I got up this morning at about 6:30 and packed by lantern light. I didn't sleep well at all--people were up and talking until about 4am. And the electricity cut out at 12:30am. Koundara is a place to stay overnight on the way to Labé but not a place to linger. I wanted to leave, but there was nobody to pay. Finally, the cleaner came and I had him wake whoever it was who I needed to pay. The guy came down and got his GF25000 (US$5). Then it was off to the gare voiture to get a sept-place to Labé.
The gare voiture was pretty easy to find: leave the Nyfala, turn right. Take a left at the first street, then a right at the first street. Then walk till you're there. I got there and found the Labé car. There were already some people there. The guy charged me GF75000 (US$15) which was more than double the Lonely Planet estimate of GF35000. But the Guinea Franc has eroded in value since then and the cost of fuel has gone way up. Then he charged me 15000 (US$3) for my bag. Bastard!
People were coming fast. It was looking like this sept-place would get its requisite dozen people pretty quickly. There was also a lot of other baggage. A lot of it. At about 8:15, they hauled it all up on the roof, laid two tarps over it, then a net, then they securely tied the netting down. The car repositioned. They came out with a long funnel and a jerrican of gas which they poured through a handkerchief filter into the gas tank. Then we all climbed on board. I got the second seat in on the left of the main bench which held 4. Five people--3 of them kids--got into the back bench. One kid wedged into the space between the front bucket seats, and 2 people shared the bucket seat. One woman got in the hatch where the bovine was yesterday, and the conductor got on the roof. We were ready to go.
I was pretty damn uncomfortable. Lonely Planet estimates this trip at 8 hours. Eight hours of being wedged between two guys, with kids right behind me sleeping with his elbow in my back. Fun fun fun. At 8:30 we headed out. It is 265 km (160 miles) to Labé.
Boy is the road to Labé bad. We were going all over the road looking for the least bumpy path. There was no unbumpy part--just less and more bumpy. At 9am, the kid wedged between the bucket seats had enough and moved to the roof. At 9:30 it started to rain. They stopped the car, got out the pliers, latched onto the eyebolt where the window handles used to be, and rolled the windows up. At 10:30 it stopped raining and they repeated the process to roll the windows down. With the windows down, the people sitting at the window seat got whipped by wet vegetation when we got to close to the side of the road in the rain forest.
I saw what appeared to be a troupe of baboons or something. A tribe of a little over a dozen primates of some sort--the largest two about the size of a small man and most of the rest the size of children. They were beige in color, had tails, and ran on their arms and legs. We never got closer than about 50 meters because they went into the woods as we approached.
I was starting to get hungry. I didn't eat at all the previous day. I was looking forward to pizza at the Hotel Tata. I was thinking I'd be in Labé at 4 or 5pm--plenty of time for a pizza and a beer. I had the half bottle of water I bought in Koundara. I took occasional sips. I was very happy about the cloud cover--the sun is the worst when traveling like this. Cloud cover is ideal.
Guinea has fewer termite mounds. Instead it has these rocks, from the size of foot stools to the size of end tables. They are roughly cylindrical and capped with some sort of mossy thing. They sort of look like mushrooms. I'm not sure exactly what they are. This part of Africa is geologically interesting, there are cliffs, buttes, plateaus, ridges, and waterfalls. It's quite nice.
At about 11:40 we entered a small village and some of the people got some food. I stayed in the car. We were there about 15 minutes and then we headed off again. Did I mention the road was bad? The kid behind got carsick and a few times he reached to the window and puked.
We picked our way through potholes, forced herds of cattle to part, went off road a bit, forded running water, and went through just about every puddle there was. I guess they must know that puddles are smooth because the driver aimed for the puddles on the side of the road. On the side of the road, the car tilted 15° to the left or right making it even worse for us wedged passengers.
The houses in Guinea tend to be cylindrical , about 5 meters in diameter, with a door and no windows and conical thatched roofs. They are clustered in fenced or palisaded compounds. Sometimes there is one about 10 meters in diameter in the compound.
We headed on though. Our progress slow but steady. Every caution was taken to make sure we didn't get too bumpy, but it was still pretty bumpy. Then at 3:15, we arrived at the one and only ferry crossing.
The ferry was on the other side. A car got on and two children started turning a large two sided crank. A chain anchored at both ends of the 50m wide river went through a gear attached to the crank. Each rotation of the crank advanced the ferry about two inches. It took about 10 minutes to get the ferry from one side to the other. We all got on the ferry and the driver drove on. Then the same thing in reverse. About 10 minutes later we were on the other side. Some people bought some boiled roots and pre-peeled oranges. Then we headed forth. It was quarter to 4, so we must be close. The road wasn't any better on this side of the river. We spent half of our time in second gear, splitting the remaining between first and third gears.
Four o'clock rolled around. Not there yet. Well, it will be any minute now. I saw some other monkeys--the kind with the black round face in the white mane, with long tails. There were 3 or 4 of them. Five o'clock. An hour over the 8 hour estimate. Not bad. But we weren't there yet. Our exhaust pipe fell off. They put it in the back with the old woman. I noticed that nothing on the dash board worked. The odometer was stuck at 393354 km. The speedometer was broken. No gas gauge. Only the idiot lights worked, coming on every so often. Six o'clock. We entered a town. A goat in the road refused to move and the towns people wanted us to reverse rather than move the goat. We won. Two hours overdue is still OK, not that bad. We picked up a passenger--I could see our shadow in a rare sunbreak of three people on the roof. My tail bone was starting to hurt. Six forty five, we stopped. It was starting to get dark. I specifically want to avoid being on the road after dark. But what can you do. Labé can't be far. The people went to the bathroom and at 7pm, we hit the road again. In the elapsed fifteen minutes, the day had turned into night. The headlights worked at least. And picking our way through horrible road would require headlights. Actually it requires daylight, but there is no daylight.
Every settlement gave me hope that this would be Labé. Every settlement wasn't Labé. Eight o'clock. We stopped at a pile of firewood. They got out and loaded some onto the roof. That took quite a while as they had to rearrange the luggage. Nine o'clock. The guy on my left was home so he got out and was replaced by a guy from the roof. Then I saw a sign that said Commune of Labé. We're here! Or so I thought. The settlements started to have light. Labé can't be far. We were still on the horrible road.
Ten o'clock. This was getting ridiculous. We seemed close. Everyone was talking on their cell phones, I presume to arrange pick up at the station. Finally I saw the Hotel Tata, the best hotel in Labé according to Lonely Planet--now we're close. Then about a minute later, the driver stopped the car and looked underneath it. He had to make some quicky repair of something with a piece of wire. That took about ten minutes. Finally we were on the road. I recognized the name of another place. Then we pulled into the gare at about 10:20pm--14 hours after we left. I could barely walk. I knew I wanted to go to the Hotel d'Independance. But I didn't know where it was or where I was. I wasn't counting on arriving in the dark. A guy offered to lead me there for GF5000 (US$1). So I took him up on it. I wouldn't have been able to find it in the dark. Maybe in the light, but this was too out of the way even though it was only a 90 second walk. They had rooms. Whew!
There is a superette next door--not exactly well stocked--but stuff. I bought cookies, chocolate, and a 7 Up for GF13000 (US$2.60). Then I came up to my room to document the hell I went through today taking 14 hours to go 160 miles in a car crammed with up to 12 other people on the worst road I've been on so far. Assuming we were stopped for 2 hours of the 14, that's an average speed of 13.3 mph.
August 23, 2008 23:20 Guinea local time
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