Labé To Conakry

Since my hotel room at the Hotel d'Independence overlooked the gare voiture, I saw that it was very busy all day long. So I thought I could sleep in a tad. I got up at about 7 and started going to the bathroom. My pizza last night was accompanied by a very hot condiment served with a sort of rosemary pizza crust wedge thing. Mmmmm.... Spicy sauce and rosemary. It was divine. But I felt it in the morning and I had to get my gastrointestinal tract ready for a trip to Conakry. After a couple trips, I felt flushed and used the last of my buckets of water to flush the toilet as best I could. Then I took down the lifesaving mosquito net and the ropes it hung from and packed all my stuff. I got to the gare, just outside my hotel room window at about 8am. There was a minibus already almost full and a sept-place that looked completely full. The bus was GF57000 (US$12) and they didn't charge extra for the bag. I decided to take the bus. What the hell. The people waiting on a minibus really appreciate it when a passenger joins them and reduces the wait. And I was the last one. My stuff got loaded and I was given the front seat by the door. There was one guy sharing the bucket seat with me and a girl in the space between the bucket seats. I had my left sitz bone in the seat and the right sitz bone up on the raised part. So there was quite an imbalance. The guy to my left was wedged against me pretty tight but my right side was against the door and that felt OK. This is a 408 km trip (245 miles). That's 50% longer than my trip from Koundara, but the roads are supposed to be much better so the Lonely Planet projects 8 hours for this trip as well. They loaded up chickens, tying down one leg on each to the netting so they wouldn't fall off the roof.

At 8:20 we were off. The road was good. Very nice. We were able to go pretty fast. I noticed that the roads in this section have stones telling the number of kilometers to the next relatively major town. Very nice. We passed some small settlements and at 9:20 took a bathroom break. The girl who was in the space between the bucket seats didn't like being there because the driver didn't want her legs near the stick shift, so she switched with a small boy. She also took of a layer of her clothing which meant briefly getting topless right there on the side of the road. She had nice breasts. ;-) A guy asked me where I was from. I told him America. He smiled and shook my hand. The American flag motif is fairly common in Africa but much more so, it seems, in Guinea. They love the American flag. It's everywhere. There seems to be a lot of goodwill toward us. The thing about America is that it represents some really good things and some really bad things. It's a question of what you want to emphasize or deny. Guinea seems to be a country that's pretty well grounded. Labé was actually quite nice, for example. The people seem to be trying to work to develop themselves and their country. And America is a metaphor for what people are able to accomplish. I suppose that is what they see. Not the plundering America but the America where the people work hard to improve their conditions of life. That is the example they aspire to.

Around 10am, we stopped at a roadside village and the driver bought some meat. He attached it to the top of the van, not in a bag or anything--just like that.

We took off again and had a pretty uneventful trip until about noon when we stopped in a village whose sole reason for existence seems to be to service the traffic coming through. Most of the people got off and got some sort of rice with meat sauce. I bought a Strawberry Fanta and a tube of cookies for GF8000 (US$1.60). After a few minutes, a girl walked by with some fritters or something on her head. They smelled good. I watched as she set up and a guy came and bought 5. Then I went over. Not knowing what they were I asked for 2. She took the GF1500 (US$3) I had in my hand and gave me 10. I guess 2 means 2 orders of 5. I bit into one. Pretty good--like donut holes but a bit denser. I waited and the driver came by repeating some phrase that I'm sure means "All aboard" and he said it to me smiling and I tried to repeat it and he laughed. When we got in, he put a cassette into the tape recorder and pointed at me and said "for you". It was an interesting cassette. It was a French guy playing various Bob Marley tunes. He would sing over parts of the Marley in English and then interpret what he just sang into French. It was also pretty religious. An interesting tape.

We stopped at about 1:20 to pick up a bunch of bags of leaves. I don't know what sort of leaves they were. Soon it started to rain. The water was leaking right onto me until the driver noticed my distress. There was a piece of tarp in the door that prevented the gasket from sealing properly so he stopped so I could open and reclose the door without the tarp. That made all the difference. We stopped and got some gas. Then we were off again. At about 2:20, we stopped at another roadside village and unloaded some of the bags of leaves.

An hour later, it looked like Conakry was coming into view. The stones on the side of the road indicated it was coming up. We hit some heavy traffic. A police checkpoint stopped us and the officer looked at my passport and the papers of the guy next to me. He spent some time looking at the cover of the passport. Actually, the guy at the Hotel Visiom in Gabú did to. I understand why. To me, the cover of a US passport is the ultimate expression of America. Not the Stars and Stripes. But the dark blue passport with "PASSPORT" and "United States of America" in gold lettering with the golden eagle in the middle. That means America. That means freedom to travel almost anywhere. That means that where ever I go, the cachet of being an American follows me. And there is no cachet like the American cachet. Anyone can show the American flag--and they do here in Guinea. But not anyone can show a US passport. That is truly special.

Then around 5pm we arrived at the gare where we stopped.

I wanted to go to the Pension La Maison Blanche, a cheap place in the Kipé neighborhood of Conakry. I headed toward the taxi stand and when I got there, the lead taxi was bound for Kipé. Yay! I loaded my backpack into the back and got in. We went about 2km to an intersection where everyone got out. We were actually close to where the Maison Blanche was on the map, so the driver offered to take me. I should have said no, but I didn't.

He started going toward the south which was right. It's partly my fault because he had asked someone for directions and received "directions" and was going to follow them. I recognized a couple names of places, the Ocean Hotel and the San Remo pizzeria. When I looked at the map, it was obvious that we had passed the place where the Maison Blanche was supposed to be. He tried to take me to some Mariador hotels but I kept trying to tell him to turn around and go back north. He either waited, or asked people (no longer in the neighborhood of the Maison Blanche) where the Maison Blanche was. They kept telling him and he kept going south. Everytime I told him we were too far south and had to go north about 2 km, he would stop and wait and think for a while and then drive half a block and ask somebody. Finally, after about a half hour, I got him turned around. We got to a restaurant, Le Waffou which is very close to the Maison Blanche icon. But we couldn't find it. I kept telling him to let me off and I'd find it myself, but he said Guinea was dangerous and wouldn't let me out. He wouldn't quote a price. Finally he called someone who spoke English and had me talk to this guy. This guy told me the Maison Blanche didn't exist anymore and I'd have to choose another hotel. There was one nearby called the Hotel Mixte, so I told the driver how to get there. In that approximate area there was a pension La Concorde. OK, that'll do. We went in and the driver went in. I didn't like that. I want him to drive, not ask for rooms. I got my stuff and went in. The proprietor of the place quoted me GF80000 which was more than twice the Maison Blanches' GF35000 I was hoping to pay. Actually with inflation, I didn't expect it to be that low. OK, it's late. I felt ripped off. The taxi driver then charged me GF10000 after my unproductive hour with him. That was a ripoff too. It was GF1000 from the gare to the intersection where everyone got off which was just meters away from the intersection of the Maison Blanche. In the end, they aren't that bad of ripoffs though. The hotel comes to US$16 and the taxi ride was US$2. All in all, it's cheap.

So I was at the hotel. This is a hotel that rents rooms by the hour. All the rooms were full. The owner had me sit down and I ordered a beer. It wasn't cold but it was cool. It'll have to do. It was starting to get dark. The owner came with some bed sheets for me. When you stay in a hotel that rents by the hour, bedsheets are probably something you want fresh. It got dark--about 7:20. I was sitting there in the dark. They fired up a generator--loud as hell. A couple emerged from the area of the rooms--about 10 seconds later the nice smell of a nice perfume--she smelled good.

A few minutes after they emerged, the owner took me to the room. It was OK. No running water, generator electricity till 10pm and Co-Op electricity after 10--when I could use the AC. I had my sheet and a towel, there was a fresh bucket of water, and a there was condom on the table. I know I have a rule of no sex in Africa, but maybe I'll take it just in case.

After that, I headed out to eat. I figured I'd eat at Le Waffou. I must have passed it because I went too far. I had my Freeplay Indigo lantern and La Route. The lantern wasn't on and as I walked along, I fell into a 3 foot deep hole on the side of the road. I was OK. My lantern was OK. My wrist hurt a bit, and my ankle was a bit twisted, but nothing I couldn't walk off.

I found Le Waffou--it's no on the main drag, but next to a place called Top Banana which is on the main drag. I entered. They had a super load generator going. I tried to order over the generator. The girl asked me what I wanted to eat. They had chicken and fish. I said I wanted chicken and frites. Then I want a Skol beer, but she didn't understand. I tried to explain it was a boisson but she kept thinking I was changing my order from poulet to poisson. No, not poisson, boisson. Skol is a boisson. You want poisson? Finally she called an English speaker over and I told him I wanted chicken with fries and a Skol. He explained it to her, then recommended a seat further away from the fracas caused by the generator.

Again, the beer wasn't that cold. In Labé the beers were ice cold. These were just passably chilled. She brought a tub of water and a bottle of soapy water. For washing my hands. Interesting. But all was well when the chicken came. It had julienned onions, a hot sauce on the side, and bits of tomato. It was the best chicken I've had on the African continent. It was absolutely delicious. I don't know if it is a repeatable experience, but I'll recommend the Waffou chicken to anyone.

Then I settled my bill GF25000 + GF5000 for the chicken and beer or US$6. I found my way home in the dark. Tomorrow I have to find a better place. But for tonight I'm here.

August 26, 2008 22:22 Guinea local time