Gabú To Koundara Via Saréboïdo: A Test In Patience

I woke up at 5:40am. I hadn't packed the night before and there wasn't much electricity left, so figured I better start before it is turned off. I got done packing at 6 and listened to music till 6:40 when the lights went out (and fan stopped). Then it was off to find a bush taxi to Koundara. The hotel manager recommended 7 or 7:30 so I decided to get there at 7. They weren't quite open yet--the bush taxi crew was still eating breakfast out of a shared bowl sitting in a circle around, each with a big spoon. I was the second person for the sept-place. Just to review--sept-place is French for 7 seats. It is a Peugot 504 with 7 seats besides the driver. So I paid 3000 CFA (US$6) for the ticket and my luggage and took my seat in the sept-place to wait for 5 more people (one was already there).

And I waited. At about 9am, a guy struck up a conversation with me. He asked where I was going. I told him Kounadra, Lome, then Conakry. He told me I'd need to take a plane to go to Lome. I got out the Lonely Planet and realized my error--I meant Labé. The guy was fascinated with the Lonely Planet. He looked at the map and showed me where he was born. Since he can read French, he was sort of able to make out the English in the History of Guinea section. He disputed the results of an election as published in that section. Interesting.

I asked him how far along we were in filling up. That's when I found out that this sept-place would not take 7 people, but 9. The front bucket seat would have 2, and the bench I was on would have 4. Ugh! That's not what I needed to hear. At 10:30 (!), we were filled up and headed out by receiving a big push and a clutch pop to start the engine. But there were only 3 of us in the bench, so I was happy--though there were 3 women in the back each with an infant. The grand total, including driver, was 12 people in the car. The road sucks. We were playing slow motion pothole slalom. And there are lot of people living along the road so besides the potholes, we had to avoid bicycles, infants, goats, dogs, pedestrians, cows, and motorcycles. I kept getting my head slammed into the beam of the car when we'd go through bumps. I must have been hit a hundred times. After about 40 minutes we stopped and picked up one of the passenger's mother. That's why there were only 3 of us in the back--one space was hers. Now we didn't need the driver to complete the dozen--we had 12 passengers in our sept-place. This pothole slalom continued until about noon when we hit a patch of nice road and made as much progress in the next 20 minutes as the previous 90. The road was good and bad after about 12:00 when it switched from paved to dirt which actually works better. Rain was on and off, but never bad--at least there weren't to many sunny breaks. At about 1:00, we hit the Guinea-Bissau immigration. A rope was stretched across the road. I got my gear and headed into the immigration office. As usual, they had a hard time finding the visa. Once they found it, they studied it carefully. Then they looked for my entry stamp. I helped them since I knew it was on page 10. They asked my nationality--not many Americans come through here, I gather. The woman entered my information into her ledger and handed me my passport.

Then it was off to get another taxi. I crossed the rope and was on the Guinea-Conakry side. The license plates of the cars were now Guinea instead of Guinea-Bissau. I loaded my stuff into a car. A guy there said the car would leave at 2:20. It was about 1:20. I waited for an hour and then piled into the car. This one only costs 1000 CFA (US$2). A baby belonging to a woman in the back was crying at the top of his lungs. He was dripping with sweat. Maybe sick. I sat next a pleasantly fattish woman dressed in a pretty maroon outfit. She looked rich--much richer than anyone else I've seen since leaving Bissau. Before we left, they adjusted something under the hood. Then, instead of heading down the road, they pushed the car down a dirt road hill. The driver popped the clutch, and let it sputter, and popped the hood to make another adjustment. This happened 3 times, each time we lost some altitude on the hill. Who would push it if we reached the bottom of the hill? And we did reach the bottom of the hill. So it happened a fourth time. They had to push the car, loaded with 11 people, uphill a bit. Finally, it took, sort of. The engine was running really rough, but the driver drove up the hill, got on the road, and headed toward the Guinea border about a half kilometer away--a rope across on this side, too. Crikey--all that for a half kilometer? I could have walked it!

We piled out again and I went to Guinea customs. I sat down and the man inspected my passport. Then he filled out his ledger, asking me all the usual questions--name, nationality, occupation, where I'm coming from, where I'm going to, purpose of trip. He handed me my passport and I walked about 100 feet down to the immigration police. I went in. The officer apparently has bad vision--he inspected everything very close to his eyes. He even read the boilerplate stuff on the second page that says the Secretary of State requests that the bearer of this passport be freely granted entry blah blah, or whatever it is. Then he went into another room and came out with a ledger, though there were already 2 ledgers on his desk. He proceeded to ask me the identical questions as the customs guy. OK, I can do this twice. Then he gave me my stamp. And with that, I was in. I waited at the taxi for the others with passports. Finally, a little before 3pm, we left--the driver, 11 passengers, and the 2 pushers on the roof. The taxi went on pretty horrible roads--more washed out than potholed. The engine cut out many times but there was always just enough kinetic energy to restart the engine by popping the clutch. The baby stopped crying.

We got the top of a hill and the driver stopped. He went out, opened the hood, and made another adjustment. At the bottom of the hill, a topless woman was in a pond whipping her laundry against a rock. There were maybe half a dozen topless women in total on this trip. Only one was young with perky breasts--she was lathering up by the side of the road with a tub of soapy water. Anyway, he engaged the clutch and we started coasting. He popped the clutch and let it sputter. Then he went out and made another adjustment under the hood. The two kids on the roof pushed the car again because we were on the bottom of the hill. This was the last time he would do this.

At about 3:40 or so we arrived in Saréboïdo. There I converted a €50 note into about GF350,000. There were taxis to Koundara a bit down the road so I headed down there. I loaded up my bag (GF2000 but I never got change for my GF5000) and after a few minutes got in the back seat right next to the rich looking woman again. She was eating peanuts and offered me some but I wasn't hungry. This time there were 2 in the bucket seat, 4 in the middle bench, and 5 in the back including 2 babies. The taxi got a push and a popping of the clutch started the engine (seems to be a theme on this trip). Then we went in reverse and backed up a bit into a crowd. The back hatch, which was black where the window should be, opened. A handful of men pushed a small bovine with horns into the back and hogtied it. He looked pretty uncomfortable back there--probably the last ride of his life since he'll probably be eaten in Koundara. The woman eating the peanuts wasn't terribly pleased that this bovine was right behind her. Finally, the taxi took off. A kid tumbled off the back (answering my question of "do they ever fall off the roof?"). The taxi slowed down and the kid ran up and clambered back on. Then it off on another hour ride to Koundara. Every so often the cow would kick the hatch, but it was, and always is, a losing battle for the bovine.

Finally, we arrived in Koundara. I paid GF7500. A woman pointed me off in some direction. I asked if it was the direction of the Hotel Nyfala. She said yes. Turns out she lied. But I asked some people and they flagged down a moto-taxi. So I rode the back of a motorcycle, with my laptop in one hand, one hand on the taxi, and my backpack strapped on good and tight. What a sight I must have been. He took me to the hotel for GF2000--about 40 cents. When we arrived, I tried to get off, but my pants got caught on the blinker during my dismount. I was on the ground. I unclicked my backpack, stood up, and brushed myself off.

The hotel is not that great, but there are only 2 in town and this is the only one with "guaranteed" electricity. It should come on in an hour or so and stay on till midnight.

I went out to get something to drink. I bought a bottle of water for GF5000 and a coolish Orange Fanta for CF5500. Then because I needed it, I used a cup and a jerrycan of water to take a "shower".

August 22, 2008 20:16 Guinea local time