Cap Skirring, Senegal

After a month of wallowing in the litter of West Africa, I have become so accustomed to it that it is no longer an affront to my senses.  Rather than being incensed and outraged by the carpets of litter through towns, I have come to accept it, so much so that I approach a town with anticipation, eager to see what variations on litter it will offer.  I no longer regard the windswept hodgepodge of plastic bags and all else as an eyesore, but as decoration, an art form of a sort.  Its wide array of colors and forms and haphazard arrangement can be dazzling.  If a photographer of renown were to artfully shoot them and hang the photos on the hallowed walls of MOMA or some other museum of note, it could be hailed as a great discovery.  

The art world would be abuzz at the beauty and texture of the arrangements.  Pollack could do no better. 

It may be garbage, but I gaze upon its clusters not with repugnance, but with respect and wonder.  They elevate rather than deflate my spirit.  I have become like everyone else dropping my litter on the ground wherever I might be, happy to make a contribution, letting the winds place it where it chooses.  Some of the most eye-catching arrangements are in the thicker weeds with plastic bags adorning trees and bushes. It's not litter, it's art.  Towns can be proud of their creations.  

The palettes of garbage are occssionally embellished with goats or pigs nuzzling through the refuse and rearranging it.

Unlike the huge mounds of city dumps off in their own quarter, these are an actual part of the landscape and a town's daily life.

It is everywhere. wherever one might look.  It can be found on every street and road in some form or another.  Hopefully, I won't become so accustomed to it that I will take it for granted and it will lose its splendor.

Though I have come to appreciate the profusion of garbage, I am not so enamored with the ramshackle gauntlet of run-down tiny shops that define and line the main street through every town I pass through.  There is little to distinguish one town from another.  No one seems to care about giving their town any distinction or attraction.  Senegal and Mali may have been French colonies, but they gained none of the French desire to beautify their towns with flowers and sculptures and town halls of distinction. 

In France every village seems to be vying for recognition as a "Beaux Ville," as attentive to its appearance as the average French woman with her makeup and attire.  Every town is a gem.  In comparison it's hard not to regard every African town a slum.  Maybe with more time I can come to recognize them as something more.  I'm told litter didn't use to be such a scourge, that people would find some use for every scrap.  Maybe the prevalence of garbage is an initial step to beautification.

The remote fishing village of Cap Skirring, near the border with Guinea-Bissau, that is being transformed into a resort complete with a Club Med, adorned its roundabout with a pair of sculptures.  

No effort though had been made to add any allure to its main street nor to tidy up the heart of its beach where the fishermen bring in their catch.  It was a vast network of dilapidated shacks dominated by the stench of rotting fish. I had taken a 45-mile side trip from Ziguinchor to give the beaches of Cap Skirring, considered the best in Sengal, a look and take a rest day while I awaited the twice-a-week ferry from Ziguinchor to Dakar.  As I searched for a place to camp, I was terrorized by a squadron of tourists rampaging on ATVs.  

I was tempted to turn around and head back to Ziguinchor.  But I found a bungalow complex on the outskirts of town that offered camping space.  It wasn't on the beach, but it offered the quiet that I sought and a clothes line for my wash. I had asked a handful of people, including a long-haired French guy who had lived in Cap Skirring for years, if they knew of a place that offered camping.  None did, though they offered suggestions on where I might try.  The French guy put in a call to a friend who might let me pitch my tent on his property, but he wasn't answering.  But persistence once again paid off.

Among those staying in the bungalows was a French couple who had been coming to Cap Skirring for twenty years staying at the same place.  I was the first person who had ever camped there during their time. Camping is simply not part of the local culture, and travelers inclined to camp aren't drawn to Cap Skirring or aren't traveling with the capacity to do it.  Shockingly one can fly into this small town directly from Pairs.  There is a twice-weekly Club Med flight.  Cap Skirring was actually a Club Med discovery and is responsible for its becoming known.  The French couple said the town was more popular when they first started coming.  It's presently in decline.  It still attracts sex tourists, almost as many women as men.  The French couple acknowledged a local woman becoming a prostitute could give her the means to open a boutique, but the men who engage in the trade are much greedier, hoping to get enough money to buy a car or more.  They lose their work ethic.  There is a shortage of men who are willing to do hard work.  The area used to abound in rice paddies, but it is now difficult to find people willing to engage in such work.

As in The Gambia not many of the tourists were drawn to the beach.  There were as many bovines as people on the sand.

I had opted the night before to camp rather than stay at a hotel with a young pony-tailed Swiss guy who I had met at the Sukuta campground.  We were both happy to see a familiar face when we encountered each other late in the day in the town of Oussouye, seventeen miles before Cap Skirring.  He said he was the only guest at an auberge several blocks away.  It was tempting to have a sociable evening, but I had my heart set on camping among the palm trees that had taken over the countryside as I approached the ocean, giving a hint of paradise.  And as I sat in my tent eating and reading in complete and utter silence gazing up at the palm trees around me, I was happy to have another genuine African experience of my own.

Bissau, Guinea-Bissau

Among the wealth of advice that Reinhardt, the German who has been driving cars to Africa to sell for years, gave me was to acquire my visa for Guinea-Bissau at its consulate in Ziguinchor, Senegal twelve miles north of the border, rather than at its embassy in The Gambia.  He said it would be quicker and cheaper.  I was beginning to wish though that I had gotten it over with while I was in The Gambia as I struggled to find the consulate.  The first person I asked, a motorcycle taxi driver, sent me a mile-and-a-half down the road, either not understanding my question or simply being ill-informed.  The next person I asked knew its general vicinity back from where I had come and even volunteered to drive me there, but not knowing how long it would take to get the visa, I didn't care to keep him waiting to take me back to my bike.  

As I've experienced all too often here, my search for the consulate turned into a most aggravating ordeal, as I had to ask another half dozen people, who all headed me in the general direction of the consulate without knowing its precise location.  I could have easily tracked down The Guinea-Bissau embassy in The Gambia, as it was marked on my GPS device,and if I had, by the time I finally found the consulate in Ziguinchor, I would have already crossed the border into Guinea-Bissau.  Anyway, once I found the small consulate off on a side dirt road, it was an easy matter of getting the visa and all was well.

At least the border crossing was accomplished with a minimum of fuss, just as I managed leaving The Gambia the day before returning to Senegal for a brief spell.  My passport is filling with Sengal entry and exit stamps and I have two more to come.  It was even an easy matter of changing my remaining dilisas to CFAs, which was also the currency of Guinea-Bissau, as it had been in Senegal and Mali.

Crossing into the souther segment of Senegal, known as Casamance, was like crossing into another country with its lush, tropical vegetation, a stark contrast to the semi-desert of the rest of the country, one of the reasons there is a separatist movement there that at times has resorted to violence.  It has presently calmed down, but there is enough of a residue of the rebel mentality for one to be wary of banditry.  Reinhardt advised that I be careful about camping, so when I came upon a campement, rustic accommodations catering to locals, outside a small town, I decided to take advantage of it even though more than an hour of light remained.  

They don't necessarily provide camping, but this one allowed me to set up my tent under a very shady mango tree  after considerable raking to clear a flat spot, not having had anyone camp there in quite a spell.  The preferred stay is in one of three large oval huts divided into four or five rooms each with toilets and showers in another hut.  It was perfect for me, though there was no electricity until after dark and the mosquitoes were pesky enough to find their way into my tent.  I had to arise a couple of times during the night and turn on my headlamp and go on a killing spree to eliminate the few who had penetrated my defenses.  It is staggering how loud a buzz such a slight wisp of protoplasm can make.  When I camp in the bush away from human contact the mosquitoes have not been an issue.  They weren't a particulate nuisance at the Sukuta campground, but after dark a mosquito or two would make its presence known.

The vegetation became even more tropical in Guinea-Bissau with palm trees along the road and orchards of mango and apple trees. The lightly traveled road to the capital was narrow and unlined, like a secondary road, with patches of potholes when the road dipped to pass through dry river beds that would overflow during the rainy season.  

Signs were in Portuguese, as Guinea-Bissau is one of two countries in West Africa that were colonized by Portugal, the other the Cape Verde Islands.   People along the road well know it is unlikely visitors speak Portuguese so they would great me with "Hello" followed by "ca va?" combining English and French.  The small villages seemed no different than any others I had been passing through the past month.  There would be small tables with a handful of oranges or tomatoes for sale and with luck bananas or flour balls.  No ice balls though.  Guinea-Bissau, along with Mali and The Gambia, is among the twenty poorest countries in the world. West Africa is the poorest region in the world with nine of its eighteen countries in that bottom twenty.  

It is obvious from the minimal offerings and basic, somewhat primitive, dwellings, that these people are just scraping by, leading simple lives that might be termed lives of deprivation.  Since they do have a sense of the rest of the world out there, they surely understand they don't have as much as most.  How they accept this, someone such as me just passing through wouldn't know.  If their underlying attitude is reflected by the children who ask for money, they can't be fully accepting of their lot.  I frequently recall the comment of a Kenyan when I biked around Lake Victoria a few years ago.  When it took me two trips to haul all my gear from my second floor hotel room, after my second load he said, "You white people are given so much."

I thought I might spend a day hanging out in Bissau, the capital of Guinea-Bissau, but it had no allure, not even its ocean front and port.  It could be the world"s most run-down, bedraggled capital.  Most of the side streets, even those leading to the port, are dirt and rocky, most treacherous to bike.  At least there's not much traffic.  The old colonial buildings all look like they could collapse if there was a shudder of an earthquake.  I was the only guest at Lonely Planet's endorsed pension, just as I had been in Dakar.  West Africa is not much of a draw.

An Interlude at the Sukuta Campground

After ten days and over 800 miles of unrelenting cycling since Bamako, pushing it day by day to meet various deadlines—to reach a town with a hotel before dark or a border before closing time or wifi on Valentine's Day—I was ready not only for a rest, but also recovery time, when I came to the Atlantic resorts of The Gambia.  I didn't stay at a resort, but rather the lone campground among them.  It was easily the most fascinating place around, packed with veteran travelers of African who could hold forth for hours on their years of adventures all over the continent.

It had ten slots for campers and twice that many lodge-style rooms for rent in its walled in compound down a sandy dirt road a mile from the ocean.  It was filled, but the German owner found space  for me in the lone slot without a car, just a couple of tents of Germans who had driven down and sold their car.   They were leaving the next day and shared a bounty of food they had driven down with and hadn't finished off--pâté, pumpernickel bread, crackers, jam, soup, pineapple juice, a can of peaches and more.  I dove right in, as I had a lot of eating to catch up on.

All the campers had heavy-duty vehicles with a pair of spare tires and plenty of accessories, including shovels and ladders, anticipating as many eventualities as they could.  They had all crossed the Sahara to get this far.  They were a hardy and enthusiastic lot.  A Spanish guy had ridden his motorcycle around the circumference of the continent a year ago--an epic nine-month journey.  His wife joined him in Cape Town for a couple months, but was happy they were driving this year.  The three Germans, who had each driven a car and sold it, had been running such an operation for over twenty years--a car a year to subsidize a couple months getaway to Africa.  They used to be able to drive the Sahara through Algeria and on to Timbucktu, but that is an era of the past.  They had all great advice and contacts on the road ahead to look up.  There was literally no shutting them up once they got going.  I didn't mind in the least, except when I needed to get some food in me or get off my feet if they ambushed me when I was on foot.

My first afternoon I took a nap and might have slept straight through the night if I hadn't been jolted awake after a couple of hours by a barking fit of a dog outside our compound.  None of this crowd were beach people, nor I, but I still felt obligated to give it a look.  It went on for miles and miles uninterrupted by any privatizations.  None of the long string of hotels were overly deluxe nor had encroached upon the beach with seating or bungalows.  My glimpses just revealed a handful of people walking the beach, not laying upon it.

The campground with its plethora of trees providing shade and capturing the cool breeze off the ocean keeping the temperature in the 80s was oasis enough.  I still spent most of my three days there exploring the coastline.  I went as far north as I could, fifteen miles to the capital of Benjul on the wide Gambia River where one had to take a ferry to continue further.  And I also went a dozen miles south down the coast to an Arts Village.

I was delighted to find a woman at the turn in from the paved road to the campground with a large pot of spaghetti that the locals ate in a baguette.  I could stop and fill my Tupperware bowl whenever necessary.  Almost as good, though no bargain, was a bakery a mile away catering to the tourists that sold hearty meat and cheese and vegetable pies and also waffles along with a wide assortment of cupcakes and breads.  The greatest discovery though was a grocery store that sold Gambian peanut butter fortified with baobab fruit powder.  I was familiar with the taste of baobab as I finally made my introduction to baobab juice--a smooth, creamy white drink laced with sugar.  It was a nectar of the gods.

Among my projects, along with swapping my front and rear tires, was to get a haircut to make it easier for the heat to release from my head.  The white-haired owner of the campground had a nice shaggy haircut as I prefer but he said couldn't share his barber, as it was his wife.  In my meanderings I saw a few hair salons trying to look high-end.  My preference was unprentious.  I knew I had it when a came upon the “Look Good Barbing Salon.”

The barber was finishing up a very talkative guy who had worked for Sky in London and MacDonald's in Sweden, but was now back in his home country working for a hotel.  He helped explain to the barber, who only spoke a little English, that I only wanted a trim.  He was accustomed to leaving just a stubble.  He only had an electric trimmer, so had to go in search of scissors.  What he came back with were so dull they could barely cut my super-thin hair, so he used my plenty sharp tiny scissors I use on my facial hair.  He was ultra concerned about taking off too much, as his previous fluent client had told him to only take off "the tips."  But he eventually grew braver and went beyond the tips and gave me a nice tidy trim unlike any of the many samples of haircuts hanging on his wall.  He asked permission to use his clippers on my neck and then used it to even off the rest of the cut.  He was as fastidious as any barber who has put scissors to my mane.  

It had been eight months since Janina had lopped off my hair in France. When I sped off on my bike it was refreshing to feel the cooling rush of air on the back of my neck for the first time in a while.  On the way back from the barber I paused to take a stroll through Monkey Park, a mile-and-a-half stretch of thick forest along the coast in the middle of the cluster of hotels.  It is home to two breeds of several hundred monkeys who are tame enough to take peanuts from the hands of children.

They saunter along and lay about on the same trails that visitors follow, paying their human intruders much less attention than the children who come running at me in villages hoping for a handout.

They were remarkably blasé and photogenic, much like the snow monkeys of Japan.

At last I'd had an animal experience other than goats and donkeys in Africa.  The continent may be synonymous with wild game, but humans have encroached on so much of their habitat, it is only found in isolated pockets.

On either side of the park for miles was unbridled development and a cesspool of billboards advertising all manner of things for sale and accommodations for rent.  On some stretches there was a mini-billboard on every lamppost.

The traffic was equally noxious, dominated by a steady stream of pesky yellow taxis. Three miles down the coast from the campgrounds the congestion thinned out and The Gambia returned to being The Gambia.  A pair of baobabs with bird nests came at a point of non-development.

A little further the fishing village of Tanji were an even more distinct departure from the westernization of The Gambia.  This was as far from the tourists as the moon.

Boats were unloaded of their hauls without docking.

Contents were hauled in buckets and wheelbarrows and put on tables or in piles.

A few miles further down the coast, an artist had created a small domain of his work that he called the Tunbung Art Village.  It was several huts with murals on the outside and paintings on the inside under a canopy of trees with all sorts of dangling objects--car doors and bottles and records and staple guns and bicycle wheels and more.

It was in relative isolation down a sandy dirt road that was even less bikeable than the road to the campground..

There was nothing baobab related, as there had been at the truly remarkable collection of art on Gorée Island off of Dakar, but it still provided a welcome respite from the hubbub of the tourist mania further north.  There was some development down this way, people offering places to stay, that would appeal to those looking for a Gambia experience and not just an escape from winter.  I was taking a liking to the campground culture and the various escapes I found from the resort development, but the road beckoned, so it is now back to Senegal and on to Guinea-Bissau.

Sukuta, The Gambia

The frozen bags of fruit juice were my salvation as I pedalled 250 miles across The Gambia on an undulating, twisty road in oppressive 90-degree heat. Even at 9:30 in the morning before it had heated up I could not resist these tasty treats.  They didn't come as often as I'd like, sometimes not for several towns and as much as twenty miles, so I didn't pass up a one.

I didn't flinch when an enterprising young woman demanded ten dollars (twenty cents), double the normal price. I laughed and said "five," to which she agreed, realizing I knew the going rate.  But if she hadn't budged, I would have gladly paid whatever she wanted.

She was definitely the exception as a price-goucher.  People have generally been the opposite, tossing in an extra banana or flour ball or even ice ball.  One woman brought me a bowl of rice and bowl of sauce fresh from her kitchen  as I sat on the porch of her shop drinking a bottle of cold water I had bought from her.  When I reached into my pocket, she waived her arms saying, "no, no."  One of the young girls selling ice balls gave me two extra as I sat beside her breaking up the one I had bought to put in my water bottle.

I'm not sure how much of it is simple generosity or possibly feeling sorry for me riding in such heat, that I must be truly impoverished, too poor to afford a bus.  When I asked a young girl the price of a stew she was selling, she said, "Five dollars, if you have the money."  I had presented her with my bowl, somewhat similar to raggedy young boys who hang about with bowls looking for offerings.  I'm rather raggedy myself and she and others may take me as an older version of such ragamuffins. 

As I sat under a tree in the countryside a young girl passing on her bike asked if I was tired.  Shade is a precious commodity.  People are often clustered under large trees in the villages sprawled on matts.  A couple of donkeys, who couldn't find a tree, hugged a wall and its sliver of shade.

During the climax of the heat in the afternoon I am able to take advantage of village water pumps, as during most times of the day they are a hive of women and sometimes boys filling all manner of water containers.  I can slip in on such occasions and fill a water bottle, but I can't intercede to do any wash. When no one is using them I can get enough water to wash clothes and splash some water on me.  Invariably a young boy will leave his shady spot and pump for me.  Once as I was finishing up washing some clothes I was reprimanded by an older woman for doing my wash near the pump.  She spoke no English, just pointed where I had dumped my dirty water, shook her head giving me a dirty look and held her nose.  It's doubtlessly not the first time I have violated some taboo.

Despite taking longer and more frequent breaks in such heat, I still manage to put in six hours or so a day on the bike.  The first and last couple hours of each day are fine for riding.  The northeasterly winds have persisted, though not as strongly as in Senegal and Mali or carrying as much dust and sand, but they have given me an assist other than when the road turned north on its windy way to the coast. The riding has been a little easier without any speed pumps.  There were at least two in every village I passed through in Senegal and Mali, entering and leaving, and then several extra if the village was a bigger one.  

The Gambians slow of their own accord in villages, partially thanks to a greater number of police checks, only two of which halted me, one out of friendliness and curiosity, the other by a rare young woman solider being too serious about her job, even wanting to see what was in my panniers.  I opened one and pulled out my vest, which was on top, and that was enough for her.  Motorists, however, aren't overly respectful of cyclists.  They seem to regard them as a nuisance and rarely swing wide when passing, generally holding their line and passing unnecessarily close as if the cyclist isn't there. There was hardly an instance of that in Senegal and Mali.  Could be there are so few cyclists there, drivers don't mind giving them extra space, and it becomes a bother here.

Though the price of food is comparable to Senegal and Mali, there is a slight degree of more affluence in The Gambia. I see aluminum cans along the road.  Homes and shops are more substantial,  constructed mostly of brick rather than wooden slats.  And many more people can afford a bicycle. 

With its small size The Gambia has one of the highest population densities in Africa.  I was concerned that might make it a challenge to camp.  Two of my four nights I was caught in a stretch of small towns  forcing me to be a bit creative, but two of the other nights I had idyllic isolated campsites with no concerns of being stumbled upon.  One was just riddled with the thorniest bushes I have encountered.  My tires survived, but my calves and ankles were lacerated. 

Now that I have reached the Atlantic side of The Gambia, I can take a day of rest and indulge in my first dose of African beach culture.  Then it will be further south back to Senegal and on into Guinea-Bissau before I take the 16-hour ferry from Ziguinchor back to Dakar.

Soma, The Gambia

I'm back to buying water in bottles, as The Gambia doesn't have those bargain half-liter bags that were so common in Senegal and Mali, possibly because they are government subsidized.  But The Gambia has something even better--home-made small bags of frozen juice. They are sold by women and young girls in villages sitting along the road with a small cooler packed with them.  I can cut them into quarters with my knife, drop them into my thermos water bottle, add just enough water to begin the melting process and I am in instant heaven for the next half hour as the drink remains ice cold in my insulated water bottle.

If it weren't for these fruity ice balls,  I could go long spells without a cold drink, as few of the villages have electricity. I don't know how and where the bags come to be frozen, but whoever is responsible has earned my great gratitude.  In one village where no one was selling the ice balls I asked if there was a place to buy cold warer.  I was directed to a guy who had a refrigerator powered by solar panels.  Cold drinks were just a minor part of his business.  Mostly it was charging phones and other devices.  His fee was ten cents.  He had a couple dozen phones laying on his floor.

I won't be in any hurry to leave The Gambia, not only thanks to the frozen juice balls, but also because of the great cordiality of its people, not to mention English being its official language.  I was given an instant warm welcome at the border with the customs officials going out of their way to oblige me.  I arrived at five, fearful it might be closing.  I knew I was cutting it close, but I had been delayed on the Senegal side by an excessively friendly soldier who kept me in conversation longer than I wished.  He assured me though that The Gambia border was open until six.  No traffic had passed me from either direction for over half an hour at this quiet crossing point, so I was concerned, but it was still in operation when I arrived at the offices a mile past the Senegal offices.  It was eight miles in both directions to a town, so there was no confusion guessing which building to go to as there were no others. 

I was a little nervous about not having a visa, hoping Lonely Planet was still correct that one would be let into the country and then have three days to acquire a visa at the capital.  They weren't fully correct about that, as one could now get a visa right at the border.  Unfortunately for me, the person who issued visas was off duty at four.  If they had wished to be stubborn and make life difficult for me, they could have told me to come back the next day, but with so few people crossing at this border they called the guy who issues visas and he was happy to come back in and do it.  I was told the fee for a visa was 3,000 dalasis, which I was told was about $80.  I hadn't converted any money and there was no way to do it at the border, so happily they would accept dollars.  

The latest exchange rate was 47 dalasis to the dollar, which would be $63.  Not too long ago it was 30 dalasis to the dollar.  If I had acquired the visa from The Gambia embassy in the US it would have been $100.  This visa official could easily demand $100, but he was not an extortionist, and agreed upon $65.  He was so friendly and obliging, he even offered to drive me the eight miles into Basse to a guest house.  I still had an hour of light, so there was no need for that, plus I would camp if I could, and so I did, capping a wonderful entry into Africa's smallest country.  It is just 200 miles long and not much wider than 25 miles as it follows The Gambia River. It is surrounded by Senegal other than its Atlantic coast line. I had entered at its eastern end, so would have the pleasure of bicycling from one end of the country to the other.

Changing money in Basse was as pleasant as gaining entry into the country.  Though my debit card was rejected by an ATM, a nearby exchange bureau gave me 47.5 dalasis for a dollar and without any commission.  The young man who handled the transaction was delighted to learn my nationality.  "I have great respect for the United States," he said.  Then he asked if I was in the Peace Corps, as the only Americans he had ever met were in the Peace Corps.

I was happy he gave me a thick wad of 48 notes for my $100, all hundreds and one fifty, so I had no worries about trying to break larger bills, as the ATMs of Senegal and Mali had dispensed and were just about impossible to pass.  My first expenditures was a bowl of gruel for twenty cents and then a bottle of vanilla milk and the first pack of ramen I had seen in these travels.  I had brought two as emergency rations and had only needed to use one so far, so it was good to restock.  

It has been a genuine pleasure to be able to speak English, and have road signs in English, though many people only speak their indigenous language.  Another of the early delights of The Gambia is discovering packets of mango powder with vitamin C to flavor my water--a ten-cent pack is good for two liters.  I will stock up on those to last the rest of this trip and others to come.  They will greatly enhance my fluid intake.

The first woman I bought a frozen juice from pulled a bill from her pocket to show me how much it cost, not even knowing numbers in English.  The preferred term for dalasi is dollar, as people most frequently give a price of such and such in dollars rather than dalasi--ten dollars for a hard boiled egg, twenty cents, or five dollars for an ice ball, ten cents.

I haven't seen the river that runs through The Gambia yet, but I came upon the first swimming hole of these travels--an event to celebrate.  I didn't take a swim, but I did give myself and my shirt and neckerchief a wash at the mini-dam where the water flowing over it looked fairly clear.  A guy was fishing with a stick as a pole.

Bicycles are much more evident here than in Senegal and Mali.  Basse, the only significant city in the eastern half of the country, had at least two good-sized bike shops with a couple dozen bikes out front of each.  The bikes aren't particularly well-maintained.  Two cyclists I've talked to had detached, non-functioning brakes. The highway is in fine shape with a nice shoulder that I have no need of as there is so little traffic.  The road that runs through the country is not a trucker's route, nor even much of a bus route other than small local vans.  Despite the river the land is not much suitable for agriculture, just minimal grazing as in Senegal and Mali, so there is no significant traffic related to commerce. The prime entry to the country is at its western end near the capital and all the resorts.  It is very pleasurable cycling, other than the 90 degree temperatures.  And though this was an English colony, driving is on the right.  One of the more evident English influences is school children wearing uniforms, unlike Senegal and Mali--boys blue shorts and a white shirt, and girls a green dress. Another leftover of the British presence is occssionally being addressed as "sir," such as "Good morning, sir."  Not the children though.  They ask for money, some even saying, "Give me buck."

It was fifty miles before I came upon a baobab, as regal as ever, and with a green background here. 

 

When I reach the Atlantic where all the resorts are, many catering to packaged tours from Europe, I will be looking for an outdoor store with tents.  The zipper on my tent is kaput.  I initially tried using paper lips to hold the flap together, but not very effectively.  If the mosquitoes become an issue, I could use duct tape or semi-smother myself by letting the rainfly hug the opening.  In the meantime I have temporarily hung a colorful exotically-patterned wrap-around skirt I found along the road over the entry to my tent.   When I saw it I thought it was a fabric that would please Janina. Later I realized it might have been a guardian angel coming to my rescue to aid my tent crisis.  It pretty much keeps the flying insects out, but not the ants.

My tent isn't my only casualty. The washer on one of my pumps ruptured, rendering it useless.  I have long traveled with a spare.  I also lost two buttons on my shirt. I could at least repair it with my needle and thread and buttons off the pockets of the shirt.  My generator seems to be okay.  It was the batteries that were resisting being charged, so now I directly charge my iPad.  It's not as fast, but it is a relief as The Gambia uses the English three-pronged electrical outlets which I didn't bring an adaptor for.

 

Back in Senegal

If I were of a different mindset I would have been thrilled to learn there were several deluxe air-conditioned direct buses from Bamako to Dakar every day.  Sounkalo's aunt takes it a couple of times a year from Dakar on a buying trip to Bamako for soap and fabric and others items she sells in Dakar.

I could have taken the bus back to Dakar and gathered visas for Gambia, Guinea-Bisseau, Guinea and Liberia and then ridden down the coast.  But I am too much a purist to have even considered the bus.  I came to Africa to ride my bike.  Taking a bus would go against my nature. That bus ride might have only taken a day, but it would have been agony to be passing though such fascinating scenery and not being a part of it.  I would have become a tourist hopping from site to site rather than the traveler fully experiencing Africa. Plus I couldn't subject my bike to the indignity of being crammed in the cargo hold. So for the past week when one of those buses passed me every couple of hours, not once did I wish I were aboard, even when fhe afternoon temperatures had soared into the high nineties. They only reminded me how happy I was to be spending all this extra time among the baobabs.

If I had been flying past them unable to honor each with a full gaze, I would have felt as if I were committing an act of sacrilege.  

For some of the way the train tracks of the Dakar-Bamako line ran alongside the road.  If the route hadn't been closed down just a couple years ago I would have been tempted to have taken that, as it would have rolled along at a more relaxed pace than the bus and been a genuine African experience.  As it was, I camped a couple nights up and over the embankment of the tracks.  I even camped at the same spot I did coming, putting me precisely 80 miles from Tambacounda, the crossroads town where I would duck down to The Gambia and where there were a couple of nice hotels with swimming pools and wifi strong enough to give Janina a Valentine's Day call.

I recognized my campsite off in the brush by the two liter-and-a-half bottles I had left by a tree, thinking they'd make a great discovery for someone wandering through.  Obviously no one had in the two weeks since I'd been there. I was still procuring water back then in those large bottles early in my travels before I discovered the great bargain of water in bags when I crossed into Mali. They reduced my daily water expense from three dollars a day to ninety cents when I bought a gallon's worth.  Sometimes I'd have to go digging in a refrigerator to find them, but there were occasions when they dominated or were all a refrigerator stocked.

With a tailwind on my return, I accomplished those 80 miles to Tambacounda in 45 minutes less riding time than going the opposite direction.  I've dropped a thousand feet from the plateau I was on in Mali and for the first time my thermometer registered over 100 degrees.  I was mightily looking forward to a dip in a swimming pool.  I was crestfallen when the first hotel I came to was full and so was the other.  At the second I asked if I could camp.  I could though they had no grassy area or official camping area, just space off in the corner of the dirt parking lot.  When I asked the price the semi-English speaking young man at the desk looked questioningly at his female superior.  She knew I was desperate and quoted a price of $20.  "How about ten?" I responded, but she held firm.  

Before setting up my tent or doing anything I plunged into the soupy warm pool and then retreated to the reception area to charge my iPad and catch up on email.  I hadn't been able to check in as the SIM card I acquired in Mali didn't work in Senegal.  An hour later the man behind the desk asked me if I had spoken to the Big Boss.  I was concerned that he was going to tell me I couldn't camp.  A while later the Big Boss, a Frenchmen who had been living in Senegal for 25 years, summoned me to his air-conditioned office.  He apologized for me being charged $20 to camp.  He said it should have been $10.  I could have dinner on the house or a refund.  Since I'd filled up my Tupperware bowl with rice for a dollar, I was happy for the refund.  And then when I left the next morning I was presented with a bag lunch of an apple and sandwich.

I asked if Valentine's Day was why the hotels were full or some holiday.  It was just a coincidence.  Most of those around the pool were Sengelese.  Later after dark we were entertained by a group of drummers beside the pool and outdoor dining area.  They leant an authentic African background when I Facetimed Janina.  She could share scenes of her snow-filled yard to contrast with the drumming.  

I had stayed in a hotel two nights before in Kayes, but couldn't call as its wifi was so weak it took me five hours to download a single podcast.  In Tambacounda I was stocking up with one every three or four minutes. In Kayes, the lone significant town for 400 miles from the Senegal border to just before Bamako, I had a choice of a $35 air-conditioned room or one with a fan for $20.  I always prefer the fan even though the temperature didn't drop below 80 degrees in my room.  I was able to wander the throbbing town of Kayes stocking up on food before dark, highlighted by a woman selling slices of papaya wrapped in cellophane on a tray on her head. I also grabbed a couple bags of dough balls. I can never have enough of those.  I added another cluster on my way out of town the next morning, fresh out of the pan from a woman near the school yard.

Unlike elsewhere in Africa, I haven't spotted a student in a uniform. At least none are barefoot, as was so common in Madagascar, not only among children, but also adults.  That has been a rarity here, just an occssional feral youth.  One such kid hanging around a store with a refrigerator was thrilled when someone passing through in a car who had stopped for a cold crank handed him his half-drunk bottle of soda.  He didn't immediately gulp it down, but made it last with small sips. It must not be so uncommon of an occurrence, as he didn't seem particularly surprised.

It was a relatively painless re-entry to Senegal.  

The same office that stamped me in to Mali, stamped me out, but I had to go a ways into Kidara on the other side of the border to be stamped back into Senegal by a different office than had processed me when I left.  I asked at three or four offices before I found the right one.  There was a bus load of passengers including one older Polish guy being processed.  He told me which door to go through.  A young man behind a desk had a pile of passports, but he kept me waiting less than a minute and quickly stamped my passport and sent me on my way. No bullshit on either side of the border unlike the Ivory Coast embassy in Bamako. 

Among the trucks backed up at the border was a mournful donkey tethered to a cart missing a wheel.

Donkeys are the primary beast of burden. They pull huge loads.  It's a wonder I don't see more broken down, as I do see plenty of trucks disabled along the road with its drivers  laying underneath in the shade or under a tree, if one is nearby,  waiting for help.  If it's early morning or late afternoon they will have a fire going brewing tea.  Occasionally they'll wave a cup at me enticing me to join them.  If we could communicate better, I could set up my tent for the night beside them.

No flat tires for me in over 500 miles since a shard of glass in Bamako.  It's getting to be time for me to swap my rear tire for the front unless I come upon a bike store that stocks my size.  That might not be possible until I return to Dakar, though that is a couple weeks away unless I have visa issues going south.  If I return to Dakar prematurely I can ride up the coast the the World Heritage city of St. Louis and possibly cross into Mauitania for a true taste of the Sahara.  Whatever it may be, I won't be regretting in the least being denied the Ivory Coast, only that I couldn't connect with DL in Liberia.  That only means I may have to return next year if he's still teaching there.

Koligaté, Mali

For the first time in the three weeks of these travels my stomach rebelled against something I had eaten.  I was half-way through my dinner of couscous and sardines when it registered a protest and threatened an upheaval.  It couldn't have been what I was eating, as it was one of my two usual dinners, that or my preferred couscous with hard boiled eggs when I can find them.  It could have been the rice meal I had bought along the road in the middle of the afternoon and only finished eating before starting in on the couscous.  One never knows what sauce will go on the rice and how long it has been sitting, but I've seen plenty of evidence of good hygiene, from people wanting to wash my tupperware bowl before putting anything in it to warning me to eat my meal within a couple of hours.  

I feared I hadn't eaten enough, but I had no choice but to desist.  It was late enough to curl up and drift off to sleep, never a problem after seven hours on the bike.   Laying down seemed to appease my stomach.  I was relieved that I didn't wake during the night, either out of hunger or the need to expel whatever had been unwelcome to my stomach.  Evidently I had fed it enough during the day and the protest was that it didn't want any more.  That was a first and a good sign that I'd finally figured out how to get enough calories into me.  I had been lucky that day to get two solid meals along the road from the village cooks and had supplemented them with dough balls and a couple of bananas.

The next day I was lucky to find a bottle of vanilla milk in a refrigerator.  It had been days since I'd had such a quality drink, as at $1.50 it is more than the daily wage of most of the people and simply not stocked.  I'd spent less than three dollars a day the previous three days since leaving Bamako and was hoping I could find more and better nourishment and up my spending.  One way would be to indulge in soft drinks, which go for sixty cents, more than a bowl of rice.  It doesn't feel quite right though to spend so much on a drink when a half-liter bag of water, larger than a soda, can be had for ten cents.

I don't feel comfortable savoring a soda while all around me are those who can't even afford a bag of cold water, simply drinking from the town well.  But I'd also like to support the local businessman and spend more than a dime or two on those bags.  They've got to be disappointed when that's what I choose.  Anything cold is perfectly satisfying.  Every twenty miles or so I come upon a village with a store that has a refrigerator and I can have a cold drink even though the heat isn't as oppressive as it can be. It has moderated as the wind has been blowing from the north and the east the past several days, actually giving me an assist, enabling me to have back-to-back one hundred mile days.

Even without a tailwind I'd be reveling in this ride.  Aside from the occasional quagmire of potholes, the road has been smooth and there has been minimal traffic.  The terrain is mostly flat allowing my legs to keep a steady pace and my mind to wander at will.  All else other than the moment is a long ways away.  The scenery is speckled with scraggly trees and bushes, highlighted by the occssional baobab, truly the king of trees.  They tower above all else.  This is a kingdom unlike any other.

Most are solitary figures, but there is also an occssional family or harem, whatever the case may be, clustered together.

I can go miles and miles without seeing any, so I was fortunate again last night to have one to camp behind when dark fell.

Some are exquisitely designed and some are magnificently deformed.

They come in many forms and perversions.

Some may be witches or wizards, demons or angels.

What undiscovered varieties might lurk beyond the horizon  is beyond imagining.  A true fanatic could wander in distant quarters for days searching them out. There could well be many spectacular versions never beholden by the human eye.  Those within site of the road truly place this 900-mile ride from Dakar to Bamako among the greats.  It is unknown because one must be willing to rough it. The pedaling is within the capabilities of any cyclist, but the lack of accommodations and the uninspiring food can be daunting.  Not being able to bath for days and days would be be an unendurable hardship for some.  There may not be any side attractions--ruins or museums or wineries or waterfalls--but it is a purist's dream ride.  

It is always most satisfying to do a ride independently, but tour operators could provide all the luxuries of an African Safari, carrying gear and setting up encampments at specific baobab sites with full-scale kitchens and portable showers and all else.  But if one is catered, it greatly diminishes the feeling of independence and autonomy that is synonymous with the bicycle.  And it would deny one the great satisfaction of the unexpected, such as coming upon someone selling slices of papaya along the road.  What a celebratory moment that was.   I had no idea what the orange fruit was, but it could not be resisted.  It was astounding to have such a tropical delicacy in this semi-desert, but it came in a small village that had the capability for irrigation.  A bite of papaya never tasted so good.

No worries about dogs. Not a one has barked or given chase.  They are too preoccupied with more serious matters, accompanying the goat herders and also jogging  along behind the donkey-drawn carts transporting wood.  I did see one chasing a rodent that darted across the road in front of me.  He was cantering along at a relaxed pace knowing the rodent couldn't outlast him.  

The biggest hazard is the dust/sand in the air blown from the Sahara.  It coats my bike, not only clinging to my chain, but my cyclometer wire and all else.  It clogged the zipper on my tent, which I was able to save by washing it clean.  A malfunctioning zipper wouldn't be a total disaster, as mosquitoes haven't been an issue except when I've stayed indoors, whether at a hotel or with Bruce and Sounkalo.  They nibbled mercilessly at my ankles.  Fortunately, when I've slept in doors, all except once, the beds have been accompanied by mosquitoes nets.  And when I didn't have one, I simply erected my tent.

I don't know if the dust/sand-laden air is to blame for my generator hub malfunctioning, but it's not fully recharging my battery packs any longer.  When I woke one morning to discover that my iPad had inexplicably drained to zero, I feared I was in big trouble, not only losing my GPS device and camera, but, most disastrously, my means of communicating with Janina.  She was concerned enough to want to send me off with a transmitting device our friend Wendy used this past summer while she was hiking the Colorado Continental Divide Trail to appease her husband's worries. Not only could it send out a signal giving her  exact location, but it could send out a signal if she was in need of help.  Janina was all for that, but I figured I'd be able to find wifi every couple of days and let her know all was well, as I've been able to do in Madagascar, Oman, the Philippines and elsewhere.  If I suddenly lost my iPad, it could be days and days before I could contact her, causing her untold turmoil.  

I had a not so pleasant day of cycling as I worried what had gone awry with the iPad.  There was no electricity  along the way that day to wake it up. though I knew I'd be coming to a town with some the next day.  I also had another battery pack buried in my panniers that might be more cooperative.  I patiently waited until that night to dig it out.  I could have given a yell of delight and relief when it worked. And the next day I was able to use an electrical outlet at a gas station to give it more of a charge.  But I'm still having difficulties with my generator charger.  Maybe it will heal itself as did my head lamp.  It was out of operation for several nights and then when I tried it in Bamako before searching out a replacement, it was back functioning.  It too is a luxury that I've grown used to.   My Katydn water filter was also on the blink for a few days, but after a rest it's back in full operation, though I don't use it that often as I'm too dependent on wanting cold water.

There is always something to be concerned about. Next up is getting back into Senegal.  Since no visa is required and I've already been there that should be no concern, but one never knows.  Then it will be getting into The Gambia.  At least it is an English-speaking country.  If I'm turned away I can just continue on through Senegal and give Guinea-Bissau a try before turning north back up to Dakar, possibly by coastal ferry.