Elephantless and other mild disappointments

  Ouagadougou, Boromo, and Bobo-diolasso, Burkina Faso
Sunday, December 28, 2008

Hi everyone !!

Well, we are back in good ol Ouaga after a disappointing trip to see elephants in the national park near here in Boromo - we saw lots and lots of elephant prints , but not the good beasts themselves.

Deux Bales Ntl Park

Trying to explain where the elephants were

savannah

On the upside, we had a beautiful and peaceful rest at a place near the river and a canoe ride on the river,

river trip

saw brightly colored birds, and the footprints where the elephants come into the river to drink;

Elephant Prints!

it was gorgeous-I love boats: but to be honest, its pituresque tranquillity was probably heightened by the exhausting, dusty, and often baffling/aggravating travel the rest of the time; Ouaga, as exciting as it is to say out loud, is no sparkling big city, although it has traffic and city noise (punctuated by the bleat of goats and the banging of construction)

Bus Station Craziness

Bananas for sale

Baby Carrier

and is dusty; so bad I am constantly coughing, although not as dusty as Bobo-Diolasso, the other ¨"big tourist town" (and that's in quotes because its hilariously funny in its non touristyness) which we visited for a night although we were too sick to see much. (We saw some cool vines, in our hotel)

Crazy Vine

Alien Vine

Bobo is probably in the top 3 most dusty places in the universe, counting the Sahara and that dune place in Star Wars; The tree leaves were covered in dust and the attractions were the grand mosque (definitely cool, different architecture) and the ancient city, which was also crumbling to dust even as people continue to live there; the passing motorscooters and cookfires and burning trash don't help.

Bus Station

In any case, we made it back to Ouaga and are kinda chilling in the refuge of the hostel ,

back at the hotel

goofing off

which has a leafy, almost quiet courtyard and pleasant garden furniture, until we can get Ghana visas and head down to the beach and national parks and English language of the GOLD COAST (sounds like heaven to me!) It's a 24 hour bus ride, so if we get too wiped out we will stop somewhere else, but that's the general plan-t look for a pleasant place to vacation where we can both have fun (on a side note, I shoulda definitely learned French somewhere between the Con Law final and the Federal Indian law paper, but calvin is a gracious and indispensable translator, still its an interesting position to be in, having an amazing translator but no voice of your own... he is a lot more diplomatic than I am though, so perhaps I should hire him to speak English for me as well)
Happy anniversary to my parents and Happy new year to all!
Love
sarah