Road trip to Burkina Faso and Mali
1st August 2006
I thought I had paid all my GVN fees up to the 15th of
August. Turns out I was wrong and had in fact only paid up to the
1st. I could either spend an additional $US250 on GVN
fees or bugger off to Burkina Faso and Mali (two countries I only
recently learnt existed) with Matty.
The recent events involving CBW
made for a somewhat easy decision.
So, to quote Dr.
Robin, I strapped my front pack to my front and backpack to my back
and headed north.
The front pack, incidentally, weighed 9 kg
and the backpack weighed 19 kg. Ugh.
 26th July -
Getting to Burkino Faso
Renee and Kalie
joined us for the first part of the trip. We departed camp at
around 8:30 a.m. and made it to the bus station at around 10:00
a.m. We hung out at the bus station
and generally baked in the sun until out bus eventually left at 11:45
a.m. The bus would take us all the way to Tamale, which is in the
far north of Ghana.
The bus ride sucked.
No two ways about it. It was long. It was noisy. It
was uncomfortable. The entire trip took thirteen hours.
Ugh. I'd hate to think how horrid it would of been if we had taken
a tro-tro.
Someone had thought it was a good idea to create a rattling
bus. Not just a mildly rattling bus, but a
lets-create-a-death-rattle-type-noise-whenever-the-bus-rolls-over-a-twig
type rattling bus. It was truly horrid.
I didn't realise how long it would be either. Matty told me we
were in a place called Kalise and we were about a third of the way
there. I didn't believe him. We had to be further on
than a third. I also didn't believe him when he verified it with a
third party. When I saw the Kalise sign I was thoroughly
depressed...
We finally arrived at Tamale at 1 o'clock in the morning. A
local lad insisted on showing us to a run-down
guest house. We gave him a 15,000 cedi ($NZ 0.26) tip and
crashed for the night.
27th July - Bolgatanga
and Goodbyes
Our goal for the day was to make it to Bolgatanga - a small town not
far away from the Burkina Faso border. But first we had a couple
of goodbyes to do. Renee and Kalie
were - for some strange reason - going to spend the day in Tamale and
then head back the way we came.
We gave each other some warm hugs at the
tro-tro station. Some creepy guy asked Renee if he could be given
the same hug. Git.
I love meeting new people. I hate saying
goodbye.
The tro-tro was long but bearable.
Bolgatanga is a quiet crossroads town with not
a lot happening. After disembarking from the tro-tro we walked
about one kilometer to our guesthouse. The owners of the
guesthouse informed us that they were booked out before showing us to a
room. Weird.
We found a good restaurant
and gorged ourselves on pizza before crashing out for the night.
28th July - Arriving
in Burkina Faso
Matty and I woke up early in the morning and lugged our luggage
back to the tro-tro station. We were planning to get to Burkina
Faso in several stages, but managed to luck upon a van heading straight
to Ouagadougou (wag-ah-doo-goo) - the capital of Burkina Faso.
Well, "luck" might not quite be the
right word. The van was severely
overloaded and crammed full of people. It looked extremely
unsafe. When the van went over a bump in the road, the front left
tyre
would scrape against than van itself in a most alarming manner.
But, this is Africa so we paid our 5000 CFA ($NZ 15.69) each and piled
on in.
CFA, by the way, is the Central African Franc
and is used in many central African countries (duh) such as Burkina
Faso, Togo, and Mali.
The border crossing was pretty much the same as
the Togo-Ghana crossing
I had done previously. We did have to wait in no-man's-land for a
bit while the rest of the passengers got sorted. I got bored so I
took a picture of a goat.
We eventually made our way into Burkina Faso. Yay!
Another passport stamp for my collection.
Burkina Faso is famous for being flat and
poor. It lacks natural resources and is not cunningly positioned
like its neighbors to take advantage of the trans-Sahara trade routes.
Despite its poorness, it is still an expensive place to stay compared to
Ghana. Burkina Faso is a French speaking Muslim country. Matty is
almost fluent in French. I hate to think how I would of coped
without him.
Once we got to the other side of the border
things changed dramatically.
The countryside flatten out even more and mud
brick buildings started to spring up on either side of the
road. The people we saw were simple folk
doing simple things. In a way I was
a little envious. Such a simple life does not lend itself to
asking the big questions of life. I like that.
The people tending the fields were
amazing. It was like the had a hinge attached to their middle and
could spend the whole day doubled over.
We eventually made our way into Ouagadougou.
The van driver dropped us of at a taxi stand, and a taxi took us to a
hotel. The hotel was on the expensive side at 18,000 CFA ($NZ
47.07) but it had air conditioning and a shower. I don't mind
paying a lot for a hotel when you first arrive in a country and know
nothing about the place.
The journey had taken a lot longer than we thought and
we were both ravenous. We wandered around for a while before finding
a cafe. We chomped down on some spaghetti. We had to
keep swatting away the numerous flies that
we trying to share our meal. Yuck.
Just before we were about to
finish our meal, a sandstorm decided to roll down the street. All
the locals ran for cover. I turned my back to it and quickly
finished the last of my spaghetti. Matty said that it reminded him
a lot of Egypt where he had spent many years growing up.
29th July - Ouagadougou
and Bike Rides
Early the next morning we decided to check out some of the sites
around Ouagadougou. The guide book recommended some interesting
markets. It needn't of bothered. The markets were either not
there or boring.
A sad fact about the town
center of Ouagadougou is that there is not much to do. The street
corners are filled with people selling their wares. The
vendors are very persistent and pushy. Since I don't speak French,
I tend to just give them the cold shoulder and don't say anything.
One guy was just too much though and I ended up just say "No"
repeatedly to him.
A couple of hours wandering around was all we
needed to see in Ouagadougou.
We decided to hire some mopeds
for the rest of the day and have a look further a field. The
mopeds cost us each 5000 CFA ($NZ 15.69) for four hours. I liked
the mopeds. They had one gear, one cylinder and were started by
turning some pedals. Very cool.
Matty and I picked a direction and headed
off. We stayed on the main drag for a bit before heading
down a dirt road. We found a shady spot under
an African tree and relaxed with some bread and water.
We started out track back to Ouagadougou.
The trip went fine apart from:
-
The chain disconnecting itself from my
bike a couple of times
A couple of minutes of tinkering fixed this easy enough
-
The sparkplug lead falling off my bike
more times than I can remember
Once again, easy enough to fix.
-
The brake cable snapping on my bike
This time it wasn't so easy to fix. We ended having to drive
back very slowly to Ouagadougou. The soles of my shoes served
as brakes. Wheee!
After the bike ride we were both pretty
beat. We checked into a much cheaper hotel and crashed for the
evening.
30th July - A
Slow Day
in Ouagadougou
Ouagadougou is a pretty lifeless place all things considered.
It's
slow slow slow.
I left the hotel room at about 9 a.m. to get
some water and the streets were practically deserted. This
listlessness tends to spread into your energy levels. Matty and I
had a very slow day.
We ate.
We slept.
We walked.
We surfed the 'net.
We slept.
We ate.
We slept some more.
*yawns*
We did find a good bus that
would get us to Mali though, so we did accomplish something.
31st July -
Traveling to Mali
Traveling in Africa is always an interesting experience.
You have to say goodbye to your western experiences and be prepared for
anything and everything. Our trip to Mali best sums up an African
travel experience.
To get into Mali you need a Visa. The bus
operator assured us that we could just get it on the border, but we
weren't taking any chances and turned up at the Malian Embassy at 8 a.m.
all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. The embassy staff told us that
they could have the visa ready by 1 p.m., which was a problem because
our bus left at 1 p.m. Matty, king of French, managed to convince
them to have it ready for us earlier. By 9:30 a.m. we had our
visas and were all set to go.
We hang around for a bit and then turned up at
the bus stop at the prearranged time of 12 noon. We then waited.
And waited.
And waited some more...
Eventually, the bus turned up at about 2:30
p.m. and we piled on in.
The bus ride north was very cool. You
could feel the Sahara approaching. The climate got hotter
and drier, trees got smaller and scragglier and dust and sand began to
dominate when earth was once king. I often thought, "Crickey,
how could anybody live out here?" But mankind has a habit of
surviving in the most unusual of places. Young kids appeared from
nowhere with their goatherds and farmers
were bent over double tending to their meager crops.
For some strange reason we changed from a very
comfortable bus to an uncomfortable van. Stoopid western Malcolm
thought we would of stayed on the same vehicle for the whole trip.
Some money must of magically changed hands from the bus driver to the
van driver as we didn't pay the van driver a cent.
The saddest part of the trip came when we
pulled into this town in God-knows-where. A large African lady was
eating some chicken in the front of the van and man, was she enjoying
it. She sucked, chewed and gnawed her way through that chicken
until there was nothing but bones left. She threw the greased
soaked paper and bones out the window, where a young kid promptly picked
them up. He sucked the remaining grease from the paper and
collected the bones. Sad.
It was dark by the time we got to the
Mali-Burkina Faso border. I wish it hadn't of been dark and that I
had had the nerve to take a picture because the guards building was
nothing but a shack. Some uniformed guy eventually invited Matty
and I in and stamped our passports for the relatively low bribe of 4000
CFA ($NZ 12.55). A similar process was repeated on the Mali side
outpost.
The van stopped in a small Malian town where we
were to spend the night. A helpful gentleman walked us to a rather
run-down hotel. We were initially going to sleep in the outside
huts, but the rain soon put an end to that. We
eventually slept on some mattresses on the floor of
the bar.
The hotel
in the Philippines where I
slept on a table tops the list of crap places I've slept in, but
this Malian place comes in a close second.
1st August -
Traveling in Mali
The morning saw another car switch-a-roonie and we piled into a
station wagon with seven (!) other travelers. Matt and I were
squashed in the front seat and had to switch every stop for fear of
never feeling our butts again.
Western Africa - for the most part - is very
flat and Mali is no exception, so we were pleasantly surprised when he
came across the Dogon Cliffs. Having
this great wall of rock rising out of the plains ahead of us was very
cool and exciting.
Our excitement quickly dissipated when our car
broke down in a pool of water. The driver seemed to know what was
going on and popped the boot, and rather deleteriously climb out the window
and along the bonnet before dropping dry-footed onto the ground. A
few minutes of tinkering saw the car spurt into life.
The drive through the cliffs was neat. The winding and rocky roads were so much more interesting than the dead
flat and straight roads we had had up to now.
We eventually made it to Mopti. Mopti is a pleasant little town that has the Niger
river running up its middle. The river is an integral part of the
peoples' lives. They wash in it, play
in it, fish in it and shuffle
tourists back and forth from Timbuktu in it.
As we disembarked from the car and donned our
backpacks, the inevitable helpful local turned up and showed us to a
hotel. As an added bonus, an Italian (?) gentleman gave us a lift
in the back of his pickup.
We were the only occupants of the
built-for-twelve dormitory-style room at our
hotel. Being able to stretch out and
have my own bed for once was nice.
We grabbed some dinner from a local restaurant
and then headed back to the hotel to crash for the night.
2nd August - Not
Going to Timbuktu and the Sahara
Our morning got off to an unexpected highlight with the presence
of a rather large pelican outside of our
hotel. Cool.
The guy that helped us find our hotel turned
out to be a guide. He told us that he had a boat that would be leaving
tomorrow for Timbuktu. The boat would take three days to get to
Timbuktu and he could organise us a 4WD vehicle to return us to Mopti.
The trip and all meals would cost us each 35,000 CFA ($NZ 109.82).
"Sweet!", we both thought and handed over a 10,000 CFA
($31.38) deposit.
But then - and this is the big "but"
of the whole trip - Matty and I started working how we could get back to
Accra in time for Matty's flight on the 13th. We could go to
Timbuktu and get back if everything went according to plan.
Travel in Africa rarely goes to plan, so we reluctantly agreed that we
would have to cancel the trip to Timbuktu. This turned out to be a
very wise decision.
It was a real downer. Going to Timbuktu
would of been so cool. If nothing else, they actually give you a
Timbuktu passport stamp which is a worthy addition to any
passport. It would of been great to have seen the Sahara and watch
the salt caravans roll in. Guides can also arrange overnight trips
to the desert, which I was seriously considering.
Ah well. Never-mind. Matty thinks
he'll back someday. I can't see myself returning anytime soon
though.
We told the guides that we had to cancel.
They were a little bit pissed-off, but got 10,000 CFA ($NZ 31.38) for
doing nothing, so I didn't feel too bad for them.
We spent the rest of the day looking around
Mopti. It is a cool little town, much more interesting than
Ouagadougou. The coolest building in all of Mopti is the mud-brick
mosque built in the 15th century. That's just a
little bit later than the Maori people set foot in my country!
Rain is a bit of curse to mud brick buildings, so they place pieces of
wood throughout the structure so as to make repairs easier.
We also found our selves down by the wharf
and market areas of Mopti. There are
two smells that I will never get used. The first is the urine
and feces smells that you get through third world countries and the
second is the small of fish stalls. There are plenty of fish
stalls in the Mopti market. Ugh.
The worst thing about Mopti was the constant
pestering by guides. Cries of "Mon amie! Mon amie!"
(French for "My friend! My Friend!") seemed to come from
everywhere. Ignoring them is usually the best tactic, but then you
feel like such a prick. Some of them are just being
friendly.
We relaxed on the
rivers edge in the late afternoon and watched the sun go down and
snapped pictures of boats going up and down the river. The Sahara
was between us and the setting sun. I thought that all then sand
that the Sahara throws up would make for a spectacular sunset. But
it did quite the opposite. The sand actually ended up obscuring
the sun. The sun disappeared behind the sand as it approached the
horizon.
We found a tro-tro that they
told us would depart the next day for Bobo - another city we wanted to
visit in Burkina Faso - at 6 a.m. We paid for our tickets and then
headed off to bed.
3rd and 4th
August - Hell
We turned up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at the bus stop at 6
a.m. and purchased our tickets. The helpful man behind the counter
told us to be ready to leave at 4 p.m. We grumbled a bit and then
went and got some breakfast.
We had discovered all of Mopti's treasures the
day before so we just chilled out. Mopti is a good chill-out
city. We had some delicious custard treats at a French style cafe,
surfed the 'net and soaked up the atmosphere of the city.
On our way back to the bus station, one random
guy told us the tro-tro would be canceled as
their weren't enough passengers. This should of been our first
clue that things were going to be a little ... different ... on this
trip.
The tro-tro driver ensured us that we would go
and ask us to just wait. So we did. We eventually got going at
6 p.m.
The tro-tro needs a description. The
photo really doesn't due it justice. I described it over here,
but I'll copy it hear for convenience sake.
The [tro-tro], like OJ Simpson, had seen better days. Its chassis
was so rusted that you could see the road whilst traveling and little
bits of red dust would land in your hair every time the truck hit a particularly
big bump. The air-conditioning unit had long since died but its
absence was not noticed as the truck had no windows on the driver and
passenger-side doors and a sliding window in the back that - at best -
covered half an opening. It sported an eclectic collection of
steel-belted radials that pieces of metal would poke through. The doors needed rope to
keep them shut and the journey needed an act of God to keep it safe.
After about an hour of traveling we pulled into
a bus stop. As we pulled out of the bus stop the drive shaft fell
off the tro-tro. This was okay though as they had another one and
promptly attached it. We traveled another thirty minutes or so and
pulled into a hotel car park, where nothing proceeded to happen for a
long time. Nobody thought to tell us what was happening, so Matty
approached someone and learnt that the driver had serious doubts that
the tro-tro would make it to Bobo.
Nothing proceeded to happen again, so I talk a
nap in the dirt. The dirt is my new
winner of "Most uncomfortable place to sleep" award.
After napping for an hour or so, someone woke me up and we piled on into
the tro-tro. The driver had decided to head back to Mopti for - I
assume - some repairs of some sort.
By the time we arrived back into Mopti, Matty and I had had enough and so
I climbed on top of tro-tro to get our backpacks. This time, someone
finally decided to talk to us and told me to get down as the tro-tro
would be leaving soon. I got down and the tro-tro promptly
left. I was unsure what the point of returning to Mopti was. *Shrugs*
At long last, we were on our way.
You'd think this was a good thing, but no, it was a bad thing. The
tro-tro was hideously uncomfortable and seemed to find every possible
bump on the road. The best word to describe the suspension is
"non-applicable". It was just hideous.
At one point it started raining and the tro-tro
started leaking. You had to find just the right position in
the tro-tro to avoid all the drips. Our backpacks on the roof got
very damp despite being under a plastic tarpaulin.
The tro-tro stalled often and we'd have to get
out and get it going again with a push-start. It was during one of
these push-starts that I had my epiphany.
At one point they decided to change the
tyre. When we got going again, there was a thump-shhhh, thump-shhhh
noise coming from where they had changed the tyre. The driver
was keeping a close eye on it. All of a sudden there was a
big thump and then no more odd noises. The driver seemed
happy enough and carried on.
Turns out the thump-shhh noise was a
large piece of loose rubber on the tyre. The big thump noise
was the piece of rubber falling off. The rest of the trip was done
on a tyre stripped of most of its rubber.
You cycle through various stages on a trip like
this. You go through the this-is-so-bad-its-funny stage, where you
kid around and joke about it. Next comes the quiet-resignation
stage where you grin and bear it. The last stage is
I'm-really-pissed-off-and-frustrated stage, which you eventually move
past and you return to one of the other stages.
Matty said that he was getting so frustrated at
one stage that he almost screamed out loud. He settled for banging
his head on the seat in front of him. It was done with no humor,
he was getting a serious case of cabin fever.
We eventually made it to Bobo in a very sad way
at 10 p.m., the following day. We worked out that it had
taken us 28 hours to travel 475 km. That's a moving average of 17
kph. Ugh.
An absolute shite trip.
No doubt about it.
5th August - Bobo
After the trip from Hell, Bobo was a pleasant change. The Rough
Guide to West Africa describes it as the prettiest city in West
Africa, which I would agree with.
That's not to say it is all pretty
though. You still get the slum areas, people peeing against walls
and crapping in corners, the beggars and the homeless.
It does have pretty areas though. We paid
a guide 3000 CFA ($NZ 9.41) to show us around the old area of Bobo,
which was called - strangely enough - Old Town.
The oldest building in
Old Town dates bate to the 15th century. Descendants of
the original family that built the house still live there.
The guide took us down past the river
- where washer women washed and pigs searched for food - to the town's
Sacred Pool. The Sacred Pool had seen better days. It was
very polluted. He tried to point out the Sacred Fish in the Sacred
Pool. I spotted a very ugly fish at one point, but was unsure as
to whether or not is was sacred. I wasn't crass enough to ask if
the pigs wallowing in the Sacred Pool were
sacred as well.
I suspect the Sacred Pool was sacred because it
got tourists to ogle into it and pay 3,000 CFA ($NZ 9.41) for the privilege.
I imagine the locals have a few good laughs at the stoopid white people
peering into a polluted puddle. Still, you never do know for sure
whether it is truly sacred or not. You always have that fear of
being culturally offensive lurking at the back of your mind.
The guide also showed us to
the town's mud-brick mosque, which was very
similar to the one in Mopti. I kept
some kids amused outside the mosque with my
juggling prowess.
6th August -
Heading Home
Over the next two days we gradually winded our way back to Accra
in Ghana. Lots of rather dull bus rides.
On the bus we met up with couple of girls
called Amy (from Norway) and Mila (from
Canada). They were volunteering as well and we hung out with
them for a few days in Ghana. We were hoping to meet people like
them earlier on in the trip. Was a shame that we hooked up with
some fellow travelers so late in the trip.
And that's a wrap! I'm glad I went to
Mail and Burkina Faso. It was a good chance to have a decent break
between Ghana and Uganda. It was a shame we never made it as far
as Timbuktu and the Sahara. Ah well.
Next stop: Uganda! Woot.
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(c)
2005 and 2006 Malcolm Trevena.
All the stuff on this site is written by me, Malcolm Trevena. Feel free to
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