Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me as
is ever so on the road.
-Jack Kerouae-
Breakfast was at 7.30am this morning and there was a
flurry of action as people packed overnight bags for the trek making sure they
had everything and nothing was forgotten.
They had to take their own drinking water for the whole 2 days as there
are no shops to buy water, but that was the good thing with them being based at
the village, they could take what they want as they wouldn’t have to hike with
it for either day. Even though they are
gone for 2 full days, they are back tomorrow afternoon at around 5pm and I was
still totally okay with me not going. It
was a lot cooler this morning and I had to get my fleece out of my backpack for
the first time all trip. At least I got
to wear it once on the trip. I was
starting to feel a bit like a goose that I had actually bought it as it has
only been hot and humid the whole trip and certainly no need for a fleece, well
until now. It was my Antarctic one that
I had bought on my cruise and I had bought patches from the British and Polish
bases that we had visited and I had them sewn on when I was in Cuzco in South
America. It is a well-traveled fleece
that is for sure and has been to all 7 continents!!!! My day was starting to look quite full
actually with Sian offering her IPad that had the Game of Thrones series on
there and also House of Cards series that I haven’t even heard of, but sounded
interesting. So not only did I have some
blogging, some internet time, lunch and then some TV time, my day was
practically hectic!!!!!
Zoe was back! It
was great to see her infectious smiling face and she didn’t have one iota of
problems at the Guinea Bissau consulate in Conakry. Pinky and Perky didn’t get a chance to shine
as Zoe dealt with a female, but when she explained the story that she needed 14
visas by tomorrow, the lady didn’t even flinch and asked if Zoe could come back
tomorrow, they opened at 8.30am and they would be ready! I really do think that consulates make
themselves out to be scarier than what they are when you actually arrive at
their doorstep. Talking to people on the
trip about the visas and how they all went about getting some of the trickier
ones like Senegal, Guinea and Ghana-I thought I went to a lot of trouble
getting mine in London but apparently the rules with the Senegal visa changed 6
weeks after I obtained mine in London and they have turned to biometric visas
(you have to supply fingerprints) and the London consulate does not process
this and people had to fly to Berlin or Brussels to get the Senegal visa. Ian and Suzanne went one step further and actually
flew to Senegal, as you can obtain their visa on arrival at the airport only (not
by borders) and then after a 12 hour stay flew onto Ghana and obtained 2 more
visas in Accra. They certainly aren’t
the easiest things to get, but once you have all the information and are at the
right place, they are normally sympathetic to people and you don’t have an
issue getting them. Some like to wield
the power play, which is fine, but they do come around eventually, like the
Guinea guy in Abidjan. Well we were
lucky again that we now have all the visas required to finish the trip, which I
am sure is a relief to Sam and also to all of us that we now have the authority
to pass through the remaining countries.
A BIG thanks to Zoe and I knew she would get the job done! Welcome back.
Sam was chasing money for the Guinea Bissau visa this
morning, as he had paid for them all upfront as he couldn’t get onto the
consulate to ask how much they were. In
the LP (Lonely Planet) they mentioned that the visas were 40USD, but that was
printed 4 years ago and I am sure there will be a price increase during that
time. Well there was, and the visa had
jumped to 100USD, which Sam was a little apologetic about, but it’s not his
fault and there is no other option, so you just need to suck it up. It was 75EUR and with Sam on the truck also
collecting trekking money I thought it best I give him all my remaining EUR as
I still owed him kitty money from the last section and I am still to pay the
kitty money for this section. So I kept
60EUR for an emergency stash and handed over the last of my Patrick EUR’s which
will just about cover the last section and then I will have to start hitting
ATM’s once we get back into West African franc territory and I will pay this
section with that currency. That will
teach me to not have a BIG night of drinking when I am due for an airport
pickup at 4.30am the next morning. What
the hell will I do with all those EUR’s I still have in Nairobi? I will just have to get them all exchanged
back into USD or AUD when I get back to Australia. What a goose I am! So I am not quite out of kitty debt yet, but
I am getting there and I am a person that would not skip out without paying,
but I need to fix that ASAP as it really isn’t fair that everyone else has paid
and I have not.
The group we all locked and loaded into the tour company car
and a taxi to drive them the 2 hours to the village just after 9am. A few hugs to my roomie, Zoe, Rich and Ellie
and they were on their way for what I am sure will be an amazing 2 days. It really is beautiful scenery here and the
day has started perfectly with the sun rising high in the sky. It was also starting to warm up quite quickly
as well and it was time for the fleece to come off already. But at least it got some wear time, even if
it was only for 2 hours! Now I was left
to my own devices. My laptop was
charged, so I got that out and headed to the alfresco restaurant to type until
my computer went flat, which it did around 11.30am, so I headed back to my room
and I was a little sleepy, so after putting the laptop on charge I had a nana
nap, because I could, till 1pm and my computer was all charged again, so I went
back to the restaurant for lunch, which was lasagna and a coke and typed again
until my computer went flat again at 3pm and then I went back to the room to
charge it again and set up Sian’s IPad and started to watch the TV series House
of Cards. It is a White House based
series, which I do enjoy watching, up there with The Fixer and West Wing. Each one is 50 minute duration and one
episode turned into another, and another and another until I had watched 4 of
them before dinner!!! Where did the
afternoon go? I was able to fit in a tepid
shower in amongst all that and headed to dinner at 7.30pm, with my charged
laptop to complete my last blog to be completely up to date!!! You beauty!!!! Dinner was pizza again and this time I went
for toppings that reminded me of the pizzas I used to eat with my mum every
week from our pizza place in Darwin and when it came out it tasted just about
the same as well, it is like an Aussie without the egg. It was delicious. So I typed until 9pm and then back to my room
to continue watching House of Cards. In
the end I watched all 11 episodes getting to bed at 2.30am this morning. Well it is a good show, what can I say!
I am sure that today, day 2, is going to mirror
yesterday, but I really would like to get to the post office for a stamp and
also use the internet café while I can, which will help fill in some time and I
am now writing in ‘live’ mode as I am now caught up again in regards to the blog. As I have mentioned before this doesn’t
happen very often and the last time it did was 5 weeks ago when I was in the
Tata Somba region in Benin. They are
rare and I am hoping with just shy of 2 weeks left I will now be able to stay
on top of things. That way I can now
focus on editing my photos and get them ready to upload when I get Wi-Fi access
as it is time consuming going through every single photo I have taken on the
trip. I set my alarm for 9am, as I am
sure that the lady of the place would be expecting me for breakfast. As most French speaking places, breakfast
consists of a baguette, jam and tea or coffee.
I jumped on the truck and got my Vegemite off for the fresh bread and I
asked for a tea and I was also given a shortbread and jam looking pie that we
didn’t get yesterday. All that sugar in
turn, bought out a lot of bee’s, that buzzed around landing in the prune jam
and getting stuck in it, landing on the sweet pie and also eventually getting
stuck in my tea as well. I sat at the
restaurant until my computer was about to go flat, when the bees were growing
in numbers, so I hightailed it back to the room to load some blogs onto my USB
stick and I was going to visit the internet place and see if it was fast enough
to load some up and visit the post office for a stamp.
I left the hotel just before 12 noon, and walked the 15
minutes towards town. The timing was a
little off as school had been let out and there would have been 4-5 schools, of
all grades and there was an influx of kids on the streets, older student on
motorbikes, children getting picked up by motorbikes, a few mothers around and
then groups of young children that must walk themselves home. Nobody gave me any hassle as such, I got a
few stares, which I am getting used to and I threw out a few bonjours so they
knew I was a friendly white person and was glad that when I got to the post
office it was still open. I walked
across the 1m deep drain and when I opened the doors, it looked like a deserted
building inside, with some glass partitions marking what I figured was the post
office section. I couldn’t see anyone
behind the counter until I got right up to the window and I asked for a stamp. He looked at me. I asked again for a stamp to Australia (I
couldn’t care how much as I wasn’t using it to send anything). I still got a blank look, so I pulled out a
stamp I had from Sierra Leone, he looked at it for a few seconds and then came
back with these massive ones that were far too big for my Globetrotters book,
so I asked for petite ones and he gave me all that he had and I picked 2 that
would do and paying the 4000 (.80c) for both I left with stamps for my Guinea
square in my book. Success.
I then only had to walk 50m to where the internet café was,
and again my timing could have been a little better as it was nearly full with
people from school, but there was a spare computer and with the timer not
working, we wrote my time on a piece of paper, which I think is better than the
timer kicking you off when you time is up, and I popped in my USB and was able
to load 4 blogs over the next 2 hours.
It wasn’t the fastest connection, but being able to load something was
better than nothing, and really, where did I have to rush off to? I was just making some touches to the last
blog, I had 3 minutes left of my time to take me to 2 hours and then the power
went off. Well I was just about done
anyway, the only thing I do hate is that I wasn’t able to log off my Facebook
account and Google account, but I am hoping as it was a power cut and not a
slow connection, that when the power did come back on that it would restart and
not keep up my screens and accounts. So
the great news is that I won’t have to inundate everyone with a massive amount
of blog uploads, as I now only have 3 more to load to be up to date on the
uploading now, which that hasn’t happened for a good while either and it is a
great feeling that I am getting all my hard work and time online.
I walked the 20 minutes back to the hotel, and read my
book for a while, as the group were due back around 5pm, so I also made sure
that I had my shower, as I am sure when they all get back they will be tired
and muddy/sweaty and need a shower and I wanted to make sure I was going to be
out of the way. I had HOT water though
and it was bliss. I will never take hot
water for granted ever again and with 2 bush camps coming up tomorrow for the
next 2 nights as we leave Guinea and head into Guinea Bissau I am glad I had
some down time and I will probably be the only fresh daisy in the coming
days. 5pm came and went, and I was back
to reading my book and keeping an ear out for the guys and their return. I waited until 7pm and then I walked to the
restaurant where I am now currently writing about this day and I am starting to
get just a little worried now as it is now dark and nearly 7.30pm. What about if they aren’t back by 10pm? What should I do? I would probably ask the lady of the house to
make some calls, her English is broken, but I am sure I could get it translated
to phone the tour company at least and see if they have heard from them. Dragoman does have an emergency number to
call in a life and death situation only.
At what point does a missing group become missing and important enough
to phone that ‘emergency’ number? I was
going to wait for the group to get back to order my dinner, especially after my
rant yesterday, even though the situation is a little different, but I will
give it another 30 minutes and then I’ll just order my dinner at 8pm and just
hope that they turn up in the next few hours.
It has been raining most of the afternoon, so that could have slowed
them down a little on the roads, but let’s just wait and see and give them some
more time. If they are running late, it
would be good for them to phone here to let me know, but then I am assuming
they would have some form of reception, which they may not, but if they are on
their way back there would be reception somewhere eventually. Anyway I won’t jump the gun just yet.
It was 7.45pm when I finally ordered my dinner, with no
sign of the group still. I must admit I
was starting to get a little worried when a car pulled up just after 8 and 6
weary travelers stumbled in as it really started to rain quite heavily. They were wet, tired and hungry and when I
asked about the rest of the group, they were still coming as there had been a
breakdown with one of the cars, so they had to get bush taxis to the closest
town of Pita (which we passed through the other day) and then they changed into
another bush taxi to get back to the hotel.
Big hugs were passed to Helen, Zoe, Suzanne and Ellie, they looked so
tired, the poor buggers. The other group
didn’t pull in till at least 8.30pm and the taxi that they had gotten into had
a drunk driver behind the wheel, the next car they waved down had water and air
in the engine and I think Karl said it took 4 cars to get them back, meanwhile
it was still raining. It seemed everyone
had a great time, the trek today had some hard parts, and there were some
slippery sections and then the rain and I am totally okay that I didn’t
go. I don’t call any of that fun, some
people do and great for them, but not this little duck and I 100% knew after
hearing the stories tonight that I had made the right decision.
I went to bed at 9.30pm and Helen wasn’t far behind. Once we had repacked for our travel day
tomorrow, H went to put down the single mattress that was leaning against the
wall and there was BIG, fat hairy spider behind it and Helen and I
freaked!!! We both hate spiders,
actually we are terrified of them and after a super quick conference together,
we decided to go and get help. By this
time it was now 10.30pm and when we walked to the restaurant, it was also still
raining, there was no one from our group but the lady of the place and 2 male
friends were still up having a night cap, so Helen asked in French that there
was a ‘grande’ and used her hands like spiders legs and pointed to the
room. It got the point across and after
the owner had a quick laugh, one of the male companions pointed to the other
guy and said he is the master killer and the dobbed in mate came with us to our
room, took a look at the spider and laughed, we cleared the room and he grabbed
a leaf from the garden and swept the spider on the floor and then ceremoniously
stood on him and the problem was eliminated.
I shudder to think if he was there the whole time, in the room, with me
for the last 2 days….Ughhhhhhh. It took
us a few minutes to settle down, check the room for any friends before we felt
safe enough to turn off the light and close our eyes.
So to give the trekkers a chance to sleep in in the
morning, breakfast is at 8.30am and then on the road at 9.30am. We have 2 long travel days ahead of us, maybe
3 and 2 bush camps so everyone needs to get a good sleep tonight. Welcome back trekkers, I missed you.
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