So throw off the bowlines, sail away from
the safe harbor.
Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore.
Dream. Discover.
-Mark Twain-
DAY 3
I had a terrible sleep last night. The incessant buzzing of the mosquitos was
enough to drive anyone mad, and when they buzz around your ears, of all places
it is just frustrating to say the least.
These were the worst mozzies I have seen since arriving in this part of
the continent and one even had a cheek last night to land on my lip, MY
LIP!!!!! They were that savage that they
even were biting me through my clothes.
So trying to cover myself, I slept in my sleeping bag which normally
wouldn’t be a problem, but it was such a warm night that I was roasting in my
bag and had to stick a leg or an arm out to cool down and then the mozzies
would attack. There was nothing I could
do. I woke several times, but just after
1am, I couldn’t get back to sleep and listening to the others in the classroom,
they all seemed a little restless as well with the noise of shifting sleeping
bags and mattresses. I thought about
Ellie’s mozzie coils that she had bought with her and they would have been
perfect for a night like this, but this brainwave came to me in the middle of
the night. I did manage to get some
relief by resting my arm or a leg on the concrete, it was a little gritty with
sand and goodness knows what, but I was able to keep a little cool that way and
still be protected under my sleeping bag.
6am could not come fast enough. I
had accumulated 15 new bites, 3 on my upper thigh and I had one on my butt
cheek as well to boot. I HATE MOSQUITOS.
Today we are supposed to arrive at our final
destination. That final destination is
Nzerekore, which as a town means nothing to me but it does mean a shower, a
toilet and electricity and a break from the truck, as this will make it the 3rd
full day of hauling arse across Cote d’Ivoire and finally crossing a border
this afternoon, all going to plan, into Guinea.
So we were up at 6am, and not only did we want an early start, we had to
be gone by 8am anyway as that was the time school started and we had to be out
of the classroom for lessons to begin.
It was weird, I didn’t feel right using the teachers bathroom for my
morning tinkle and even as I write this it sounds wrong, but I too my morning
widdle behind the classroom blocks behind a tree where it looked like cattle
had recently passed through, so I didn’t feel so bad, as I am sure they dropped
more than a piddle on their walk. There
is something about peeing in public on school grounds just doesn’t seem
right. But when you have to go, you just
have to go!
We had an audience for breakfast, and there were a few
women wondering what I was doing behind the stove when I was making scrambled
eggs for everyone, and again we must have looked quite peculiar with our set up
of chairs, the table, the plates and the coffee and tea drinkers scrambling for
their first cups of the day. I am the
only one not having a hot drink in the morning and it is funny to see just how
addicted people are to coffee and tea and how their day could not possible begin
until they have that first cup. I know a
lot of people like that, and it never ceases to amaze me. After breakfast as we were preparing to go,
the Director came over to say farewell and Zoe presented him with a small
donation to say thank-you for their hospitality and the use of the classroom
for the night to complete random strangers.
Ellie and Rich also gave them some pens and colour pencils that I am
sure will go a long way and they seemed very thankful. We also asked if they would be interested in
any bottles and tins that we had in our recycle bin and with a yes, we emptied
out the items and they all got snapped up in a jiff. We were just glad that the items will go to
good use and with that we asked if they could dispense of our garbage bag for us,
and as soon as that was given over, some of the kids took the bag behind the
building and I knew that they were going to riff through it and we had just
tossed in the top 5 day old chicken meat that had gone south, and 5 minutes
later I was right as the kids emerged carrying wrappers, happy cow boxes and
other items that were in the rubbish.
Maybe they will use that old chicken meat to feed some animals, who
knows-but that does break my heart a little that they sifted through the trash
bag looking for things to keep.
With waves to the arriving students and thanks to the
teacher, the director and the president we were on the road at 7.30am, and to
me it felt like we were heading to the promised land of showers and toilets and
I couldn’t wait! There seemed to be a
lot of security checkpoints along the road today and half of them waved us
through and the other half would stop us and check our papers before letting us
back on our way. I am still unsure as to
why there is so many checks along the same road, that doesn’t have any new
roads entering or exiting, so no new traffic is coming on and they must know
where they have their checkpoints and that we passed one 40 minutes ago. I am starting to think that most of the times
now it is just because we are unusual, and they are nosey as to what we are
doing. They don’t seem as hardnosed here
when we have been asked to stop, they don’t make up dodgy excuses to fine us or
ask us for money or ‘gifts’. It is just
annoying as we want to just keep moving and all these stops just add time to
our travel day and get a little tiresome.
We had a clear run on great roads and we arrived into Man
earlier than expected at 11.30am. This
cheered us all up immensely and instead of having a truck lunch we were going
to treat ourselves to a lunch in a restaurant.
We did have to fill up Madge first, so we found a gas station in the
middle of town, and again we were a cause for a look and there were some boys,
around 8 of them, aged around 9 that were hanging around my window and they
were asking me for money. The answer is
always no, but they kept smiling and standing there and I really wished I could
speak French so that I could talk to them.
I asked if they spoke English and they didn’t reply, so I took that as a
no. They got into trouble from the
petrol bowser people a few times, so I think they may be a mischievous bunch of
boys that get into trouble a lot. They
weren’t in school uniforms, so they weren’t attending school and it always
makes me wonder why. Sam had found the
most popular place in Man for lunch and we were able to park right out front
for easy convenience. As most meals in
Africa, lunch took FOREVER for us to get and by the time we had gotten our food
and eaten, nearly 2 hours had passed!!!
And we only ordered 3 pizzas and a chicken and chips. TIA (this is Africa) but we weren’t too
concerned as we thought that we didn’t have too far to go, we were still going
to make some good time and Zoe had checked with the petrol man about the
condition of the next leg of roads and was told that they are paved and good condition
all the way to the Guinea border!!! Yes
were in a good place and right on track.
Driving through Man on our way out and you really
appreciate what a beautiful location the town is in and the scenery reminds me
of Tahiti, it was just stunning and a shame that we weren’t spending a night
here, but push on we must as we had a border to cross and a new country to
enter and we were still entertained high hopes that we would make our destination,
no worries. On the way in and out we
noticed a big UN presence, so much so that there was a huge compound on the
edge of town that had massive tanks parked under a large security tower that
was manned with men with BIG guns. It
does remind you of the history this town played in the civil war and the
country is now on full awares. Man is a town in the
west of central Ivory Coast.
It is part of Dix-Huit Montagnes Region and is an important market town lying between mountains including Mount Toura and Mount Tonkoui, the two
highest in the nation, and La Dent de Man, popular
with hikers. As of
November 2003, it was one of the two main towns (the other was Bouaké)
held by the former rebel group Mouvement patriotique de Côte
d'Ivoire(MPCI). Man is an
agricultural region. There are many cocoa,
rice, coffee, cassava,
banana (plantain), and soybean plantations. The region
of Man is the largest producer of coffee in the Ivory Coast. Man also is the
home of a UNICAFÉ (The National Coffee Manufacturer of Côte d'Ivoire) factory. An interesting little town and a shame we didn’t
have more time here to explore it a little further.
My mozzies bites were starting to really flare up and
they were driving me nuts and I couldn’t stop scratching, so much that some of
them started to bleed, but I couldn’t help it and I also found about 15 bites
on my elbows to add into the scratch range-man they are evil little creatures
those things. When we left Man we were
on a Tarmac road, and when we had asked the petrol attendant how the roads were
to the Guinean border he said they were good and it was tarred all the
way. You beauty. This again led us into the notion that all
was on track and we were cooking with gas.
Just before reaching the last big town of Danane, we were stopped,
papers checked and a road toll fee was paid for the maintenance of the roads, I
think this was an officially dodgy way of extorting money, but it seemed
everyone was paying, so it wasn’t just a foreign payment. With that paid, a receipt asked for and
provided, Zoe again checked about the roads and if there was anything that we
needed to know and with a wave and a smile, we were now going to push for the
border and a toilet and shower.
The first thing we noticed when we left Danane was that
the tarmac road finished and we were on a dirt road that had plenty of bumps
and holes, but we took that knock with the TIA attitude. We had only travelled 20 minutes, passing
small villages that were located beside the road, till we were stopped at a
police checkpoint. Zoe at this point was
getting a little antsy, as it was now nearly 3.30pm and we just wanted to get
on our way, so she jumped out of the passenger seat and walked briskly to the
checkpoint police to speed up their ‘African’ time and she was back a few
minutes later, as she left with no shoes and was sent back to put on some shoes
and come back. Okay, so another small
set back, you run into people of power like this and you just have to yes sir,
no sir so we can be cleared with less amount of trouble. Sam got out after small time, as things were
taking longer than normal. Five minutes
turned into ten minutes and then they both came back and said that we had to
register everyone at the local police station, cool-no worries, we had to do
that in Odeinne yesterday, BUT the local police station was back in Danane, the
town we had passed through 20 minutes ago!!!!!
CRAP. There was no choice in the
matter as everyone has to register with the last town before the border,
including us and we had to double back into town with 2 officers in the truck
with us. This was another blow, but
still foolishly we thought that we could make Nzerkore, hoped we could make
Nzerkore. It was a little shitty, because
we did ask the other checkpoint before entering Danane if there was anything
else we had to do and they had said no-bloody hell. So we doubled back on the single lane dirt
road to Danane and directed to the police station, which we had even passed on
our way through as it was located on the main road. So Zoe ran inside and 20 minutes later
re-emerged having done the required paperwork and making (as usual) some
friends and getting her photo taken with one of the guys in uniform. I had time to spot a material shop from where
we were waiting and made a quick purchase of material to add it to my growing
cache of West African clothes I will get made.
So with the same officers back in tow, we travelled again
the same road leading out of Danane back to the police checkpoint to drop off
our ‘powerful’ new friends that had an air of authority about them and I don’t
think we made friends with them, which was their choice and that was fine. Now get off our truck, we had showers to
find. So with the officers dropped off
we started the pilgrimage to Guinea. It
was now just after 4.30pm, and a small shadow of doubt started to cloud our euphoricism
as it started to get dark, some clouds blew in and the road conditions did not
improve. The clouds opened up and the
rain came down and it seemed to dampen our spirits and confirm that we were not
going to make or final destination tonight with the roads deteriorating as the
rain fell, but we still had hope. We
were now definitely out of any city limits and in true village territory. It seemed we had stepped into a different
world and all the people we saw were so friendly, untouched by nasty humans and
possibly not used to seeing such friendly foreign people. I don’t know what it was, but the kids
especially loved us and there were villages of kids that would run after the
truck still waving and yelling at us (nicely) until their little legs couldn’t
run anymore. It was such a high that
these kids just wanted to be friendly and with their BIG smiles and non-tainted
opinion of foreign people was really quite touching.
At 5.55pm, we were stopped at what would be our last
police checkpoint for the night. They
were a serious bunch and Sam was asked to turn off the engine and step out of
the truck to go with them to the building.
10 minutes later, Zoe went to investigate and we were asked for our
passports, so Zoe came back and got them, and then they asked for us to step
off the truck and then Zoe politely lost it.
We had been told that we wouldn’t have to stop again for this kind of
check after leaving Danane and at this point we were still trying to get to the
border. This didn’t seem to faze the
officers and when they realized that Sam and Zoe were not going to back down,
they just let us go with a wave of a hand, bit this stop had cost us another 20
minutes and as we pulled out I heard Sam say that there was no way we were
going to make it. OH CRAP. At 6.30pm, it was starting to get too dark to
drive on the now muddy road from the rain and Sam pulled over and broke the
news that we had to do an emergency camp tonight and that we would not make
it. We all totally understood, but we
were bummed at the same time as well.
BUGGER. No shower and no toilet
for another 24 hours, making it 4 days and 3 nights by the time we make it to
Nzerkore tomorrow. BUGGER. As the road was pretty much a single lane
country road, there weren’t a lot of places to choose from to bush camp, but we
did find a place that looked like it had been used to park roadwork vehicles,
and it was perfect for us for the night.
It was just about dark by now, so while we set up our
tents, making sure that we were out of any water flow areas should the heavens
open up again in the evening, making sure we were uphill, Zoe and Sam set up
the kitchen and popped on the kettle.
Zoe also volunteered to cook dinner for us tonight and with a root
around in the bulk food supplies and using the rest of the veggies that we had,
she slapped together a tuna spaghetti that was delicious. Over dinner Sam filled us in on the distance
we had travelled, which was a healthy 280km on the tarred surface, but had only
travelled 65km on the muddy road this afternoon and we still had 55km to go to
the border. Even if we didn’t have all
the hold ups today, there was no way in hell that we would have made the border
today, let alone Nzerkore. No way in
truckland-not even close. This is where
the ‘pioneering’ section comes into play, we like to call it guinea pigs, as
whoever wrote the itinerary had no idea on the condition of the roads, or the
distances, and we are really setting the pace for the next 2 groups that will
pass through here in the next 6 months.
As we had arrived late, we pitched late, dinner was
served later than usual, so by the time we had eaten and packed everything away
it was well after 9pm and we all crept into our tents to bush camp for the 3rd
night in a row. I do enjoy camping, I
was just looking forward to a shower to wash off the layers of dirt, insect
repellant, more dirt and then the baby wipe residue that you use to try and rid
of all of the mentioned and more importantly to drop my cheeks onto a toilet
seat instead of out in the bush.
TIA (this is Africa)
TIO (this is overlanding)
TIEBC (this is emergency bush camping)
TIPO (this is pioneering overland)
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