Bobo-Dioulasso,
Burkina Faso
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Well it certainly has been an exciting few days in Burkina Faso... there seemed to be an awfully high number of riot-gear clad police around the city as David and I set out on the truck to get a few jobs done... after ,managing to secure Senegalese visas for the 4 pax who needed them we headed off to get some diesel... as we got closer to the service station we noticed a large amount of pillars of black smoke around the city... one next to the Shell where we were headed.... closer still we saw rocks being thrown and something that looked a lot like fighting... "I think I should turn the truck around" said I to David... "Good idea" he replied... by the time we got back to the hotel there was a fair few burning tyres on the street, alot of rocks around and multitudes of army and riot police swarming around the place. Everything was shut down in the city, banks, shops everything... so we were unable to get anything done at all. Some of the pax witnessed some police beatings ala Rodney King and another was in a taxi that had tear gas fired over and around it. Apparently the people are rioting because of inflation and many people just cannot afford to eat anymore... Burkina is supposed to be the third poorest country in the world. Things had calmed down by hte following day so we managed to get Diesel, our Western Unions and water as we headed out of town towards Bobo-Diolasso.
Tommorrow we are heading into Mali which promises to be even hotter than Burkina... quite a lot of interesting things to do there including the Dogon Trail and the boat trip up the Niger River to Timbuktou... personally I am still tired most of the time and struggling to sleep well in this heat... the majority of the pax on this leg are very good and don't seem to be causing too much additional stress.
Not sure what the communication structure is like in Mali but I will do my best to update from there when I get the chance.
Take care everyone.
