First Day In Bobo-Dioulasso: Birthday Meals

I was awakened by the mosque at some early hour and then by some minute long air raid siren at 6:30. After lingering in bed for a little while, I showered and headed out to explore Bobo-Dioulasso. My hotel is right on the edge of the commercial center so I walked around quite a bit. It's pretty nice. For the most part, the people of Bobo are too busy to do more than greet me. But there are always exceptions. Two kids found me and tried to sell me some jewelry. I didn't need any, but then they told me they had post cards. Now we're talking. They tried to get me to buy some jewelry with the post cards, but it was a no-go. I just wanted post cards. Nothing else. They followed me around a bit after that. I wasn't going to pay them off. They sold 3 post cards for CFA 1000 (US$2) and that was all they were getting.

I found the Sorbetière--an ice cream parlor without ice cream, but with pastries recommended by Lonely Planet. Though I didn't find their pastries particularly good. The croissant was burnt on the edges and the pain au raisin was too bland. And instead of real coffee, it's just hot water and a plastic tube of Nescafe powder. There is another patisserie that I'll try tomorrow.

Then a guide managed to find me. He was a bit persistent, but I shook him after a while only to snag him again a few minutes later in my aimless and apparently circular wanderings. This time he offered his services not just as a guide, but as a pimp--gay or straight--oddly enough, in that order. Is Bobo-Dioulasso the San Francisco of Burkina Faso? I said no to both.

I found an internet cafe and had some trouble connecting so I thought I'd return later. As I wandered around I found where I want to have dinner and lunch. Dinner will be at l'Auberge. Lunch at l'Eau Vive. The internet was working when I returned and the first thing I did was check google news for election news and then intrade (via TPM Election Central) for the latest odds on the election. Obama is back up to 65%. Whew! The Lonely Planet says they have really slow connections and don't know what a USB port is in Bobo. Fortunately, things in Bobo have improved since then. It's not like the MouNa in Conakry, but the one I went to is not at all a bad internet cafe. And at CFA 350 per hour (US$0.70) it's cheap. Still, the computer locked up on me and it wasn't exactly blazing. But it can handle my email client which barfs on about half of all West African computers.

Now I was hungry and thirsty and it was noon--l'Eau Vive would be open. Yay! It's run by nuns. There's a picture of the Pope in the dining room. I wish he didn't look like the guy from the Red Meat comic. I don't really want those dark ringed eyes looking down on me while I eat. Anyway, I was the first customer. At first, the dining room smelled like antiseptic soap, but that went away soon enough. The menu looks delicious. Almost as good as le Café du Fleuve in Bamako. I got a chef salad for CFA 2500 (US$5) that had tomatoes, an egg, a bacon like cured meat of some sort, cheese and lettuce. It was so good. For my plat, I had a filet flambé au poivre vert. A filet of beef with a pepper sauce and light little bread things called dauphins. The meat was cooked perfectly and the sauce was delicious. For desert, a coffee and a Dame Blanche-vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce and whipped cream. With beer and water, the total was CFA 12400 (US$25). With a CFA 2000 tip, that comes to just under $30 for my 40th birthday lunch. I'm allowed to do that when I turn 40. There were other customers eventually. A large party of about 20 Africans came in, a single African guy, a couple--one white one black, and a single white guy. That was the lunch crowd for this day. I was the first one in and the last one out. I journaled and got almost to the end of my Moleskine. In half a page, I flip it over go in reverse.

I went back to the hotel and rested. The ceiling fan doesn't have the vanes bent far enough, to it spins but doesn't move air, so I tried to bend them a bit more. Why would somebody make a ceiling fan that doesn't move air? The vanes were pretty solid, but I got them bent a little and now there is some air movement though not a lot.

In the evening I went to l'Auberge for dinner. They have a 3 course meal for CFA 6000 that is recommended by Lonely Planet. The restaurant runs along the swimming pool and a set of older French people were all swimming in the pool. I had a cabbage with mayonnaise entrée and Provençial frogs legs. The plat menu was pretty exotic. The frogs legs were pretty good. Though, the lunch at l'Eau Vive was definitely the better meal.

At night after I got back, there was a good hard rain. My room was getting stuffy and since it is on a corner and was a door in one wall and a window in another, I was able to create a cool cross breeze and lower the temperature in my room from hot to pleasant. In fact, with a floor fan blowing on me, it was too cold and I needed to sleep under the sheet. I love it when that happens.

There are some somewhat persistent merchants. Not too bad. About as bad as Dakar and I learned early on how to handle them. To my relief, it's not as bad as Mali at all. I was so hoping that Burkina would be more like Guinea-Conakry and less like Mali. So far, so good.

October 4, 2008 8:46 Burkina local time