-Cesare Parese-
DAY 2
Another travel day on the cards today.
Last night’s storm turned into a night of heavy rain, so
much so that at midnight, it was coming down so hard I could hear the puddles
start to form outside, and I did check with my feet of any water was coming in
the flap that I had left open, and there was a little bit, but not enough to
warrant me getting up and closing it.
The wind also picked up and I was glad that Sam had taken the liberty of
checking everyone’s raincoats before the first rain last night because if they
weren’t on properly it would have been a different story this morning with us
all waking up dry as a bone. It also got
really windy at one point of the night and Rich and Ellie were scared in their
tent, while Ian and Suzanne’s first comment was ‘what storm’ and it reminded me
of Patrick sleeping through the massive storm in Tata Somba. It is funny what people can sleep through,
and even though it did wake me up, I wasn’t too worried and fell back asleep
pretty quickly. There were a few bikes
that slowed down to have a peeky boo at us during the night, but nobody
bothered us and we didn’t have any spectators which is always a successful bush
camp. We survived out first bush camp
dry.
So 6.15am and we were all up. The sun had yet to rise formally, so with no
chance of the tents drying over breakfast we packed them away with the wet
fly’s and would air them out tonight at our 2nd bush camp. It was strange, when we had woken up it was a
little overcast and the sun was giving a beautiful glow to the sky as she rose,
and then a fog, or mist, blew in and the sky started to look a little ominous
with more rain, so we settled on a cereal breakfast, so we could pack up and
get on the road before the heavens would open again. We were pulling out of the bush camp and once
we got back on the main road did the reality of all the rain during the night
hit us directly as the mud roads in parts had turned to mush and after only a
10 minute ride as we were descending a small rise, with Zoe behind the wheel,
Madge took a very large fishtail to the left, which scared the hell out of me,
purely because if we had of fishtailed to the right by that much we would have
found ourselves in a very large ditch and Madge at a very weird angle stuck in
it. I am not the best passenger at times
that there is slipping or sliding, on bikes, motorbikes, 4WD’s and certainly
not in 8 ton trucks. Zoe held her
composure till we got the bottom of the rise, where it took all my might to
keep my mouth shut from making scared noises and I just closed my eyes and
hoped we wouldn’t fishtail the wrong way, as it would be very bad news
indeed.
Zoe got us to the bottom, safe, for me to open my eyes
and see another rise, but we now had to go UP it. We stopped in a safe place, where we wouldn’t
get bogged and the hill was assessed. It
had 2 sections where we could potentially get stuck, so Zoe, with the boys took
the precaution of getting some shovels out and shoveling some of the gaps,
adding some rocks and branches to the tricky soft sections and then for good
measure putting on the chains for the rear tyres, the game plan was set in
place. Add to all that some time for the
mud road to dry out a little, they were confident that we would be able to get
over the rise. It was a little funny,
that while all this was in progress a few cars and trucks cleared the hill, in
both directions, but as Zoe pointed out they are a lot lighter than us, and I
certainly would prefer to take the time and precautions to get it right the
first time, than rush in and we get stuck.
I have been stuck twice in an overland truck, both times in South
America, and it can take hours to get free, and the second time took over 24
hours. Yes precaution is the key and we
were all happy to wait. We are lucky
that Ian is a camping, motorbike, bush hiking, worked with trucks kind of man,
and he was worth his weight in gold helping Zoe and Sam out with his
experience. Suzanne, Ellie and I felt a
little defunct, so we decided to pull out the table and stove and do the very
English thing of making everyone a cuppa while all this was in progress. It was better than nothing and the teas were
certainly welcomed.
I think Zoe was a little shook up from the fishtail, it
really was terrifying, and I wasn’t driving, so when the chains were finally on
the rear wheels, Sam took the wheel and we were ready to get Madge up the muddy
incline. By this time it had also
started to spit a little with rain, so it was really a now or never kind of
situation. If it did rain harder, I
think we would have been royally screwed, at least for the rest of the day. I had my Bloggie all prepared to catch it all
on film and within 3 minutes, Sam had slipped and fishtailed his way to the top
successfully and after a 2 hour delay we were back on the move. As it was shaping up, it seemed yesterday was
going to be nothing on what we were going to experience today. The roads were bumpy, but not as bad as
yesterday, but they were still slow going at times. The good thing about driving so slow is that
you get to see the villages better that you pass through, see the houses they
live in, see the locals go about their day, see their reactions to a massive
truck with white people pass through and then the bright smiling faces when you
throw out a wave and a bonjour. This
morning it seemed we were in a ‘friendly’ part of the country and people seemed
genuinely happy to return waves and reward you with a beautiful smile. The kids are just a joy to see and their
enthusiasm is just heartwarming as you drive past they all shout and wave and
today some of them were running beside and behind the truck as we pushed on, just
to say hello and not one asked for money.
To me that is proof that not a lot of western people make it this far
north and the communities/villages have not been hit by the begging mentality,
well not yet anyway and it is just refreshing to wave to people and get one
back without it turning into a ‘give me money’ symbol. Even though we did see a few schools and
children walking to and from school during the course of the day, there were
still a large portion that weren’t in school and they were looking after
siblings and today I saw a lot of children herding cattle, and they would have
only been around 13 years old, and they were on their own, moving the
cattle. How lonely for them and a BIG
responsibility for someone that young.
It reminds me of Ethiopia, there are a lot of cattle children there and
they are a lot younger, and it is just another example of children being given
the opportunity to be children, as they grow up very fast here.
We continued to bump and grind our way over the unpaved
roads until just after 4pm when we finally hit the tarmacked town of
Odienne. The cheer from the group was
loud but short lived as we were pulled over at the security check point just
before entering the city limits and after our papers were checked and a short
discussion we were told that we had to follow an officer to the police station
to register everyone before we were allowed to pass through.
The city was not a western metropolis, but it certainly
was the biggest we had seen all day. We
dutifully followed the officer to the local police station where Zoe had to get
out, with all our passports and individually register us into town. This process took around 45 minutes and then
Zoe asked about buying some food stocks for the upcoming truck lunches we had
to come, and they were nice enough to have another officer escort us on a bike
to the central market, where we could stock up.
I decided to stay with the truck, as not everyone had to go into the mum
and dad supermarkets on the hunt for break and happy cow cheese. It gave us time to stretch out legs in the
truck and to be able to people watch away from the windows as the day to day
life of an Ivory Coast village passed us by.
After 20 minutes, a lightning fast stop, just before 5pm we were back on
the road. The most important thing about
bush camps and travel days is that you need to push on as far as you can get in
a day, and as tempting as it would have been to stop in Odienne for the night,
if we could get an extra hour or so further on, it shortens the next travel day
by an hour, and that can only be good news.
So with a wave to a possible stop we pressed on until 5.30pm when the
scouting came on to look for a possible bush camp for our second night. It was tough, as there is not much clearing
from the road, the brush/bush/jungle starts pretty much immediately as soon as
the tarmac finishes so 6pm came around and we came across a school, which
seemed to be the only option. So Zoe
jumped out and approached some of the people milling about and was directed to
a small house on site where one of the teachers lived. He said that it was definitely okay that we
camped there the night and he insisted that we stayed in one of the classrooms,
and he got one cleared for us straight away.
Personally I would have preferred a tent, as you can try and monitor the
mosquito conditions that way better than being in a large open aired room for
the night open to the animal elements of all sorts. But we couldn’t say no to the hospitality and
really had no choice in the matter, well certainly without offending-so our
second bush camp was to be spent in a local school, which was cool.
The school seemed to be part of a smaller village and
there was a water pump that had been built and donated by the Japanese a few
years ago, so there were people around when we pulled up and a lot of
spectators when we parked and unloaded.
The school teacher came over and said we were more than welcome to use
his toilet (squat) and shower (buckets) anytime we wanted and he gave us a
small tour of his simple yet clean abodes.
It really is just amazing how peoples hospitality is extended to
complete, random strangers sometimes.
The Director of the school was called and he came over to say hello and
welcomed us to his school and told us that we could use the pump for as much
water as we wished and showed us how to use it-it was really sweet. Camp was set up, and there were a lot of
locals coming and going to see what the ‘newcomers’ were doing and I am sure
that it must have seemed super strange to see chairs, table, cooking equipment,
food and everything else coming off the truck and it would have been awesome to
be able to speak to them as we went about it all, but that language barrier was
there and all you could do was smile at them and receive one back in return. I think at one point someone said something
to them all and they disappeared during dinner, which is always a good thing-as
there is nothing worse eating in front of locals as it makes me feel a little
guilty, which I am not sure is a PC thing to say as I am assuming that all
African locals are hungry when I am sure some of them have eaten and are not
interested in the food, but rather just watching us behave and interact with
each other and in a sense people watch us as we do all over the world.
The director and president of the school came back after
dinner, and us being the perfect guests, offered them both a cup of tea and a
seat. It was cool that Zoe could
converse with them both, asking about them and the school-that is where knowing
French would have been super handy, but again the international sign of
friendliness was all I could muster and let Zoe be the spokeswoman for the
group. We were offered a chicken (for
dinner) and he hadn’t killed it yet to see if we wanted it dead or alive (nice)
but we declined nicely and chicken man took a seat for a while and joined in
the conversation, with the condemned chicken standing as still as a statue
between his feet. It was amazing that he
didn’t even move a feather and we were wondering that we think he knew that he
had dodged a bullet tonight and wasn’t going to be someone’s meal, well at
least not for another 24 hours anyway.
We did note the amount of mosquitos here and you could actually
feel them biting you here. Ian got out
the Bushman’s (a very strong deet based spray) and we were to find out that not
even that was going to ward off these pesky little fellas tonight. I was absolutely knackered and I was heading
to bed at 8.30pm, just as we received a handful of small guests that had bought
their own bench seat to sit on. So Zoe
used the opportunity of the small audience to pull out her violin and play a
few tunes for them. As much as I would
have loved to stay to watch, I was over the day and just ready for bed and not
even the tunes and small faces of awe were going to keep me there tonight. As it was so quiet, the tunes carried to the
classroom across the dirt courtyard where we were sleeping and it was soothing
to hear them as I read my book for the next 30 minutes by lamp light. The kids were the perfect audience clapping
politely at the end of each song and it just made me smile. What did not make me smile were 4 big ants
that I found right next to my pillow and the incessant buzzing of the mosquitos
around my head. We were also camped on
the concrete floor of the classroom, and it felt every bit like concrete that
not even my thermarest could disguise. I
think it was going to be a long night.
Zoe and the others joined me a little later after 9.30pm and then all
was quiet on the classroom front as we all tried to find some sleep.
So day 2 was a success and we were pretty much were in
the area we had wanted to be by day 2.
It was certainly very slow going travelling only 65km in 5.5 hours and
after passing Odienne travelling 40kn in an hour on the tarmac and it goes to
show just how much of a difference the roads can make to ones travelling
time. Tomorrow was yet another travel
day, but there was hopefully a shower and a toilet at the end and to camp in a
local school for our second bush camp was a great surprise.
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