Vacation Part 2: Guinea. Day 1

 

 

To get to Guinea, my volunteer friend "Sira Ba" and I took a car from Kedougou, in Senegal, to the town of Mali in the Fuuta Djalon mountains of Guinea.  Mali is the highest-elevation town in the country, and since we were planning on doing a lot of biking on this trip, we decided to start from the highest point possible, so we'd be going downhill as much as possible.

 

We left Kedougou around 9 in the morning, riding in a Land Rover with 10 other people plus 5 kids stuffed in the back.  As soon as we left the city of Kedougou the road was no longer a road but just a dirt track.  We were constantly swerving around trees and boulders and driving through enormous potholes.  It wasn't long before three people in the back of the car with us were hanging out the windows to vomit.  The road soon became very steep, and we were often on the edge of the mountain with only a few inches of dirt road between us and falling into the valley far far below.  Kind of terrifying, but also beautiful.  And we were lucky to have a great driver.  Twice the road became so steep and narrow that they had us all get out of the car to lighten its load, and we walked up the mountain, and then the car followed behind us. 

 

We only passed a handful of villages along the way, each at least an hour's drive away from the next.  I think those villages must rely almost entirely on what the villagers can grow and produce themselves, since it would be so difficult and expensive to bring supplies out.  But I did find out later that there are footpaths between Kedougou and Mali that are a lot more direct than going by the "road", so the villages aren't quite as isolated as they seemed at first.

 

I didn't have a visa for Guinea as I was technically supposed to since I had just decided at pretty much the last minute to go on this trip with my friend and hadn't had the time to go all the way up to Dakar to get one.  But I had heard other volunteers had been able to get into Guinea without visas, and I talked to the frontier police in Kedougou and the guy there told me I could get across legally by just filling out some paperwork if I crossed through one of three border checkpoints.  I wasn't sure if he really knew what he was talking about, though.

 

So when we got to the border crossing (which was just the gendarme's hut in the first village we came to in Guinea) I didn't know what was going to happen.  I wasn't too nervous, though, because I figured the worst that could happen was that he wouldn't let me in, and I would have to get my bike and other stuff off the car and bike back to Kedougou. 

 

The border guard was really young, probably just hired recently, and he was really nice and seemed like he was just trying to do a good job.  He told me, "I'm sorry, but you need a visa to get into Guinea.  You have to get it in Dakar.  We don't sell them here."  I had planned to try bribing the guard if necessary, but this guy was so nice, I didn't want to be the one to corrupt him.  So I just said, "I understand.  But since I'm here (out in the middle of nowhere) what do you want me to do?"  But he just kept repeating, "You have to get a visa in Dakar"; so I kept repeating, "I understand.  What should I do now?"  After ten or fifteen minutes of this, he stamped my passport and said I could go.  So I hit the jackpot: I saved about $100 by not buying a visa (plus the $50 or so it would have cost me to make the trip to Dakar), didn't break any laws by bribing public officials, got into Guinea, and even had a stamp in my passport to show that I had entered the country legally, in case any police demanded my passport later on during the trip.  The only downside was that my volunteer friend "Sira" was a little indignant that she had spent so much money getting a real visa, while I had managed to waltz into the country without spending a dime.  But she was glad I wasn't getting sent back and leaving her to vacation alone, so there were no real hard feelings.

 

We finally made it to Mali about 5:30, just as it was starting to rain (I had forgotten what it feels like to be cold!).  Any town in Senegal when we arrive at the garage, we are immediately surrounded by people yelling at us – talibe beggars asking for money, taxi drivers asking where we want to go, random guys wanting to "help" us with our bags.  But the Mali garage wasn't like that at all – no one bothered us or even stared at us.  We were able to get our bags together in peace and then decide what to do next (first priority: exchange money; second: find a place to stay for the night; third: find food).

 

Exchanging money was easy; even the exchange rate was simple – just add an extra zero to CFAs (so 100 CFA = 1000 Guinea francs).  Nearly all their money is paper though, rather than coins (the equivalent of a nickel is a paper bill), and the bills they gave us were all small denominations (about $1), so even exchanging a relatively small amount of money we ended up with a suitcase-size stack of Guinea money.  (And there was no room in my backpack for it – how could I have guessed when I packed that I would need to leave room for piles of money?) 

 

Finding the hostel was a little harder.  We had seen a sign for it as we drove in, and we stopped several times to ask for directions, but the problem was that there were no real roads, just rocks everywhere.  So it was hard to follow directions – turn right at the big rock?  What?  But we finally found it.  Turns out it is owned by a Finnish woman (found that out after noticing that all the books on the bookshelf were in Finnish), but she wasn't there, just a young Guinean guy who was ethnically Jaxanke but only spoke Pulaar, like everyone else in northern Guinea – disappointing for me.  We talked him into letting us sleep in our tent on the grounds rather than in a room for half price – about $3 each. 

 

Then we walked back into town to find dinner.  First we found something like hush puppies dipped in a delicious hot sauce, which was a good snack, and then we hit the jackpot – a woman selling plates of beans with fresh tomatoes, onions, and avocado on top.  It was delicious, much better than Senegalese beans which are always really oily.  And it was only 3000 francs, about $0.75, for enough food for two of us (Senegalese meals are always about 500 CFA/$1 per person).  I think I might have to move to Mali just so I can eat those beans every day.  And with those prices, I could live there for a really long time on almost nothing.

 

After dinner we went back to the hostel (getting lost in the dark several times along the way) and went to bed.  A great first day in Guinea.