| Diary
December
Accra, Ghana 2003-12-27 19:10
Ho, ho!
First of all we like to wish everybody a merry Christmas and a happy new year. We also like to thank you for all nice messages in our guestbook. We really appreciate it.
We ended up spending five days in Burkina Faso. Unfortunately we didn’t like Burkina that much. Of course we only visited the capital Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso, but in our opinion these cities and the roads in between didn’t offer anything special. At least they didn’t offer anything that we haven’t already seen or experienced. It could be that we are getting a bit cocky because of our Africa experience and hard to impress:-) A reason to our anti Burkina attitude is also because we during our five days in country were unlucky enough met two scary psychopaths. One of them, an aggressive seller, spit our friend Max in his face and called him a racist because he didn’t want to by his fabrics and the other one, just a regular lunatic, was following us through half of Bobo- Dioulasso. This is actually the first time in Africa when we have felt a little bit scared and threatened.
From Burkina Faso we headed off to Ghana. In Burkina we said goodbye to our Dutch friend Max and we are now travelling by ourselves again. We spent Christmas Eve in Mole National Park. Mole is situated in the north part of Ghana and we saw elephants, baboons, different types of monkeys, antelopes, crocodiles and colourful birds. Since it’s only Christmas once a year we stayed in a nice double room in Mole Motel (that has a swimming pool), ate a lot of good food and drank litres and litres of cold delicious beer. In the park we met four Swedish medical students and you should have seen the expression on Daniel’s face when one of them gave him a box of Swedish tobacco (snus) as a Christmas gift. Indescribable.
After three relaxing days in Mole we continued south and we are now in the capital of Ghana, Accra. Accra is located on the coastline and we are now staying in a bungalow right beside the sea. We haven’t seen the sea since we left Gambia so guess if we are happy to be here. A big difference from the north part of West Africa is the climate. For the past two month it’s been very dry but here it’s extremely humid. The temperature is however the same, around 40-45 degrees Celsius in the shadow. In case you’re wondering, no, we aren’t freezing.
Ghana is one of the most developed (if not the most) countries in West Africa and the capital of Ghana, Accra, is the most developed city that we have seen since we left Europe. After have spending a lot of time in really poor countries such as Mauritania, Mali and Burkina Faso it’s nice to see a majority of people (at least in south Ghana) that looks healthy. Earlier we have seen a scary amount of coughing children with big stomachs. In the long run it’s actually getting pretty tough, you feel so helpless.
We are really looking forward to explore Ghana. Except for nice beaches we are going to see some jungle, waterfalls, old fortresses and castles and a lot of animals. A good thing about this country is also the prices, it’s very cheap. For example our bungalow by the sea is 4 Euros per night, a big and decent meal is less than 1 Euro (2-3 Euros in a nice restaurant) and a 0,75 L bottle of beer is around 50 cent.
We don’t know how much time we’ll spend in Ghana. On Monday we’ll visit some shipping- and airline agencies and it’s going to be very interesting to find out how much it will cost and how much time it’ll take shipping the bike to South Africa. It’s also going to be interesting to find out the airplane costs from Accra to Johannesburg. We have heard rumours that the “shipping the bike thing” will be pretty cheap but that the flight tickets will be bloody expensive. Well, well we’ll see on Monday.
Check out our updated picture gallery with photos from Mali!!!
Take care and enjoy your holidays!
Helena & Daniel
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| This is where we spent Christmas |
An elephant |
They asked if they could take a ride |
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso 2003-12-16 16:34
Hello!
Today is actually the three month anniversary of this trip. God, the time is running by so quickly when you are having a good time. And that we truly are. We are really enjoying the life on the African roads. Yes, of course, sometimes it's a bit tough. It's primitive, dusty, sweaty, unhygienic and dirty. But you get used to it. For now we actually enjoy taking "shower" with a bucket of brownish water after a long day on the bike. You don't get really clean, but almost.
Since our last diary update we have seen and explored a pretty big part of Mali. The highlights were Djenné and Pays Dogon. Djenné is a small dirty and stinking mud-brick town were no modern buildings detracts from the atmosphere. It almost felt like we were waking around in a giant sand castle. Really nice. The main attraction is the mosque which is one of the world largest mud-brick buildings.
Pays Dogon is the region where the Dogon people live. Pays Dogon is centred on an escarpment in the mountains and it contains a lot of small primitive villages. To explain it short we can tell you that the Dogon make their living out of what the nature gives them. Every village has their own Hogon. A Hogon is an old chosen man that is living up in the cliff (and never leaves this place). This man is like the "God" of the village and if the people have any problems or questions they climb up to their "God" and he'll answer the questions and solve their problems. When we visited this region it really felt that we travelled hundreds of hundreds years back in time and sometimes it really felt like we were standing on the set of "The lord of the rings". It's pretty hard though to understand that this is no movie, or a made up museum, it's reality for these Dogon people. Really amazing!
We spent 5 days trekking in Pays Dogon. We, our friend Max and a Dutch couple hired a guide and walked between the villages, 55 kilometres in total. One of the highlights was when we arrived to a village where they were having a birthday party. What a party! Everybody, both adults and children, were drinking their home made millet beer (a kind of corn beer) and believe us they were all really drunk.
A not so good memory, at least not for Helena, was when se ate half a mango before she realized the mango was filled with worms. God, she was screaming and spitting.
Since it's so hot here in Mali a lot of people sleep on their roofs and lately so have we. It's really nice and special to fall asleep watching the stars. There are also so many star falls, almost like fireworks.
Ever since the capital of Mali, Bamako, the roads have been very good. Asphalt roads without any potholes. It's nice to actually get somewhere when you're driving.
Yesterday we entered a new country, Burkina Faso, were we're planning to spend around one week. Yet we haven't decided were to spend Christmas but we are thinking about a National park in Ghana. Christmas feels so far away here in the heat but maybe we find the Christmas feeling if we get to Ghana, which is Christian, in time.
See you soon,
Daniel and Helena
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| The world's biggest mud building |
A five day trekking in Pays Dogon |
Traditional paintings and an old man |
Bamako, Mali 2003-12-05 13:32
Hi there!
After a week in The Gambia we again entered Senegal. We have to say that the eastern part of Senegal is like night and day from the western part (which we didn’t like too much). Eastern Senegal has really nice and clean scenery, a relaxed atmosphere and extremely friendly and helpful people. It felt good to meet Senegalese people that actually were interested in us and not only in our money.
After some conversations with locals and other travellers and after some studying of the map we (we have since Dakar included the Dutch guy Max) decided to enter Mali from Saraya (Senegal) to Kenieba (Mali). We were told that this is one of the tough pists but since we were in the neighbourhood it was also the closest one. When we came to Saraya, however, we got some bad news from the locals. The Tambacounda River, which is the border line between these two countries, is too high and impossible to cross with a motorbike or a jeep, they said. Since we only had 50 kilometres to this damn river and 500 kilometres to the next border crossing we decided that we would at least drive there and have a look. After four sweaty hours on a, what you can say, challenging “road” we arrived in the “border village”. Here the locals were a little bit more positive than the once in Saraya. They said that the bike, with no problems, could pass the river in the old wood pirogue that was lying on the river bed (sipping water) and they also said that the four-wheel driver jeep probably could cross it as well. Daniel and Max quickly went into the current river to see how deep it really was. When the water touched their nipples we realized that the jeep wouldn’t stand a chance and Max therefore had to take the long way to the other border crossing. After some serious inspection of the old pirogue we however came to the conclusion that it actually could be possible with the bike and we there and then decided to do the crazy thing before the responsible one.
With the help from some strong local guys we practically carried the bike to the river and into the pirogue. Now we were starting to get “a little bit” nervous though. There were already water up to the rail and with one small mistake out on the river the bike would definitely drown. But with an experienced man by the paddle and with some help from above, this river crossing, thank god, ended successfully. What a relief!
On the other side of the river the next part of the adventure began. After two shaky hours on a small bush pist we came to the village Kanieba where we smoothly got our passports and our Carnet de Passage stamped. After have spoken with some locals we decided to take the shortest track to the capital Bamako. The shortest track to Bamako was not in our map but since the locals were so convincing we decided to give it a go. If it worked we would save a lot of time.
After a bumpy hour on the “road” we met a sweaty priest on a moped. In bad English he explained that the road we were driving was leading to a mountain that was “very, very difficult” to climb with a motorbike. We hesitated a bit but in the end we decided to give the mountain what we had. The stony track up on the mountain, that can be compared with a trial track, was really hard, god damn it, but after a couple of hours of struggling and sweating we were on the other side.
After ten hours and 100(!) kilometres we arrived in Nanifara, one of many small villages along the way. We kindly asked if it was possible for us to put up our tent, and it was. These amazingly kind people really welcomed us with open arms and later in the evening the “head master” started to play some songs on his homemade guitar while the rest of us were dancing and laughing like never before. This night was what we had dreamt that Africa would be like, what a fantastic evening.
It was not that much fun when we left the village though. The closer we got to departing the more desperate the people became. Money, clothes, pens!!! Please, give us something!!! We really got attached to these people but as a motorbike-traveller you don’t have that much to spare. We gave them what we could, some small things and some money. Sometimes you almost feel embarrassed thinking about how good we have it in Scandinavia…
Mali is one of the poorest countries on earth. We can not change that. But what we can do is to make an effort for the people in Nanifara. They have a little school in this village, yet no pens and papers. So please, if YOU feel like doing something nice for some really nice people, send some school material or some old clothes to this address:
Nounhoum Kouyate & Famakan Danfaga
Directeur Ecole Nanifara
Commune Rurale de Koundian, Cercle de Bafoulab
Rebublique de Mali
(If you send an envelope and some stamps they will most likely send you a “thank you”-letter)
After three sweaty, hard and tough days on deformed dirt roads is was very nice to arrive in a surprisingly well developed and civilized Bamako. Electricity, shower, toilet, real food and clean clothes. What a luxury! We had almost forgot how good it is to go to the toilet without worrying that a snake will bite you in the arse:-)
Check out our updated picture gallery!!!
Have a nice one!
Helena & Daniel
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| Everything i possible!!! |
To give you an idea about the "roads" in Mali |
Bridges - what's that? |
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