in town. The food is really good there - fresh as you can get seafood and great, spicy jollof rice. The downside is that you have to endure Nana. A friendly man at first he ended up getting right on my goat. I joked that Dree and Kez were brother and sister and he got angry, saying "Don't lie to me; I'm a Christian!".

Then we tried to get some change back from the meal that I'd paid for. He said he didn't have it, so we said we'd return tomorrow. No worries. We ended up going back about six times, most of which he was nowhere to be seen, and then one evening I see him sitting outside. He plays the fool and pretends that he is drunk ("I'm sick from the wine"). Two nights later, I stand there till I get the change. It sounds petty for only about a quid, but its the principle, especially from such a Christian!

Ezile Bay

2010-01-11T06:10:00.001-08:00

We got up quite early that morning, as one does in a tent, and had some breakfast. By the tile we had got around to sorting the bill out, and waiting for one of the guys to get back to us about Black Mamba in Busua (we'd asked him to phone for us and confirm our booking), the sun was already pretty warm.

We got all our gear together and hiked it the kilometre or so round the beach and through the fishing village, seeing a man go to the toilet in some boulders near the sea. Not a number one. Wouldn't be swimming there! We made it to Ezile bay for a late breakfast of French toast and a big mug of tea, before we checked into our small, self-contained beach huts only a few metres from the beach, surrounded by palm trees. Excellent!

The rest of these days was spent on the beach or in the sea, where the waves weren't as powerful as round the coast. This made swimming and bodyboardig much easier. Eventually found something I'm good at! There were a few rocks underfoot, but it didn't matter too much as the whole beach was pretty much ours. Our own personal resort. Well shared with Dennis and his puppy, who was, as with all African pets, the cutest little thing. The other dog there didn't make too many friends, especially with Kez, as he bounded onto her beach towel again and again!

Apart from beach time, the only other thing that happened was that Barney and me took a walk round towards Cape Three Points, a place that the two Aussies from Molè had talked about, but unfortunately we didn't have time to visit. We wandered in that direction one afternoon and saw a few abandoned buildings along the forest path. Then, a few bays across, we arrived at a village right on the beach. The kids were all playing on the sand and the fishermen were fixing nets on their boats. We got chatting to one guy, who worked at a resort a few miles past ours, and he explained that the path went on for a long way. Turning back we had a following of kids, who I tried to impress with some truly pathetic handstands.

When we got back, a lady called Danielle introduced herself to us. She owned Busua Inn, back in town, and me and Dree had asked her about rooms a few days before. She asked us where we were going to stay, and we mentioned Black Mamba. She said it wasn't open and asked if it was a Rasta who was looking after one hut. It turns out the place we had booked was called Stone Village and her only advice to us was to "Keep your eyes open, and your wallet closed". Great!

That night Dennis was out and we ordered the normal chicken and plantains. This time the plantains came out boiled, not fried.... We decided to head back to GTB for dinner the next evening. Also for cocktails! Tell you something though, it's nice to fall asleep listening to the sounds of the waves and then get up for a morning swim before breakfast. A bit romantic I know, but what a life!

Green Turtle Bay

2010-01-07T10:15:00.000-08:00

We got up quite early the next morning, to make the most of the beach that we had, but were told that we could stay in the hut for a second night. Things were looking up; maybe there would be Christmas cancellations! We spent a lot of the next day sunbathing, reading and playing about in the waves, but in the afternoon the sand was cool enough for us to play some volleyball on the net that was on the beach. The numbers were made up by one of the guys who works for GTB but was off duty ("African friend") and an American girl. Volleyball is a hell of a lot of fun, even though I am awful at it and spent most of my time on the sand it was really good fun. Also good to be able to dive into the sea when you got too hot or sandy!

The food at the restaurant on site was so good; and not too badly priced considering we were a few kilometres from any other town. We mainly had BBQ'd fresh fish or chicken with rice and really good sauces, but the other good thing was that the menu was quite varied! Breakfasts were quite good as well - an attempt at a 'Half English' was pretty good.

Green Turtle Bay was in the guide book as a heavily recommended place to stay, with an eco-friendly set up and great facilities. The toilets were all self composting and the electricity came from solar panels on the huts' roofs. Another benefit was to see some rare turtles head onto the beach during the night and lay their eggs. We had signed up for that night, but no one came up to us to say that the tour would start.

Instead, we found Trivial Pursuit at Green Turtle Bay, and over the course of Happy Hour at the bar - cheap gin and tonics for me - we found ourselves in a battle of wits! Turns out it was the Genius Edition! Saying that though, we did answer quite a few correctly, and me and Barney beat Kez and Dree. Even though Barney doesn't know where a coffin joint on a horse is... (Wish I'd have taken a photo of the surfboard over the bar, which itself was an old pirogue, as it was a caricature of Jesus painted on it, with him saying "Jesus loves cocktails!").

The next day we had to move out of the hut and into the tents for our last night. Such a shame that we didn't think about booking for Christmas a few months ago, but the owners mentioned that they'd been booked for a longer time than that. Made us feel a bit better anyway. Kez was sick during the night and wasn't too sprightly that morning, but we think it's probably because of all the salt water she swallowed during her battle with the sea!

Me and Barney went for a walk around the bay to see if we could find any alternative accommodation for the next few days, before our stay in Busua over Christmas. Barnes had already taken a wander the morning before during a bout of sleeplessness, and so we set off the same way. Passing through the local village of Akwwida, with its fishing boats pulled up on the sand, and wooden bridge over a lagoon that depends on the height of the tide.

On the other side of the bridge we followed the shoreline round, and had to cut up a steep, tree-lined hill before coming down on the other side in a completely sheltered little bay. There were huts about 10 metres back from the beach and we aimed for one of the bigger buildings. After talking with the manager Dennis, a Frenchman who had only been in the job for a few months, and spoke only a little English, we organised staying there for the next three nights. At least something was sorted. More about Ezile Bay later.

Another beach day followed - more body boarding, swimming and tanning -before us three lads went for lunch at Paco's Tacos; a little bar hidden in palm trees a few dozen metres from the resort. Nice to mix things up a bit, foodwise, and we had a good little Mexican lunch. Afterwards we moved everything into the tents. They weren't as bad as I thought they were going to be, but were tents regardless. The far cheaper price made it a lot better though.

After another few hours relaxing on the almost deserted beach, we had a good meal (fresh fish coconut curry for me) and then decided to call it a night. We wanted to get up before the sun became too hot, for our walk around the bay to Ezile. Me and Barney stayed up reading for a bit longer and were asked if we wanted to join the turtle tour. Better late than never I suppose, as we signed up two days ago, but off we went (Kez still not feeling well and Dree sleeping).

It was about 9:30pm and so was pitch black. To add to that, the guide who came with us spoke quietly, and over the roar of the waves crashing down we couldn't hear anything. We took a torch with us and the only wildlife we saw were the hundreds of opaque/white crabs scuttling around on the beach. The closest we saw to a turtle was a track where one had crawled up to the treeline a few days before. The whole thing took about an hour, and after more than a kilometre walking on sand, the group turned round and headed back. Will say one thing though; we were out like lights as soon as we got into the tent.

Homeless for Christmas?

2010-01-07T09:22:00.000-08:00

We headed to the Elmina bypass road early in the morning and our taxi driver kindly helped us flag down a tro-tro going to Sekondi, the closest city to the beaches. We climbed in and saw our stuff get stuffed in under a dozen fish bowls that we had seen the day before (thankfully not full), and the boot was left open and precariously tied on with rope.

Made it in one piece to Sekondi where we got another tro-tro from another station to Agona - the crossroads town closest to the beaches. We tried to check the net for any other replies about Christmas accommodation, before we headed to the beach, but the man said it wasn't working. We were about to head off when we noticed that they were watching Youtube videos! Typical Ghanaian service. We hiked to the bus station and found one going our way. The annoying thing about being on minibuses is drivers trying to rip you off because you are a tourist, or overcharge you for your rucksack. These jokers are smiling as they lie to you, and are supposedly good Christians (it's plastered all over their cars). We eventually only paid the local price for the journey and headed off. After a few Fan Milks....

Our driver was an utter idiot, driving really fast over some speed humps, and the boot flew open. Kez's bag went bouncing into the middle of a junction, making cars skid around it. We shouted at him to stop, which he eventually did, but a taxi passenger had skilfully scooped up the bag and driven onto a safe stopping point. We thought that was the last we'd see of the bag, but the kind passenger gave it back a few seconds later. We shouted at the driver to tie on the boot properly (as we'd paid separately for the bags), but he was grinning all the way through it.

Five minutes down the road, over another speed hump too quickly and the boot flies open again. Poor Kez's bag goes cartwheeling down the road and we start shouting at the driver again. After that Kez and Dree kept their bags on their laps; mine and B-dogs were safely under the seats. We hopped out at Agona (no tip?) and got into a taxi to Busua - a small fishing village right on the beach, with a few potential places to stay over Christmas.

The taxi was a bargain at only 60 pesewas, about 30p, and we stopped for a drink in a bar called 'Swingers Place' before deciding on guesthouses to check out. We took it in turns to go and check places out, but everywhere was full - should have booked! Me and Dree even looked at some places that looked expensive; the first was $80 per night, and the second one was a five-star complex with pool and conference centre. The 'mattress only' option was $20 alone. Our daily budget is about that!

Barney and Kez took the next shift and checked a few more places out and eventually returned with good news. They'd booked a little hut right on the beach for about fifteen pounds a night between us all! It all sounded great, and the place was called Black Mamba. The only problem was the guy they spoke to was a high rasta. At least we weren't homeless for the holiday period. Let's hope the Rasta remembers!

We ate at a small place called Nana's, a character in himself, whose little shack had writing on all the walls from happy customers congratulating on great food. They were from all over the world and so we were expecting great things! The food was pretty good - really nice spicy jollof rice and fresh fish, so fresh that we had to give him an advance to buy it from the fishermen on the beach!

We decided to head to Green Turtle Bay, the resort that was raved about, but full over the holidays. It was early enough in the day to be turned away but we thought we'd give it a shot. It sounded amazing in the book. After a steep and bumpy tro tro ride, we arrived and actually met the owners Steve and Tom - two Brits. The place was amazing: tiny little huts, good restaurant and bar (Happy Hour Gin and Tonics!), and a gorgeous beach only yards away.

We checked into a room for one night, had to get an extra mattress, and the guys informed us that we would have to move into tents for the next night and then unfortunately move out. Didn't worry us at that point - we had a beach for the first time in a few months!!!!! Jumping into the sea we were surprised to find the waves very strong, with a dangerous riptide underneath. The waves were really cool though, great fun for diving around in and renting bodyboards from the resort. Poor Kez was battered by the waves and had a lot of trouble standing up and keeping her bikini on! We all got thrown around by them, and at times it felt like a washing machine, as we got spun around under the water. Still have the scratches on my back from being thrown against the sand under the waves. Great fun though!

As we ordered food that night we bumped into Clive ("Colin, Colin, Colin") and Tania - the Land rover couple on an 18 month trip, who we'd first met in Bamako - what a small world eh! We swapped tales of where we'd been since and it was really nice to see them again. They had been at Green Turtle for six days, three more than planned because it was so nice. That night we had some really good food at the restaurant, fresh fish with chunky 'Bensons' chips, and ate on the beach-front tables with gas lanterns, with the waves crashing only feet away.

Could see ourselves staying here for a while if possible....

Il Costa De Elmina de Ouro

2010-01-07T08:29:00.000-08:00

A quick tro-tro down the coast to Elmina only took 20 minutes and only COST the equivalent of 55p! Bit of a bargain. The original name of Elmina is in the title of this blog and is the Portuguese name for 'The Coast of Gold Mines' and is important as the first place that Europeans actually purchased some land form the local chiefs, and there the Portuguese bought a small fort that became Elmina Castle. The town is now a major fishing producer and from the heights of the castle, you can see the other main industry - salt. Shallow lakes of sea water are dried by the sun and the salt is collected by hand, and sent via huge trucks all across Africa and Europe.

As we arrived quite early in the morning we had breakfast by the lagoon that separates the castle from the rest of the town. The bridge (as we were in Ghana, it was a bright red Vodaphone bridge) that crosses this small stretch of water had hundreds of men and boys sitting anywhere they could. As we sat watching, the guys would cheer any boats or pirogues coming back in from a nights fishing - the bigger the applause, the bigger the haul. Such a good atmosphere! The boats carried onto the dock, where women with huge silver bowls on their heads collected full bowls to be sold in the market or taken by car to other towns. Also as in we were in Ghana, the bowls and boats were all emblazoned with religious sayings such as "Creator" and "God sees All"!

We dumped our gear at our accommodation and headed to the castle for our second slave fort tour in two days. Pretty hardcore. We got another English guide who began talking about the church in the middle of the courtyard. he asked us what religion we were and we all answered "None". Luckily we were the only ones in the group at that moment as he went off on a rant about religion and God being real. We weren't arguing but he made it his mission to try and convert us. Kez also tried (gallantly) to explain about evolution and science being our main beliefs, and that it is okay to believe anything you want to, but our guide started off again. he seemed truly shocked that we weren't religious. Thankfully some more people turned up and the tour started again, but he kept saying "I'll talk to you later"!

As I mentioned before the site of the castle was sold to the Portuguese to aid commerce, but the local chief was cautious, but the gifts of booze and tobacco helped calm his nerves somewhat! The castle grew year on year, and was even able to stop two attacks by the Dutch from the sea. Unperturbed the Dutch bribed a tribe to show them an inland way. They started another false attack from the sea, and then fired cannons from a grassy hill behind the castle, where there were no cannons, and so no protection. The Dutch took over the castle and then built a lookout known as Fort Jago on the grassy hill, to stop this happening to them.

Gold and ivory were the main things traded, but later on the Dutch also became involved in the lucrative slave trade. Elmina Castle was also very impressive, standing on the rocks right on the shoreline. As in Cape Coast Castle, we were shown the dungeons and holding cells for slaves, as well as the Point of No Return. The slaves were put through a very narrow gap in the outer wall before walking down an old jetty straight into the cramped ships. Unfortunately, even if over half the slaves died en route during the months at sea, it would still be a worthwhile exercise financially speaking from the traders point of view.

The tour was still very good, and the guide was full of useful information saying that the castle was the oldest European building in Africa (sub-Saharan), but it was all interjected with questions about where do we think we come from and who created all the animals etc. Kez did a stirling job trying to talk to him, but he wouldn't even listen to anything that wasn't about God or the world created in six days!

We were shown the store room and a magazine for keeping ammunition (full of bats) before being shown two cells that were next to each other. One was for drunk soldiers, or those who disobeyed orders, and although it was definitely a cell, it was far bigger, with more ventilation and lighter than the cell next door; which was where disobedient or unruly slaves were kept before being executed or just left to die over a week.

We had a bite to eat in the Castle's restaurant and then used the Internet. Bad news - Green Turtle Bay were completely booked over Christmas. Change of plan. On the way out, some kids were running a scam. On the way in they asked your name and got chatting. Once you left they handed you a big shell, painted with "To my friend _____" and then the name filled in with fresh pen. They wanted you to keep the shell as a gift, but give a donation to their football team. We'd been warned about it in the book, but I would be very dubious anyway about giving money for nothing; with no idea who it would go to.

In the afternoon, we took a walk up the hill behind the castle to Fort Jago and had a look around. There was an old guy inside that showed us around for a small fee, and we had a really good view of the quayside, castle and salt flats. The fort was quite compact, but had a really cool room with low windows that was something to do with carpentry. Out of the windows we were shown the Dutch cemetery and old church. Up in the lookout tower we had another go at the notorious pictures with us all in, using Barneys camera and the stand. It worked well but unfortunately didn't have the castle in the background.

We got back to our hotel just as dusk fell to discover we didn't have any light in our room. I stayed in the room and wrote all of my Christmas postcards (date was the 17th...) by torchlight. We took a shower in Dree's room, dodging the mini cockroaches, before getting a great takeaway dinner of jollof rice and chicken from a lady on the street. We eventually had a light bulb brought up to the room, but were eaten alive by the mozzie parade.

Tomorrow: to the beach!

Cape Coast Castle

2010-01-07T07:39:00.000-08:00

Cape Coast Castle is a huge white former slave fort right on the rocks overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, and is the most popular tourist destination in Cape. The castle is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (tick, Kez) and although it cost nine cedis each to get in with a camera each, the guide English and it was a really good tour.

Barrack Obama had visited the same spot only a few months earlier, and this was commemorated by a plaque. Coming to think about it, there were huge posters and billboards all over town saying "Akwaaba" (welcome in Twi, local Ghanaian language) with a giant picture of Barrack and his wife Michelle. Another had a picture of the Ghanaian President with Obama saying "A new future together". Other things we'd seen across the trip included Obama t-shirts, restaurants and bars taking his name, bumper stickers, even Obama biscuits! They love him over here!

Anyway; back to the Castle. We started off in the museum because there weren't enough people for a guide quite yet. The museum was really informative and had displays on all sorts of things from the history of Ghana when it was the Gold Coast, to European contacts and the transatlantic slave trade, right through to famous and influential black people including Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jnr. The castle itself was a Portuguese building in the 15th Century, specialising in gold, ivory and spices as well as slaves, before being taken over in 1665 by the British who concentrated on the Transatlantic slave trade. Saying that though, I found it very interesting that a part of the museum concentrated on the slave trade by tribes before Europeans arrived, and who acted as middle men during the awful period.

The tour began in the main courtyard where Obama gave his speech, and we saw piles of cannon balls and a few graves of some VIPs from years ago. Interestingly one of them was the first black Christian minister who returned to Ghana after being abroad and gave sermons in a small chapel that was above the male slave dungeon. So he was praying with the Europeans whilst he could hear the groans and screams of his countrymen a few feet below...

Continuing on, the male dungeon was very dark, with only a small hole high in the roof to let in light. About 1000 slaves were kept in a room (each just over half the size a tennis court), and had to sleep, eat and go to the toilet over each other. There wasn't enough room for the waste to flow out and so it blocked up and they all had to sleep on top of it. Pretty horrific, but even worse when you hear that they had to stay in there for two months at a time, and any dead bodies weren't removed for days at a time. they would then be thrown over the side of the fort with weights attached. The guide at one point turned off the lights and we were in pitch black; you could really feel the heat and lack of ventilation as well.

We then took a walk above ground where we could wee the passage that the men took to the Door of No Return; from there they were herded onto ships bound for the Europe, America, Brazil or the Caribbean, that sometimes took many, many weeks. The women were kept separate, in equally revolting conditions, before also being forced into cramped conditions on the ships, where about 15 million Africans were transported across the Atlantic! The scale of the operation was shocking. Men, women and children were dragged away from their families, separated from everyone they knew and put through hell before mainly ending up for sale to work in plantations in the Americas.

We then saw the market room, where 'businessmen' bidded on them, and then looked inside a few tiny dungeons where those who tried to escape were tortured and left to die. The guide was truly excellent and explained everything very clearly, even about the Ashanti's, who lived in Ghana, and were one of the main facilitators of the slave trade, selling captives from battles and raids for guns and alcohol - what else eh?!

The place was very grim and sobering, but incrediblely informative. The guide really made the tour and I am pleased that I came to see it. The scratches on the walls of the dungeons where slaves had tried to climb out and the darkness of the dungeons were both sad but had an eerie feeling that the walls were talking to you.

After the trip we had a Fan Milk to cheer us up and went for a wander through town to two other places that were on the map. The Crab statue was purely that and London Bridge was barely a bridge over a small waste channel - maybe 6 feet across. After picking up some diced plantain (a bigger cousin of the banana) that had been fried in chilli powder - absolutely amazing, could have eaten five times the amount - we headed back to Sammos, our minds wandering quite a lot, and we sent a quick email to Green Turtle Bay, right on the coast, about Christmas reservations. That night we ate next to the Castle, and all had some kind of seafood. Got to by the coast haven't you!

Morning in Cape Coast

2010-01-07T07:09:00.000-08:00

On the way into the centre of Cape Coast, we stopped off at a omlette stand and got the same old Ghanaian smile from the lady, nonexistent, before carrying on to have a look at some forts from days gone by. Hundreds of years ago Cape Coast was at the forefront of the transatlantic slave trade, although it was very important many years before to the Portuguese and then Dutch who were first in control of the Gold Coast (original name for Ghana because of all the gold that came from the area). The Europeans heard legends about the gold mines on the West coast of Africa from the Arabs that brought it across the Sahara. As gold became used for currencies, the Europeans set off in ships in search of the source of the precious metal; so they could get it themselves rather than paying more via the Arabs. History lesson over!

We first visited Fort Victoria, and paid one cedi for the silent guide to 'show us the way', of which there was only one! The fort was a small lookout, whitewashed with cannons looking out in all directions. You could see why it was used though - the views were fantastic, all the way down the coast to Elmina and across all of the nearby coastline.

The next one we visited was up an even steeper hill in the middle of town, and was called Fort William. This one was free to get to, and while me and Kez explored inside (shouting hello etc), a woman and her young son came down from the three storey watchtower and offered to show us around. The lads were dying from the heat underneath the bigger building, that turned out to double as a lighthouse for the port. There were about 40 soldiers stationed in this fort; which again gave excellent views for miles around. The lady had apparently lived there for 25 years, so we joked that she knew all of the gossip in Cape Coast, and we tipped her after the brief tour.

To get out of the heat for a little while we went to change up the rest of our travellers cheques, which took a fair old while queueing up, but we weren't complaining as there were seats and air con in the Barclay's. This took about an hour for all of us, but I wanted to get rid of mine as the Euro rate had gone down since I'd bought them. After that we stopped off in an English book shop (at last!) and had some dubious shakes and banana cakes from a healthy-eating NGO by the castle.

We then explored down the small beach, next to the giant white castle, right on the coast. Walking barefoot in the sand, we saw men pulling huge pirogues (big wooden fishing boats) into the palm tree shade up the beach; children fishing with small lines right on the shore, most of which I tripped over; and even some men carving a pirogue out of a massive piece of tree! Man points! The beach went a bit sour towards the end, with deserted buildings and huge piles of black and rotting litter being the only things you could see. We even saw a couple of pigs rooting about and having a wash in the river of waste that flowed down.

So we decided to turn back and see Cape Coast Castle.

Arrival in Cape Coast

2010-01-07T06:38:00.000-08:00

Not a great start to the day when the taxi we had got in to take us to the Metro Mass bus station, got cut up by a speeding tro tro (Ghana minibus) that didn't look before it pulled out. The van clipped the front of the car and sped off, our driver giving chase. When he hailed it down he apologised to us all, before getting out and having a full blown argument with the guys in the tro tro. Drama, but he eventually got back in and took us to the station.

We decided to give Metro Mass another try - they are rude but at least its a proper coach and you're not squashed five to a three-seater! We got a ticket from a very fat man in fetching Metro Mass orange, who was shouting "CAPE CAPE CAPE", before effortlessly hopping onboard the bus. After a few Fan Milks and a read of an English-speaking newspaper (it's so nice to be speaking English after all those months of French!) we were off! Easy!

The journey took about four and a half hours, with a mandatory rest stop for half an hour in the middle - unusual, but a good idea I think, especially if you are penned into a tro tro! However, the stop was only for the big coaches. When we got into Cape Coast; the bus made its way through the markets and down to the main area of the town. As it stopped for traffic a few minutes from where we could get off, two taxi drivers jumped on the back, through the rear door; targeted us as Obruni's (white people - we used the opposite back to them; 'bebeni'!) and whistled, asking us where we were going. We replied we were on a bus and wouldn't be needing their help!

We got off in the market where fish, squid and crabs were being sold, and got rid of the annoying touts before asking a very nice female traffic warden where our guesthouse was, and if we could walk it there. She was very helpful and we set off into the town. After a little while we did get lost, and chose to get a taxi for nothing at all to Sammo's Guesthouse. Sammo's was a huge building overlooking the residential bit of town, with palm trees and the sea in the background. (NB the man who showed us to our rooms reminded me of the caretaker from The Shining). There was a rooftop restaurant that wasn't open, but I got some good shots of yet another great sunset.

We ate at a small white-and-blue fenced maquis just opposite Sammo's called Nice & Rich. No real idea what to expect, but town was a dark 20 minute walk away and we just wanted something quick. Although we could barely see inside the place, it had some weird red, blue, green, yellow pulsing light, making it only possible to see your food every fourth second on the yellow pulse; the food was excellent. Almost KFC chicken, spicy jollof rice, some chilli; mayo and coleslaw. Brilliant. And the whole thing only cost about a quid each. For one of the only times on the trip we tipped because it was so good.

Kumasi Times

2010-01-06T10:06:00.000-08:00

Our accommodation was pretty well placed near the centre of town and so we did a bit of exploring. Found a supermarket to get some Imperial Leather (have to treat myself don't I) and bulk buying of Fan Milks! Me and Dree spent the day on the Internet; myself trying to catch up on the blog, which I am still behind on - sorry! - and Dree sorting out some details for his start date at Freshfields in February. We took a break to go for lunch, and eventually found a small cafè hidden in some backstreets, where we ordered the plat du jour. This turned out to be some rice, dried fish sauce and a few chucks of unspecified meat. Not great, but worth trying these things. While we continued on the net, Barney and Kez had gone to visit a fort in the town centre.

That evening we decided to hit the town, as it was a Saturday night, and got dressed in our smartest gear. Well as smart as you can be when travelling - shower, deo and trousers! We had some food at a Chinese in town, where the waitress was obviously ready to go out for the night and rushed through everything. Dree and B ordered beef stroganof and it came out in a tomato sauce...

Then we headed to one of the "happening" spots in town, a little bar called the 'Old Timer's Club'. But when we arrived about 8:30pm it was empty; so we decided to try later. We picked a maquis out on the street and bought a few rounds of the local beers (Club and Star). We then had to try out the toilet, which was a ceramic cupboard round the side of the building. The inside was all tiled, but there was no urinal or toilet, it was just a hole in the floor, like there had been a shower in there. After checking with the waiter again he confirmed it was right, and we did things the Ghanaian way. When in Rome eh.....? (Another funny thing that happened in that bar was that Dree took off his flip flop to undo a bottle of beer - there is a bottle opener on the sole - and the waiter seemed to be quite offended. That or just very shocked!)

We headed back up the hill after a few more bevvies and checked out 'Old Timers', which was shut at 10pm. While deciding what to do, Kez heard some loud music, and we chose to check it out. As we turned the corner, we saw about two hundred people dancing in an empty car park. There were huge speakers blasting out awful African hip hop (imagine someone had found the different settings on a keyboard and was shouting into a mic at the same time!), beers for sale by the side of the meleè and even a Fan Milk bike! As we got dragged into the centre and attempted drunk African dancing - far more difficult than regular UK drunk dancing like 'big fish...' - the atmosphere was great.

But then someone spoke to one of the guys and found out that it was, in fact, a wake! We stayed for a little while but felt awkward enough about it being a wake and didn't like being the centre of attention - loads of people had gathered round us. We made our escape and found another drinking den called "SADisco". Unfortunately, this wasn't an actual disco, even though we had our dancing shoes on, and we just had a few drinks. I then spilt most of a beer over my crotch, and we decided to call it a night!

The next morning (Sunday) we crawled out of bed for a breakfast at possibly the best omlette lady in the world - giant mugs of tea and omlettes filled with tomato and greens of some kind in sweet bread. Really good grub. Then we discovered that you cannot do anything on a Sunday in Ghana. Shops were shut, restaurants closed (we luckily found one that was still open - think I'm still full from that mixed grill hahaha), and barely anyone was around. The only people we actually saw were in their Sunday best on the way to church.

Religion in Ghana is crazy. There are flyers and posters EVERYWHERE for 'Power packed Crusades', 'Healing Services', 'Prayer Sessions' and so on. Most of the religion seems to be Christian, but that can be split up into hundreds of different types - evangelical, Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovahs, Protestants, Catholics, the list just goes on and on. Shops are mostly names with this in mind - 'Jesus Loves You Electrics' and 'Righteous Ray's Wholesalers' - and cars or vans are emblazoned with 'Good God', 'Jah Bless' or 'Jesus Walks'. Wow it's serious!

So as everything was shut we had a cheap day before trying to find bus tickets to Cape Coast the next day. However, we got the standard helpful Ghanaian lady behind the counter ("Its full"), and so had to risk it the next day.

Tamalè to Kumasi

2010-01-06T09:50:00.000-08:00

Bleary-eyed at a 3:30am start, we eventually rolled into the bus station in Tamalè in the morning. We tried to find another bus to Kumasi, a large city in the middle of a forest in the centre of Ghana, where we were going to watch a Ghanaian Premier League match. No other buses were running and we had to resort to another Metro Mass saga. Horribly rude woman behind the counter - Kez asked when the bus will arrive; "When it does." was the curt answer. The bus driver was also in some kind of mid-life crisis and stressed out about the luggage, even though the whole station was chaotic anyway. Surprised he didn't have an aneurysm!

More chaos on the bus; the back of my seat broke off. In true African style, the back was layed across the aisle, next to the rear steps and was promptly sold as two extra seats! Love it! Saying that the journey was uncomfortable with no back, and Dree ended up swapping with me halfway, after I'd fallen asleep on the poor guy next to me a few times!

There was a huge storm as we arrived in Kumasi, but maybe it wasn't too surprising as we'd been driving through some pretty deep rainforest on the way. The rain was really heavy for five minutes, flooding the road, before stopping altogether. Kind of like Asian rains. During this rain the idiotic driver, possibly mid-aneurysm, completely missed a speed hump and the WHOLE bus was off the ground for a split second - including all the passengers! Lots of shouting at him after that!

We checked into a recommended place called Guestline Lodge, which was really good, but had pretty bad service from the girl at the front desk. Standard practice all over Ghana apparently - its the norm to be rude and unhelpful. Have found some exceptions, but more often than not people seem to not want to be there! Had to get a takeaway from a restaurant affiliated with the Lodge, as it was quite late, but had a mammoth burger after a day on the buses.

Guess what we saw!

2010-01-06T09:17:00.000-08:00

After an uncomfortable night's sleep on the concrete, and a few minutes massaging feeling back into hips and back, we got up and got ready for the long hike back. The earlier the better over here - seriously trying to do anything between the hours of about 11am and 2pm is crazy. That says we only seem to be doing things then... During the night, I'd tried going to the toilet, with a headtorch, but kept hearing the rangers' voices in my head - "Don't go too far from the camp, there are wild animals in this area". Quite a nervy time to be honest. I was hearing all sorts of cracks and rustles in the darkness. The night before, I forgot to say, Labere heard some animal down by the roadside, about 20m away, and set off alone to check it out. We followed behind for a bit, then his torch went off and he was very quiet. We turned back to the safety of the fire!

We packed up everything and set off just after 6am - great sunrise. We were 3/4 of the way back to Molè and Labere felt bad for not going to the tree hut overnight, and tried to make it up to us by going on a detour that morning to see the hide and another viewing post. We walked for about another 5km that morning around the dried salt lakes, forest and watering holes, and didn't feel that convinced we were going to see anything more than some bush buck. We saw fresh tracks of hyenas, buffalo and even caught sight of a few kob.

Our first stop was the tree hide, which unfortunately would have been awesome to stay overnight in. It overlooked a small watering hole, with a big open area, so that night and the early morning we could have seen (possibly) loads of animals. No matter. When we arrived there were some American teenagers up there, making a load of noise that we could hear from way off. I think they were volunteers, as everyone seems to be in Ghana, and very "Oh my God!". Stayed up the hide for a little while before continuing on - presumably back to the motel for a shower and some brekkie. It was now about 9am and we'd walked a lot further than the night before.

Labere made a few phone calls and discovered that there was a large elephant near one of the watering holes. I think he felt bad about the misunderstanding about the hide, and we set off tracking Dumbo. We then caught a sight of him vanishing into scrub across one of the watering holes. About half an hour later we still hadn't caught sight of him, and were ready to give up when Labere stopped....

Hidden in the trees up ahead was a large grey lump, and as we got closer we saw a swinging tail and flapping ears. We'd found him. Definitely worth the hunger and the miles of walking about that morning. It was incredible. We got within about 50ft and Labere answered some questions for us. Then he moved out of the trees for a closer look at us. He was massive and as he lumbered along we all sat, crouched in silence. Labere told us this was one of the old males in the park, and was missing one tusk. He was quite used to humans but caould still be very dangerous. We were in awe as he kept coming closer, but Labere motioned for us to move back a bit. We all crept backwards, and got some great pictures from about 40ft away. Then he turned a bit further towards us, flaring his trunk and swinging his head.

Labere took the rifle off his shoulder and told us to get back. We all moved, apart from Maric, who seemed to be entranced by the elephant, and was sat on his bag. Labere eventually moved him by shouting (in a low voice) "Move - it's a WILD animal!". We took more pictures and watched in amazement as the giant moved past us about 20ft away and into trees the other side of the pathway. Bloody incredible! Up there with best experiences of this trip.

Filled with happiness at seeing an elephant, we walked back to the Motel, and spent the day eating and chilling out by the pool. Unfortunately, we were in for an early morning trip on the Metro Mass bus back to Tamalè - 3:30am; is that an early morning or just a late night! The only other incident was that as Kez was packing that afternoon, a baboon waltzed into the girl's dorm, right past her. She quickly exited, remembering that baboons can turn violent, but we think it was just inquisitive (they stole some food from Maric's bag, and we also saw them sitting on cars!). The motel was pretty cool like that - baboons and monkeys would pass very closely to the rooms or pool.

But the main memory from Molè would be how close we got to a wild elephant. Just incredible.

Molè, Molè, Molè!

2009-12-30T10:21:00.000-08:00

Molè (Mole-ay) National Park is in the top right corner of Ghana, and is the largest National Park in Ghana. It covers 4840km² and we decided to go mainly in the hope of seeing an elephant in the wild. Bit different for Kez, as she'd spent the last month volunteering in Malawi on an elephant project, but we were all happy to see whatever we could. Molè Motel was where we stayed, a few kilometres into the park, high on a ridge overlooking two watering holes. There are viewing platforms to watch the animals from a distance, but we'd heard that the best thing to do was go on an early morning walking safari, where we'd have the best chance of seeing wildlife up close.

Our guide was called James Labere, and had been a guide at Molè for 27 years. We were only allowed down onto the plains below (around the watering holes and into the forests) with an official guide who carried a gun just in case. Saying that, there was a crazy Japanese guy, who looked like he'd been roughing it round the world for a few years, that was just wandering around one afternoon by himself! Labere (guide) gave a group of about ten of us a small prep talk about taking water and not leaving rubbish, before we set off at about 6am.

The walk started with the descent to the National Park, down the steep ridge, and into the bush (no laughing boys). Labere was a really good guide, stopping and explaining things along the way, but had a habit of saying "Yes" in a kind of hum after everything he said. Like Yoda. Very funny. The first animal we clapped eyes on was a warthog that was burrowing in the ground, using its' tusks to dig. We stood and watched it for about 10 minutes, and at some points it looked straight at us, trying to figure us all out. Labere explained that they can be very dangerous, especially when they are close to their young.

We saw tonnes more animals, including kob and bush buck (from the antelope family), green monkeys, crocs in shallow lakes, eagles, vultures and elephant.... footprints and dung. Still no sign of the elusive giants. One of the bush bucks appeared out of nowhere right in front of us, where else, in a bush. We were only about a few metres away and stood there for a while, as he nonchalantly looked us over before sauntering off! Incredible! The walk was only about 9 cedis (four pounds - no pound sign on this keyboard), and took us about three hours over streams, through forests, across salt flats that were dried up lakes, and a couple of huge watering holes. We were shattered by the time we got back up to the ridge, and the sun was beginning to burn.

After a breakfast, which eventually all came, bar the beans, we saw a few buses of people arrive. It turns out that a huge group of Jehovah's Witnesses had booked the whole motel for that night for some kind of conference or something. We therefore organised an overnight hike with the rangers to a tree hide overlooking a watering hole. After a swift dip in the pool overlooking the watering holes, and getting some jollof rice [spicy] and beef we were all set. We even saw our first glimpse of an elephant from one of the viewing platforms - moving across a gap in the trees before having a swim in a watering holes. I couldn't spot him at first, thought he was a tree! Eye test needed.

Labere took us on the trip back out that afternoon and joining us were Olly and Maric, surfing brothers from down under. They'd been doing a trip along the Ghanaian coast before coming up to Molè. Bit awkward as I thought Maric was South African as I shook his hand and almost asked about being World Cup hosts! Strong handshake too, must improve on mine! We walked the 9km to Brugbani camp, which was pretty uneventful as we stuck to the dirt road the whole time. Saw plenty of signs of buffalo, elephants and hyenas - plenty of footprints and disturbed long grass - but it wasn't that interesting. The Tetse flies were incredibly annoying. Years ago they had spread the notorious sleeping sickness that had stopped explorers venturing down too far south in Africa. There is no cure for the virus, but luckily the ones in the park did not carry it. They just bit every bit of skin that was showing, quite painfully as well! Barney and Dree solved the problem by ripping a piece of grass up and using it as a swat.

Arriving at our hut just after dusk, and another GORGEOUS African sunset, we were disappointed to not find a tree hut, but a few concrete barrack-like buildings by the side of the road. Turns out that there'd been a mix up between some of the rangers and they thought we wanted to stay in the barracks. Labere was very apologetic, but nothing could be done about it now. He started a fire and we ate our rice while he regaled us with stories of other people he had taken to the camp we were at. One woman had been pestering him to take her on a midnight walk, against rules because of the nocturnal dangerous animals, but he relented and she screamed and turned back after a minute, after hearing a roar close by. Another story was about a fight between a warthog and a goat. Very funny way of telling stories. "Hmmm".

After a little while we headed for bed, as the ten km walk as well as the early start had really taken it out of us! Our 'bed' was a space on the concrete floor of one of the buildings. Hanging from the ceiling were dozens of bats (Labere called them vampire bats, but I think he was pulling our leg), and in the corners hid spiders and other creepies. Trying to put up a mozzie net was really difficult as there was nothing to tuck it into - i.e. a mattress - and so we had to use rocks from outside to hold it down. Was pretty ineffective as things wandered over me all night, and the whole night's sleep was a bit of a pain, literally, with the concrete giving no respite to our tired backs or hips! All part of the adventure though folks!

Journey to Molè NP

2009-12-30T09:40:00.000-08:00

The next morning we left early to sort out finances (we weren't able to change travellers cheques as only Barclays (a joy to see them in Ghana), so B took some money out on his card). The changeover from CFA was quite strange, especially as 10,000 old Cedis - the currency everyone still quotes prices in - is now only 1 new Cedi. Hmmmmmm.

We got to the bus station, this involves a paragraph to itself. The place was pretty tiny, and over half the people inside were touts or hawkers. This caused enough chaos, but was made worse by the amount of buses and taxis trying to manoeuvre around the waiting stands. Horns beeping, people shouting, no room to move about at all. Disorganisation is an understatement. Do you also remember the toilets from the other day? These were equal with those. I don't want to write anything descriptive but I'll just say the smell was a sharp ammonia. Stung the nostrils. Only able to go for a quick number one. Urgh.

The service from the staff at Metro Mass (big bus company, orange buses) was also awful. "There is your ticket, are you going to take it?!" We asked what time the bus will come - "When it comes" was the response. This was a bit of an introduction to Ghanaian service as well. Few more fan milks and general street food were consumed as we waited for the bus in any space we could find. The bus eventually arrived and people started to get up to put baggage in the hold. In Ghana you have to pay extra for bags that aren't inside the coach, and this led to pushing, arguing and a whole lot of people bringing a ridiculous amount of luggage inside the coach - underneath seats and blocking aisles. Outside the bus wasn't much better, as we battled for space between two coaches, being pushed about by other passengers and street sellers.

After we made it on board in the early afternoon, and readjusted to the oven inside, the bus flew down the asphaslt road before turning off towards Molè National Park down an uneven, potholed dirt track. Retaining the same speed as before, there were moments when we were airbourne out of our seats! Must've been doing over 50 mph. Scary stuff. Luckily, after dusk fell (an absolutely gorgeous African sunset, that I just couldn't get on camera as we were still flying)
the coach slowed down and passed through a few small villages on the outskirts of the park, before arriving about 7.30pm.

There was only the dorm left, as all the rooms had been booked already, and more bad news as we learnt that all the rooms, including the dorm, were booked the following night because of a Jehovahs Witness convention. Yes, you read that right.... Ate a meal of fried chicken and chips, as it was the only thing left and sat down to watch the Man Utd vs Wolfsburg game. Owen got a hat-trick; must be on for a 2010 call up. Hit the hay after that, as had organised to go for a walking safari early the next morning - a good time to see wildlife in the park.

First thoughts of Ghana

2009-12-30T09:05:00.000-08:00

Getting back from Teibelè to Po so that we could cross the border was always going to be a hassle, especially as when we got to the crossroads at the village there were no cars or vans to be seen. After a wait of a few hours (punctuated by breakfast, our inability to order two more teas and a few games of cards) we got picked up by a minivan returning to Po. It FLEW along the road back; all we could see was a cloud of red in our wake. We were particularly worried as our bags were just thrown into the roof rack. Luckily we arrived in one piece with all our luggage, and headed for the various bus companies to check availability on any of the big buses. Unfortunately none of them ran today and so we had to organise a private taxi to the border, rather than a big bus all the way to Tamale (closest town in Ghana).

We bumped into our old 'friend' who dropped us off the day before, but we sent him on his way. Lost out on our business for being a numpty before. Got into a taxi for 5000 CFA together and the driver said he would be going to Paga, a small village 2km over the border in Ghana. But, as suspected, he dropped us off at the border and said that it was Paga - ironically standing underneath a huge sign saying "Paga - 1.5km". We paid him less than we'd agreed and headed to get our Ghanaian visas stamped.

This was slightly more complicated than it should have been - every one of the border guards in the office wanted to put their hands on our passports, and we were passed pillar to post for about 20 minutes. Eventually got through and were asked for our yellow fever certificate; strange as this was the first country on our whole trip that had asked for it! There were no taxis on the other side of the border and so we had to walk (uphill) to Paga. We were pretty shattered, as the heat must've close to 40°C, and got a taxi to the next town along, where we'd have to get another taxi to the NEXT town where we could apparently get a bus. Easy. Before we left Barney changed up some of our money from CFA to Ghanaian Cedis. Changing currency is always a bit of a pain, but even more so as Ghana had devalued their cedis a few years before and now there were confusions between 'old' and 'new' cedis.

After a couple of taxi journeys, and a break inbetween to sample Fan Milks for the first time (bags of frozen chocolate or vanilla ice cream/strawberry yoghurt), we arrived in Bolgatanga to catch a bus. We bought more Fan Milks (soooooooo good - beginnings of an addiction), went to the worst toilet in the world (I won't describe it, but it was worse than that one in 'Trainspotting') and got on a very cramped bus after being overcharged baggage by an aggressive bus conductor. The whole bus seemed against the guy as we got on - leaning out of the windows and shouting at him, so that made us feel better. Eventually got moving and had to get a woman sitting next to me to help us buy 'PUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHH WWWWAAATTTTTAAAA' ('pure water' - sachets of chlorinated, freezing cold water for about 2.5 English pennies, which are sold everywhere, usually on the heads of small girls by the side of the road).

The journey was boiling in the bus, and spent most of it looking out of the window, or falling asleep/passing out on the poor guy's shoulder next to me! Out of the window, as we got closer to Tamale, we saw lots of advertising for mobile networks including buildings painted in bright Vodaphone red, MTN yellow or Tigo blue. Shockingly we saw some round mud huts painted in these vile colours. What is the world coming to?! But Tamale was worse - banners, flyers, posters, cars, buildings, walls, buses, everything was sponsored by some phone company. This carried on throughout Ghana, and I think we got used to it.

Chose Central Guesthouse, because we only wanted a day's stopover before catching the bus to Molè National Park. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a hole. Firstly, the guys rudely demanded all the money up front and so we had to go and change our travellers cheques into Cedis that afternoon. Secondly, there were massive cockroaches. Thirdly, it was a brothel. There were clients and workers around all night, and mood lighting in the rooms (a special light switch hung down by the head of the bed, so that the red (obviously) light could be turned off whenever they wanted). Great.

We had a good meal overlooking the main street in Tamale, and passing more prostitutes on our way back in, locked the door and played cards. Dree lost and had to eat a piece of revolting 'soap' cake that Barney had bought the day before! We left early the next morning, after Barney had dodged the cockroaches that night, and witnessed a prostitute relieve herself in the alley outside our room. Nice place.

Tiebelè (for Dree!)

2009-12-29T10:00:00.000-08:00

After a smooth few bus changes (I do miss TCV) we made it back to Ouaga, the capital, in one day and decided to take our time and relax that evening before heading down south to a cool village that Dree had spoken about near Po on the Ghana border. There is an on-running joke with us that Dree loves visiting villages. Not particularly sure where it came from, but it's stuck - "village friend". The break in Ouaga also meant that we could stop off at the Supermarket for supplies (nice toilet roll priority number one, hahaha) and have another great meal on the streets. Really did love those brochette stands.

The next morning we set off on a STMB bus (imagine what a coach looks like after 20 years in service) for Po. We had a bad feeling about Po as soon as we got off the bus - hassle from people wanting to change money or get us taxi's here, there and everywhere. The market wasn't on in either Po or Tiebelè which made travel a bit of a pain.

We got some more bandages etc for Dree's ankle - an infected blister had now spread to a mozzie bite; nice - and haggled with a driver to get to Tiebelè. Apparently the road was awful and he needed 10 litres of fuel to get there. Turns out the road wasn't that bad (he flew along it) and he only bought 6 litres. Sign of things to come, because when we arrived at the main crossroads for the village he refused to take us to a guesthouse because he said he didn't know where it was. But everyone did, it had been there for years. Shame we had to part with 8,000 CFA to get us there, but the markets fell on the wrong days for local buses.

After a very sweaty 15 minute hike avec luggage, we turned up at the campement. The only guy there was a very high Rasta man who found us a couple of little huts, and we then spoke with one of the many guides inhabiting Tiebelè. In the guide book it says that there is an association of 8 guides who split all the money between them. We had encountered at least twenty on our walk, including a 13 year-old kid on a bike, who had a home-made guide badge. Cute, but still annoying. We organised a meeting to be shown around the Royal Court in the village - where we needed a guide - but had heard good things.

The whole reason for coming to Tiebelè was to see the 'geometrically painted houses'; ancient mud huts that are still being kept in the traditional way, decorated in red, white and black patterns. We thought that there would eb plenty of these cool huts around, but only saw one wall which looked like it had zig-zag lines drawn on in permanent marker! Quite disappointing really. Took a walk around the village after some riz gras but couldn't find anything else. It was just like dozens of normal villages we had seen across Africa.

At three o'clock we met our guide and were shown the Royal Court of Tiebelè, which turned out to be a good tour with a really good guide. He spoke broken English, but tried really hard and got us to ask lots of questions. The Royal Court was a separate entity to the rest of the village; although some families still lived there. The mud huts were impressively decorated and were pretty detailed. The guide explained all the patterns including the broken pottery shards from calabashes to signify the spirit of women, the different lines and curves for fish, grain and other foods, and also the drawings of bats. The bats were apparently well revered in the village culture as they not only kept mosquitoes at bay in the huts, they also were held as good luck symbols. Maybe as they killed all the mozzies! The traditions are being kept up (obviously only in the Royal Court) and every three years the mud walls are repacked and repainted.

We were able to go into a house, horribly named in the guide as a 'living museum', but had a wee bit of difficulty getting in! The huts had very low entrances to protect themselves from wild animals and also from invaders. As the attacker bows to enter the house, the person in side has the advantage and can just behead them! Also there was an internal wall, higher than the door frame, so that arrows could not be fired through. Quite ingenious really but was a bit of a pain trying to get in - cannot have looked stylish.

Inside the hut, which was pretty dark, we saw how the Kassena people in the area lived. There were different rooms for cooking and two sleeping rooms. The grandmother of the women would sleep in the entrance to the second sleeping room, so that no girls could sneak out or boys could sneak in! Pretty smart these Kassena! Had a bit of a fright in the pitch black kitchen when a bat flew around for a minute. Think I may have let out a high-pitched scream! After we left the hut, we were taken to the usual tat stalls, where villagers sold pipes, t shirts, caps, bracelets etc. Bit of a shame. Over the border to Ghana tomorrow! Country number six!

Sindou Peaks and the dreaded return journey

2009-12-29T09:14:00.000-08:00

After a good nights rest (being on the back of a moto for 50 or so kilometres does that to one's body) we got ready to head back along the same road after a morning visit to the Sindou Peaks. Bit of a funny one here: Kez waved to me in the very open toilet block, about 20 yards from the huts that were similar to ours back in Banfora. The toilet was built so that your head pops out over the top if you are standing. The thing is, I was still fast asleep in bed, and when the guy came out of the toilet it turned out he was a black man who worked at the camp. Maybe its not just Dree and Barney in need of contact lenses eh Kez?!

We left the camp and filled up the bikes by the side of the road with the unspecified red liquid. Hey, it did the trick so who are we to ask what it is! Heading back out of town, we parked up the bikes at the 'tourist office' for the Sindou Peaks - a shack - and were surprised to pay over the top for a 45 minute visit. The prices for a camera were also extortionate, so I just took about 200 pictures during the tour. Still don't understand why its limited to 45 minutes but at least we didn't have to pay more for the guide.

The Sindou Peaks were pretty cool; huge spires and columns of rock rising up like fingers on a hand. There was a bit of a walk up some natural steps and we were shown a quick view of Sindou as we were up on a plateau. We could even see to Mali, even though it just looked like more trees and plains to me! The guide explained everything pretty well, apart from being on a time limit, and we continued through the plateau, covered in hip-high long grass, across to the other side for a view across south west Burkina.

On the way we saw a poison-arrow tree (looked pretty deadly) and some really wierdly-shaped fingers of rock, created in a similar fashion to the Domes a few days earlier - used to be a huge ocean thousands of years ago, probably millions, and the erosion caused the unusual shapes. We also saw tonnes of eagles and vultures circling above, and a dubious "old bowl" from a tribe thousands of years ago. Looked in pretty good shape so didn't believe that one! The view was pretty awesome from the other side, and well worth the light climb - made difficult in sweaty flip flops eh Dree. The area seemed to hold historical significance for the local tribes around, and would be where I'd set up camp if I was worried about invaders.

After our brief sojourn, we started on the journey back. In terms of breakdowns there were no problems at all. A different story when it came to near misses and crashes! Firstly as we drove out of the township Kez went to overtake a bicycle. I am taking no sides (NO SIDES) but Kez blames Dree for not warning her about the moto coming up quickly from behind. The bike swerved, Kez swerved and the poor bloke on the moto took a very bumpy few seconds down in the leaf-covered ditch at the side of the road. Close one!

Back on our bike Barney hit a ginormous pothole that sent me up in the air for a few seconds. If I hadn't have just grabbed onto anything I could get a grip on (Barney) I would have been off. Nearly the end of me, but I was just left nursing a sore bottom! We also took a detour through some really deep sand, and started to skid around a bit. But, as I said, no actual crashes! All in all, a good return journey.

We got back to the campement in one piece (coxix not included) and had a relaxed evening doing some washing and getting the red dust out of our clothes and hair as best we could. Honestly, it gets EVERYWHERE! We organised a taxi to get us to the TCV bus journey after buying tickets on the way back home. It would be yet another early start, but we're pretty used to them now. And the added incentive of a TCV bus - a real coach(drooooool) - as opposed to a packed minivan. Ah the pleasure in having your own seat and a few inches of leg-room!

To Sindou!

2009-12-29T08:19:00.000-08:00

A few kilometres after the lake a man on a motorbike flagged me and Barney down. We stopped and he turned around to shout so,ething at us. I was driving and instantly thought we'd accidentally cut him up, but it turned out he saw the breadsticks poking out of Barney's bag and told us to wrap them up because they would go stale. Being blokes we thanked him, and made a small effort to cover the sticks up. In hindsight, we should have covered them in a plastic bag.

The 51km road wasn't the worst to drive on - the odd cavernous pothole here and there, random moguls in the middle of the road and a few close shaves in the sand at the side of the road - but the worst thing was the dust. It covered absolutely everything and we looked red at the end of the day! Those driving resorted to wearing sunglasses, which helped a bit, especially Dree in his fetching Terminator shades.

We stopped for lunch and found that half the French sticks were hard as rock (the half that was sticking out of Barney's bag!). Nevertheless, had another nice veggie sarnie in the shade at the side of the road. Caused a bit of a stir in fact, as locals passing by stopped and stared with bags of grain and huge dishes of yams on their heads.

Carrying on for another few kilometres we had a big problem - the front tyre on my and Barney's bike was flat as a you'd like. There was no way we could continue, because the wheel kept slipping in the soft sand. Completely un-rideable, me and Barney started pushing (damn heavy beasts, especially over sand) whilst Kez and Dree carried on to find a mechanic. Luckily it was late afternoon and there was quite a lot of shade along the road, but it was still ridiculously hard work. We took it in turns and pushed it for about 5km (YES, FIVE KM) in total before we saw a familiar green moto coming towards us.

Dree had found a mechanic after a few failed attempts at hamlets where no one spoke French! The guy was so chirpy and set right out at fixing the tyre. We decided to just pay for a whole inner tube as the other one was ruined - two punctures, one a massive tear. It was a bit of a pain, as they weren't our bikes, and we had to shell out about a fiver to get the new tube. But we were more than half the 51km to Sindou and had no choice.

We eventually got to Sindou and were greeted by the main attraction - the Sindou Peaks, a group of mountains that shot up straight from the ground and had great views across the valley. Pulling into another campement just on the outskirts of town (recommended by the guys at Boabab) we had a well deserved few bags of cold water before 'Papa', the owner, explained that there was a festival going on that evening with a mask dance. We'd heard of these 'Dances of the Masques' all across West Africa, especially Mali, but had not yet seen one. We didn't want to go to one set up purely for tourists. We wanted the real thing. And that's exactly what we got!

Papa led us out of the campement (telling us not to take any photos of the dance) and through a maze of mud huts. We heard some drumming and saw a crowd with their backs to us. Papa was really kind and took us around the circle of people that had gathered in an opening between some huts. The whole village (300 people) were all staring inwards at a slowly moving row of young men and women, led by some guys playing djembe drums and some orthodox metal bars making a clanging sound. But that wasn't the best bit.

Further into the circle were three people dressed in full costumes - all were completely covered with beige cotton overalls and then had sewn masks and long "hair" in either red or purple. They were pretty weird, and looked like a scarier version of the bad guy in Batman Begins. There was also another guy who was running around the edge of the dancers in a circle who was whipping the legs of anyone who tried to jump into the group. He was running around like a mad man, whipping with a long branch, before squatting by the side of the crowd for a few seconds. They must've been so hot in all that gear - it was easily a 30°C day. The children in the crowd screamed and ran away as all the characters took it in turns to jump into them and blow whistles they had under their masks.

Kez was invited to have a dance with some of the women in the inner circle (men and women were separate), and was taught how to do the strange "shuffle, kick the ground, and shuffle again" dance. She joined in for about five minutes, and not long after she left the three dressed up characters moved to a mound behind one of the houses. The music and crowd followed along, whooping and dancing away. It was pretty incredible to see this dance that nearly no one else gets to see. And even better as it wasn't for us tourist's benefit! Definitely going up there with seeing the wrestling competition two months ago in Senegal.

As the dance died down we snuck away and later learnt from Papa what the dance was about; although he seemed to be confused with our French (easy enough) and we got two stories. Firstly we learnt that the burial mound was for a chief of the village who died at the old age of 78 last month. The dance was therefore part of the remembrance for him, and at the end of the few weeks of mourning a new chief would be chosen.

However, Papa then explained that the dance occurred every few years, and all the youths in the village who were between the ages of 18 and 21 took part in a kind of 'coming-of-age' ceremony. That's why the children were swatted away by the masked man with a stick, and also the reason that the men and women had to dance separately. After the ceremony they could then mix with the opposite sex - not before! He also mentioned an annual dance for the harvest, and said that the two colours meant something in an ancient animist tradition.

Whatever the reason behind the dance, it was incredible to see, and will be a memory for me for a long time to come. We sat around the table at dinner that night reminiscing about what we'd seen, agreeing the whole trip to Africa is worth it for experiences like that.

Hippos at Lac Tengrela

2009-12-28T10:14:00.000-08:00

That morning we were told that one of the bikes had a puncture from the previous day's journey. The guys at the campement were very kind to take the bike into the town (before 7am when we were told about it) but then asked us for the ignition key. In a daze in the early morning we refused at first - believing that the bikes had been stolen!Everything was fine, and the bike was returned after an hour, so we could continue on our way. I am still confused as how they got the bike INTO Banfora, a long walk of 4km, very early in the morning...

Puncture fixed, we drove into town to fill the bikes up again. We were sure we didn't use all the fuel, but it cost pennies and was better to have more fuel in the middle of nowhere than less. We got a basic lunch of bread, tomatos, onions and cucumber, and headed to get a quick breakfast at an omlette stand. I drove the short distance from the garage, but when I parked up and tried to get it back into neutral gear, the flimsy gearshift snapped off. Excellent.

I pushed the bike down the road to one of the many mechanics and explained what had happened in broken French, using a lot of sign language. At first they thought we wanted a whole new gear shift, but we said we only wanted it welded together so that it would actually be possible to change gear. After a short wait it came back in one piece, and once fitted, it turned out that it changed gear even better than before! We'd actually improved the bike! We headed back for that elusive breakfast after paying 450 CFA (about 60 pence) to the mechanics, and then hit the road - we had a lot to cover in one day!

Leaving town (chaotic in itself) we drove 5km out on the Sindou road and turned off to the hippo lake at Lac Tengrela. Us boys had seen a handful of hippos at distance in The Gambia, but had heard that this was a really good spot to see them close (an English guy at our campement actually showed us an awesome picture of some fighting in the water - major camera lens envy though!).

We got into a pirogue at the lake (quite unstable, but still better than the one across the moat in Senossa!) and set out for the opposite side to the village. The water was really clear and the lake itself didn't look that deep, as we could see plants that were living at the bottom. That was good to see because the boat seemed pretty unstable, and if we fell in we could probably stand up, but on the other (more serious) hand, the hippos could equally get a good run at us! The sun was very strong over the lake as Dree spotted the first hippo. As Kez has said, we were hoping the guy paddling the flimsy boat would see them first!

There was a huge group of hippos about 100m away from us, but all you could see were a few pairs of eyes just above the water. Then a few more appeared. Unfortunately they split into two groups about 20m apart, and every time one came up for air in a spray of water, or two began a fight with huge jaws open, I seemed to be looking the other way! Think I got a few good pictures, but I needed that zoom lens desperately!

Amazing sights though; it was pretty awesome to be so close to these massive creatures. Our guide kept paddling even closer and, at times, was banging the oar on the bottom of the boat; this made most of them come to the surface, but by this time we were only about 50m away! Possibly close enough for an attack - hippos are notoriously dangerous animals, and Africa's biggest killer! We turned back, had a drink at the lakeside, watched a kid terrorise a small kitten and a monkey run itself ragged round a tree, before getting back on the bikes and starting the rest of the journey to Sindou.

Waterfall and the Domes

2009-12-28T09:12:00.000-08:00

We awoke, albeit after a cold night's sleep, with the intention of a full day of biking around south west Burkina, but firstly had to tackle the motos. They (how can I put this kindly) weren't the newest motos and nothing compared to the new Kaizer's we had in Bobo. They had been round the block a few hundred times and weren't much to look at. However, first thoughts put aside, Dree and Barney jumped aboard to give them a test drive down the track. THIS was easier said than done, but after a close shave from both of the lads (Barney underestimating the acceleration and barely stopping in front of a wall; Dree driving into a kerb where the two guys from the camp were standing) the test run was completed.

Dree and Barney lost at a game of cards the night before and so went into town to get some petrol and lunch for a picnic by the waterfall. About one and a half hours later they returned after running out of petrol a few times, thankfully in the town centre, and having to fill up the tanks using a red liquid from wine bottles by the side of the road. Safe!

I hadn't ridden for a while, and this wasn't helped by me driving down the track, thankfully round the corner, and spectacularly dropping the moto on a turn, spilling petrol. Everything seemed fine, and Barney drove our orange beast "Colin" (I thought it best) and Dree in charge on the green we headed out for the waterfall at Karfiguela. The track was quite sandy in places, making the moto difficult to control, but luckily we just had to stay on the same track all the way, and there was no traffic.

At a toll booth by the side of the track, almost in a field, two guys lifted the barrier blocking the track and tried to get us to pay for a guide. We said no, but ended up getting lost and going too far in between the sugar cane fields, getting soaked by the automatic watering machines along the way. We turned back and got to the waterfall entrance after some directions - no sign or anything for the turning - and parked the motos (easier said than done!)

We climbed, steeply, up to the top of the waterfall and were rewarded with an amazing view of the river and plain below. We could see for miles. After an explore and the obligatory photos, we went for a dip in the naturally formed pools at the top. Don't worry, the water was clear and safe to swim in as it was moving too fast to have bilharzia or anything like that. But it was only ten feet from a very steep drop over the edge. Sorry Mum! But I am obviously writing this now so survived!

The water was freezing cold, and a bit of a shock to the system, but was amazingly clear and deep. There was one little pool that had formed over goodness-knows-how-long that was about five and a half foot deep but only a foot wide. Barney set up his camera, perilously close to the edge and we did some timed photographs, that involved B running along the algae rocks and jumping into the pool a few times. Great photos though. We had a veggie lunch at a shaded little pool before going for an explore further upriver. The cascades went on for hundreds of metres, and were of various heights and speeds. Returning to the bottom we had a look at the main cascade - impressive - and decided to not go for a swim - scummy.

I drove for the next journey, which was to the Domes of Fabedougou. I do love the Burkina way of naming towns, all ending in "dougou". The drive was okay - few hairy moments with water and loose stones, but made it in one piece. Bless Kez though; while driving she took a shortcut through some of the sugar cane field. No injuries though - just a thoroughly embarrassed Kez with a few scratches!

The Domes are a group of rock formations that are about 1.8 billion years old. The best way I can describe them is that they look like giant cow pats - big piles of smooth black rocks that used to be at the bottom of an ancient ocean, and have been worn down over millions of years. They are mostly easy to climb up, as the sedimentary rock forms natural steps, but Barney chose one of the first, highest and most difficult to climb pillars and bounded up it. He is truly a mountain goat at heart. But on the way down his cheap sunglasses gave way and a lens bounced down the side of the rock!

We did another group of timed photos with the sun creating silhouettes of us all at the top of one dome. Barney set the photos up again and had to run up the rock face to get in position before the timer ran out. Great fun to watch, but he must have been knackered! Got some more great photos of us all trying to jump at the right time, and the obvious YMCA pose! The views from the top of the domes stretched for miles and we could see the massive fields of government-produced sugar cane in their entirety.

After an hour or so climbing about the domes we headed down and back onto the motos - Kez managing to stay on the track this time! We organised taking the bikes overnight for an epic 50km ride to Sindou, where we wanted to see the Sindou Peaks. Would the bikes hold up that's the question...

Twenty Four in Burkina

2009-12-26T05:23:00.000-08:00

After 2 months without any serious sessions, a night of light drinking gave a bit of a hangover, accentuated by the humidity and heat in Burkina's second city. Climbing out of the mozzie net, the guys had made me a card and gave me a birthday balloon - anything more I'd have to cart around for the next month and a half! This was followed by a compulsory lay in till half ten (ah student days), when we checked out of the hotel and marched to the bus stations. In Bobo, as in most of Burkina, there isn't one set bus station for a destination, there are different companies to try - all with various states of cleanliness, friendliness and reliability.

We eventually chose 'Sogabef' to take us to Banfora, a smaller town in an area where there sounds tonnes to do, and where we can hone our moto-riding skills! We had a bit of a wait, as per usual, but we passed the time with cards, and Dree bought a new bag, as his old one broke as we arrived. As we were all sat on the back row, waiting for the bus to start, Dree suddenly shouted "I've got to get off!". We assumed the worst and thought that he was having a sudden attack of travellers diarreah, but we watched as he fished out his old bag from the bin, and retrieved his phone AND wallet! You just can't take him anywhere!

After a close shave, a multi-manned push start, and lots of bags blocking up the back exit, we got on the road. The drive wasn't too bad at all, passing huge Government-backed fields of sugar cane along the way, most with machinery that wouldn't be out of place in Suffolk for watering the hundreds of acres. Getting off was another matter, with most passengers determined to get out quickly - over the boxes in the aisles and pushing in front of others. Madness - JUST WAIT!

As soon as we got off in the Sogabef bus terminal, we were spoken to by a number of guides and people renting mopeds. We headed off to eat, but were hounded by the same three guys, before, during and after! We had heard about a place called Campement Baobab, which got rave reviews as a hassle-free and relaxed base to spend a few days exploring the region. The guides said that it didn't exist anymore, and tried to get us to go to other places. We then told them to leave us alone, and tried getting a taxi from the centre of town. The guides hounded us yet again, and even told the taxi drivers to charge us 10,000 CFA (a ridiculous amount - fourteen pounds). We fobbed them all off and got into a taxi that was only 3,000 CFA.

The driver, called Gille, drove us to Campement Baobab (which 'shock, horror' did still exist), about four kilometres down a bumpy dirt track. The set up was exactly what we were after - six small huts, a courtyard with a kitchen and a separate 'bathroom' area - no running water and no electricity. But we didn't really need either of those. Bucket showers, a long drop and gas lanterns for a few days and nights was a nice change. Not for too long though!

We organised renting some motos for the next morning as Banfora was a good base for day trips out in the wilderness. The people at the campement were really nice and friendly, which was polarised by the arrival of one of the annoying guides from earlier in the day as we ate tea. He was saying something about all the moto's being his, but he wanted us to pay more than we'd agreed. He was sent on his way. The menu for a place that was in the middle of nowhere was pretty good, and good value. We had fresh baked pizzas one night, and really good Burkina dishes too. The only problem was that it got FREEEEEZING cold during the night, leading me to sleep in my clothes and sleeping bag liner one evening. Not used to the cold conditions (probably snowing in the UK now as you read this!).

Motos and birthday drinks

2009-12-15T12:04:00.000-08:00

After a quick breakfast at the really friendly omlette guy, we crossed the road to the musician's association to pick up our motos for the day. The guy was not yet ready and so we sat down on the benches outside to wait. The tiny shop had music pouring out of it, with three Burkinabes banging the hell out of some balafons (Burkinan xylophones) for about half an hour. Then we had some drums added to the mix too. They were really getting into it at 9am, with a small crowd of children bouncing along.

Next door to the music was a small shop where a white man was carving some kind of metal. After speaking to the man for a while (Pierre), we discovered that it was a joint effort with some local men who were also interested in brass sculpting. He even explained that he had been to Saffron Walden a few times to look at the glass-blowing there! Cliched, I know, but what a small world!

We were in for a shock, when the bikes eventually turned up, as they were ancient P50's - the slowest and most uncomfortable bike we could have imagined. They looked like anorexic motos, with room only for a two-horsepower engine, and to make matters worse they didn't have a second seat behind the driver, only a metal luggage rack. We thought about trying them, but the pain would've been excruciating over 18km! We apologised and asked them to get the more expensive bikes out that we'd decided against.

Another half hour wait, and a number of phone calls, and we were on the road with two pretty new motos, made by the national firm Kaizer. It was pretty hectic in the city, as we drove back to the hotel, but made it in one piece. Well, we nearly didn't as Dree (first time on a moto) took Kez on a lovely ride through a busy junction and up in between the oncoming traffic. Me and Barnes looked on in horror, but miraculously they emerged unscathed. Apart from some racing hearts.

The ride to the outskirts of town was equally scary, with huge lorries looming over us, and the style of driving reminiscent of Vietnam - chaotic ("You weren't there man!"). We were pleased with the mopeds, pretty comfy and drove well, and headed out of town looking for a natural swimming hole called La Guingetta. Undoubtedly, we got lost and had to ask a few people. With correct directions we headed out of the city past the new stadium (yay), down a sandy track (not good for the bike; drifting) and onto the main highway. Barney was expertly in control of the moto along the highway, and the only problem that happened was that we missed the turning for the swimming hole. Arriving there, we parked up next to the maquis that was by the side of the road, about 50m from the river, and took a break under the trees, reminiscing about near death!

The swimming hole itself was more of a slow-flowing river, quite deep in the middle, with soft sand underfoot. The water was so clear that we had no problems swimming in it - well less swimming, more laying under the shallow surface and occasionally letting yourself get carried downstream a little nway. It was a cool little spot and we ate some lunch there on the river bank.

As we prepared to leave, we noticed that the front tyre on Dree and Kez's bike was flat. We were kinda in the middle of nowhere, but the waiter from the maquis went with Dree to fetch a mechanic. The guy arrived by pushbike with a tiny bag of materials. He knelt down and found two punctures (one which needed sewing up with elasticated string), both of which he shaved down with a file, cut a small patch from a leftover inner tube, and sticking them on with a tiny bottle of glue that had a rag for a lid. Then he pumped up the whole thing with a handpump, a cloth to secure it, and also a tiny stone from the floor to open up the valve. Major man points! Reminded me of how Pop used to fix all sort of things. And to top it all off he charged us about 400 CFA - about 50p!

Back on the road, I drove the return leg, after a few falters whilst I got used to the moto. Felt great to open her up down the highway. But then went about 5mph through the city, as we went a different route back to the hotel. This took us in close contact with a number of lorries, and even more worryingly, roundabouts - which have definitely not caught on in Africa. People drive on them and stop while driving round, or just go at random times and in random directions. Getting back we noticed that the front tyre on OUR bike was flat. Luckily we made it to the hotel, where we pushed it round the corner to a mechanics - there are dozens of mechanics down every road, each one fixing broken motos. Me and Dree chose to just get the tyre pumped up after being glued, rather than pay 3000 CFA for a whole new inner tube; not our bikes!

Patched up, we dropped the bikes off at the association, before changing at the hotel for my birthday meal - 24 tomorrow! The four of us put on our Sunday best, or as good as we could manage, and went for a meal at a recommended restaurant. I cannot remember exactly what we ate, but it was a bit of a splash out for a special occasion, so me and Barney shared a bottle of red. We must spend some time apart after we get back...

All full up we went for a few drinks in the area that has been nicknamed "Little Brixton" after it's happening namesake in London. It wasn't too happening, but we tried a number of different beers (Barney had already had a Guinness Export at 7.5% that tasted thick as treacle), including Brakina, Flag and Beaufort, and sat on the street, where tables and chairs were laid out. We hadn't realised that we were sitting next to the entrance to a brothel. Lots of friendly ladies kept coming out, and older men going in. After a while it clicked and we headed into the bar next door, where there were old arcade games and pinball machines. Pretty cool having a beer and playing Tekken Tag, although I was awful, and some of the friendly ladies, who looked high as kites, were smartly waved off by my more sober friends. We did try and find some live music (the guys from the Association were playing apparently), but the whole place was in darkness.

Bobo's Old Town

2009-12-12T09:48:00.000-08:00

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!

Bobo-Dioulasso in a day - 'should be easy'

2009-12-12T09:20:00.000-08:00

Sorry guys, another tale of how we had trouble making it a very short distance in the space of daylight. But it wasn't all bad! Hold tight, I'll be quick.

We got up and hiked from the volunteer house to the bus station for 7am, eager to catch a minibus or taxi back to Sabou, on the main highway of the city and then onwards to Bobo-Dioulasso, the second city of Burkina. Needless to say, we had to wait for four hours before the mini bus 'filled up' (read that that's when the driver could be arsed to move, as there was only five of us in the minibus). We were drifting in and out of sleep as the miles rolled by and only noticed that he had driven through Sabou and out the other side without stopping. We shouted and the guy said he heard us talking about Bobo and was just going to take us all the way for a set price. But the whole reason for us to go to Sabou was to get a good big bus to Bobo. He dropped us off and got quite annoyed. But we were more annoyed as we were now a few kilometres away from where the big buses stopped.

Some nice young lads who were sat down at the roadside playing checkers (different, better version than the English one) helped us out and tried to flag down buses. The only one that stopped was a large minibus that was going to Bobo. By this time it was late afternoon and we'd only travelled about 30km. We were glad to be moving again.

We all fell asleep on the bus again, and were woken up as we pulled into a busy bus park, not Bobo, and told we were changing buses. Our bags got carried away to the main road and we stayed with them. A guy at the station had been given some money by the driver, and we assumed (wrongly) that we would be put onto a connecting bus straightaway. We sat by the roadside as dusk fell, and at last a big bus stopped. The conductor wanted us to pay 2000 CFA each on top of the money given from the other minibus. We said no, because we'd already paid to get to Bobo once that day! After another hour a minibus pulled up and we jumped on. The guy who was 'helping us out' - holding the money and failing to get us a connecting bus - gave us his mobile number. Yes, we would be calling him for help...

We pulled into the bustle of Bobo quite late and a silver lining to the story was that the driver and conductor of this minibus drove around the city on a wild goose chase trying to find a hotel that no longer existed, because of our out of date guide! Eventually we got them to drop us off in the backpacker area and we tipped them for their trouble. See the drivers aren't all bad! We checked into Hotel Teriana 2, which looked quite posh by our standards, and stumbled across a terribly posh place to eat - choosing a three course set menu and eating every scrap. It was expensive, but within our budget as we had missed breakfast and lunch!

Salif Keita

2009-12-12T08:02:00.000-08:00

We got up and walked into town to get the bikes we had organised the day before. Our plan was initially to cycle the dirt road back towards Sabou, where there are sacred crocodile lagoons. We started off in good faith and took a short water break under some trees - it was roasting hot. Spotting a hill about half a kilometre away, and not having any set agenda, we cycled down a dirt track determined to climb it! Leaving our bikes in the remains of a millet field (with added rubbish and broken glass), so that they were in clear sight, we climbed the rocky outcrop and were able to see a good view of the whole surrounding area - we were at the highest point for a few miles around.

The rocks at the top of the hill were all a shade of dark blue, possibly some kind of metal such as cobalt, and created a rocky outcrop at the top of the hill. We continued climbing and Barney entertained us all by climbing in and out of the rocks, chasing some cool black geckos and eventually finding a snakeskin. I had trouble staying upright because my stupid flip flops were on the verge of breaking, and just as we were about to leave the inevitable happened. Climbing down the rocks barefoot was only part of the problem, as I then had to navigate the field/rubbish tip without shoes.

However, when we got back on the bikes it was quite liberating to cycle barefoot - I felt like a carefree Victorian child, probably as dirty, and most probably on the same bike as one as well. We careered through the dirt tracks, racing and trying to knock each other off (23-year-olds tut-tut) before arriving back on the main road. We carried on for about a kilometre, but eventually decided that the road was too long. It was about 40 degrees and every time any vehicle passed we got showered in red dust and had to stop because the clouds impeded our vision.

We headed back for Kou, where I went on an urgent scout for some new flip flops - eventually choosing a pair that looked like Randy "Macho Man" Savage's - and also bought a Burkina Faso footy shirt. Number 18. Charles Kabore. Left winger, plays for Marseilles. In case you were wondering. There was no food stalls about, and we thought this was probably because of a Muslim festival called Tabaski that started that day. Also known as the Fete du Mouton, this festival was to commemorate the test of faith shown by Abraham, who was willing to sacrifice his son Issac to God, and at the last minute God swapped his son for a goat. Gotta love those Old Testament stories! Anyhow, this meant there was not much open as most Muslims had gone home to eat some mutton. We settled for the not-so-great Bache Bleu, as it was roasting hot, and hunger pangs set in. As expected, there was pretty tough meat, but a big bottle of Brakina helped me there.

In the late afternoon we headed past the stadium out of Kou, and circled back along the river into town. Dree and Kerry took their bikes back, but me and Barney took a ride because we wanted to see the stadium; well more me. Needless to say it was pretty poor, but some guys shouted at us taking photos. We were expecting hassle, but they were chilling out, having a late lunch outside. We got chatting to them, and took some pictures with them - me of course sporting my Burkina shirt!

Racing Barney a different route back through town, I stopped to do some touristy photos, while Barney had a very close run in with a naked man [On the way to the festival we bumped back into the same guy standing in the road at the busiest junction in town, traffic passing either side. A bit of a shock seeing him there, but also quite sad to think he is mentally ill and there is no support for him...]. That evening we had more beer and brochettes before wandering to the stadium for our last night at NAK. We'd got friendly with a couple of stalls and again had our regular stew sarnies. Great tucker.

The headlining act was Salif Keita, and we were pretty excited to see him, as we thought that he was playing on Sunday night, and we HAD to get on the road by Sunday morning. The first two acts were Rose Bationo and Toussy, again okay African sounds but not too memorable. Then on came Salif's backing band. There were calabashes, koras, and lots of drums including the distinctive djembe. They played for a little while before Salif came on stage.

Salif Keita is probably Africa's best known musician. Born in Mali in 1949, Keita broke the mould, not only because he was an albino, but also because he was born into a social class thought to be too good for performing. He made a name for himself fronting a couple of big West African bands before setting out as an artist in his own right. A Grammy Award nominee, and internationally acknowledged as one of the best African musicians, Keita is now on the books at Universal Records. I hadn't heard of his music before I came to Africa, but with this kind of background we were all excited to see him. He came on and started with some slower, traditional songs (Keita and a kora player - half kalabash, half sitar) before the rest of the band all joined in and everyone went wild. He is certainly well known and respected in Kou - everyone was up in the aisles. Even Keita started dancing at points, to whoops and cheers from the audience.

I was really glad to see him and thought he put on a really good performance, and obviously anyone who has been recommended by Mr Coxhead is worth a see. However, Barney describing him as a Malian Tom Jones to his dad isn't wholly accurate! A great performance and a great end to the NAK Festival for us.

More NAK - Raaaaasssstttaaaaaa

2009-12-12T06:35:00.000-08:00

The next day after a mini lay-in (well, not 5am), we had a breakfast at the volunteer house, which in the light of day was where the single mum, who looked like Beverley Knight, lived with her kids and let people stay who were trying to learn but couldn't afford school fees or passing through on volunteer projects. The nurses were all sitting around in various states of illness and blaming it on the brochettes, which we'd all eaten anyway, hundreds of them in fact. They looked horrified as we said we were going for more brochettes that lunchtime.

We walked into town with no real plans, as our reason for coming to Kou was really only for the NAK. I looked around for some more flip-flops as mine were close to death, and we took a wander about the market, which was a huge red bricked maze, but was all professional with separate areas for food or clothes. We also found a shop where we could rent some pushbikes, and organised that for the next day. For lunch we did go and get some more brochettes from a stall outside a bar (shock, horror) but they were fantastic - some generic meat falling off the stick, along with onion, African cucumber and spices. Mouth-wateringly good.

After a nice little three-course meal at the house, we walked to NAK, but stopped for a few Brakina's, the favoured local brew, along the way. Again we quickly paid and got into the stadium, just to get away from all the pickpockets more than anything else. A short while later we all needed the toilet (curse those beers!) and so asked the security guard at the bottom of the concrete steps. He just pointed to a small space underneath the stadium, where a few others were just urinating up the side of the wall. A bit unorthodox, but when in Africa!

The first band was just finishing as we all settled, and the second one that came on were some Taiwanese drummers. They took a little while to get set up, the crowd in a hushed silence staring at the silhouettes on stage, before the lights flared up to reveal seven people in a bowling formation, each in front of huge drum. They were pretty awesome, banging hard on the drums not unlike the Olympic opening ceremony. The sheer speed and way that they kept in time with each other was incredible. During a break, whilst the drummers changed into dancing gear for Act II, the artistic director came out and via a translator explained each segment. Some of the people in the crowd laughed at his Asian accent, which surprised me a bit.

After a dance with swords, they changed back to drummers and the huge man at the front (must've been nearly seven feet tall, with the build of Jaws from Bond movies) took the lead. Then he got on a microphone and got the crowd on their feet and clapping along. The only thing was this massive giant of a man had the voice of a little girl! Not what we expected but it was a really good show that they put on.

After the Tawainese was a Togolese singer called Kossi Ape'son, who didn't get the crowd too excited by making us all stand up for the Togolese national anthem. He was pretty forgettable afterwards, but did get into the music a bit more and danced along the stage for a while. After a short break, the main act for the night came on - Jah Verity. This was obviously a huge reggae star in Burkina, as all the crowd got to their feet and sang along with all the rasta tunes. Jah himself came out after a big build up in a long camouflage trench coat and big army boots. He rattled out a few tunes before firing the crowd up, and actually got told off for running through the stadium when he wasn't supposed to! We were all dragged up by the local lads and danced along, pulling out some old skool skanking moves. It was really good, but I think if we were high or drunk like the rest of the crowd it would've helped - we didn't know any of the songs!

During the walk back there was a really annoying guy who followed us. He started to try and talk to us, in French, but we didn't understand him. After a kilometre of him being more than a little annoying we all turned and shouted at him to get on his bike. He got the hint.

Nuits Atypique a Koudougou (NAK)

2009-12-12T05:47:00.000-08:00

Back in the pick-up with Tongay, Natasha and their friend Roman, we got dropped in town for a few drinks and something to eat before going to the festival. The title of the festival (Nuits Atypique a Koudougou) translates a bit funnily, but means 'Unusual nights in Koudougou'. We sat down outside Bache Bleu, ironically, as it seemed a dodgy place before we got picked up to go to the volunteer house, and had a few drinks and brochettes with the guys and a group of French nurses. It was really strange being in such a big group of white people after seeing hardly any in the past few months.

Tongay had been working in Kou for about 11 months in the past four years, for a pharmacy firm, and so knew the place well, and a lot of contacts - this was how we came to have the pick up transport for that night. Natasha was Canadian, but had been living in France for a year or so, and met up with Tongay and Roman to do a trip across Ghana and Burkina. They were all so nice to let us into the group, bought us a round of brochettes and wouldn't accept any drinks as thanks for finding us accommodation. Such nice guys.

The group of nurses were all in Kou, waiting for Govt approval to work in a village a few kilometres out, and also found the volunteer house via Tongay et al. They were all 21 and seemed like it was the first time they had been to a place like Africa before - they were all very cautious about the water and food, and most of them were ill for the duration that we stayed there. Poor guys, but they did have the biggest bag of drugs I have ever seen a backpacked with. Everything under the sun!

We got a lift to the stadium in the truck and walked the last 200m, through a bustling crowd and past loads of food stalls. We only stood still for a few minutes, but we all had crowds of youngsters and children around us. Naughty hands reached into our pockets and Barney stopped some kid trying to get into Kerry's bag. We quickly moved into the stadium, which was half an amphitheatre, open to the night sky, with huge concrete slabs for steps, and chairs, so not particularly comfortable! It was only about half full for the whole time that the festival was on, with 250 people max inside. Bit of a shame as there was about that again in Burkinabes outside asking to have tickets bought for them.

As we arrived inside the amphitheatre, a local band were playing called Zougna Zogamda, and had a lot of people on stage playing a variety of African instruments, including two midgets who were just 'playing' the maracas in a kind of Bez/Happy Mondays set up. The next act was from India, called Kalakar Trust. They opened with a weird dance between a man with a giant puppet's head and some men on stilts. They then changed, and began playing some traditional music with a woman dancing on stage in front of them carrying a few pots on her head. As the songs changed, she had more than ten on her head, before standing on some glasses. All very nice and all, but we have seen far more impressive from African ladies at the side of the road, running to keep up with moving buses, and carrying far more.

The final two acts were Burkinabe (from Burkina) - Wendy, a plump singer, and Flobby, a band that seemed to get everyone onto their feet. To be honest, it wasn't that memorable. A drunk Imbrahim drove us back to the volunteer house in the early hours, and we hit the hay after another long, but good, day.

The Problems with having an out of date Guidebook

2009-12-12T05:16:00.000-08:00

After stocking up on everything in Ouaga, we left early on the morning of the 25th November, after the best omlette breakfast yet (makes such a difference to have some tomato and onion with it, and I've also become accustomed to black tea with lemon). Bought a few postcards and small souvenirs from a Women's Association, better to buy from them than the guys selling stuff from a box at the side of the road - really random things like torches, netting, sunglasses, watches, postcards, soap, miscellaneous, unmarked pills, batteries, toy guns, EVERYTHING!

From the various bus companies in Burkina, we picked out Sogabef as a good company, and got a ticket to Boromo, where we would be spending the night by a watering hole in Deux Bale National Park, hoping to catch some elephants. We had spent a couple of days trying phone numbers and emails for the place where we hoped to stay, but nothing seemed to work. Arriving in Boromo a few hours later, which has a pretty cool bus station, more like a market-cum-bus station, and snacked on the best stew sandwich yet - probably goat, but so tasty and full of chillis! Dree fell down the steps of the bus, which at least shut up the hawkers and "Tuobab" criers as we disembarked.

Me and Barnes took a walk down the road to the turn off for our hotel - 9km away - but were told that the elephants had migrated away, but were given a new number to call, as it has changed hands, ; Maurice. We gave Maurice a call and were told that he is the owner, but the site is being given a makeover, and there is nowhere to stay. So, changing plans, we hopped onto a passing bus for Sabou and decided to head straight for Koudougou, to catch a music festival, a few days early.

We got off in Sabou, and waited there for a connecting minibus to fill up to get to Koudougou. Kez gave a little baby a balloon, who loved it until it burst in front of her. Don't think she was having a good day, as she scared herself by grabbing a sleeping chicken as well! On the other hand, Yahtzee caused a stir with some of the locals who were trying to fix a car (possibly ours).

We got on a minibus, after a push start, and saw yet another great sunset (sunrise-down) along the way; just a shame we didn't stop so we could get some pictures. The border guard at the entrance to Koudougou (Kou from here on in) was very friendly for a bloke holding a gun and wearing a bullet-proof vest, welcoming us to the town and the festival. We pushed the van to get it started again, difficult in sweaty flip flops but good fun, and arrived in the centre of Kou after night had fallen, about 7pm. The poor lady sitting in front of us, with live chicken, also had a tub of arichnade sauce that had fallen over on the bumpy road into town. As we got off we realised, by smell at first, that it had spilt all over her bag and the floor. Poor woman had lost it all, but was still terribly chirpy!

As our guidebook is from 2006 (the latest version, as so few people visit Burkina), a lot of the hostels we had chosen as places to stay had shut down, or in one case, had upped the prices dramatically. As me and Barney checked out another place that was probably now a brothel, a French guy called Tongay spoke to Dree and Kerry as they waited at a bar for "the man" to turn up about renting a place in a bar called Bache Bleu. Tongay, and his Canadian girlfriend Natasha, were staying at a volunteer house on the outskirts of town, and offered us a lift in their pick-up. What a stroke of luck! We were about to cut our losses and have to stay in the expensive hotel!

We got the pick-up back to the house, where the really nice lady, a single mum, made up a bed on the roof and said there was room in the dormitory, a small building separate from the house. We dumped our stuff and took Tongay and Natasha up on the offer of a lift to the festival that night. We were all shattered, but thought it would be cool to catch as much of the festival as possible....

Ouagadou-dou-dou

2009-12-12T04:46:00.000-08:00

Checked out of the hotel as early as we could and got to the main road, where we threw our stuff on the bus that was "leaving at 8am". We went and got some breakfast from an omlette stand (we do need our tea in the morning, us English!), and got back on the bus in plenty of time. Much to our surprise the bus did leave just after 8am - unlike every other form of transport we've got in Africa - "leaving now brother", "ten minutes" and so on.

Chickens galore got loaded on the roof, and inside the bus, and we pulled into Ouaga a few hours later. We got a taxi to a Catholic Mission, within the grounds of the cathedral, but they were full - possibly because of a massive convention. We walked a few blocks across to Hotel Yennenga, next to the old mosque, getting hassled along the way by more hawkers who wanted to show us their shop. Booked for three days (8400 CFA) as we had to get our Benin visa here in advance. After a hard couple of days travel, we pigged out a bit for lunch and had a burger and chips, but it wasn't too expensive. Also got some money out, before hailing a taxi to take us to the Benin embassy.

After a drive around the area, and our nice taxi driver going above-and-beyond, and going into the French embassy to ask on our behalf, we discovered that there was not a Benin embassy in Ouaga. Could cause a bit of a problem, trying to get the visa on the border, but we couldn't get it anywhere else. We tipped the taxi driver and got taken back to the hotel. On the way we passed a supermarket (first one we've seen since the UK!) and so headed in to splash out on some luxuries. I got a cold, cold Heineken and a bar of cooking chocolate - so goooooood - and everyone else also got a few items. That night we also went to a Chinese restaurant, which was okay, but far better was the street food in later nights. But it was nice to have a break from chicken and chips, spaghetti or riz gras.

The next day I spent a lot of the day on the Internet, catching up on a backlog of the blog, while the other guys went around Ouaga, saw a few museums, and checked out some shops to get some souvenirs. Bit of a shame we couldn't buy things there, but we still had 8 weeks left to carry anything unless we sent it home. On a side note, Dree somehow locked himself in the toilet and had to climb out.

One of the best things about Ouaga was the street food - stews, brochettes/kebabs, sandwiches, soups, rice, veg and sauce - all really good food for almost nothing; about 10p a brochette, or one pound for a good-sized sandwich. We ate from these stalls most nights, to keep costs down to begin with, but after the first time because it was really tasty! Looking forward to more good food in Burkina.

To Burkina!

2009-12-08T04:11:00.001-08:00

We got up early (surprise, surprise) to make the earliest bus possible across the border to Burkina Faso - our fifth country, well six if you count France! We walked the few kilometers to the gare routiere as the sun rose, and got there to discover that there was no big coach across the border to Ouagadougou (pronounced Waga-doo-goo, like the song!), capital of Burkina. So we had to sit and wait for a minibus to fill up. We'd done this a lot of times and realised it can take a while, so we dumped our bags, got breakfast and started playing cards for a few hours.

After a wait we jumped on the bus, and took pretty much the same route as at the beginning of the Dogon trek, winding roads through the plateau at the top of the escarpment - beautiful scenery, especially the view across the plain below. We stopped off in Koro, closest town to the Burkina border and had to swap to another minibus that was going to Ouigah, another small city where we could then get another minibus to the capital. We ate at a street stall in Koro, and had arichnade sauce over rice (peanutty, and very bland, but good travel fodder), and also got ripped off for the drinks. They overcharged us, considering they had just gone next door to the shop! Dree tried to throw the money on the table in anger, but it fell on the floor, which caused a bit of an argument.

Back on the next bus, we weren't too sure if this bus would make it - there were no window panes apart from the front, so dust poured through the vehicle, and the side door (next to me) was tied on with rope! We felt quite glad when we did get going, that the driver kept to a slow pace. Literally caked with the red dust though - the colour of Africa! Also in front of us was a man who was the spitting image of John Bowles (Si and Jay's dad).

We eventually got stamped out of the country and into no-man's land (where they pronounced all our names correctly, even Barney's, which usually comes out as Paul, Tony, Barry etc), before a very long drive to be stamped into Burkina. We had no problem at all, thanks to our visa from Colin in Tunny Wells (see previous blog in Sept), but three Arabian guys had some bureaucratic difficulties from the unhappy border guard. We got chatting to some passing kids walking their camels - as you do. We stroked them quickly, before they began spitting, and Barney even got on the back of one!

Back on the road, all legally into the country (unlike Senegal!!!), we got layered up again with some red dust, hair clothes, bags; all the same colour. We got stopped a couple of times to check our papers on the road, and once to unload all the bags piled on top of the bus for Customs. As with all these stops in Africa, you have to get out of the car, and after showing papers you have to walk about 20 metres and get back in. Pointless.

By this point dusk had fallen, accompanied by another fantastic African sunset - the Harmattan winds from the desert turn the whole sky red. We arrived into Ouigah about 9pm and were shown to a close guesthouse. All we wanted to do was dump our bags, eat, shower, sleep and then get the first bus the next morning. Unfortunately, it was too late to try and drive all the way to Ouagadougou. The guy tried to get us to tip him, although he said he worked for the hotel, but actually did not.

Our first bit of food in Burkina was an experience. We ate at a roadside 'maquis', where they serve barbecued food for eating there or takeaways. Sitting on small benches, drinking 500ml Fantas (a treat as they cost the same as smaller ones; small things eh?), we tucked into our food by torchlight. We had onion, tomato, chilli paste, bread and some random tough meat. We couldn't really work out what it was, and after asking the chef after, we discovered it was the stomach of a cow. Really strange texture, but we wolfed it down after an exhausting day.

Ouaga tomorrow?

End of the Trek

2009-12-08T03:26:00.000-08:00

After an absolutely freezing night on a rooftop (it's an amazing difference between the midday temperature and the savage drop to midnight, although it's probably just a warm night in the UK!), we awoke to the same amazing scenery from the previous day; phenomenal views across the plain and towering red fingers of rock reaching for the sun.

Then we were brought down to earth, only a little, by seeing what the middle-aged, package tourists got for breakfast - jam, orange juice, Nutella, Nesquik, whereas we only had Jolly Sun and some bread. No worries at all, we are used to eating on the cheap, but it kind of accentuated the difference between us, with Baba as a makeshift guide, and the all-in-khaki tourists! Seriously, some of the groups had matching safari gear...

The walk round the village in the morning was a little bit strange; we were introduced to a couple of 'hunters' that seemed to have been made up for show, and also there was a tied up monkey next to one of the huts. It was still cool to see the village going through the morning rituals, such as pounding millet, but I think that the village used to be more authentic before more and more tourists came along.

We took a long walk that morning along the plateau at the top of the falaise, and it was very different to the walks in previous day. There was a breeze, which definitely helped, as we walked across vast pieces of rock and over deep fissures, right at the edge of the falaise, with more of that fantastic view. We passed a couple of small rivers, and also past a couple of onion fields - one of the main exports of the region, but only grown on the coolness of the plateau.

We set off at the same time as a young group of Americans, but their guide seemed a lot better and explained things as they passed, let them stop for photos and general breaks from walking. Baba, on the other hand, seemed to want to finish the trek and headed off into the distance. We decided the view was too good to miss and so took a few breaks, guide or no guide!

We got to the final village, where the sept-place was waiting for us to go back to Bandigara. After a meal of rice and arichade sauce (peanuts), we were shown round - walked through - the busy market before being taken back to Sevare, and the Catholic Mission for a well deserved shower!

Up the falaise

2009-12-05T13:57:00.000-08:00

After lunch (and politely declining to buy any of the mass produced stuff that was on show in the villages) we picked up the pace and found Baba suddenly turning left into the cliff side. Looking up we joked about climbing up to the top, through a gap between two giant pieces of rock - the size of six-storey buildings. And that's where we ended up.

Passing through an abandoned, overgrown village just off the plain floor, we cut up steep rocks and had a bit of a tough climb (compared to the walking we were used to!) to get up higher. The further we went the better the views got, until after some hands-and-feet climbing action we made it to the crest of the falaise. It was literally am-az-ing. Best view I have ever seen in my life. With the plain spread out beneath us, we had a clear sight miles away towards the Burkina border. Villages seemed microscopic and the vastness of the view from hundreds of feet up truly took my breath away. A definite highlight so far.

But that's not to say Baba was eager to take it in. I don't know if he'd just seen it so often before, or wanted to get to the next village for another joint, but he was off, barely giving us five minutes respite from the walk, let alone any time to appreciate the stunning view. Tilly wasn't too happy either. She didn't seem to be enjoying the trek as much as us, and at one point said she was "bored". Each to their own I guess. We loved it!

The breeze at the top made a noticeable difference as we walked along through a gap in between the two rocks. The drop down was pretty scary, and we had some skulls pointed out to us high on the rock face; a sacred Dogon place, so no pictures! Carrying on along the plateau at the top of the falaise, the enormity of the view didn't dwindle. We walked right by the top of the cliff for about another few kilometres before cutting into the plateau. After a bit more trekking we appeared at the top of a ridge, where the view seemed like a small part of the Grand Canyon - smaller, obviously, but with giant orange 'fingers' of rock, pointing straight up. Pretty damn impressive.

Across the small valley was a village tucked into the mountain side. Baba shouted across to ask if they had room for us to stay. Nice to know how organised he was! The village was called Begnimato, and was pretty touristy. It seemed that anyone who was doing any kind of trek in the Dogon Country (walking, by car or even a day trip) had stopped for the night here. For a village with a population of around 400 people, they seemed to have an awful lot of tourists staying the night (60+). It seemed quite sad that this beautiful setting had rooms for people to stay in, a separate shower and toilet block, and set tables and chairs for dinner...

We seemed to arrive pretty late in the day, but decided to go for it and sleep under the stars. After a great meal of pork and rice, for which Baba had to steal a table, a lantern and chairs from other groups (!) we sat with some millet beer and chatted with our infamous guide. Well, he was sat still for a little while, so it seemed rude not to! Millet beer has a strange taste, not very alcoholic, but its like a weak, cloudy ale that tastes of fermenting. Better than palm wine by a long way though. We were all pretty shattered and so headed to sleep on the roof - with stolen mozzie nets and mattresses (probably!).

The Dogon Trek continues

2009-12-05T13:33:00.001-08:00

After a breakfast of doughnuts and sugar, and some awful 'Jolly Sun' tea (just add sugar hahaha), Baba took us through the village up to the huts in the cliff, where the village used to be before the families moved down to the plain so they could farm easier. The climb was steep in places, but the wait for the dust to clear was well worth it - the view was great, of the whole plain spread out beneath us. Little did we know it was going to get a LOT better.

The mud huts and granaries are all built into the side of the cliff on natural rock ledges, but it is still incredible to think of the villagers carting up mud handful by handful in the baking heat. Baba took us through the old village, while smoking his morning joint (comforting), and showed us some painting on the sides of one of the huts. The black, red and white paintings were part of the Sigi - a traditional Dogon festival held every 60 years (next one due in 2027). It is a complicated initiation ceremony, involving a Great Mask, 10m high, to be carved out of a tree. Baba thought that with the increasing number of Dogon young moving to the towns and cities, that the next Sigi will probably be the last, and that the true Dogon culture will slowly become consigned to the history books. Bit sad really. Fascinating culture.

Then he showed us the circumcision stone, where the clitoris or foreskin is removed. This used to be done by the blacksmith! The basic reason is that in the Dogon universe everything has two parts; a male and a female. For a youngster to grow into an adult, one part must be removed otherwise they become confused.

After a truly fascinating morning, it was back to trying to keep up with Baba Schumacher in front, as we wandered along the plain in the shadow of the falaise. We walked past a natural lake, created in a kind of swamp area, tall trees that had the bark stripped off them from the ground to 2m up to make rope and some amazing views of the cliffs towering above; huge rock formations, boulders obviously fallen hundreds of years ago and all the way along huts hundreds of feet above the ground.

One rock was resting on its smallest point, like an upside down triangle, and Baba said it had been there as long as he could remember it. The Dogon story goes a young girl went to cut down a tree, became tired and took a nap in the shade of the tree, but when she awoke it had turned into rock. The girl was so disturbed that she remained mute for the rest of here days.

We stopped quite early for lunch in Endè (Baba's apparent home village), and we would have preferred to have kept on walking. We ended up sitting around for about three hours, playing cards and me and Tilly swapping accents - she speaking like Mary Poppins, "all proper-like" and me adopting a South Carolina twang - "Y'all", "Po-lise". Very funny. We reckon Baba spent lunchtime smoking a bit more as he came back pretty chilled out.

Along the plain to Tèli

2009-12-05T13:14:00.000-08:00

We carried on in the afternoon through a dried out river bed, and past many fields of millet that had been already harvested. Every little bit of the millet cereal gets used up, from the edible grains, to the parts that get made into thatching for roofs or feed for animals. I spoke for a little while to Baba about Malian and African politics, and he had a very good grasp of English. He kept saying throughout the trek that he was from Dogon, but things didn't seem right. He was unsure of some things, and when we asked about his family he kept having a lot of links to France - even though he said all his family lived in Endè.

The greetings for Dogon people are fantastic. Whenever a younger person meets an elder they have to go through the equivalent of asking "How are you, how's the family, how's the wife, how are the kids?", each time leaving a gap for the other person to say "Fine". And then the whole thing is repeated, with the elder asking. And that's the short version. We've heard greetings go on for a few minutes. A great tradition, and funny to hear. Baba did these "authentic" greetings with some others along the way, but always seemed to look down or away.

Along the way we saw so many signs for tourist encampments (at least one in each village), and so the trek could easily be done without guide as long as your French was good enough to converse with the locals. Paying for a guide is worth it though as long as he doesn't rush off! One such place was in Tèli, where we stayed for the first night.

The falaise towered above the village, and from a distance we could see a row of huts in the cliff face. The afternoon was incredibly dusty, so Baba said he would take us to see the old village in the cliffs tomorrow, as it would be a better view.

Down the falaise

2009-12-05T12:50:00.000-08:00

As we walked out of Djigibombo, Baba set a fast precedent, and after a kilometre or so of walking along the paved, dusty road I began to think "had we been taken for a ride?" - just a walk via road! No sooner had I thought this, than Baba turned off the road and went along a huge plateau of rock heading towards a misty decline. We walked a bit further and came across a fantastic view of the plain below, resplendent in shades of green, with a river running below. No time to stop and savour it of course, and we had to quickly follow our elusive guide down the rock face. Literally climbing down, using hands as well as feet.

After descending through a ravine, with some sketchily rested rocks as a path, we came to where a waterfall would have been if it was the rainy season. Unfortunately, we only got a sheer rock face, but it was still impressive. After a brief drink stop, we carried on next to the picturesque river at the bottom, passing bare-footed women carrying stacks of pots on their heads, clambering over the same rocks we needed shoes for!

Fully onto the plain we could apreciate the scale of the falaise, shooting vertically up, about a hundred metres, and as far as the eye could see into the distance. Really breathtaking stuff. With the cliffs as a backdrop, we walked past herds of goats and dried out millet fields to the touristy village of Kani Kombolè, where we stopped for lunch. We bumped into the same group of Americans that we'd seen in Bamako a few weeks earlier. Seems that everyone does the same route around Mali!

Baba showed us around the village, where we saw women pounding millet with a massive version of a pestle and mortar, cows with tell-tale humps on their back exactly like camels, and a compact little Sudanese-style mosque, like in Djennè. Looking up to the falaise it was pretty visually stunning, towering above.

Then we saw little houses embedded in the rock face. Baba explained that they were the houses of the people who lived in the cliffs before the Dogons - the Tellem. No one knows for certain why the Tellem left, but it was either by force, or by dying out. The tiny mud domes are built up to a hundred metres straight up the cliff. Baba said that the Tellem, who were pygmies, used magic and flew up there. We think either rope ladders or good climbers!

Introducing Baba

2009-12-05T09:56:00.000-08:00

The next morning we got ready to meet Ahmoud, our guide for next few days, but before we could rendezvous (fluent already!) with him there was a knock at the door of our dorm. Enter Baba, another guide, who said that Ahmoud had sent him to take us on the trek as Ahmoud's car had broken down. Believable or not? After talking with Baba for about 15 minutes about the route, the cost, which villages we would be staying in and what the trek would involve, we decided that we would have to take up Baba as a guide; we would waste another day at least finding another guide and were set on going that morning. Baba didn't have a guide's official card because he'd forgotten it, but seemed to be pretty knowledgeable about the Dogon area.

We left our huge bags with the nuns (if you can't trust them...) jumped into a sept-place, which was reasonably comfortable as there were the correct number of people in the car, and drove to the market town of Bandiagara, where we had to change into another car for the last leg to the village of Djigibombo, awesome name and the start for all treks on the south of the escarpment. Let me explain a bit about Dogon Country (the generic name for the far south-east corner of Mali).

The escarpment, or falaise, is a line of sheer cliffs, 500m in height, that runs for about 150km, with a drop to a vast plain heading towards Burkina Faso. The Dogon people (group name for about 400,000 people) used to live in mud huts built high into the cliff face, to protect themselves from predators and enemies. Djigibombo is a village in the far south of the escarpment (or falaise), set up on the plateau about 3km from the cliff's edge.

Baba took us on a little walk around Djigibombo (it's a name that makes you smile isn't it!), and gave us a basic overview of all things Dogon. We passed a lot of small, one-storey, thatched-roof granaries, where the staple crop of millet is stored, and also saw the justice house (built low to the ground so that people cannot stand up and get angry) and menstruation huts (where the women are sent at that time of the month till they are 'better').

The Dogon are principally animist, a religion that requires sacrifices and ancient rituals to appease the gods. Although most Dogon villages now have either a mosque or a church, most villagers see themselves as animist first, and then whichever other religion afterwards. Animism is one of man's oldest beliefs, essentially believing that souls live on after death in other beings, and so there must be certain rituals before a deceased person's soul can be released. The practices are pretty fascinating, but there is too much for me to write at length here - give it a google.

After walking around the village, and being followed by a gaggle of semi-naked children, we followed Baba on a walk out of Djigibombo, down the main road towards the falaise. Followed is definitely the correct word to use, as Baba sped off on a mission from the word go, and barely slowed in three days!

To Sevarè

2009-12-05T09:21:00.000-08:00

(Dedicated to Trish and Jerry - sorry to keep rabbiting on about transport etc, but its only because we do spend about half our time travelling! But don't worry, we are all having a really amazing trip!)

After a late dinner at a restaurant near La Flamme de la Paix, where a huge group of American tourists were buying "I've been to Timbuktu" t-shirts and hats (clichè), we hit the hay for a 4am wake up. We had to get up so early to make sure we could get onto the first ferry across the Niger and down across the sahel to get a midday bus to Sevarè.

Our 4x4 arrived promptly and we all rolled in half-asleep. Miranda and Shindouke had even got up to see us off - Miranda joked that Timbuktu is the only place in Africa that a vehicle will leave at the time it says! The night before I said I'd come back and do a three-week camel trek with Shindouke with the salt caravans across the Sahara, or come back for the music festival in Essakane, also in the desert. We headed off in the car, myself packed next to a middle-aged French man, as we drove the 20km or so to the ferry crossing, and parked up second-in-line waiting for the dawn ferry.

We were all woken up a few hours later by an idiot shouting "Bonjour" through the window and trying to get us to pay for bags. After the obvious answer, we eventually got onto the ferry, which went for a lot longer than expected across the Niger - I think it's far wider than I thought. On the way across we saw a part submerged sunken ferry, and were unsure whether thats a bad thing because it sunk, or a good thing because its not too deep!

On the other side we travelled in a two car convoy, racing south down a dirt road, savannah on both sides. We realised pretty quickly that the cars travelled in pairs in case of breakdowns. The vehicle in front had two tyre changes because of flats (including using our spare....), as well as other suspension and engine problems, that can probably be traced back to the 4x4s racing through the bush. But it was cool to break down in some pretty out-of-the-way places, and we ended up meeting some goatherds and chilling in some long grass in the midday sun, right next to some impressive mountains.

We made it to Douentza in the late morning and were put onto a proper coach without much wait - Shindouke was good to his word, but glad we checked anyway, as we've been left by the roadside a few times before on this trip. After a few bottles of bissap, we were on our way in possibly the dustiest coach in West Africa. The rear door was open most of the way and we were all a lovely shade of orange when we got off in Sevarè!

We found a taxi as Tilly felt pretty faint and got taken to the Catholic Mission, which is called the Jean Bosco Centre (he was a saint I think). The Centre was like an army barracks with huge dorm blocks in a lot of land, but it was clean, safe and the cheapest place we'd stayed in Africa - 2000 CFA a night, about £2.75! Bargain!

Another day in Timbuktu

2009-12-05T08:53:00.000-08:00

Sam had planned to leave after breakfast the next morning, as he wanted to get back to England for Christmas (sigh) and had a long drive ahead of him! However, his bike wouldn't start that morning and so us four lads had to push it through deep sand to the mechanics a few roads over. Don't know if anyone had tried to push a kitted out dirt-bike through sand, but its not easy work, especially just after breakfast! Got him to the mechanic who, like all in Africa, started taking bits apart and conferring with a colleague with a collection of random tools. They are superb though and have such ingenious ways of fixing things that we wouldn't think of in the UK. Saying that, things in the UK generally last longer when fixed than in Africa!

The mechanic was opposite a statue called "La Flamme de la Paix" (Flame of Peace), which was created after a final cease fire between Tuareg rebels and the government, ending years of trouble in the north of Mali, after the government had neglected the needs of their nomadic countrymen. Three thousand weapons were burnt in the monument in 1996, and some were cemented into the base as an eternal sign.

We then went for our meeting with Ahmoud, the guide that had been organised by Shindouke, and after some bartering agreed on a price of 15,000 CFA a day for each of us, including Tilly, who was joining us for the trek. We knew a Dogon trek would be pushing the top end of our daily budget, which is 14,000 CFA, but it was always part of the plan.

Went to visit some houses where the first ever European explorers who set foot in Timbuktu stayed. Pretty strange to think this was only as recently as the mid-eighteenth century. Also went to a manuscript museum (exhilarating you may think), where professors are working on restoring thousands of original manuscripts that were written in Timbuktu, when it was one of the first places in the world to have a university and a centre for Islamic teaching. Really amazing to see the ancient, thousand-year-old mathematics and astrology books. A real treasure of Timbuktu's past.

Met Kelly, an American who had apparently spent the last few days on the back of a donkey she had bought trying to ride from Douentza to Bandiagara in the south - a journey of about half a day by car. Dubious about how true that was... We all got our passport's stamped at the Timbuktu tourist office, had to be done, and bought postcards, although the post office had shut down for the day at 3pm. However, as another sign of how great Miranda and Shindouke were, they said if we left the cards with them, they'd send them off the next day. Love that place.

Furthermore, we were worried about the lift we'd organised to Sevarè, from where we'd start the Dogon trek, and so Shindouke called up the head of the transport centre in Timbuktu, who arrived with the driver who was due to pick us up. We confirmed everything and felt a lot better about getting a random 4x4 at 3am and changing to another bus about 150km away. Genuinely nice people.

Timbuktu Sunset

2009-12-05T08:20:00.000-08:00

After a good night's sleep (i.e. not rocking on a boat), and a breakfast of flatbreads, honey and tea, we headed into town. This was a bit of a trek, but the positioning of SP on the edge of the desert was pretty awesome, so the walk was not much bother at all. The heat was pretty roasting, but this was because the humidity had dropped off completely, and the desert winds were very dry. Lots of chapped lips.

Two of the lads who lived in SP, as helpers, walked in with us and showed us around a couple of markets. this was really nice of them, but they did have an ulterior motive, as afterwards they did ask us about treks into the deserts and their friends who owned jewelry shops... Anyway, we told the lads that we wanted to see Timbuktu by ourselves and we had a nice long lunch to get out of the heat, and get away from the hawkers (mainly fake Tuareg tribesmen selling 'authentic' tat). Afterwards, we headed to the town's main mosque that was under repair after the rainy season (as in Djennè), and took a stroll back to SP for around 3pm.

On Miranda's advice, the six of us (Dree, Barney, Kez, me, Sam and Tilly) took a walk about a kilometre into the sand dunes to watch the sunrise. I do really want to say Sahara, but it was only the beginning. Ah forget it - we saw a sunset in the Sahara! There were some really annoying kids that followed us the whole way from the edge of town. At first they were really friendly, but after we said we wanted to be alone and didn't want to buy anything they became proper pains. As Miranda told us her father put it the guides and hawkers in Timbuktu are "like flies, you can swat them away but they always come back".

The scenery was amazing. We climbed up to the highest sand dune in sight, and looked out into the vast desert. Camels and herds of goats passed by, Tuareg herders waving, and the sun began to set, turning the sky shades of orange. The kids kept shouting when they knew we were enjoying the silence, and Dree made them scarper at one point by grabbing a flip flop and chasing them down the dune! Regardless of the kids, the sunset was awesome, and the silence only one kilometre outside of Timbuktu was pretty special. Facing out into the desert you couldn't hear anything!

After some funny camera jinks involving us jumping (or me running) off the dunes' edge, the sun set fully and we headed back to the town for an authentic Timbuktu dish at SP - large breads that had been steamed in a gorgeous 15-spice sauce for some time. We ate with our hands on rugs placed over the sand, and were joined by Shindouke and Miranda. After a really good filling (and amazing tasting) dinner, we sat up for another few hours chatting away like old friends over the fire and under the stars.

The atmosphere in SP was fantastic, everyone was so friendly, with Shidouke and Miranda bending over backwards to help us in any way that they could. We mentioned about going to Dogon Country afterwards, so Shindouke got on the phone and arranged a meeting for the next day with a guide that he knew. Another funny moment was on the way back from the desert sunset, when we bumped into two robed horsemen outside SP. The night before Shindouke heard that Barney can ride and so he called one of his friends to come over and have a race! We didn't even put two and two together until Shindouke asked that night!

Sahara Passion is one of the nicest places I've stayed; most definitely up there with Libra Guesthouse in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and I would recommend it to anyone who is anywhere near Mali! Or even in Africa!

Sahara Passion

2009-12-05T07:41:00.000-08:00

We arrived at Kabara, the closest river port to Timbuktu, at around half eleven, after a very tedious float up a shallow channel that had been filled in completely by the harmattan (desert winds) in previous years. There were so many people on the small dock that we couldn't see the quayside itself! After fighting through the crowds, we discovered that most were there to try and give some of the Tuobab's (foreigners) a lift to Timbuktu, 20km away. Sam trying to get his motorbike off the bottom deck and up the steep bank caused a bit of alarm, the crowd scattering as he fired through and then playing with the lights and throttle when Sam got off.

Dree had been able to borrow a phone and call ahead to Sahara Passion, a small campement on the far north of the town, to let them know we were going to be late. The man on the phone had said "We'll wait for you". We assumed this to mean that they would stay awake for our arrival, but after we took a 4x4 taxi into town we were flagged down by a man in a Sahelian outfit (long flowing robes with a 3m long headscarf to cope with the wind and dust), who turned out to be the owner of Sahara Passion; a Tuareg man called Shindouke.

We eventually got to the accommodation at just past midnight, after Sam had a bit of trouble of the deep sand where there road stopped, to find a fire burning and African tea on the go. We were shown to our rooms, which were in a dorm-type building, but as there were six of us altogether we filled it! We sat outside under the stars (ridiculously clear as there was almost no light, bar the fire) and drank rounds of tea whilst Shindouke and his partner Miranda, a Canadian, chatted to us. I don't know if I have already explained about African tea - there are basically three pourings, the third of which is meant to be the very best.

So we all sat around the fire, Miranda cuddling their year-old son Najim, who was pretty sleepy, but could be the cutest little kid in the world (Tilly's words, but I'd agree), while we exchanged details about where we were from and what we did back at home etc. After a while Shindouke started to regail us with a story that his ancestors told him, in French. But all was good as Miranda kindly translated everything. I will not try and do the story justice here, as I will massacre it, but for my records it was about the path of wisdom and happiness, and the encounter of the rabbit with arrows in it, elephant with the tiniest thorn, most beautiful cow and the wise older man. Sorry that doesn't make sense to anyone else! The telling of the story was possibly the best thing, with Shindouke dramatically retelling line by line in French, and Miranda very kindly translating for us.

Shindouke was about fifty and was a Tuareg, nomadic tribesperson, who took over Sahara Passion (SP from now on) after the Swiss lady who begun it returned to Switzerland. He was head of the official guides in Timbuktu and had contacts across the town, which came in VERY handy for us. Moreover, he was the head of his own tribe in the desert and owned camels and horses. After a few more hours chatting away, we eventually went to bed about 2:30am, a great end to an incredibly long day!

Up the Niger

2009-11-24T08:59:00.000-08:00

We left the dock in Mopti at about 10.30pm on Thursday night, and hit the hay pretty soon afterwards: who knew watching men load a ferry for three hours could be so tiring. Let me just explain a bit about the ferry. There are three main ferries that the COMANAV company have going from just outside Bamako, travelling all the way along the Niger to Gao, in far east Mali. The whole journey takes about a week, but probably more, and depends on the height of the river - during the dry season services are drastically minimised.

The cabin did not have enough space to swing a cat, but was fine for its use - sleep. There were two bunk beds and enough space to put our bags down in. That was the two main things for us: that we had somewhere to sleep in, with some degree of comfort, and also that we could lock our bags and valuables. That said, the lock did cause us a few problems - mainly Dree.

The Kankou Moussa was not as big as we'd expected, and did not have as many passengers as we'd thought. Probably only 15 or 20 tourists and about ten Malians. The dining room was in the heart of the ship on the third out of four floors (including the roof), and was where we spent quite a bit of time reading, playing cards and the inevitable dining. The meals, to put it nicely, were basic. Usually rice, although we did have spaghetti and potatoes on two occasions, with a tiny piece of meat (bony goat), they were enough to fill you up and keep you alive, but were incredibly bland and boring. I have no idea what we were expecting - haute cuisine?! Saying that, breakfast comprised of half a bit of bread and some warm milk.

The front of the ship was an interesting point, not just because of the view, but because there were twenty goats and two horses cramped in the front. They must have been in the front (bow - bit of nautical terminology coming out of the woodwork now) for quite a while, as they weren't loaded when we got on in Mopti! The roof was pretty blustery once we were out in the Niger Delta (a vast maze of narrow waterways and wide lakes that is inbetween Mopti and Timbuktu), but it was cool to sit up top in the sun, reading or watching the world go by. Very slowly.

The route through the Delta was painfully slow at times, especially when we got grounded in the shallow reeds trying to follow the river's path, but yielded amazing views. The Delta is almost completely flat, bar one or two hills in the distance, and to begin with was just green reeds and grass for as far as the eye could see. Every now and again there would be a pirogue or fishing boat pass us, but apart from that we were alone on the river; the only sound being the soft chugging of the engine. Then, as the journey progressed, we saw small villages spring up at the riverside, sometimes on sand bars, with picturesque mud huts lining the river. They were few and far between but there were always children waving and shouting faintly into the wind "Tuoab......tuoab....".

Then the next morning we woke up to see nothing but water out of our cabin. We were crossing Lac Debo, a huge expanse of the river, over 30km wide but still not very deep. You could barely see land on the horizon. There were occasional strips of reed, blowing in the strong wind, or a few birds flying past, but apart from that we were alone in the middle of nowhere. A pretty cool experience.

Most of our time was spent playing cards or reading. The latter was Homer's 'The Illiad', an epic tale about Achilles, Odysseus and co, fighting for Troy, the former involved huge games of 500 (a variation on Gin Rummy), Uno or playing Yahtzee with dice. We also tried to play Cheat, which ended in hilarity as Tilly just couldn't cheat at all, bless her! Bit of a downside to the trip now - I had the beginnings of a fever and stomach cramps for most of one day, but after a couple of Nuroflaxen I was right as rain. That stuff truly is a wonder drug - worringly, however, that we cannot get it without prescription in the UK....

There were a few stops along the way, where various stuff (for want of a better general word) was taken on or off the ferry. The first stop was near a village after Lac Debo, where villagers in pirogues came up to the boat to peddle their wares. It was pretty chaotic on the bottom floor - women shouting to other women in the boats, trading chillis, dried fish, dough balls, even chickens. The second stop was an early morning wake up call for us all:

Being awoken by the sound of crashing whilst on a boat is a little bit disconcerting, if not horrifically worrying. Clambering out of our cabin in the pre-dawn light, we came face to face with the Kankou Moussa's sister ship - the General Tamboussa - that had docked next to us. Noisily and heavily. And with a worrying fuel tank cum barge strapped to it's side! Shouts and greetings were exchanged ship-to-ship, and passengers swapped along with goats. With no real clue as to what was going on, we watched in amazement until we pushed off from the other ferry and continued on our way downriver. Somehow in all the confusion, the two horses tied in the bow had made it across to the General Tamboussa without our noticing. Magic!

The arrival of the Kankou Moussa

2009-11-24T08:35:00.001-08:00

After a few days maxin' and relaxin' in the Mission (and a good dose of Nurfloxen), we were all ready for the three-day boat trip up the river Niger to Timbuktu. We arrived at 9am on Thursday to get assigned our cabin and were told that the COMANAV ferry would be a little late. After a long, long breakfast at the Bissap Cafè, where the bissap was 500 CFA and not fantastic, whereas there was a girl selling bissap in bags outside for 25 CFA and it was great, we left Barney to sleep off the tail-end of his illness in the office and went for a wander. We followed the river north and ended up going to a hotel we were planning on going to before the illness, mainly because it had a pool. After seeing said pool, and feeling a little sad, we sat down with a Pamplemousse (grapefruit drink) each and tried playing an African tribal game, solewhat like checkers. Kez thought she knew the rules from a game on her old mobile, and we kind of figured it out.

After seeing another sunset over the river, we bought toilet roll and water - expecting neither on the ferry - and headed back to the office. Barney had got chatting to a couple of other people who were awaiting the arrival of the Kankou Moussa (largest of the COMANAV ferry fleet) and our home for the next three days.

Sam was originally from St Albans and was working for 14 months in Ghana for an education programme. He had bought a motorbike and decided to dirve back through West Africa on the way home for Christmas. Mathilda (Tilly) was a Swedish, blonde 20 year old who had lived in America for a couple of years and had picked up a Southern drawl ("Y'all", "Po-lise" etc). They had met at the hotel and decided it would be cheaper to share a room (sorry, cabin) on the ferry.

On board the ferries, there are five classes - luxè, 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th. For two nights and three days' accomodation, we had chosen a four-person berth for 36000 CFA each (about £50 each). Sam and Mathilda had gone for 1st class. The cheapest alternative was 4th class, which basically meant sleeping on the bottom floor of the boat, where you had to find a space and had nowhere to keep any belongings. This is where a lot of the Malian's stayed, and there were even some women cooking there. There were some German (possibly) bird watchers who had set up camp on the roof for the same price as 4th class (5500 CFA - £8). We debated doing 4th class, but you didnt have any bed, anywhere to put anything and had no meals. A cabin it was!

The Kankou Moussa came into view about 8pm and circled round to the dock. We got on and found our cabin, before standing on the sides, watching the loading of various things from the shore - amongst them about 40 metric tonnes of cement; 800 bags at 50kg each - if the maths is wrong, blame Kez, she has done some building work don't-cha-know! Standing in the dark, watching the cement and other products getting loaded on, we met Andrè and Ruth - a couple from South Africa on a two week tour of Mali. The ferry took a few hours to load up, putting fuel in and finally loading Sam's incredibly heavby bike on board - Sam checking it had been secured properly a few times!

Ousmane

2009-11-24T07:55:00.000-08:00

During one walk around Mopti, towards the mosque in the residential corner of town, me and Barney met a young guy called Ousmane. He didn't try and sell us anything and didn't offer to show us around, he just talked. After a while he did mention that he ran a children's association to try and get more young kids educated. Normally I would steer clear of things like this because they usually turn out to be scams for money. But we had a day to kill in Mopti, and Ousmane seemed different to the other touts.

We took a walk through the Komoguel district to his house (small shack with a canopy over the front) and chatted about what his association comprised of, in very good English. Ousmane apparently grew up in Morrocco, his father was a marabout (Islamic healer), but he moved to Mopti when he was 11 years old after his parents divorced. That's why he speaks good English and French. He showed us photos of his family and friends that have passed through Mopti. Ousmane has a lot of different jobs, including working in a tourist shop selling jewelry, working for this foundation (more to follow), playing the Malian drums, rapping, owning a pirogue and doing tour trips of the Niger Delta and Dogon Country. But he never asked us if we wanted to go and take a tour, or never mentioned anything more about them, apart from that was his profession in the tourist season.

The Dianfa Maye Association (roughly translating to 'No Corruption') has been going for about eight months, and was set up by Ousmane and his friends to try and promote education in the very poor residential area of Komoguel. His friends all do this aside from their other jobs. There is one other guy who is trying to help out - an American called Herbert. He is coming back to visit Ousmane in January. We were shown some official looking paperwork and stamps with the association's name all over it, and Ousmane could talk in some detail about the project.

Komoguel is a very poor district, with open sewers and families squeezing into small rooms - Ousmane shares his small courtyard with three other families for cooking and cleaning etc. The school takes place in this area, or up on the roof where there is a bit more open space. Herbert's money when he first came to Mopti paid for some building work next to Ousmane's house. This is eventually going to be turned into a school room, but when we were there, we only saw a half finished project, with a few tables and chairs and a blackboard.

The Association pays for two teachers to teach the children French and maths in two groups. Forty thousand CFA (about £40) apparently pays for two teachers to teach thirty five children on Saturday and Sunday on two weekends. This also includes food and drink for the kids. The children's families are two poor to afford schooling and this association may be the beginning of a marvelous idea to really help these kids get a foot up in life. Or it may be a long con. I am really not sure what to think. I shall try and get in touch with him to confirm the validity of the project, but these things have to start somewhere...

The following day I arranged to meet Ousmane again and we would go and meet one of the teachers. Unfortunately Barney was ill, but Kez accompanied me. We sat at Ousmane's and took a long tea (all three of the pourings...) and discussed everything, from the Mayor not helping out with the project to Ousmane's life back in Morrocco. Afterwards we took a walk around the neighbourhood and met one of the teachers, who was roused from his sick bed to meet us. I explained, in broken French, that I am in contact with an association called the Rotary Club in the UK, that may be able to help.

There is a lot more to explain, but I think I shall wait until I'm back and have checked a few more things out. I am unsure; I dont want to be taken for a ride, but this could be the beginning of something worthwhile. I talked a lot with Kez about it, but we can see the argument both ways.

Anyways, on with the blog - I'll let you know how it all goes!

Illness in Mopti

2009-11-24T05:59:00.000-08:00

We left Djennè the next morning in a sept-place (cramped neuf-place), and arrived in Mopti a few hours later. Mopti has taken over from Djennè as the commercial capital of central Mali, probably because it is situated right on the banks of the River Bani, a few hundred metres from where it joins the River Niger north towards Timbuktu. Just down from where we stayed at the Catholic Mission (loving the nuns) there were rows of pinasses, giant wooden canoes, that were unloading salt, food, goats and all sorts of other random things onto the port. Not sure what happened to a lot of it, but hundreds of the goats got bagged up, with only their heads showing, and put onto/into coaches - in the hold and on the roof...

On another point, if we thought hassle in Djennè was bad, Mopti was far worse. Dozens of tour guides for the Dogon Country, pirogue owners who want to do a day trip for extortionate amounts, fake nomad tribesmen selling tat 'from the desert', and all the other usual gumph (gumf? not really sure on that one). Unfortunately for us we all got ill at somepoint in Mopti, but on the plus side did find a wonderdrug called Nurfloxan, or something to that effect. It is in the guide book as something to treat the renowned "traveller's diarreah", but also is amazing at combating cramps, sickness and fevers. A veritable wonder drug.

Anyway, back to the Mission. In our guidebook (Bradt's, which although do pack in a lot of information have stupid maps) the Mission was still being refurbiushed. Little did we know, but we would be the first people to stay there. When the nun showed us the (very cheap) rooms, she had to take the plastic off the bed covers! It was probably one of the nicest places we have, and will be, staying in - toilet and shower en suite, double bed, table, chair, mozzie net, fan, AIR CON! All for just 5000 CFA each (about £8), which was quite good, as we spent most of our time in Mopti in there!

Apart from a few gorgeous sunsets over the river, there's not too much more to tell about Mopti. We had to buy the ticket for the river ferry downstream the Niger to Timbuktu, but were told the next boat was on Thursday (we had arrived on Sunday). So all in all, not the worst place for to all get sick.

We did try and find a place called Ashraf Voyages (in the guide), where we could have rented bikes to go on a bit of an adventure, but neither they or anywhere else had the availability for renting. There was one strange meeting, but I think that warrants a whole blog of its own.

Senossa continued

2009-11-24T04:55:00.000-08:00

As we got off the boat on the other side, some naked children ran up to us, some with potbellies and protruding belly buttons like hernias, and ushered us ashore. Had help from the bike-riding guy who spoke French and were taken to see the village chief to ask permission to look around. He was chilling out in the shade of quite a new building by the shore, but seemed happy to see us. He gave his permission and we thanked him profusely. Then some other man ran over to us, asking us to pay a tourist tax. After explaining that we'd already asked the chief (as well as a wink and smile from our friend from the boat), we told him we wouldn't be paying.

The man with the bike headed off, after we thanked him a lot, and we were escorted by dozens of children into the depths of the village, like the Pied Piper! The village had houses much like Djennè, with a similar mud architecture, but without any of the modern trappings. It was amazing to see this all by ourselves, without a guide, and without any put-on dances or 'traditional' events. This was just a normal day for the villagers and we saw all the usual things - women pounding millet (a cereal), washing, goats being taken to the river to drink and children running through the narrow lanes between houses.

However, these kids still shouted "Tuoab" and "Cadeau" (present) and were very annoying in the end. We walked around for about an hour in the sweltering heat, pausing for shade beside the mud walls. A few of the older children tried to be our tour guides for some money but we just wanted to wander around ourselves. There wasn't anyway this would happen, and so after seeing a couple of mud mosques, like Djennè but smaller, we played with some of the kids. Kez instigated it all (she loves the children!) and we did all the songs you do at school - Okey Cokey etc - and something called "The Penguin Dance"; ask Kez. All the kids loved it and we caused such a noise that people poked their heads over walls and around walls to see what the fuss was about.

We left the village the same way, after thanking the elders again, and headed across the 'moat' in the very low pirogue. It was better the second time around, but still quite nerve wracking! One funny moment was when we saw Barney's toilet roll floating past, after it had come loose from a side pocket. Looking around admiring the scenery, animals and plant life before saying "Oh, look at that....toilet roll...". On the other side, back on very dry land, we decided to rest under any shade we could find. The day was boiling hot, and we'd walked around over midday. We sat under a tree, played some cards and eventually had a small nap.

Got woken up by the sun, which had quickly moved over the tree, and carried on back to Djennè, breaking along the way in the same village to watch some young boys fishing. They were pretty good with only a line and some cockroaches for bait. Barney wanted to take a dip in the water, but we reminded him of bilharzia - a horrible disease caused by faeces in the water. No swimming yet!

That night we ate on the street (I had some mini fish that had been salted and fried, but we had a whole host of stall food including plantains and yam chips), and after watching a cool sunset over the rooftops of Djennè, we heard some loud music coming from the square behind the mosque. We went to check it out, thinking we could have a beer and a dance. There were about 300 people, some on chairs, some standing, in a large circle, with a hastily set up sound system - two speakers and some ancient decks. After half an hour of waiting (and me getting offered every drug going, but no beers), an M.C. called Michael Jackson introduced five dancers. Each came into the middle and did a five-second foot-jive, before the music cut out and they moved to one side. This happened for each guy, same piece of music. From what we gathered from a few English/French speakers was that this was a dance off. Awesome!

However, nothing else happened for an hour. Nothing at all. Then there was a scuffle on the other side of the circle and loads of people scattered. We heard different stories about what happened. Firstly, one guy said it was the police who had come to break up the gathering, but another guy said that the nightclub behind the square charged 1000 CFA entry that night. But the dance off was free, so all the youngsters obviously went for that. The nightclub apparently took offence at this and either sabotaged the music or started fights with the crowd/organisers.

Either way, we went to bed. Another night under the stars.

Senossa

2009-11-24T04:18:00.000-08:00

After an amazing night's sleep on the roof - interrupted sporadically by deafening midnight prayers - we took the decision to walk to a nearby village and see some authentic Malian way of life; to escape the hassle in Djennè. This was also helped by the price that guides wanted for a tour of the village, almost £20 each! More than our whole budget for the day; accommodation, food, drink etc. Anyway, it would be an adventure.

In the guidebook, Senossa was described as "a village of bare-breasted women with large earrings", and we all know how much Dum and Sleazy Barney love oversized jewellery! On the way out of town, after getting a fair amount of water, we stopped by the third attraction in Djennè - The Tomb of Tampana Djenepo. This was a young virgin that was sacrificed by the town, to ward off evilo spirits, when the first foundations of Djennè kept crumbling for no reason. Needless to say, it was just a wall set in a small square with a tiny sign. But at least we didn't have to pay this time!

Past yet more cries of "Tuoab, Tuoab", we exited town on a similar heightened red-dirt road and saw some boys playing Hoop 'n' Stick. Now I've been wanting a go on this for ages; looked like a load of fun. I'm sure I don't need to explain, but it involves pushing a bike tyre along with a small stick, and trying to keep it upright. For those over fifty reading this, you may have played it yourself (cheeky grin). Well, it's a lot harder than it looks. Had a laugh giving it a go, but both me and Dree weren't brilliant. Then the young lad showed us how it was done, sprinting down the road, and then doing a 180° turn round a pothole and back, again at speed. Skills.

We continued down the road in baking heat (over 35°C) and took a well-needed break after half an hour in some shade by a small village. We watched some men fish with nets from carved wooden pirogues, and I got a few awesome 'postcard' snaps! Continuing on for another kilometre or so, we stopped and asked some passing children carrying bags of rice on their heads - Senossa was only meant to be a few km out of Djennè. The children giggled and pointed across the dusty sahel (dry, dusty scrubland), away from the road, to a small group of buildings in the far distance. So off we went.

It took around an hour to walk across the arid land, pockmarked with scrub and the occasional thirsty-looking tree, and we had to take a few breaks in the little shade we could find - it really was roasting hot! More walking across the cracked earth and we came to a swampy area between us and the village about 250m in the distance. There were a few people in a small pirogue by the water's edge, and we were able to ask one man who spoke French if we could get to the village. He said yes and into the pirogue we got.

Two young kids punted the wooden boat to deeper water and across the shallow lake. The water didn't look too inviting though, but the scenery was pretty cool - cutting through waterlillies and reeds on our way. However, the pirogue was ridiculously low in the water (eight people, a bicycle and a few bags) and everytime we pushed forward it rocked from side to side, letting a little bit of water over the edge. Me and Barney were on one small plank, Kez and Dree on another. I can only speak for myself but white knuckles and hunched shoulders barely covers it. I didn't fancy a swim!

Djennè town

2009-11-24T03:46:00.000-08:00

We decided to stay on the roof at Chez Baba's because it was cheap, warm and would be cool to sleep under the stars. Luckily we were provided with a mattress and a mozzie net, and could store our bags in a locked room while we wandered around during the day. After washing the smells from the horror bus off, we headed for the mud mosque.

Djennè's mosque is made completely from mud and has distinctive wooden planks jutting out from it's towers. These are where the builders climb on and re-apply another layer of mud to the walls after each rainy season washes some of the structure away. Unfortunately, the mosque had some building work being done to it when we were there, including some repairs on a fallen tower. But you could still see how impressive the mosque was - the largest mud structure in the world.

Also unfortunate, was the fact that due to an unsavoury photoshoot with an Italian photographer and some partially naked models, no tourists are allowed inside the mosque, even though it is a fully functioning place of worship. We found this out when the calls of Islamic prayer belted out of the loudspeakers in the early hours of the morning. The market place in front of the mosque is busy on Monday, but as we walked through on Friday we did manage to see everyone come for weekly afternoon prayers.

Hassle in Djennè came thick and fast - probably more noticeable because, apart from a handful of expats in the past month, we had not seen many tourists at all. In Djennè there were tour groups and guides springing from every doorway. It took a bit of getting used to, but we just ignored all the touts and guides and did our own thing (see Senossa, next blog). Another thing was people around the mosque inviting you into their houses for a fee, so that you could get an ariel view of the mosque. Bit of a rip off, but on our second day there me and Dree took a guy up on his offer and got half a view obscured by a tree from a rooftop. On the way down, an elderly man started shouting at the guy and essentially chased him out - the cheeky bugger had just waltzed into someone else's house to make use of the roof and get a quick buck!

Aside from getting inundated with annoying guide offers, we walked around most of Djennè's small streets in peace, with only the shouts of children following us. Some took a particular interest in Kerry's hair, and took a lot of enjoyment in pulling it. One sad thing is that the kids all shout "Donne moi un cadeau/argent" (Give me a present/money), as they see tourists pass.

The streets and mud architecture of Djennè are unique , and as such have been designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. There are only one or two roads that have cars go down them, and as such Djennè has a special feel to it. A lot of the streets are barely wide enough for a donkey cart to pass through, and we took a few wrong turns in the labyrinth along the way. The smells are another thing though. As the town progressed and more tourists visited, along came the idea of have a sewage system. In theory this is a good idea, but the small channels that run down each street are full of waste and piles of rubbish are stacked up around the edge of the island town.

We went to see another 'highlight' in the guide book during the afternoon - the Sacred Well of Nana Wangara. Legend has it that it was a gift from a Moroccan ruler to his favourite wife, who resented the other concubines. Oh, and it can see into the future. Trying to find it was a mission, but we wished we hadn't. Taken through a few doorways into a private courtyard, where washing lines hung and cooking pots lay, we were shown a hole in the ground, and then asked to pay over a quid each for the privilege. Not really worth the effort to find it.

Sleeping on the roof made up for any disappointment though. The intense heat from the day was kept in the mud walls and roofs and the lack of lights in the town meant for a clear view of the night sky. Saying that, we were up at dawn because of the cold (as the heat from the day before vanishes during the night), and the sun rises over the mud roofs like a torch in the eyes! A great experience though.

What an entrance!

2009-11-24T03:16:00.000-08:00

After drifting off again inbetween babies crying and women vomiting, we were awoken on the bus from hell by the driver, telling us this was where we get off. Bleary-eyed we looked out of the windows into the dawn, and saw a handful of mudhuts by a crossroad. Not Djennè (pronounced Jenny). After briefly arguing with the driver, we found out that this was the Carrefour de Djennè (The Crossroad) and we'd have to find our own way the rest of the 20km to the town itself. Not what we'd been told or paid for. Brilliant.

With the help of a Ghanian man, who was also going to Djennè, we acquired the early morning services of a man, his horse and a cart. Not exactly what we'd imagined our journey to Djennè to be like, but it was pretty cool trundling along at just over walking pace, watching the world pass us by. Either side of the slightly raised dirt road was an inland delta of the Bani river, quite marshy, with early-rising villagers washing and fishing down the banks. Birds flew overhead and we waved to children as we passed by. The horse looked in pretty good condition, considering the state of some other creatures that we have seen on this trip, and his only problem was that he had a slight fear of bridges. A problem for a horse working in a place where most of the roads have to cross water.

We passed one small village, complete with mud huts in the banco architecture we'd come to recognise in the following weeks, where some children ran out and waved, shouting "Tuoab, Tuoab" - colloquial West African for tourist/white man. We continued down the dusty red road and eventually came to the banks of the Bani, where we had to wait for the ferry across. While waiting we got a taste of the tourism industry in Mali, with women hawking 'authentic' masks, bracelets and fabrics to us, before we'd even set our eyes on Djennè! A sign of things to come in the next few weeks.

After another hour a la horse 'n' cart on the other side of the river, we arrived at Djennè. Because of the positioning of Djennè in the inland delta, most of the town is encircled by water, and our entrance was made all the more regal by having to cross a small bridge (that the horse took well), where people were fishing and washing. What a sight it must've been to see us arrive!

After paying the driver for the early morning ride, we found our way through the mazy sidestreets to Chez Baba - a cheap place almost next to the main attraction in Djennè; the mud mosque.

Bamako - Djennè

2009-11-24T01:50:00.000-08:00

I woke up with an awful cough, as the 'Black Panther' mosquito coil had been burning all night about a foot from the bed. Didn't put me in the best of moods as we prepared to wait by the roadside for a passing minibus to pick us up. But someone was smiling on us that morning, because we only waited for ten minutes before one pulled up. Dree barely had time to finish his cuppa, but the really nice stall owner put the hot tea into a plastic bag, like all the iced drinks are in. And it didn't burn through: impressive.

A short, cramped ride back to Bamako later and we got a taxi to the bigger gare routiere below the river, to try and get a Gana Transport bus to Djennè, our next stop. Unfortunately, the Gana bus had left earlier that morning, but we were shown to another bus company where we bought tickets for a departure at 6pm. Not wanting to hang around all day on a bench in a truly chaotic bus terminal, me and Kez took a walk around trying to find a restaurant or bar. Closest thing we could find was a closed restaurant across the main road, and a Vietnamese sandwich stall.

We spent the day hanging around in the shade of the restaurant, where the owners had kindly given us some chairs and a table, playing cards and generally killing time. Did have a good, cheap-as-you-like lunch though - Vietnamese sandwiches and nems (like meaty spring rolls), and a host of Malian street food to snack on. Oh, and not forgetting more than a few bags of bissap (known as djiblani in some parts of Mali).

We headed back to the transport chaos and were told to pay 1,000 CFA each for our bags. We said no way, as it was just a guy who was trying to make a bit extra, and our bags are included i the cost. After half an hour of a stalemate he relented, and grumpily took our bags to be strapped to the roof. Ah, yes, this brings me onto the bus itself. It was a clapped out old thing that had a fair few tonnes of stuff strapped to the roof - food bags, boxes, motorbikes, chairs etc. This meant that the sunroofs wouldn't open at all. Add to this that the bug-infested, falling apart chairs, DRILLED-SHUT windows and luggage stacked all down the aisles, and we were in for a pretty uncomfortable ride.

Sweating buckets, we sat in this oven for about half an hour before anything happened. That anything was a drive for about forty yards. When we got going properly, there was a small gap in a window at the front of the bus, which at least let some air in. Which was all fine, until the woman behind my and Barney's chairs started vomiting up everything she had. Eventually we were able to drift off to sleep, but were woken up by the lights coming on and the bus sliding to a halt by the roadside. A few of the guys got out, kicked a tyre, got some oil or petrol cans from the aisle and played about with the engine. Then as we drifted off again the lady behind resumed her previous actions. Not going to go on about it too much, but let's just say we will now be going with recommended bus companies for longer trips, especially overnight ones.

At least we were going to get to Djennè that morning....

Climbing in Siby

2009-11-14T09:00:00.000-08:00

We got up early the next morning - "we" meaning me and Barney (comes with the territory now; Dree 'n' Kez, Dum 'n' Barney, sorry Lisa!) - to go and see a view from the top of one of the hotels down by the river. The guide book said this is the first thing that you should do in Bamako. So off we go, walking straight up to the huge doors of this Hotel D'Amitee and stride in. The place was pretty plush, and we felt thoroughly under dressed in shorts and teeshirts. Made a beeline for the lifts and made our way up to the fourteenth floor. It was a really cool view of the city sprawled out below, but a really nice maid opened one of the rooms at the back of the hotel, where it looked out onto the river Niger passing below. Well, there would've been a good view if there wasn't concrete pillars blocking the view. Got a few pics off, before the really kind maid said that the 16th floor was an even better view of the city, so up we went.

After getting back and waking up the sleeping couple, we all headed off to collect our Ghana visas (no problem whatsoever), and got a lift to a secondary gare routiere for Siby, a small village that has a recommended rock climbing school in amongst the Manding Mountains. We squashed into a minivan, only allowed to pay for three tickets and having to bribe the driver to take us all.

Wasn't too bad a journey - probably because it was very short - and we arrived about lunchtime in the amazing of the mountains. On three sides, walls of sheer red and black rock rose up for about 150 metres, surrounding Siby. We dropped all our gear in the compound, which had little white huts in a circle, and went to book climbing for the afternoon, even though it was about 45 degrees! We had to choose our own rubber-toed shoes to wear for climbing, and they only seemed to have the smallest ones in the world. We all just squeezed into them (Kerry was okay!), and were told to meet back there at 3pm.

Headed down the main (very well paved road) to some wooden huts by the side. We had liver brochettes (kebab), riz au gras (standard dry reddish rice) and tomatoes. The kebab was suspect, but was not bad by any means. Helped that I'd skipped brekkie and it was gone pretty quick! Dree had to shake the shock from his voice when the head scarfed woman said it would only be 1,000 CFA for all four of us! So, so cheap. It pays to eat Malian. On the way back I got some 'Black Panther' mosquito coils to kill off the little bastards! The huts we were given had huge gaps between the top of the internal walls and the roof, meaning that an elephant could've squeezed through, let alone a snidey little mozzie. I was determined to not get bitten, even though we did have a charming pink mozzie net for me and B...

We went to the climbing place and were pretty pleased to see the two young guides had a bag of ropes and hard hats. Had no idea what we were climbing, so kept saying we were "debutants"! After walking down the main road for twenty minutes, we cut in towards the mountain and past a village and fields of millet (for the production of millet beer - gotta try that I suppose!). Arrived at a huge cube of rock about 80ft high and 40ft wide/long. There didn't look to be an awful lot of hand holds...

One of the guys literally ran up the side of this behemoth, to clip on some caribinas (?) onto the top, so we had something to abseil back down. Turns out these two guys had been climbing for about eight years a piece, and seemed to do this "easy" rock for fun. In broken French, I understood that they regularly climb the mountains all around us! Hardcore - Nick would've loved it! Needless to say, 'Mountain-Goat' Barney raced up the first challenge, like Hunter in Gladiators, whereas I needed a leg up twice to get started! Kerry and Dree were pretty good, but the guys advised that we sit back in the harness and walk down straight-legged, with them taking our weight. They didn't seem to take the strain until you were sitting right back, so that caused some hairy moments. Didn't love the heights either, or should I say the looking-down. It was so hot we all went topless; well not Kerry!

Moving around to a harder side of the rock (not doing it enough justice, twas the size of a house!), after a few routes, we all came unstuck on a 5 1/2 level climb. Kerry did incredibly well, reaching the highest point, before swinging back and forth like a pendulum! And the guy even held her with one arm! I thought my extreme reach would work well, but my lack of upper-body strength let me down and I too swung on the rope, albeit a bit heavier than Kez!

On the way back I got a few photos of the sunset down the road, setting behind some of the mountains, and some kids ran over asking to take a photograph. I took a few and showed them. They loved it, squealing with delight, but then a teenage girl ran over and started arguing with me, demanding that I pay money. I said no, and after she got even more aggressive I deleted the photos and walked off. This is a common problem I have found - anyone that you want to take a photo of you have to pay. Unfortunately, part of the more touristic trail we are now on through Mali.

That evening I went back from the restaurant to get some cards, avoiding all the frogs that come out at night. When I got back to the table all the guys had disappeared. I thought they were playing a prank on me and just sat down. After a while they emerged from near the entrance to the compound, looking quite shaken. While I was gone, the waiters and owner of the restaurant had joined about ten other men in beating a man outside. The man had apparently stolen some money and this was the punishment. The guys ran out to see what the screaming was about, and Dree shouted at them to stop. This gave the battered and bleeding man enough time to slowly pull himself up and hobble off, but the men chased him down the road. The owner said to us afterwards, "He won't steal again." Very dark, but a snapshot of African justice: no trial, no investigation, just harsh punishment.

We also found out that we couldn't hire bikes as an expedition had hired them all, so our plan to cycle out to a waterfall for the day fell flat. We decided to head back to Bamako and try and get the night bus north to Djenne.

Bamako Tourists

2009-11-12T19:50:00.000-08:00

We had to wait until Wednesday to get the visas back from the Ghanian Embassy, so spent the whole of Tuesday doing the touristy thing around Bamako. First things first though. Whilst we were having breakfast (Vietnamese sandwich and a home-made tea with condensed milk... mmmm), some of the guys who'd checked into the dorm late the night before came out. Dressed head-to-toe in hooded gold tracksuits, some with gold side bags. We obviously asked them what they were doing and a dead ringer for Jack Black explained that they were from outer space and were going to the Dogon Country today to promote the benefits of solar energy. They put on a facade of being aliens, because the Dogon tribes had a history of alien contact embedded in their culture; the Poles had also done this in a Mexican village, who had a belief in UFOs. I'm not sure what to believe at all with this, as it could be taken as quite patronising. Very surreal.

After that we took a taxi to the Hippodrome, where we wanted (me and Barney) to ride horses for a while. There was a place in the guide book where you could pay per hour, and I was quite up for the challenge - first horse ridden ever! But the horse centre seemed to just be for ex-pat children who were already fully kitted out and in the middle of a lesson. Didn't look like you could just turn up. After a brief walk around the hippodrome - a dusty, overgrown, unused track with skinny, wild horses and goats grazing, next to a derelict "grand"stand where men just took shelter from the hot sun - we took a taxi to the museum. It was open this time!

Inside the main gates were (presumably) convicts working in bright orange jumpsuits, literally breaking rocks for the new pathway. Quite a good idea, putting criminals to work, we should adopt it in the UK! No photos were allowed in the museum, but the displays were all really good. Even though they were in French I understood a lot of it (many thanks to Dree). There was a good collection of masks and sculptures from all over the country, and a separate exhibit on the Dogon people. It was all genuinely interesting, and one of the better museums I've been to, and the air con definitely helped out!

After a bite to eat at the museum, we headed to the fetish market; and I know what you are thinking, but this market specialises in animist and strange artefacts for the more unusual religious practices. For example monkey heads, shrunken lizards, dead parrots (always green for some reason), rhino horns, thigh bones from a large animal, hides, claws and skulls: the works for any voodoo fanatics out there! The traders didn't like anyone taking photos but I got a few sneaky ones and ended up paying one guy a few hundred CFA for some close ups. Strange place. But far more interesting then the 'Grande Mosqueè'. That is not even worth writing about.

Back at the mission (aka 'Nunnery'), we bumped into the couple going overland in their 4x4 that we saw at the Senegal/Mali border. They had been planning it for about three years and had the coolest Land Rover in the world - it had a fridge, cooking area, fold-out tent on the roof, an awning, larger fuel tank, even a tap with drinking water IN the car! A truly amazing beast! Made us all jealous with their stories, and we all began to plan our overland trips that night... must get that illusive driving licence soon though! They were carrying on down to South Africa, and then returning up the east coast back to Europe. An epic trip!

Also met an English lady called Pam, who had been coming to Africa for the past ten years, mainly working on a project in NE Mali called "Village Ventures". There is a crossroads in the corner of the country, where over 130,000 people live, that is massively underfunded. Pam has been setting up, and overseeing, all sorts of projects ranging from well-building, laptops for each village, free schooling and food for orphans. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to go and visit the area, but I have taken her contact details and am thinking of heading back to volunteer for a few months. Even if not, it could be something that the Rotary Club could help with. Something to think about at very least.

With the Nuns in Bamako

2009-11-12T10:00:00.000-08:00

During the coach ride there were a couple of toilet stops by the side of the road, which only seemed to last twenty seconds before the bus started to pull away! And then the bus accelerated to about 90mph and did a 'Speed' thing, overtaking huge lorries on bends etc. Pretty hairy. Made it to the Malian capital in one piece, and got taken to the Catholic Mission - Fouers des Souers (I think) - bang in the centre of Bamako.

The nuns were really nice and friendly, and we sorted out a room for us three for the Saturday, and then hopefully for us four on the Monday - after Dree had romanced Kerry in a hotel for an eve! Aw, love is alive! We had a little shower in the room (like only a curtain to shield from the beds), and could use a gas cooker and a little kitchen if we wanted to. Here began a bit of a love affair with tea and condensed milk. Oh God, Condensed Milk - deserves the capitals!

The next day Dree left early to check into his hotel and get to the airport, while me and Barney had a nice couple's day. Unfortunately everything was shut. It had rained for about ten hours by the time we got up, and after a walk around most of the district we discovered everything was closed as it was Sunday. So we played chess and a few other games that were in the Mission, as well as inventing Speed Chess - you have not time to think about the pieces, just move one straight-away. It continued to rain for about 30 hours. We couldn't even get some street food, as we had done the first night, as the rain had closed them all! A very lazy day in Bamako. I even learnt some French!

The next morning Dree and Kez arrived back at the Mission and we organised the room for us four, Kez was on the floor as she lost the game of cards - sorry old girl, rules is rules! We went and got a really good breakfast from a Vietnamese woman by the roadside - half a baguette with meat, sausage, salad, mayo, soy sauce and ketchup. Definitely one up from an omlette sandwich! Afterwards we tried to walk across town to the Ghanian embassy to get Kez and myself our visas - the boys had got theirs in London beforehand, but ours had been rejected for an unknown reason. Couldn't find it after half an hour walking around the backstreets of Bamako, and resorted to a taxi. The maps in Bradt guides seem to be out of scale and miss out roads and landmarks. Not overly impressed, although the information in them is far better than LP or Rough Guides.

After filling out the forms four times (do they not have a photocopier?!), which we ended up paying less for the visas than the boys, we hopped in a taxi to see the Museè National - apparently one of the best in West Africa. We were just hoping better than Dakar's museum that was hardly worth visiting. The taxi driver dropped us off and we then found out it is shut every Monday. What a lovely taxi drive. No problems, as we walked the hundred metres or so to the Parc Zoologique.

I always am a bit wary about zoo's in foreign countries and rarely go into them, as the conditions of the animals and cages is usually awful - Chiang Mai Zoo in north Thailand being one of the better ones. We saw quite a variety on our walk round: an apparently dead baby elephant (only sleeping), lots of monkeys and chimps (Kez spilt purple bissap down a white top in excitement!), hyenas, deer, birds and cranes, a warthog, leopards and lions. We then went into the reptile hut, which Barney was very happy about, and saw various crocs, frogs, turtles and snakes. They were actually feeding two giant African Rock Pythons as we came in, with live chickens. A bit sadistic, like that tour in the Mekong, Pete, but one of the staff held the door open so I could go in and take some close up pics without the safety of the glass. Pretty nerve-racking but you don't get that at Banham Zoo! Also saw the world's bravest frog, sitting on top of a croc's head! Just before we left there was also a sign for a manatee, but all the pools were long dried out.

We trekked back to the Mission via the downtown area and ate at a vegetarian place opposite. The chef and proprietor, Mohammed, spoke good English and he showed us some pics on his iPhone of a lovely waterfall at Talenko, just outside Bamako. We got some details and added it to our list of places to see!

To the hottest town in Africa

2009-11-12T03:45:00.000-08:00

Getting to the border between Senegal and Bamako was not too much of a struggle, but we did have to taxi it to a border post, inexplicably in the centre of town, to get our exit stamps. Didn't have to wait too long, and were then taken across the bridge that acts as a material border. Another short walk from the road was the entry stamp for Mali; don't understand why they are not on the roadside! The gare routiere on the Malian side only had sept/huit/neuf places, but we had time and waited in the shade with the rest of the drivers watching football highlights.

When we left, we had the slowest driver in Western Africa, apparently unwilling to push 40mph on a straight, flat road. I was stuffed right on the edge of the back seats, once again with my arm and head through the window. Was good for the breeze, but the amount of dust in the air made it a bit annoying. Time for the Kanye shades!

We stopped a couple of times at checkpoints, where guards sat under trees and either waved us through, or called us over to check on the visas. The heat was ridiculous - must've been over 40 degrees. At one such stop we saw a Land Rover that had been adapted to do an overland drive. The English couple were heading all the way from Europe to South Africa and back! We joked about if they had any spare seats, as we got back into the squashed Renault! Further the road, there were bush fires alongside us, which at first we thought were sporadic and started by the dryness and heat. However, thinking about it they may have been deliberately started to avoid a huge bush fire later in the dry season.

We got dropped at a small area a few kilometres from Kayes itself, and a group of taxi drivers crowded round trying to overcharge us for the short trip in. After getting in, and equally quickly out, of a couple of taxis, we started to walk it in when one of the drivers broke from the cartel and offered a cheaper price. Don't think he made too many friends that day...

Our chosen place to stay was a Catholic conference centre - not a fully fledged Mission - that had hospital style accommodation: cheap dorm beds and mattresses in a long building with toilets and showers at the far end. Again, not the worst place in the world, and all that we required. The only problem was that it was a long twenty minute walk into the centre of Kayes, in dry heat. Far less humid than the other countries, but it was still very hot. Oh and we had some rats that shared the building with us!

We had a few days to kill before meeting Kerry in Bamako, capital of Mali, and trying to sort out Ghana visas for me and her. So we spent a few days wandering about the town, through the markets and relaxing in the quietness of the Mission. On our way into the town, we passed an abattoir, that seemed to start work during the night - herds of goats and random bulls were being led along the road as we walked in for supper. Did remind me of the "Butcher of Kayes" - a ridiculously over-theatrical piece in the Bradt guide about a man on a bike cycling through the night to provide all of Kayes with meat. It was more like ten or so guys working together and listening to music. Not as dramatic.

The rest of Kayes was quite industrial, lots of big trucks passing by, and there was also a prison and a football pitch along the way. The prison had wrapped baskets of food outside the main gate, all with name tags on (supposedly for prisoners), and the football pitch erupted into activity just before dusk - a huge crowd gathered for a match equivalent to the Priors versus the Queen's Head, but there were flares going off on the sidelines! One afternoon on the way back to the Mission, the harmattan (huge wind from the Sahara in the north) descended and the town was covered in dust - it was quite hard to see more than ten or so metres. It gave us a first taster of the sahel (semi-arid savannah) conditions to come as we moved upriver in Mali.

One afternoon, on our way across the river to book tickets for a night bus to Bamako, we were shouted at to get out of the way by a couple of men. They ordered us to jump into the road, over some railings, for no apparent reason. We got into the road - not too busy, thankfully- just before a huge, angry bull charged past, banging into the metalwork of the bridge with menacing horns. An old man who was behind us, now on the road, hit it on the head with his stick! Close shave, but was a bit too quick for me to get my camera out.

After getting our ticket (3am start...) we stood by the riverside, watching women washing clothes and men fishing along the weir far below. Children were sliding down the banks of the bridge, before it crosses the actual river, in sewerage ducts, kind of like a helter skelter. I would've given it a go but I thought I'd get stuck... and dirty.

An early morning start once again, and we walked past the abattoir in full flow, cuts of goat hung up on hooks, and just avoided getting attacked by a couple of dogs not used to seeing three bleary-eyed backpackers in the middle of the night. After the half hour trek (nothing to us after Varela haha), we had a bite to eat at an omlette and tea stand, although we did have to wake the guy up! All our bags were put in the coach, not on the roof, we got receipts AND had free water and a few pastries each for brekkie. We were really impressed with Gana Transport - a proper coach!

Dree and Donkey Carts

2009-11-11T13:00:00.000-08:00

Just a quick one here. I wasn't going to put this in, as it happened a while ago and I forgot about it, but after discussions I have been asked to include it.

When we were in Ziguinchor (back in the Cassamance region, Southern Senegal), we were all walking along the main road towards town when a donkey cart passed to our right. Obviously, the donkey is ahead of a two-wheeled wooden cart, where the driver sits. The donkey passed Dree's eyeline and somehow Dree got his ankle ran over!

Me and Barney stifled laughs as Dree (not hurt too badly) leapt back to his feet cursing the cart's driver and donkey. He'd somehow got his OTHER foot run over - the foot furthest from the cart.

Now nearly a month on Dree still claims that the cart "cut him up" and he was walking correctly. This doesn't really explain how the OTHER ankle got ran over, and how he seemed to miss Eyore passing him by at just over walking pace.

Anyway, this has been the subject of a lot of jokes while we've been here; warning Dree of donkeys in the distance, walking (like a gentleman) on the roadside of the path and so on. Needless to say, he wasn't hurt much by the cart - only pride!

A Short on Tamba

2009-11-11T10:00:00.000-08:00

Not much to really tell about Tambacounda (Tamba to it's residents). We arrived late and ate a good meal of steak and chips after such a terribly long journey. All we needed to do here was sort out money - for some reason I had not been able to take any cash from any accounts in Guinea-Bissau, not even from credit cards - and roughly plan the next few weeks, doing a bit of research.

Tamba is yet another busy, and dusty, crossroads town; the main stop off between Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea and Mali.

The residential area is spread about between two huge arterial roads that intersect the town. We had the chance to stay on the roof here (it's certainly hot enough) but we could have a room for only 500 CFA more. The room had a fan. It was a quick decision. On a side note we probably had the best shower so far on the trip, just down the corridor (sometimes by candlelight - don't ask, it worked!), which made Mr Webb an extremely happy man - he showers more than any other human being I know of.

Lots of donkey carts everywhere in Tamba, which reminds me of a quick add-on for the next blog, and literally every shop was an ad-hoc mechanics, with men bashing metal outside, or hairdressers. Which I do not understand, as all the men at least have shaved heads. Tried a few places for food - one had a red light on in the evening, but served a good piece of fish and rice (that always comes with a set of vegetables: a bitter slice of some kind of pumpkin, aubergine, a root like a potato and a small but potent chilli). Then that evening tried "Best Burger" - where we pigged out on huge homemade beasts.

There is a train line that passes on its way from Dakar to Bamako (capital of Mali), but we didn't want to spend a whole 3/4 days on a train. Overland is far more exciting anyway. Would like to get a train somewhere on this trip, there's possibly one down the side of Benin. During the afternoon we were heading for a wander when some kids challenged us to a table football match. Dree and Barney played but the kids had obviously had more practice than them - maybe you could've whipped them Dad!

Not much more to tell. Sat on the roof to boost the old tan, bumped into a goat that was tied up there (quite cruel with no shade), which then literally bumped into us as it got loose and careered around the roof! I tried to be manly and catch him, but he just butted me out of the way!

That night there was a bit of a power cut so was a rather sweaty night in the room. Headed to the gare routiere for the border with Mali, but ended up going to the wrong one. After another taxi we got a neuf-place (clapped out old Renault estate) and headed off. I was out of the window most of the way, getting a lovely tan on one side!

Next blog: Mali!

We Hit A Cow! (and other stories)

2009-11-10T18:05:00.000-08:00

After a standard cramped 'neuf-place' to the border we were made to get all of our bags off the roof and unpack them for two lazy border guards trying to make a quick buck. But we had a lot of time and refused to pay a bribe (even when heavily suggested by the driver of the minibus). Dree started to unpack his worn underwear, and when the guards saw that we WERE going to unpack everything they soon gave up and waved us on. The bus got even more cramped as the driver allowed eight kids on board who were walking down the track, most on the roof but somehow four crammed in the van or hung on the outside. Damn greedy drivers!

Then we got off at the border town and were warned by the sept-place cartel to not take a minibus as it pulled up because it would not make it to Tambacounda- our crossroad destination in the centre of Senegal. The minibus was cheaper and leaving now, so we left along with it! On the way Dree was asleep in the front seat next to Barney. Me and B watched in amazement as a cow slowly wandered out into the road, and the driver didn't slow at all. The cow was struck about 50 mph on the hip and did a 'Bambi-on-ice' skid along the other side of the road into the ditch. It jumped up, pretty shocked and wandered off. Dree was less than impressed that he was woken up - he'd preferred to have been woken just before rather than after the incident!

Changing minibuses in a small town (never a good sign), we made sure our tickets were valid and that this new minibus would take us all the way to Tamba. Also had the nicest bissap in a bag (sweet purple juice from flowers of the hibiscus plant) during our hour wait - even though we were told the bus would be "leaving now". Pretty standard travel issue.

Half an hour out of the town we obviously broke down. The rear right tyre was flat - essentially blown out with a rip on the inner side - so they spent half an hour trying to change the tyre. Once the new one was put on we gave the van a push start (they rarely have started motors) and watched as the spare tyre deflated. The driver tried to get us all on regardless but we pointed out that the tyre was no good. So they started to change them BACK to the originally faulty tyre. Meanwhile we got comfortable by the side of the road to wait for a passing van or sept place to Tamba, which was over 100 km away. Not walkable, even for us!

Eventually a sept place pulled up and we bartered for a fare. Dree took the reigns in French, although I can feel myself understanding more and being able to speak much better each day I'm in a Francophone country. The long and short of it was that the b*****d in our broken van wouldn't give us a full refund. There were two parts to the ticket in the previous town, one of which he collected. Now he was saying that we only get back half of the fare! Quite a bit of arguing later (we just wanted him to show us the other ticket!), and a fight broke out between this cheeky so-and-so and a man from our proposed sept-place. We quickly decided it wasn't worth the hassle and high-tailed it back to the sept-place. Where we got overcharged by 1,000 CFA. Superb.

What a bloody long day: five or so different vehicles and some very tired travellers. Well, at least we were on our way to Tamba as dusk fell, even though our new driver resembled Uncle Phil from 'The Fresh Prince' and seemed to shout ALL THE TIME to his passengers (just in conversation). Think I went a bit deaf in my right ear. Onto Tamba - our last stop in Senegal before leaving for Mali; country number four.

A few days in Gabu

2009-11-10T12:07:00.000-08:00

On the minibus to Gabu we got chatting to a few Sierra Leonians, who said that it was fine to visit Sierra via Guinea, even though there were recent riots and military over-reactions, and the visa was going to cost £80 (£20 on the border apparently). Shame, but we had to meet Kerry and had a whole other trip planned. Next time.

First place we went to for accommodation was (again) reccommended in the guide book - "good rooms", "located in gardens" with a "discotheque and video lounge". It turned out to be a few hot tin shacks in a dusty driveway, a few dying trees about. About turned and walked back to the main road. Kids running past shouted "blanco, blanco", which was wierdly funny. Got a couple of rooms with fans, showers and double beds in Hotel Vision on the other side of town. I somehow ended up with a room to myself and we went for a wander.

Gabu was very similar to Bafata - long market road (much more variety in Gabu), every other shop being a Morrocan/Lebanese-run corner shop, or a hands-on mechanics, fixing generators or mopeds with hammers and a successful trial-and-error method by the roadside. We ate next to one of these mechanics every day - a small shack serving omlette and onion with mayo in a half-baguette, and a cup of Dilmah tea (quite expensive in the UK). All for about 30p. Bargain.

We had nothing to do here and thought we'd have a couple of dirt-cheap days to account for the more expensive parts of the trip still to come - trekking in the Dogon Country, Mali, and staying in Ghana's Mole (Mol-ay) National Park. Again eating a lot of meals by torchlight, a trying experience when you have bones from fish or chicken to contend with, and also had one memorable meal from a butchers by the roadside. In small packets made of concrete bags was some roasted generic meat (goat perhaps), with mayo, crumbled stock cube and onion. We got a bag each and ate back at the hotel. Barnes and Dree attacked it and really enjoyed it, but there was too much knuckle and not enough meat for my liking. I'll stick to my hard boiled eggs and chilli powder thanks.

The next day was Saturday and there was a night club in Gabu - Jomav - which apparently had the loudest sound system in Guinea-Bissau! Thought we'd check that out! Firstly we went to get hair cuts from the campest man I have met in a long while. He was wearing a long yellow moo-moo and was warbling to Celine Dion as he "cut" our hair. I say "cut" because his generator was down so he resorted to shaving all out heads with a razor blade and comb (that ol' chestnut)! Quite strange experience, but needed the barnet cut as it was reaching 40 plus each day.

Then tried to buy some booze, but found none. A lot of the countries we are visiting are mainly Muslim, and so we had to head to the club dry. Went back tot he rooms and played some cards till we'd hit the dance floor about midnight. But Mother Nature obviously didn't like the Kanye West/ 50 Cent/West African rap that was going to be played. Another night of heavy downpour during the "dry season". It flooded most of the compound, and there was no way we could've navigated the already potholed roads with all the rain as well. Clubbing on hold.

The next day we were lucky enough to catch some football in a warehouse further down the main road. Four TV's were set up on various stands - an oil drum, some boxes etc - and showed games from all the major leagues in the world. During lunch we paid the 150 francs (CFA), about 20 pence, and watched Liverpool stuff Man Utd, sans Gerrard. Not happy. Later we headed back and saw Barcelona demolish Zaragoza (including a tired-looking Jermaine Pennant) 6-1 in Spain. The atmosphere was great - this was where all the men came to watch the matches and there was about 200 guys on benches facing the screens, wearing all sorts of football shirts, staring earnestly ahead, as well as the few bats circling overhead. I did think a man was about to get lynched when he tried to change the channel, but he sensibly heeded the not-so-polite calls of his peers!

So with our fancy new haircuts - Dree having a small wave-fringe, looking like Kryton from Red Dwarf, and me and Barney rocking the skinhead look - we were ready for our return to Senegal, hopefully getting an entry stamp this time, and to Tambacounda.

Afrika Bafata (and how to take African tea)

2009-11-09T12:00:00.000-08:00

We left the brothel very early the next morning and got to the bus station (paradgem in Portuguese). Had missed breakfast because we wanted to get moving as early as possible. Mainly because of the heat, but also wanted to find a place to stay before the day got too late. Saw a woman carrying a basket on her head, shouting "chocolate". Paid the equivalent of 20p and unwrapped a silver foil rectangle. It turned out to be some well nice Starbucks chocolate, with the logo on and everything! Must've literally fallen off the back of a lorry! Tried to find the woman for more but she'd vanished. Bad times.

The sept-place soon turned out to be a neuf-place (nine people, ten including the driver), with two on the passenger seat, four in the middle seats and three in the rear: small boot. Guess who got the lucky back seats... There was no head room, so was bent double for the two hour drive. Pretty damn uncomfortable, but I'm learning to take myself to a better place. That or I can now sleep anywhere! Didn't help with me trying to read a book in the back that had loose pages, as the windows were all wide open - it was like the finalè from The Crystal Maze!

Arrived in Bafata just before lunch, just as the temperature was pushing 40 degrees. Trapsed across town and got a room at the recommended place in town. Would not have liked to see the other options, as we had no running water, bucket showers, not the cleanest rooms, but did have a double bed (possibly with added bugs). Stayed in worse, but not what we were hoping for.

Took a wander around Bafata. It seems to have been quite a hub for commerce when the Portuguese were here, but after they left a lot of the town seems to have been left to crumble. There was an old hotel that housed a few hundred people that has trees growing through it, and a lot of the buildings by the river are abandoned. There was also an abandoned swimming pool by the riverside, which was pretty good for some eerie dusk photos.

During the evening we walked to the main road to the sound of the generators (as in most of Guinea-Bissau there is little electricity after dusk), but the town seemed to come alive here! Candles lit the road and, again with nearly all the places in Africa we have been to, the chairs come to the roadside for social time. The kids play in the street, food stalls spring up, with women making omlettes and sandwiches by torchlight, and the men take tea and chat.

African tea is very interesting - there is a very small tea pot, heated on charcoal burner, which is fanned for quite a while till the tea boils. It is then poured from a height into tiny shot-glass-like cups. After adding (a lot) of sugar, the process of pouring is repeated from increasing heights until the sugar is mixed in and there is a head in the glass. The tea should then be slurped and returned to the pourer. Two further rounds of pouring are then taken, with the third supposed to be the best pour. It is an honour to be given any offer of tea, especially the third pouring! The tea itself is a very sweet green tea, that usually has bits of the leaves left in the bottom of the glass. I believe it is an Arabic tradition, hailing from the Islamic desert tribes.

Further down we found a row of TVs - all stuck on the loudest volume setting (thought of Pete's old TV in 111) - where the local boys play Pro Evo on a Playstation. Obviously I couldnt't turn down Dree's challenge and the game commenced. Now I did loose, and I hold my hands up to this, but the analogue stick was stuck downwards and all my players just ran towards the touchline. In the past anyway. Wait till my Xbox and Fifa 2010!

Got back to the rooms with some street food, and decided to leave for Gabu (further inland) for the weekend.

Change of plan in Bissau

2009-11-03T23:10:00.000-08:00

Early the next morning in Bissau we headed to the port, a bustling frantic place, which also seems to double as the fresh fish market, and was chaotic to get through. We waited for the office to open, as they had said a boat for Bolama (closest island in the Bijagos archipelago) departs this morning. As we waited a lot of people came up and explained that there was no boat till Friday - three days away...

This was confirmed by the office staff, and so we needed to re-evaluate our whole Bissau plan. Originally, we had wanted to spend a week or so island hopping and relaxing on some beaches, before heading overland to Mali to meet up with Dree's girlfriend, Kerry. Now we had about ten days to kill in Guinea-Bissau, with no idea of what we could do! We pondered at the port for a while, drinking bags of bissap (cooled hibiscus tea, bright purple and addictively refreshing) before relocating to a restaurant for the ultimate in concentration narcotics - tea.

Sorting out where we were going to go was the easy part; now we had nowhere to stay because last night's accommodation was fully booked. We eventually found somewhere, but us three had to cram into a double bed, in a small room which had no fan, a shower and toilet, but no running water. Oh and blackouts. Ah living on a budget! Call it an 'experience'.

Bissau itself is a lovely African capital, worlds away from Dakar. There is one main road down to the port, and a really relaxed atmosphere, possibly due to the Portuguese influence. There is hardly any hassle from people wanting to sell things, bar the occasional mobile top-up lads that seem to be present all over West Africa. No whistles, no followers, no shouting - you are left to wander around in peace (almost).

We saw the old palace that was bombed during the civil war (still in that condition), the Old Town, that reminded me of St Louis in Senegal, and the impressive fort overlooking the port, that is now a military base. The industrial side of the port reminded me a lot of Felixstowe - huge containers lifting crates onto huge lorries. But there was a lot of poverty down there. Homeless people, beggars, children sleeping in the shade under parked lorries. Maybe not so much like Felixstowe. Another difference is the vultures that circle above, literally everywhere in Guinea- Bissau. Quite unnerving seeing them up there.

We were a bit annoyed at not being able to make the Bijagos, but these things happen when you're travelling, and you have to be free enough to adapt and change plans. In our case we couldn't afford to spend another few days in Bissau, and so chose to divert our route back overland, stopping off in Bafata, Gabu and Tambacounda (Senegal) before going into Mali - country number four.

On a final stinging note, the owner of the place we were staying said that we had to pay 25,000 CFA for the room - not the 12,000 or so we were told. The room was a real dive; dirty, small, hot. We argued for a while but in the end had to pay about 17,000 because it was late and we had tried all other places that we could stay in. Only for one night, but that's what happens when you book into a brothel!!!

Midnight Stroll

2009-11-03T22:00:00.000-08:00

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

Stranger happenings in Varela

2009-11-03T10:56:00.000-08:00

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.

Strange happenings in Varela

2009-11-01T01:10:00.000-07:00

Well after that epic walk in we slept like logs. It was the beginning of the tourist season (coinciding with the end of the rainy season) and so Franco had made up two rooms for us. We weren't too bothered - it wasn't that expensive and we had breakfast included. The previous night we had met Franco, a seventy-odd Italian ex-Navy officer. He spoke Italian, French, English and Portuguese and lived with his two daughters in the compound at Chez Helene. His wife was in Italy (for how long we did not ask). He was a pretty good chef as well and cooked us a great meal every night we stayed. The breakfast was just tea, coffee and some bread with homemade jams, but it was just nice to have a breakfast for the first time in a while. Oh and they had a dog called Kaka.

The first day was pretty overcast, but we walked to the beach regardless. There were two beaches we could go to - a fisherman's working beach and the quieter, (according to Franco) nicer beach slightly further around the coast. We headed for the nicer one and were pretty weirded out by what we found. After going through a small forest unlike Thetford, we ended up on the shore where erosion had eaten away at the shoreline, dragging derelict houses and trees onto the beach. It was like something from Lost ("The Others") or Half Life! Dozens of empty buildings, overgrown with plants and some marked with graffiti. A rusted water tank had also fallen onto the sand and a digger was covered in vines slightly further inland. So strange - another thing you won't believe until I get some pics up.

Further around the shoreline was pretty inaccessible, due to the lack of sand and tonnes of iron ore. We took a trek over it (in flip flops mind) under the careful supervision of Surefoot Like-a-mountain-goat Webb, who took everything at speed! Did go quite a way around the coast, but were worried that the tide would cut us off. In Guinea Bissau the tide is four times the world average and comes in pretty quick. Headed back to Chez Helena where Barney discovered that he'd dropped his key somewhere along the coast... New lock time.

The Road; The Walk

2009-10-31T04:33:00.000-07:00

We rose early (seems to be an unfortunate habit on this trip...) and made our way to the bus station. The morning was cool and crisp, with dew underfoot and a dense fog all around. Bit descriptive you may think. I only remember it so well because we were at the bus station for about 6 hours! The 'morning' bus we'd been told about only left when it was full; which turned out to be about midday.

Crammed in a well overcrowded minibus (damn greedy driver) we set off down the worst 'road' qny of us have ever been down. Potholes, flooding, fallen trees - we had the works! Some of these potholes were ridiculous: huge pools of muddy water stretching from one side of the mud track to the other. When the driver edged down one side of the collapsing verge, the vehicle felt as if it would topple over (about four people sitting on the roof, as well as luggage) before we made it through, leaving waves in the giant puddles. Add to that a very uncomfortable seat, crammed in between people and biting flies, we didn't have the best journey. You won't believe it until I get some photos up.

After about three hours on this hellish track, we arrived in Susannah (18km from Varela). This was as far as the van could go because of flooding and a collapsed bridge. As we picked up our gear it was about 4pm. Some others from our bus were making the walk to Varela and so we tagged along. Much to the local's suprise I might add - laughing and waving at us.

There was an old man in a gold tunic and a younger guy, who was a fisherman, set the pace for us to follow. God, was it quick?! We were completely unprepared for this; no water, quick change from flip flops to shoes (minus socks in mly case) and carrying a helluva lot of weight in our backpacks! Maneuvering round the flooded potholes became more and more difficlut as the road fell apart before us. Massive lakes of stagnant water, deeper potholes - it was crazy how anything could get down here.

After an hour or so we reached a collapsed bridge. Piled up at the side of the road were the remains of the former metal bridge, and in its place across the river were creaking wooden slats. No wonder the minibuses couldn't have made it that far; the bridge would have definitely collapsed under its weight! The road didn't get any better after the bridge. The tail end of the rainy season had a very negative impact on the roads - the pot holes were deeper and wider than before and the water had turned the whole track into thick mud.

We seemed to walk for miles. Well, we did. We walked eighteen kilometres in the end, taking just under three hours, arriving at Franco's Chez Helene just after dusk. What a journey! Blistered feet, sore thighs, dehydration - the works! Arriving at Chez Helene we polished off a beer each and followed it all up with lots of chilled water. More on Franco and Varela later, even writing about the walk makes me feel tired, and brings on a throbbing in my feet!

Sao Domingo, with no Portuguese

2009-10-30T04:51:00.000-07:00

After a great last meal from Elizabeth at our campement, we gathered everything together (including the tonnes of washing) and packed for an early start. Getting up at 6am, we grabbed a quick breakfast - standard omlette in a baguette and uber-sweet coffee - before getting to the gare routiere in time for the first bus. Ended up waiting there for an hour or so before we set off for Ziguinchor again to get our visas for Guinea-Bissau (GB).

Getting the visas was the easiest thing on this trip thus far! We walked in, paid 10,000 CFA (just over a tenner), and they returned our passports within ten minutes! EASY! More complications on the horizon for Guinea-Bissau though... Headed for the gare routiere in Zig to try and get to Varela, on the GB coast in one day. Well, after lunch. Cheap plat du jour, dish of the day, for just over a quid. Love these prices.

Varela had a brilliant write up in a few of the travel guides, supposedly far better than the beaches of southern Senegal -especially Cap Skiring, which has had a tourist boom in the last few years. It was also lauded on the internet, so we decided to give it a try. It'd be nice to have a beach for a few days!

After crossing the border on the most overfull minibus yet (about 40 people) we arrived in Sao Domingo, just over the border. A crowd of drivers gathered round us in the tiny gare routiere and we eventually discovered that there was no minibus to Varela until tomorrow. We were quite the celebrities and were hassled a lot. Just to make it more confusing, Guinea-Bissau's official language was Portuguese - liberated in the 1970's. And unfortunately for us we had no idea of any Portuguese - bar a few phrases Barney had got from the web. The guidebook we had for GB said see Cape Verde's section for some phrases. We'd got rid of the Cape Verde section as we weren't going there. D'oh!

Luckily we had Franco's number ("Ah Franco!"), who was the owner of the only place to stay in Varela - a three hour journey towards the coast. Dree called from someone's phone and after a confusing discussion Franco said he'd expect us tomorrow morning.

Now to find a place to stay. We walked through the town (don't think many tourists stay here) but the only place that was in the guide book was shut. A couple of guys showed us to a motel up the road. The translation above the door made us think that it maybe a place you can pay for by the hour... a house of ill repute... but we had nowhere else to go and so we bedded down for the night.

Meeting His Highness

2009-10-22T07:47:00.000-07:00

The meeting with the King was scheduled for the afternoon, so in the morning we decided to head to Point-St-George, an idyllic riverside village with a manatee watching platform. But we had to head for the less interesting fishing village of Elinke as there were no taxis heading to St George that morning, and we had to get back for our rendezvous with the King! Turns out that Elinke was only a few more kilometres from where we watched the impromptu wrestling the other day.

When I say its a fishing village, thats it. Nothing else. Well there was a big treen (took a few pics) bar that, nothing! Ended up sorting backpack out for the next week before going to wait at our campenment for Charles around fourish. The rain had been going on for about an hour - second day on the trot in the dry season - and it was nearer 5pm when Charles arrived. We wandered through his village in a short cut to the gare routiere. Next door was the King's headquarters. We'd already walked past his house, which he shares with his several wives.

We waited over the road, while Charles confirmed our appointment. He came back, collected us and showed us into a small clearing the other side of a tall group of bushes. We waited there for a little while, before a man came out to say that the King was not ready until 6pm. Of course this is no problem - the King can choose when he wants to see people and not! It's his perogative! We had a quick drink at the bar in the gare routiere, returning at just before six.

I felt pretty nervous, truth be told, as the King came out to meet us in the small clearing - us sitting on a log on one side, and His Highness on the other, along with his assistant, holding umbrellas up. He spoke only in native Wolof, with Charles translating into French for us. The King was about 60 years old, barefoot in the mud, dressed in a long red tunic with a collar, and a

We asked him a load of questions ranging from does he get a holiday (laughter, and an explanation of how much time his job takes up), how big a family does he have (three wives and 18 kids) and what he thinks of the current situation in Cassamance re: the rebels/seeing Cassamance as a separate country. For the last question, the King went into some detail, explaining that he looked after the region, and sorted any disputes between people in villages - his word was final. He also mentioned that the Govt were in control of the whole country and that he just overlooked West Cassamance (Ossuyeh to Cap Skiring on the coast).

Other questions included education ("Important for the children, but they also should learn about tradition and skills") and what he thinks of tourism in the area ("Also important, but as long as they are respectful"). Took a couple of photos and thanked him for everything, bowing as we did so!

We paid a 10,000 CFA donation out of respect (also because we were told to) and tipped Charles for the past three days and also for arranging the meet. Well worth it though. Story to tell 'n' all!

'Trek', ants and more Pablo

2009-10-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

The trek (if that's what you could call it) was pretty disappointing. Charles took us on a walk through a few foresty bits and showed us a few different plants and fruits, including one really bitter one that we pretended to like, and so he kept plying us with them. Then we took a walk on the main road, down past some rice fields and then round to the back of our campenment. Not fantastic. I was expecting more.

During the trek, Charles told us that it probably wouldn't rain for another few months, but that afternoon it chucked it down for an hour or so! On a brighter note, we organised a meeting with the King of the region! To take place the following night! Pretty excited about that.

During the evening we'd organised a meet with Pablo for some more palm wine. On the way out of the campenment, in pitch black, I stood on some ants who were migrating because of the rain. These ants are killers, well the guard-ants that look after the workers are. They crawled up my legs and back and began to attack. Really big ants with visible jaws, it hurt so badly! Had to run back and have a shower before we tried again, this time missing the aggressive ants.

At Pablo's shop he also had an ant problem - they had burrowed through his sandy shop floor, where we were sitting a few evenings before. He invited us back to his house to have a drink, and we thought it was only a few doors down. After ten minutes of walking into the dark bush, taking too many turns to remember, we arrived at a village clearing where a few people were gathered. We were introduced to Pablo's 'grandpere', who was an old man with cataracts in both eyes.

Headed into Pablo's house, which was bare mud walls and floors, a tin roof and a mattress in one room. We drunk the palm wine outside in a kind of porch, but the conversation had been dried up the night before. He showed us a handful of pictures of him on the coast, fishing, and some of an European woman, whom he called his wife? After a few long silences, he brought up the fact he had two kids who he needed to pay to get through school. We said no to any donation but did buy some necklaces from him (was going to get some anyway). Anywhoooo, meeting a King next!

Kayaking down the Cassamance

2009-10-21T04:33:00.001-07:00

For the following day in Ossuyeh, we'd organised a kayak trip with Charles (VTT), but he'd got in contact the evening before to say that the tides meant that we could only go at 4pm. So after a relaxed day, including doing some washing Mum, we set off on bikes for the river.

Dropping the bikes off in a village about ten minutes away, we got the kit from a nearby hut and walked through some forest before emerging onto some paddy fields. These went on for quite a way, but we eventually arrived at the river's bank. The woven wooden hut that contained the kayaks was about twenty feet out, in the shallows. As we waded through, the river bed changed from sand to stone, to a kind of clay that felt really weird on the feet - you sunk into it, and we didn't know what was in these waters!

Getting the kayaks out was a bit of a mission in itself. Some huge wasps (and I mean ginormous) had started making small nests in the overturned kayaks, and were obviously a bit disturbed. These wasps were only black, but had a separated thorax and hovered around like a helicopter, sounding a bit like that too, as they were two or three inches big!

Got in eventually: me and Barney in one, Dree and Charles in the other, and headed into the bolong (mangrove swamps) that created a maze from the shoreline. Children were playing out in the water, which was pretty murky from the mud, and tried to grab a lift as we passed by. Dree and Charles were flying along, but me and B seemed to be going in a zig-zag fashion, using twice as much energy as the others. B blamed me, and I agreed because anyone who knows me knows that my upper body strength isn't fantastic. But when me and Dree swapped kayaks, Dree said that it was definitely Barney's steering that was at fault. I'll take that!

It was quite cool to do something a bit different, but there was not a lot to see, bar the groves. Saw a handful of birds, and a man in a pirogue who had caught a lot of fish during his day on the river. After changing our route, and heading into the cramped gaps between the submerged trees (lots of laughter as B and Dree careered about, smashing into the sides), we emerged into a wider part of the river. Charles asked us if we'd like a swim, and we jumped in. The water was lovely, it was a very hot day, and was a bit surreal to be swimming in a place like that. Did have a small fear about the fish that swim up your you-know-what, but I was reassured they were just in the Amazon.

Headed back to land, and got to the bikes just after dusk. Trek organised for the next morning. Can't wait!