-Seal-
I looked up the least visited countries in the world and
found a web site that listed the top 24 countries. Guinea Bissau was listed as the 14th
least visited country on the plant.. Its
thoughts:
14. Guinea-Bissau:
30,000 tourists (2011, UN)
Why so few? It is a country with relatively poor
infrastructure. It is not well connected by Western airlines.
Why you may still want to visit: The Bijagos Islands outside Bissau is an
archipelago of some twenty islands, where you may see hippos. They are
pristine. Do not expect any sign of modern life. Electricity is for chickens. The fish market in Bissau will so make you
want to prepare your own food. Just try to find a kitchen. And you will enjoy
the Portuguese style architecture. If you're in to such.
So not much of a wrap is it and we weren’t even going to
the islands. It is purely a stop for us
on our way further north. Even though
Helen and I didn’t get to sleep to well after 2am, my alarm went off at 7.30am
and I felt quite rested, bar the stupid mosquito bites that were driving me
nuts during the night, scratch, scratch scratching. My mission to keep them at bay has slipped,
but they don’t seem as ‘weepy’ as the Benin, Togo and Sierra Leone ones were,
so I guess that is a small bonus. The
other bonus being that the power stayed on all night giving us a cool room and
the internet connection also still worked.
Sian was right things do look better in daylight, but I did decide that
if Ian and Suzanne upgraded I would as well.
I need the mental push to get me through the last 2 weeks and if it
meant forking out an extra 50 bucks for a small amount of luxury, then I think
it was well worth it for myself, and also for my travel colleges. Breakfast seemed to be a little chaotic with
everyone’s Portuguese non-existent, as we were the first to breakfast, trying
to tell him we were part of the group fell on a blank face and by the time the
rest of the gang had arrived we had eaten and ended up paying as we couldn’t
remember if Sam said it was included or not.
As it worked out, it was included, so we will just ask him for a
reimbursement on that we had paid.
So with a quick stop back to the rooms and an old LP
(Lonely Planet ) map in hand we set our just before 9am to find the Diarama
Hotel and check availability, rooms and price.
There was no point jumping from the pan into the fire if the place was
just as ‘rustic’ as where we currently were.
Walking down one of the main streets of the Colonial area, the place
felt ‘edgy’. I felt safe enough, but you
needed to have your wits about you and we got some looks, but nothing that made
me feel unsafe. It was a warm morning
already and even with a map in our hand and I was in very good hands with
Suzanne and Ian, we got a little lost, well not lost as such, but we just could
not find the hotel that was supposed to be just 400m ‘down the road’. We were starting to perspire like foreign
people and we even asked a few people for directions, well as best we could with
French and Portuguese, and there was always a different reply from each and
every one of them. In our walkabout, we
did find an EcoBank and asked about an ATM (visa) and we were directed into the
bank and told to take a seat. I had done
this once before when I was in Ethiopia and they manually call and get an
authorization and then give you the cash over the counter. We weren’t that desperate to wait and when we
saw 3 people in front of us, based on African time, it would take all
morning. There was a door to the left of
the bank when we came out, so Ian went and checked it out and there was an ATM
in there, but when I used it, it told me that my card was not authorized and I
then noticed that there was no Visa symbol on the machine. It was only for local accounts. That’s okay.
We had enough money to get us through to the next town and there is
always the Bank of Sam if you need anything.
I have been on tours where the guides have loaned, swapped, exchanged
money for passengers and I think it is a great idea and it is a win win for
everyone as no-one pays the fees and we all get what we need.
We took another look at the map and decided to try one
last time to find the new hotel, otherwise we would go back to the old hotel,
use the Wi-Fi and Google map where we should be going (like we should have done
before we left) and then head back out again.
We turned down the side of the hospital, sure that this was the right
road, we even saw another white person, so we followed her and she walked into
somewhere else and we had nearly walked the length of the street with no
luck. We turned around and retraced our
steps when we saw a plaque on the wall that said British High Commission. Well we figured that our English friends
would speak English and we could ask them if they knew where the hotel
was. We walked in and found that it was
a supermarket and no English Consulate to be seen. That was it, we had to head back, as we just
seemed to be walking in circles and we had no idea where we needed to be. We took one more chance and asked the cashier
guy and he spoke broken English, knew where the hotel was and got is packing
guy to walk us out of the supermarket and directed us where to go. Yeah, well we had been there before, but
these guys seemed to know what we were talking about, so we had nothing to lose
trying one more time. So we hooked back
onto the main road one last time, walked 2 more blocks, passing the hospital
and like a miracle, the Diarama Hotel sat in front of us! AWESOME!!!!!
We walked into the small reception area and even though I
know you don’t judge a book by its cover, it looked 195% better already. The gentleman behind the counter was in a t-shirt
with the hotel logo on it and he spoke very good English. It was all looking positive. Ian assigned us all jobs and he was in charge
of the electronics, Suzanne was in charge of the water usage and I was in
charge of the Wi-Fi-age and at the last minute catering (breakfast). We asked to see the rooms and we were taken
up one flight of stairs and shown the double room for 45,000, the single room
for 35,000 and as we were on our way out of the ‘inspection’ on the off chance
he showed us the suite for 60,000 but would discount it to 50,000 if we were
interested. We had learned that there
was air-con, Wi-Fi, 24 hour power and hot water, so when the suite was thrust
into the fray we didn’t even have to confer and the McKinley’s took the suite
and I took the single room (still a double bed) and it was a signed and done
deal. Ian and Sue paid for their room on
the way out and I had to get some money from the Pub and we told the reception
guy that we would be back in 15 minutes.
We decided to get a taxi back, even though it would have only taken us
10 minutes to walk, but it was hot, it was humid and we got our mate from
reception to get a taxi for us, asked him to wait for us at the other hotel as
we ran in and got our bags and then he would bring us back to the new hotel,
all for the grand total of 2000.
Perfect. The streets would be a
little dodgy walking with the bags, so it was a win win all round.
The taxis in Bissau are all old model Mercedes Benz. It is funny that what is a status car in the
western world is being driven around in an African country by taxi
drivers. They may not be in the best of
nick, but every single one was a blue and white Merc. We had all pre-packed, so it was just a
matter of collecting the bags, letting Sam know where we were, getting the
start time we had to be back tomorrow for our departure and we were out of
dodge. Our guy was waiting where we had
left him and after helping us put our bags in his rusty boot, we were driven
back to our lap of luxury for the night.
No regrets at all from me and I am glad that I have checked-out. Especially while we are in a city where there
isn’t really a lot to do and there would be more hotel time than city
time. Yes this was money well
spent. So with a time made to meet at
1pm for lunch, we locked ourselves away in the rooms for the 3 hours. I was able to load some photos, found an
English movie on the cable TV and just chilled in my ‘fridge’ of a room. I got a knock on my door not long after with
the bellboy asking if everything was okay, not much longer after that another
knock to give me the hotel card with the phone numbers on it, and then a little
later the chamber maid to see if I needed another blanket on the bed. Well we certainly can’t fault the service
that is for sure.
Bissau is the capital city of Guinea-Bissau.
In 2007, the city had an estimated population of 407,424 according to the
Instituto Nacional de Estatística e Censos.
The city which is located on the Geba River
estuary, off the Atlantic Ocean, is the country's largest city,
major port, and its administrative and military center. The city was founded in 1687 by Portugal as
a fortified port and trading center. In 1942 it became the capital of Portuguese
Guinea. After the declaration of independence by the anti-colonial
guerrillas of PAIGC,
in 1973, the capital of the de facto independent territories was declared to be Madina do Boe,
but Bissau remained as the capital of the Portuguese-occupied regions, and
the de jure capital
of all of Portuguese Guinea. When Portugal recognized the independence of
Guinea-Bissau and decolonized in 1974 due to the military coup of April 25 in Lisbon, the two
territories merged and Bissau became the capital of the new independent state. The city, as the seat of government, was the
scene of intense fighting during the beginning and end of the Guinea-Bissau Civil War in 1998 and
1999.
The land surrounding Bissau is extremely low-lying, and
the river is accessible to ocean-going vessels despite its modest discharge for
about 80 kilometers beyond the city. Bissau
has a tropical savanna climate, not quite wet
enough to qualify as a tropical monsoon climate but much
wetter than most climates of its type. Almost no rain falls from November to
May, but during the remaining five months of the year the city receives around
2,020 millimeters of rain, as compared to 3,784 millimeters in Conakry and
1,296 millimeters in Banjul to the north. During the wet season and even
during the three months beforehand, high humidity makes heat discomfort
extreme.
1pm came and Ian had asked our mate where a good place
was to eat. The hotel doesn’t do lunch,
but was recommended a place just across the road which was awesome as we didn’t
have to walk far and could get back to the rooms sooner. The food was a simple fare of outdoor tables
and chairs under a tin roof and they served simple food of pizza, burgers and
kebabs. There was also a large BBQ at
the entrance and he was BBQing ½ chickens and the smell of any BBQ meat would
be a winner, so I got the grilled chicken and a cold drink for a whopping 5
bucks!!! Imagine. All the food was cheap and we all had a tasty
meal and after paying the bill we walked back across the road on the hunt for
some information on where to find some material and wooden products for me to try
and fill my travel quota of material and a wooden mask from each West African
country. It seemed that there was a
small market near the hotel and our mate asked the bellboy to walk us the 7
minutes down the road to the market. It
was actually fairly large and all the shed stalls were located under massive
trees so it was 10C cooler and a pleasant atmosphere to be able to have a look
around. There would have been around 20
different stalls and they were all full of wooden products and material, but the
material was all the local tie dye stuff and not what I was looking for, but I
did manage to find a great mask and knowing that I tried to find some material,
I was happy that I didn’t leave with some.
I have actually bought a lot since my obsession started in Ivory Coast
and I think I may have over 8 pieces already plus the 3 skirts and 2 dresses
that have already been made-so I am accumulating a nice supply of the very
striking colours.
We walked back via a bottle’o (made out of a shipping
container) and a supermarket in search for beer for Ian and being a majority
Muslim country it turned out to be harder than we thought. I got some soft drink and a bottle of water
from the supermarket and finally we were back into the cooler box for the
remainder of the afternoon. The plan was
to meet again at 6.30pm, to walk back to the group hotel for dinner and this
was over 4 hours away-bliss. So I
uploaded some more photos, finished a blog and tried to find another English
speaking movie on the TV, but was unsuccessful and ended up landing on the MTV
channel. I got some washing done and
hung on the balcony and it all dried within 45 minutes, it really was a sauna
out there. I didn’t feel bad that I was
missing out on the city, as we had seen a lot on our walk this morning in
search for the hotel and there just wasn’t anything to see. I got a delayed message from Ellie and Rich
at 5pm with a possible visit to see us for a room drink, but with a message
back that we were off to a restaurant and giving them the details we left our
coolness at 6.15pm to walk to the restaurant where we were to meet Sian and
Cathy for dinner. Again with the LP
(Lonely Planet) map in hand, we found the Portuguese restaurant after a few
tries and asking people we found the right place, but they weren’t open till
7pm. Dang it. So we walked down the road to find a place to
have a drink and Sian was coming up the other way to come and get us. We followed her back to a roof top bar, well
it was a small house that had a roof with chairs and the guy there ran back and
forth to the supermarket to get our drinks as required. The sun went down, the mosquitos came out and
we left at 8pm to head back to the restaurant.
We figured that since we were in a Portuguese speaking
country we would have a Portuguese meal and this place came recommended by the
LP, so the 5 of us were the first to arrive and after working out what was on
the menu by the owner showing us each bit of meat on a plate from the menu, we
all ordered a bit of everything with me ordering pork and as such decided I
would not be sharing my meal. It is the
first time in 7 weeks that I have eaten pork and it was going to stay only on
my fork. While we were waiting we found
the Wi-Fi connection and obtained the password and after a glass of red wine
checked us all in with a statement about eating Portuguese food in the only
Portuguese speaking country on the African continent. Well I thought it was a pretty cool statement
until I received a message asking about Mozambique and then another about
Angola! Oh well, how about the smallest
Portuguese speaking country on the continent.
The food was delicious, the company was amazing and the wine went down
great. We left at 10pm for the walk home
to our respective hotels for the night.
So our day was a low key one.
The hotel was needed, and maybe also the break was what I
needed personally and I feel I am now ready to tackle the last 2 weeks of the
trip and make the most of this amazing opportunity.
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