Saddle-sore in Ouagadougou
Trip Start
Nov 06, 2004
1
19
25
Trip End
Apr 30, 2005
Ouagadougou,
Burkina Faso
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
On top of this, I'd heard about a music festival held in the desert Northwest of Timbuktu, had emailed the organizers to find out how I could get a ticket, and been emailed back in return with instructions to transfer some money to a bank account in France. After mulling this over for a while to see if it was a wise idea or not, I'd decided to go ahead with it - the kicker was that I needed to email my folks to do the bank transfer for me, and the next place after Bobo where I could get email was in Ouagadougou (the thought of trying to transfer the money directly from a bank in Burkina Faso, in French, was too horrible to contemplate ) ... And I couldn't wait around in Bobo any longer otherwise I wouldn't get my Malian visa in time. With me so far? ...
Anyway, suffice to say that it was 2 days of 140 km each, literally on the bike from dawn to dusk, and a third of 95 km. Not much fun, especially as there was a bit of a headwind. The only memorable happening of any sort occurred in a room in the only (partially completed) guest house in a small town along the way. While organizing my bedding by kerosene lantern in a small bunker-like dark concrete room something large and black scuttled off into a corner. Thinking it was a cockroach I squashed it with my shoe, only to be a bit surprised that it squashed so easily (cockroaches being pretty sturdy creatures, usually taking a number of blows from a solid object before being killed). This left a big black smear on the wall, but not being too keen to investigate further and find out what I had just killed, I made sure that my mosquito net was tucked around the mattress securely and went to sleep, hoping that that would be enough to stop any creepy crawlies ... only to wake up the next morning and discover that something else had eaten the big black smear in the night.
Come to think of it, one other thing happened which was quite amusing in retrospect. The air had gradually been getting drier and dustier as I worked my way North, and one of the unwanted side-effects of this was, to be blunt, dirt-encrusted and clogged nostrils. At one point in the afternoon on day 3, it reached the point where I could stand it no longer, and I resorted to unblocking the blockage, so to speak - only to cause an almighty nosebleed, just as I came up to a village and pulled in to try and find a cold drink. I'm not really sure what the owner of the local store thought when she first saw me, but she disappeared off and promptly came back with a bucket of water to wash my face with, which was much appreciated. She also made sure to point out to me that she thought it was due to me being silly enough to strenuous exercise in the middle of the day, when all sensible people found shade of some sort and stayed put until the heat died down. I didn't really feel like pointing out to her that it was actually self-induced.
Finally, getting in to Ouaga, I found a place to stay, and then an internet café to catch up with my emails, only to have my wallet pinched from under my nose while I was sitting in front of the computer. Pretty sure I know who it was too (there was only one guy sitting next to me), but you can't really go about searching people on suspicion alone.
I lost about 120 Euros worth of CFA (the local currency), which was a bummer, but luckily everything else wasn't important - the only real bummer was that it was my 'mugging' wallet, with enough expired credit / bank cards etc. to hopefully convince any aspiring muggers that it was my main stash, meaning that wouldn't hang around long enough to force me to give over my money belt. Oh well - ce la vie - at least I learnt the lesson of keeping all my money securely stashed in my moneybelt except for enough to last a day or so.
