The long and winding road to Conakry

Our trip had to go the long way round, as the more direct route has hardly any public transportation on it. 888km, 15 hours according to Google Maps, but I strongly feel this should be updated. We did it in about 60 hours, taking one bus (to Gabu, which was still paved), then on dirt roads by three shared taxis (normally of 7 people, but we often had to pay for remaining seats, giving us more room), first to the border, then onwards to Koundara where we spend the night in a reasonable hotel. From there, first a Renault 504 taxi which broke down once the paved road stopped, after which we hitched a 20 hour ride on a truck coming from Senegal with empty water containers to Labé. Since time was running short, we continued straight on with a Renault 19 narrowly seating 6 plus the driver all the way to Conakry. 

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In total, we spend 48 hours on the road and the meager sun of 50€ per person. The landscapes were spectacular and very lush. Guinea is often dubbed the "watercastle" of Africa, as many of the big rivers spring from here.However, it is also the 10th poorest country in the world and was heavily affected by the slave trade. Much reminded me of Haiti, where they often refer to Guinea as their African roots.

Nop, not a junk yard, but one of our taxi brousse.

Some of my favorite moments of the trip:
- Our faces, when,once we had the required amount of passengers, they started fiddling around under the hood of the car (the one shown above). I swear it seemed like they swap motor parts from one taxi to the next, according to whose turn it is.

- Thomas receiving an indecent proposal from one of the custom officers (female), when our truck was doing one of its numerous stops, to share a blanket during the night.

- The lady street vendors, who sold us a tasty plate of beans and rice at 50€ cent and gave us totally erroneous travel advice

- The two African mamas with children, who were stuck at 9pm to get to the next town, like us, and who were thrilled we would pay for the seats non taken.

- Our driver who, unwilling to pay bribes to the military, smoothly talked and drove his way through various checkpoints, each time accelerating while shouting:"When I come back, okay brother?" 

- The goodbye of our fellow travelers: when we arrived at Labé, after the long and dusty ride on top of the truck, the look they had of pity and admiration when we told them we had to go straight on to Conacry. Though I don't even know the names of most of them, the hardship shared creates a bit of a bond...

- The three year old that started dancing to the beat of the music from his mom's cellphone and enacting Tarzan

- Reading "Into the wild" while watching the sunset from on top of our truck

- Finding my inflatable Swiss Air neck cushion, which made my night more tolerable.

- the nightly crossing: arriving at around 10pm at a river, they had an système D of shuttling people and cars across that would have made MacGyver proud. With a wench and a cable, they manually pull the "ferry" (basically a flat surface with two lanes for passengers and a lane for cars covered in wood) across. Quite the experience to have, at night, with the only light coming from our (still quite large and heavy) truck, which also had to jumpstart the ferry by arriving at high speed and braking abruptly, shocking the ferry loose.

 - The discussion with the taxi driver, who started negotiating the price for our luggage with Thomas. 

• He: "It's 60.000."
• Thomas: "No, it's small, let's make it 30.000."
• He: "Okay, 50.000."
• Thomas: "25.000?"
• He (a bit confused): "40.000?"
• Thomas: "20.000?"
• He: (very confused now): "35.000?"
• Thomas: "Nah, 15.000 then."Laughter all around.
• He: "Okay, 30.000!"

-when one of our co-passengers, feeling sorry for us when he saw us, dusty, tired, eating a mere baguette, bought us some bananas.

- the numerous vultures, lending a very appropriate sense of doom to our trip....

- Thomas' reaction when, once we were in Conakry,  a cab driver asked us for 50.000 to take us to nearby a hotel he knew. We, used to the country side prices and having just paid 100.000 for 300km during a 12h trip, were scandalized and got out immediately. We found out later on that, though he had inflated the price, it wasn't as absurd and daylight robbery as we had initially thought...  

At our arrival in Conakry, all was not well. The results of the legislative elections held a month ago were announced on Friday (lien). The current party in power is supposed to have won the majority, which sparked some unrest on the main arteries of the city. This was still felt on our arrival Sunday evening, where we were stuck in traffic for over two hours. After our night in the truck and the day in the cramped taxi (I really, really understand why one uses the term "cramped" now ;), needless to say we were in a hurry to get some decent food, a shower and a good bed, so we checked into the first hotel we could find.

It took us three showers, a bath, three rinsing of shampoo, twelve ear-sticks and a shave to feel clean again and get to bed. Our flight leaving on Tuesday morning to Abdijan, so only one day to R & R (Rest and Recuperate) and look around...