Hotter than a pepper sprout
Trip Start
Jul 06, 2008
1
3
Trip End
Sep 09, 2008
Bissau,
Guinea-Bissau
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Mr & Mrs R are now officially BACK ON TOUR after a minor blip (namely
Mrs R's windy preoccupations). Seasoned readers of our occasional
missives will recall we were last in this part of the world back in
2002. This latest expedition covers some new countries for us - a
7-week round-trip taking in The Gambia, Senegal and Guinea (Conakry),
but focusing mainly on Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone. We zipped
through from Banjul, The Gambia across the Casamance region of Senegal
and entered the main event, Guinea-Bissau, in just 4 days. The Gambia
seemed friendly in our limited time. Exchanges in Senegal were as
tedious as we found them in 2002 - with us getting into more petty
squabbles (total = 3) in our 24 hours there, than we have in the rest
of our time away so far. As usual, Mr R blames the French. (Mrs R
has not established whether Mr R makes an association with the French
being the former colonial power in Senegal and not in The Gambia or
Guinea-Bissau - or whether he simply blames the French regardless.)
Guinea-Bissau provides our first experience of a former Portuguese
colony. From our rather isolated view of local culture - being
fleeting visitors, funny-looking white-fellas and English - the impact
of the former colonial nations is apparent in the behaviours of local
people. (Mrs R strongly recommends you do not get Mr R started on the
influence of the French, unless you want to see him in unusually
apoplectic mood.) In the case of the Portuguese, they seem to have
brought a laid-back Mediterranean attitude to work - and activity, in
general, which leaves Mr & Mrs Rs flashy new wrist-watches rather
redundant. Don't get us wrong - we're familiar with the practice of
waiting from our time in other parts of Africa. But the people of
Guinea-Bissau make an art of it. Take a typical day with Mr & Mrs R
in Guinea-Bissau:
- We wake
- We find a "chop house" and order breakfast - typically, omlette in
baguette, and a glass of hot drink (ovaltine, coffee, tea or
chocolate) with lashings of condensed milk
- And we enjoy our first wait of the day - for food to arrive
- We return to the hotel, pack up and head to transport hub. We may
have a universally-agreed departure time, in which case, we will
stagger our waiting - as much time as possible in the comfort of the
guest house. In the event of no fixed departure time, we'll head
straight to the departure point, and start the wait there - for a
vehicle to arrive, a vehicle to be fixed, a vehicle to fill, or even
an inexplicable wait crammed like sardines into a full vehicle. This
particular part of the waiting game is invariably the most frustrating
and has averaged about 3 hours thus far
- Once underway, we wait to arrive
- We arrive - often, rather inconveniently, in the dark due to the
earlier unscheduled delay
- Mrs R waits with bags and a cold fizzy drink while Mr R scouts out a
not unreasonably priced and not unreasonably dirty room
- We move in, drop bags and stumble along the unlit streets
(Guinea-Bissau has no mains electric), until we find a chop house that
hasn't stopped serving fish and rice. We order, and ...
- We wait
- Finally, with our destinies in our own hands and our bellies full,
we return to our room, enjoy a cold bucket shower and turn in for the
night - awaiting, with dread, the moment that the nightly generator is
switched off and with it the fan's gentle breeze stops and the room
settles into a hot house
All of this waiting has a certain zen-like charm. Once you've settled
in with a good book or just some sedentary people-watching, the hours
just fly by.
...However, all this protracted waiting has resulted in one unfortunate
incident. Bear in mind that given the season, Guinea-Bissau is
providing the most humid conditions Mr & Mrs R have ever experienced -
even sat perfectly still in the shade (waiting for something?), the
beads of sweat do not stop rolling. To set the scene: Sao Domingo,
N.W. Guinea-Bissau, into our 6th hour of waiting spread over 2 days
for a bus to the coast. Mr R's no longer feeling too zen. The next
thing he knows, he's lying unconscious in the dirt next to the
aforementioned bus, surrounded by a crowd of concerned locals and Mrs
R. For a few hours, we feared malaria, but it turned out to be simple
heat exhaustion. Seasoned readers will know what a trip to Africa
would not be complete without one of Mr R's "little accidents" to keep
Mrs R on her toes.
Still, all is well now.
In fact, must rush - we've got something to wait for.
Next stop: Guinea (Conakry).
The lost boy & the golden girl
