Last Stop….Cote D’Ivoire

Ah! J’aime la Cote D’Ivoire… I guess this blog post is supposed to be in english so I shall translate. I love Ivory Coast. On a second thought, maybe i don’t need to translate as romantic comedies and Beyonce songs have taught us a tad bit of French, and by that i mean; if you have listened to “Partition” by B, you have a pretty good idea of what “j’aime” means. Let me digress before i get carried away.

Prior to my attempt at putting together a few cohesive sentences, I would like to point out a very small insignificant fact, or a disclaimer if you will; I hate blogging, or more diplomatically put, i really hate blogging. So join me on this wild adventure --.--

One thing I do love doing however, is talking about the amazing journey I embarked on with a small fraction of my Peace Corps family. From Guinea where we loaded our bags on top of the Grey Goose and bid home as we knew it farewell all the way to Ivory Coast where we each embarked into our new individual realities.

I guess it makes sense that I am writing this blog post, as I have been obsessed with Cote D’Ivoire for a very long time. For some reason unknown to man, I have felt such a pull towards that country. I remember how I would huddle up in a corner of my hut where I had good internet reception (reseau) and do endless research on my phone until it ran out of battery, only to take it to the charging center and do it all over again the following day. I would read every article in Worldview on Economic and Agricultural growth pertaining to Cote D’Ivoire and fantasize about walking down the streets of Abidjan in a business suite and a cute pair of Tory Burch flats. But that is beside the point. The point here is, I was seduced by a people and place before I even set foot in it.

As we drove into the city of Abidjan, my jaws dropped to the floor like you would imagine an animé character's  expression of awe. First, let me give you a little background about Cote D’Ivoire. Located on the Western Coast of Africa between Ghana and Liberia, she is shaped like a square. Once recognized as a model of stability during the first decade of the 21st Century, Ivory Coast was recently plagued by international conflict like its counterparts all over Africa. In 2002, an armed rebellion split the nation in 2 fractions.

For more than 3 decades, after independence, the leadership of Felix Houphouet-Boigny, Ivory Coast’s President was commended for its thriving economy and religious-ethnic harmony. All these milestones came to a halt  when the late Robert Guei led a coup which toppled President Houphouet-Boigny’s successor Henri Bedie in 1999. The chaos that swept the nation destroying lives and cities, is a memory that will remain engraved in the minds of many for decades to come. 10 years ago the tension and tragedy was palpable but today, the people of Ivory Coast have put it all behind them. Today, they are focused on rebuilding the thriving economy and country they have always been proud of.

We came into the country through Ghana stopping to spend the night in Grand Bassam, a
  beautiful beach town and former French colonial capital east of Abidjan. Yes it was very sketch and yes, there were blue and red mood lights and yes, it might have been a brothel but the service was great! The following day, bright and early, we drove into Abidjan where we stayed at a chouette (neat) little hotel in le Plateau “Le Sport”. The rooms were nothing short of quaint! The management was very helpful with directions and everything else we needed. They even helped us sell the famous Grey Goose Gaggle, sad, sad day it was. Later that night, we had Vietnamese food and played way too many games of pool at a mix club that replayed Drunk in Love at least 6 times. We danced like we just didn’t care, whipped our hair back and forth, pretended to be Rihanna singing to Diamonds and met the Montinique sisters…*side eye*, that is a story for another day lol. The Following day, we explored the Treichville  market, visited the St. Paul’s cathedral where we enjoyed an amazing panoramic view of the city, got bottle service at a fancy night club and came really close to seeing P square. 

The view from the top of St. Paul's Cathedral

As we danced in a circle  to more Beyonce, Coupe Decale, old school Jay Z and random pop songs, I realized that these moments are what some people search for a lifetime and may never get to experience. I looked around me, and everything was perfect! I would give up anything to experience that feeling again.

Huge warning: Do not eat 5 mangos at a competitive pace or in what some may call an Ultimate Mango-Beer Contest! It really isn’t worth it, solid poo is to be cherished my friends.

- Clara

Trip stats:

• Total time in car: 108 hours
• Cheapest diesel: Benin (620 CFA/liter)
• Most expensive diesel: Conakry/ Siguiri (9,500 GNF/liter)
• Capitals visited: Conakry, Bamako, Ouagadougou, Contonou/ Porto-Novo, Lome, Accra
• Number of doppelgangers sighted: Lebanese Sean Cochrane seen at Room, Conakry, Guinea, Fred B at Amadine, Bamako, Julie in car in Ouaga, Tosten at De Niros, Ouaga, Dante Bugli at Oasis Beach Hotel
• Longest border crossing: 3 hours 30 minutes (Guinea - Mali)
• Shortest border crossing: 1 hours 05 minutes (Benin-Togo)
• Togo-Ghana boarder crossing debrief (1 hour 53 minutes):
• Stop 1 (Ghana) - Police stop - passports
• Stop 2 (Cote D'Ivoire) - show passports and visas, paperwork for the Goose
• Stop 3 (Cote D'Ivoire) - Cote D'Ivoire laissez-passer

Ghana

I'm Ghana make you work for it.

At first it seemed like Ghana didn't want us in their country. At the Ghanaian Embassy in Cotonou, we were matter of factly told we couldn't possibly get a visa there because we were not residents of Benin. If we wanted a Ghana visa, we should have gotten it in Guinea...but we assured the woman that we weren't technically residents of Guinea but rather the United Stated and we haven't been there for over 2 years. The secretary stressed that we could only get a 2 day transit visa to travel thru Ghana on the way to Cote d'Ivoire. We thought our dreams of visiting Ghana were crushed. But the gaggle caught a break yet again; later that day the Embassy called us to say they were giving us a specially-made 10-day visa. We were back in the game!

But Ghana had other hurtles for us. We foolishly crossed the Togo border into Ghana in the evening and therefore had to drive the couple hundred kilometers to Accra after dark. Note: Don't attempt that. It turned out to be the slowest, most frustrating drive ever. Once the sun goes down, Ghana's police sets up checkpoints every 20km or so, supposedly in an effort to "crack down on banditry." Instead it was never-ending test of whether we were following Ghana's many random driving laws. Sorry to burst your bubble, Wiatta, but it turns out Ghana's corruption is pretty appalling. We kept getting stopped and were at the mercy of the policeman present and his mood. The first major stop, the cop asked to see Zach's international driving license and once he had it, informed us that we were breaking Ghanaian laws because 1) Zach was wearing flip flops while driving and 2) our car didn't have reflective stickers on its front and back bumpers. He said he would keep Zach's license and give us a court date in Ghana to sort it out and get the license back. We were shocked at such an extreme punishment for both points because not a single official at the border has mentioned these laws AND we rectified both on the spot. But the police were having none of it from Zach and Chris M. By some miracle, Clara made headway by throwing a lot of crazy benedictions in her conversation with him, including some winners like "God bless you and your family." She managed to get Zach's license back in our hands and get off with a warning. What's gonna work? TEAMWORK! Team Oumi Zoumi lives on. The fun ( and by that I mean hell) didn't end there, however. We continued to get stopped to show our papers, open our trunk for inspection, etc. Not even Guinea's that bad for crying out loud. Then we had another police checkpoint among the very many where the cop asked where our fire extinguisher was and then asked how we'd put out a car fire without one. Water and blankets, maybe? ventured Zach. Again, no one at the border had told us we needed a fire extinguisher and now we were stuck at a police shack that obviously didn't sell them. And again, our license was taken hostage and we were threatened with court. Zach and Chris M were yet again desperately trying to argue the injustice of it with the police to little avail. I came in for moral support, but before I knew it I was saying things like "Thank you for informing us of the law" and "show us a little mercy and understanding." One cop finally caved, but brought me aside to explain that the other cop needed something for his troubles. Ha, his troubles. Ah yes, dipping in to our bribes fund! With a couple of Cedis and a fake smile, we got all our papers back and were finally back on our way.

Are you Ghana eat that? Pancakes, lobster and ramen noodles.

Despite the Ghana police trying to break our spirits, we made it to Accra past midnight. We found a random hotel for the night and our saving grace was a little food stand across the street that was amazingly still open. Three sisters in their teens and 20s -- Mabel, Esther and Beatrice -- were cooking up ramen noodles. Now don't knock it 'til you try it, folks. This was on par with chinese carry out -- ramen noodles strained and then pan sautéed with fried egg, cabbage, onion , and corned beef into a noodle stir fry dish. Boy does it hit the spot! Chris A instantly put Ghana back in his good graces based on the roadside availability of ramen noodles.
Our short time in Accra was mostly spent eating. We have our priorities straight; food is at the top. KFC popcorn chicken, street side news, chinese, pizza, soft serve...We tore the food options of Accra's swanky OSU neighborhood up.
KFC worker: What flavor soft serve would you like?
Clara: Choc....Straw...Chocccc....Strawww.... (with panic on her face)
We also made another big step in our transition back to modern amenities by going to a real movie theater at Accra mall in the fancy suburbs. Accra has it all!

We're Ghana catch some waves. #Surfboard

But the highlight of our time in Ghana was by far our beach time! As soon as we could, we ditched the city for the small coastal village called Krokrobite Beach. Camping at Big Millie's right on the beach was awesome and much recommended--ocean access, billiards, ping pong, outdoor bar, English breakfast at nearby cafe shack Dizzy Lizzie's.

From Krokrobite, we continued on to Cape Coast where we stayed at Oasis Beach Hotel, the beachside party hostel complete with a bar, restaurant, hammocks, beach volleyball, and lots of cute and friendly guard dogs. Shout out to the pups who we played with late at night--Tequila, Bonjour, Alaska, Sambuca, and Zena. We met a lot of foreigners between 18 and 22 staying there for the weekend who were mostly volunteering in Ghana for a year or less. From our experience, Ghana has a large short-term volunteer presence. Cape Coast is most famous for the colonial slave fort that was the place where the largest number of West Africans were shipped out as slaves to the New World. The tour of the fort that was understandably powerful and gripping as we went from dark, dank, cramped dungeons where hundreds of slaves awaited their fate to the bright, airy governor's quarters with stunning ocean views. A grotesque juxtaposition. I got dehydrated during the visit and felt pretty woozy for the whole thing. Remember to hydrate and don't pass out!

**Doppelganger siting at Oasis Beach Hotel in Cape Coast, Ghana: Dante Bugli**

From Cape Coast, it was onto Busua, a small fishing and surfing village with a really laid back vibe. We set up camp at The Alaska, a hotel along the beach owned by an older guy from Alaska who's spent a lot of time living and working in Africa. Our time was spent just as it should be at the beach--swimming, napping and even some surfing. Busua has a surf shop where we rented a board for a day and took turns on it with Zach as our teacher. Props to Zach for being so patient and encouraging while he switched off showing all 5 of us how to catch a small wave and get up on the board. We all had varying degrees of success with it, but all 5 of us stood up to some extent and had a blast. Surfing is tiring! Our nights were spent playing pool at a local bar, eating delicious food at a little restaurant called JulieDan's (go there if you make it to Busua!) and playing cards. For food, also hit up Florence's for breakfast or lunch--egg salad sandwich, red red (plantains in red palm oil with beans), etc. Good eats, good waves and lots of sun, Ghana's Gold Coast was good to the Grey Goose Gaggle.

- Brittany

Trip stats:

• Total time in car: 98 hours
• Cheapest diesel: Benin (620 CFA/liter)
• Most expensive diesel: Conakry/ Siguiri (9,500 GNF/liter)
• Capitals visited: Conakry, Bamako, Ouagadougou, Contonou/ Porto-Novo, Lome, Accra
• Number of doppelgangers sighted: 1 (Lebanese Sean Cochrane seen at Room, Conakry, Guinea, Fred B at Amadine, Bamako, Julie in car in Ouaga, Tosten at De Niros, Ouaga, Dante Bugli at Oasis Beach Hotel)
• Longest border crossing: 3 hours 30 minutes (Guinea - Mali)
• Shortest border crossing: 1 hours 05 minutes (Benin-Togo)
• Togo-Ghana boarder crossing debrief (1 hour 53 minutes):
• Stop 1 (Togo) - Police stop - passports
• Stop 2 (Ghana) - show passports and have picture taken, embarkation card
• Stop 3 (Ghana) - Ghana laissez-passer
• Word of the wise - buy the reflectors and put them on your car at the boarder if you haven't already!

Togo

Our trip to Togo was short, but sweet.  We got a late start out of Benin, but fortunately crossing the western border also meant a little time-travel as we gained an hour and reached the capital just after sunset.

 

Lomé is located on the coast and houses one of the most important ports of West Africa, with incoming goods making their way inland, as well as Ghana, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.  Our hosts in Benin suggested a place for us to stay in Lomé that seemed to fit our price-range and cleanliness-to-dirtiness threshold before we left too.  We had no idea of where La Bella was located so we called the owner shortly after crossing the border.  After talking for a few minutes, she quickly decided that the hotel would be simply too difficult for us to find on our own in the dark.  She graciously offered to taxi to a prominent and easily found club at the center of town and ride back with us to her place.  It turns out she was just as friendly and fun in person as over the phone.  Charismatic with an overly honest sense of humor, she had a smile on her face the entire ride back.  We didn’t get lost (which was a nice change of pace after our Contonou fiasco) and got to have some laughs along the way.  A good start to our brief sojourn in Togo.

The next day was our only full day in Togo. A crime, perhaps, but the once fluid schedule was beginning to solidify before our eyes as we started the back-half of the trip and with high hopes for Ghana and the daunting prospect of selling the Goose in Côte d’Ivoire still looming overhead, we needed to keep to a brisk pace.  Our first stop was the Musée International du Golfe de Guinée.  Our guidebook said that this museum housed sculptures and masks from all across Western Africa and it did not disappoint.  Honestly, it was a little overwhelming, with easily over a hundred works of art crammed into a few rooms.  While they were organized by types of art (first room was sculptures, the second jewelry, the third masks) I wish they would have been curated with a little more attention to chronology and origin.  Nevertheless, it was an impressive array of West Africa art, ranging from a giant Nimba statue from Guinea to ornate Ashanti gold-work from Ghana to some terrifying masks from Burkina Faso (or at least, terrifying to me).  Definitely worth checking out if you have the chance.

After that we split up for the rest of the afternoon.  While Clara and Michelle went in search of some new shoes and Togo’s fabled poisson braisé, Chris, Brittany and I continued on to see a church in downtown Lomé.  Although Togo officially speaks French today, the church was constructed before the German’s transferred ownership of Togoland to France and Britain in the early twentieth century.  Togoland was divided into two halves after that, right down the middle.  The western part would eventually become part of the British Gold Coast (and becoming Ghana a year later) while the eastern half remained under French influence, until their independence in the 1960.  The church was beautiful and in very good condition and it was great to see that it was still able to offer schooling to children in the area.

After a delicious western lunch, a re-televised soccer match and some air conditioning, we made for an open plaza and had a startling discovery, which was one of the most bizarre things we saw on our trip.  Kids taking rollerblading lessons!  First and foremost, I hope that I don’t sound like a naïve and condescending American.  Of course Togo has this kind of service available to kids as an after school activity in its capital city.  It is a relatively developed city with services that are able to cater to its upper class citizens.  But coming from Guinea, where there are about a million and one reasons why this would be impossible to replicate there, we just had to grin as the twenty or so kids were practicing drills with their instructor. 

After leaving the Hirondelles (swallows) to their practice we happened upon our next great discovery.  BUMPER CARS IN THE ADJACENT PARKING LOT.  Again, we were recently Returned Peace Corps Volunteers.  We valued having more authentic and less touristy adventures on this road trip.  But indulging in the little things, like ganging up and sandwiching your friend between two electrified carts, not only represented a fun way to end the afternoon, it was the beginning of our return home.  At least for me, this trip was my way of leaving West Africa on my own terms, at my own pace.  And as I write this post in my living room in Minnesota, I can say with certainty that things like this helped make the transition of coming back to the First World less jarring and overwhelming.  And come on.  Who doesn’t like bumper cars?

We met back up with Michelle and Clara at our rooms and had a much needed naptime - then went out in search of dinner.  After realizing that the restaurant we wanted to eat at was closed, we made serendipitous discovery number three.  A restaurant that served dinner on the cheap next to a park with a playground.  While our chicken and fries were being cooked up behind the Parc de Martyrs, we got back to basics and ran around that playground like it was 1994.  There was climbing, sliding, tackling and before dinner was served, showering - or at least we made do with some buckets of water and washed as much of the sand from our clothes and hair as possible. 

We tried to hit the bars after that and after walking the streets for a little bit, eventually arrived at an outdoor bar that served some pretty peculiar items.  The “bartender” was very proud of his concoctions and unfortunately unsolicited-ly served us some of his pretty horrible drinks.  The exact ingredients elude me, but I vaguely recall milk and poison-whiskey being involved and in proportions that would surprise you.   After some debate the night was concluded at the spot of our initial rendez-vous with our hostess, where we got our fix of dancing and Beyoncé.

All in all, not a bad day.

Chris (A)  

Trip stats:

• Total time in car: 75 hours
• Cheapest diesel: Benin (620 CFA/liter)
• Most expensive diesel: Conakry/ Siguiri (9,500 GNF/liter)
• Capitals visited: Conakry, Bamako, Ouagadougou, Contonou/ Porto-Novo, Lome
• Number of doppelgangers sighted: 1 (Lebanese Sean Cochrane seen at Room, Conakry, Guinea, Fred B at Amadine, Bamako, Julie in car in Ouaga, Tosten at De Niros, Ouaga - again, we have continued to fail at getting photographic evidence)
• Longest border crossing: 3 hours 30 minutes (Guinea - Mali)
• Shortest border crossing: 1 hours 05 minutes (Benin-Togo)
• Benin-Togo boarder crossing debrief (1 hour 5 minutes; 0 hours 5 minutes with time travel!):
• Stop 1 (Benin) - Gendarmerie stop - present passport, drivers license and carte grise
• Stop 2 (Togo) - Gendarme stop - purchase visa
• Stop 3 (Togo) - Gendarmerie stop for vehicle registration
• Stop 4 (Togo) - Short customs stop

Benin: Show Us Your Tatas

After a marathon day of driving by our very own Zachary Bachtell, we crossed the border into the North of Benin. From there, we drove along the border of Pendjari National Park until we got to a village right outside the entrance, where we would be staying the night. We had planned to be driving the Goose through the park to save on renting a car, but after seeing the road there, and loosing part of the car to the sands, we realized she might not make it through alive. Luckily, there was a 4x4 owning guide in the town that we could hire, Mr. Ibrahima. 

He came by bright and early the next morning so we could see some wildlife before they retreat from the afternoon sun. Unfortunately, no one had told us about the time change between Burkina Faso and Benin, so we were still fast asleep, thinking that the was an hour earlier. After a late start, we made it to the park, riding on top of the car with the wind in our hair. That morning we saw several species of antelope, crocodiles sunning on the sand, a big herd of buffalo, and elephants on their way to the watering hole. The elephants even waved at us Dumbo-style with their trunks. We took a short siesta as all the animals were doing the same and heading out again for the evening. We went to look for the lions, but only managed a glimpse before they jumped into the tall grass. That night, we played soccer under a single light bulb hung on a clothesline and slept under the stars. We woke before dawn to pack up and beat all the other cars to the lions. We found them lazing about in a clearing, a male and female, the smell of their recent kill on the breeze, much grosser than it sounds. We were only about 40 feet from them, each of us enjoying the cool of the morning. 

We left for Natitingou that afternoon, stopping in Tanguieta for some wagachi, a beninese specialty of fried cheese. (sidenote: we later had a wagachi eating contest and Chris M. won, eating 17 nugget sized pieces) In Natitingou, we went out for a dinner of antelope and Beninoise, the national beer. The next day we did a moto tour of the Tata Sombas, the castle-like mud houses built by the Tammari people of the North. Driving on our moto scooters down dirt roads, we were basically the Hells Angels of Benin. We spent the afternoon washing the layers of dust off at a nearby waterfall. It was then that one of the most important developments of the trip happened: we got our CD player to work, allowing us to listen to the wonderful sounds of Baha Men for weeks to come. 

Then we headed south to Cotonou, the biggest city in Benin. There we got to bask in the luxury of beer on tap (it was an IPA!), cold cuts, and nightly games of pool. We also had to say goodbye to a member of the gaggle, Molly (don't worry, we stayed away from oranges even after you left!) . We visited Ganvie, a village built completely on stilts over Lake Nokoué . Everyone, even children as young as 5, gets around by boat. One day we traveled the 40 km to Porto Novo, the capital, to visit the Songhai agricultural center. Started several decades ago by a Nigerian brother, it is a place where interns are trained in the most up to date permaculture methods and new techniques can be experimented. Also near Cotonou is Ouidah, one of the villages from which voodoo originated. The people of Ouidah practice fetishes rituals and build shrines to ancestors or other animist dieties to whom they regularly sacrifice chickens. There is also a python temple, full of hundreds of snakes, that is admittedly kind of a tourist trap. But we got to put pythons around our necks and take pictures, so totally worth it. 

We then visited the biggest part of departure for slaves coming from Benin, the same slaves who brought their culture with them to become what we call voodoo in the States. It has now become a "door of return", welcoming people of African heritage back in a sort of reverse diaspora. This was the first of several historical slavery points we would visit, and the first of many Brittany would nearly pass out at. 

And with that our visit to Cotonou, and Benin, was over. But here's some last things about our visit through the ancient Kingdom of Dahomey . 

Time spent in Benin: 9 days 
Lions seen: 3 
Wagachi eaten in total: an estimated 130 pieces (at 100 CFA a piece, that's about $26) 
Rounds of Pool Played: 19 
Zems (moto taxis) taken: 60 

Nems (spring rolls) eaten: 12 

Nems eaten on zems: 0 (still my biggest regret)

- Michelle

POST 2?

Hey everyone!! This is Zach, writing from Accra, doing my first blog post of the trip (finally), and technically my first blog post EVER that I will have actually posted myself!!  I am really sorry for delaying this, and I hope I don't forget anything... but my post will be travelling back in time a bit!

SO! I believe that the last time we communicated a legit post, we were in Bamako.  I can't recall exact dates, but we were only in Bamako for a few days at first.  I went to find a new serpentine belt with Michelle and Chris A. and it turned out that we needed to change one of the pulleys as well, the pulley that is supposed to have a bit of bounce to it (it didn't move at all) and the spring that was attached to it (the spring was locked up).  After grabbing a moto with the mechanic to the Grande Market, we found a multitude of possible replacement parts, and found good ones from a '95 Peugeot.  We found a good belt, replaced the parts, got Mother Goose back to the house, and then went out for a night on the town with a friend of Chris M.  He took us to a live music show at a little dive club nearby, where we got to listen to one of the many underground artists in Bamako's music scene.  She had a great voice (Chris M and I bought some of her songs and put them on his phone's memory, maybe we'll post one..), two guitars backing her, a bassist, a guy on trap set, another on tom-toms, and I think a piano player.  She also had three dancers that did their thing in front of the band on the small dance floor.  We were a bit surprised by the exuberance of their dancing, and the suggestiveness of it as well!  The band surprised us even more by inviting Chris M up to play the tom-toms, and he got them to pull me on stage to play the bass, and we jammed with them to one of their songs, desperately trying to follow along!  I think we acquitted ourselves well.  After that we got pull out onto the dance floor, and some of the dancers did their best to make us feel uncomfortable in front of the entire club... but it was a good laugh, drinks were cheap, and we had a ball.

On the way home, our taxi was stopped by some policemen.  I was in the taxi with Clara and Brittany, and Chris.  One of the policemen asked us for our papers, a totally normal request.  However he then proceeded to ask Brittany and Clara for their World Health Organization Immunization cards!  He said "you should have your cards on you, because, if you don't then well, you know that means you're..."  We couldn't believe it, he was implying that our girls were prostitutes!!!  We had to laugh and luckily had our old peace corps IDs which said we didn't need our cards, but it was an outrageous situation, that we continue to chuckle over now (though we always bring our WHO cards now, in case we meet some really mean police, like the some of the ones here in Ghana).

The next day we left, heading down to Sikasso, and not even 50km out of Bamako, disaster struck.

The serpentine belt disintegrated.  Belt number 3.  We waited for a few hours to get a mechanic on a moto from the next town to put on a new belt.  He broke the one we gave him to put on, but claimed it was the wrong size anyway, and then put on another.  We decided to get back to Bamako and find a better mechanic.  Luckily one of our friends at the Sleeping Camel Hostel new a guy, and we called our old Public Health Program Manager, N'Tossoma (who is Malian) to get a guy to come to the hostel.  The dynamic duo of mechanics re-aligned our serpentine belt, found an ACTUALLY high quality belt (the belt we used to get back to Bamako was already starting to fall apart as well...), and they also decided to change up our timing belt, a process that required we stay an extra two nights in Bamako.  So we bit the bullet and paid for it all, and they did a stellar job.  We got to go out to experience more of Bamako's night life at a club called Byblos, where we played lots of pool and paid for overpriced Long Island iced teas, and danced the night away.  The next day, our mechanics worked their magic, we packed the car up, and headed to Sikasso.  We found a nice little hotel, snuck in our 7th person into one of the rooms (having 7 people was a bit awkward at some hotels, but we made it work!), and had a good night's sleep.  We ran into our friend from the Sleeping Camel the next day, because he was also heading to the Burkina Faso border.

The border crossing I recall being rather painless, we had to pay a random fee without a receipt that must have been a harmless bribe, and we headed on to Bobo-Dioulasso.  We found the Peace Corps regional house no problem, met a few volunteers and chatted about what things we should do, ate a nice lunch with some ground nut drink, and then moved on to Banfora, a city to the south of Bobo.

The drive was beautiful, and coming down off a plateau we saw huge spreading fields of sugarcane, complete with large scale rolling irrigation sprinklers!!  These fields were easily several hectares.  The agriculture we saw around Banfora was incredible, a lot of great Agroforestry!!!

We stayed at a cool hotel called Calypso.  Good price, nice rooms and bathrooms and showers, cheap drinks again, we really enjoyed staying there.  We used what little daylight we had left the first day to play some soccer in the Banfora stadium (its under construction and open for pick up games).  We just played 3 on 3 among ourselves.

The next day we went off to see the Domes of Banfora, and a cool waterfall down the way (**we should be putting up photos of all this stuff at some point, just bear with us**)

We spent a lovely day walking along the massive water pipes for the irrigation systems in the sugarcane fields, getting a nice tan and taking a dip in the waterfall.  We also gave Molly her first palm wine experience! We drank it out of a calebasse cup (kind of like drinking out of a gourd I guess..)

So the next day I think we went back up to Bobo and stayed the nite in a hostel right beside the peace corps regional house for a wicked cheap price, then moved on to Ouagadougou.  We were awed by the ambiance on the drive in to Ouaga, with its street lamps and good roads and spread out feel.  We found our hotel, Le Pavillon Vert (maybe spelled that wrong) and posted up for the next few days.  It was a in a great location.  I got the breaks on the car looked at, the oil, and tried to fix the driver's side window (which had broken on the rough road from Banfora).  The peace corps people we met in Ouaga were great, they found the mechanic for us, and invited us out to have beers at happy hour in a mining company bar nearby.  We had a blast with them, and cant thank them enough for the help with the mechanic.  The next day some of the group went off to see crocodiles, while I got the car sorted.  We got money changed, found an awesome panini place, and ran into our friend from the Sleeping Camel again!!  He decided to stay at the Pavillon too, as luck would have it.

So our final night, we went to a bar called De Niro, which featured pool tables, great burgers, an ancient and battered dartboard, and some awesome music.  Old jazzy tunes, Sinatra, big band kind of stuff.  They had sandwiches named after different DeNiro films too, funnily enough, including the Taxi Driver and Raging Bull.  I ordered myself a James Bond martini (unwittingly in an English accent) and she served it to me, well shaken.

After Ouaga, we headed down to Benin, and despite warnings of bandits along the road, we had no problems!  The border crossing there was also fairly easy, though I had to talk my way out of an extortionate bribe (name dropping that we were former Peace Corps again really helped).

The next part of our saga took place in the Park de Pendjari, but my post ends here.  Thanks for following us, and again, I'm sorry it took so long!!  Michelle has got the next post :)

Peas

ALIVE

Hi everyone!

So we have really fallen behind on our posts, haven't we??  In answer to my parents previous comment, yes, we are alive and well and are currently in Accra.  We haven't had internet access in a while, but soon we will put up our Posts for Mali, Burkina, Benin and Togo! 

If you need to contact us here are our current phone numbers:

024.651.9402 

024.658.2232

Sorry again for not keeping everyone updated.  Promise the next post will be up soon!

Chris (A)

Bamako

***UPDATE - We finally have SIM cards!  In case of an emergency, you can reach us at either +223.77.81.68.02 or +223.77.32.99.83.  We will be in Mali through the beginning of Wednesday, Jan 29.  We will let you know when we are able to purchase new SIM cards in Burkina.***

Road-tripping around West Africa in a minivan is hard. We knew this before setting off on our adventure. We knew there would be challenges, although we didn’t know exactly what form they would take. It was a vague notion: “There will be problems along the road – we’ll have to be there to solve them when the time comes.” Still, after two years of Peace Corps service in Guinea (and in Zach’s case – carefully observing the way Guinean taxi drivers went about their jobs) we felt as prepared as anyone. We had done our research on the car, gotten a mechanic and a Peace Corps driver to inspect it and got all the necessary documents that were available. We left the Peace Corps compound in Conakry at 6 a.m. on Thursday ready to breeze past the awful Guinean roads once and for all and onto Bamako, Mali in less than two days.

Taking off from Conakry!

By 10 a.m. the Goose had its first flat tire. We switched in the spare tire and soon stopped in Linsan, a village in the Fouta Djallon region known for its copious amounts of meat – and, as a result, vultures – and found a mechanic. The mechanic couldn’t have been older than 18, which would have been okay – if he had actually stayed around to fix our tire. Instead, an eight-year old banged on the wheel rim for a while. Success!

Zach replacing our flat, about 1k before Linsan.

Back on the road in the early afternoon, we were somewhat less optimistic about reaching our destination of Kankan – about eight hours away – before a reasonable hour. And that’s when the real problems started.

***Dislaimer: I really shouldn’t be writing this post. I got less than an hour of sleep on our last night in Conakry. What began as Clara and I cracking jokes in the backseat soon morphed into a sleepfest, so I’m only going off of what the rest of the GGG told me (More on Clara and my refusal to sleep later)***

Over the next hundred or so miles, the Goose saw its undercarriage fall off, its exhaust pipe break in half, its serpentine belt shred, and its battery die. At the final 30 km stretch of the road before Dabola – easily the worst stretch of the road from Conakry to Kankan – our heroic captain Zach had to make sure he didn’t stall along the crater-sized potholes or else the car would die. Somehow I slept through all of this. The Goose gave its last breath outside the entrance to our friend’s house, and we triumphantly (dejectedly?) pushed our battered vessel into the compound.

The next day we fixed the Goose, drove to Kankan, and said goodbye to some Peace Corps friends. Yay!

We got the Goose checked again – “Definitely nothing wrong with the car - no problem whatsoever!” – and drove to the Malian border. It took three hours to cross the border: not too bad, until I remembered that friends from my village made the 3+-hour trip to Bamako and back in a day.

On the road to Bamako, we marveled at the:

• crosswalks/roadlines
• weirdly shaped rock formations
• abundance of trees
• abundance of mangoes! (more on that later, too) 

Finally in Mali!

We arrived in Bamako at around 8 p.m. Our first impressions:

SOOO MANY MOPEDS. It’s what I imagine Beijing or Bangkok to be like. Roundabouts are usually pretty tricky, but what do you do when you have no idea where you’re going and there are close to 100 mopeds zooming around you? Mopeds like minnows!

Highlights from our time in Bamako so far:

• We went to the botanical gardens, drank wine in the shade next to a playground, tried to learn how to do cartwheels (By which I mean I embarrassed myself while Chris A., Clara and Zach showed they secretly did varsity gymnastics in college.) Brittany also got kicked off the see-saw by a guard for not being a child.
• We ate delicious Indian food. It was so delicious that we (the former Peace Corps Volunteers) licked the platters. And not just a sneaky little peck – a full-on stamp-licking contest. Molly, the only non-Peace Corps member of our group, was appalled. 
• Michelle and I had vanilla milkshakes with whisky, and sooo many eggrolls!!! (I realize this blog post is skewed heavily in the direction of things that I’ve done, but if I admit that up-front, it’s okay, right?)
• Clara and I had a mango-eating race. We had five mangoes and a large bottle of beer. On the count of go, we drank some beer, began peeling and eating the mangoes as fast as we could until we had eaten all five mangoes, then finished the rest of the beer. Clara won. Who knew that a knife is better at peeling mangoes than an actual peeler? It turns out eating mangoes two months before the start of mango season is not delicious, and not good for your bowels.
• In my best excited Michelle voice: “Our hostel has a dart board!!!!!”

Lastly, Chris A. had lots of helpful statistics in our first post, so I’m going to finish up with one completely pointless one. Clara and I are having a competition to see who can sleep the least (Not counting hours slept in the car, because, as we all know, that’s not real sleep. We’ll track it throughout the trip.

So far:

Chris: Day 1- 1 hour. Day 2-8 hours. Day 3- 4 hours. Day 4- 6.5 hours. Average-4.875 hours

Clara: Day 1-2 hours. Day 2-6 hours. Day 3-3 hours. Day 4: 6.5 hours. Average-4.375 hours.

Clara is in the lead by 2 hours. Or .5 hours/day.

That’s about all. It turns out there are, in fact, mosquitoes in Mali. So I’m going to sign off. See you in Ouagadougou.

Chris (M)

Trip stats:

• Total kilometers traveled: 1150
• Total time in car: 26 hours 30 minutes
• Cheapest diesel: Conakry/ Siguiri (9,500 GNF/liter)
• Most expensive diesel: Conakry/ Siguiri (9,500 GNF/liter)
• Number of breakdowns: 2
1. flat tire
2. serpentine belt, undercarriage, lost power steering
• Capitals visited: Conakry, Bamako
• Number of doppelgangers sighted: 1 (Lebanese Sean Cochrane seen at Room, Conakry, Guinea)
• Longest border crossing: 3 hours 30 minutes (Guinea - Mali)
• Shortest border crossing: 3 hours 30 minutes (Guinea - Mali)
• Guinea-Mali boarder crossing debrief (3 hours 30 minutes):
• Stop 1 (Guinean) - Gendarmerie stop - present passport, drivers license and carte grise
• Stop 2 (Guinean) - Douane stop - purchase laissez-passer for Mali for 60,000 GNF  
• Stop 3 (Guinean) - Gendarmerie stop (aka doucheville) - present laissez-passer, carte grise, vignette, insurance and passport
• Stop 4 (Malian) - Douane stop - present laissez-passer, waited 20 minutes, pay 10,000 CFA for miscellaneous documents
• Stop 5 (Malian) - Gendarmerie stop - present passports, buy 20,000 CFA visa, pay 500 CFA road toll
• Stop 6 (Malian) - Gendarmerie stop - present driver's license, laissez-passer, unpack all luggage for inspection