A day in Ziguinchor was spent lazily, like a sort of “me day”.
There is a Guinea-Bissau consulate in town that gives visas without hassle. I went there. But things first things: coffee.
My Rough Guide to Senegal mentions a bakery Ble d’Or and says they do espresso. It’s right in the centre of town and on my way to the consulate.
I grabbed a sandwich on the street, with some onion spread and akara. Akara are either bean flour or pounded bean cakes deep fried. I thought these are a very Nigerian kind of breakfast: there they are quite spicy and strangely eaten with bread (Nigerian bread is this mushy rubbery English style of bread, slightly sweet). Here they were not quite as good and akara wasn’t spicy at all. When the seller struggled to put the akara into the cut baguette, one of the ladies in crowd helped her with her fingers. I may have felt sand while eating the sandwich. The sandwich cost 300cfa.
The bakery Ble d’Or has quite an abandoned feel. I asked for coffee and my weak spot: pain au chocolat.
15 minutes later the coffee and pain are not coming. I asked the serving lady what’s up. She said the boss has left and they need him for the coffee. While she spoke French and I may have misunderstood the words she used she said le grand est parti. As I didn’t wanna get to the consulate too late I told he I’d come back when le grand is back.
The consulate is located on a sandy street, a maybe 15mins walk from the bakery. I was directed to a room, where there was someone else getting the visa. I asked for the visa, I paid 20.000cfa and the man took out a sticker and wrote things on it and put it into my passport. 10 minutes later I came out of the building with the visa. Ah, if only it goes like this with visas all the time.
The man who was getting the visa before me stopped me on the street. His name is David and he is from Spain. He wants to get to South Africa on his bike. He is camping. He seems to be on a more strict budget than me, from North Senegal he said he cycled around Gambia to get to Zinguichor in order not to pay the €60 visa they asked him for. From Dakar it is 850km while if you cross Gambia it’s 450km. That’s around 4 extra days of biking.
I asked David about Mauritania because that’s where there is nothing on the road. He said that the 480km stretch between Nouadhibou and Nouakchott took him 8 days. Whoa. He also got sick while biking from Nouakchott down to the border with Senegal and spent 2 weeks in a hospital in St Louis.
We chatted a bit, I manage to make him worry about his Ghana and Nigeria visa (he hasn’t got any but he believes Spanish passport is good in Africa) then I showed him where I stay (10kcfa was a bid too much), then we looked into my Rough Guide and we found an auberge “3km away from centre” that online claimed 5600cfa for a single room. I thought I could move there myself when I saw the price. David left. Later on he sent me a message that the auberge is OK “but a bit far” and that it costs 8000cfa.
I went back to my boulangerie pâtisserie. I got my coffee and my pain au chocolat. The coffee for which we needed le grand? Nescafé!! Argh.
I needed WiFi. I need to back up photos from my phone or I’ll soon run out of space. I haven’t seen WiFi for a week, since Ndagane. The Rough Guide mentions a hotel Le Perroquet which everyone uses to get online. They will have coffee.
The hotel is by the river and by the time I reached it I forgot about coffee, they had beer! I took a bottle of La Gazelle, I connected to the WiFi and a small bird landed – or rather fell – on my table. First I thought it was dead but it moved but barely. It wouldn’t be able to stand up, it looked like it was on its knees (if birds can even do that). The WiFi was painfully slow, I’d never be able to upload my pics, I switched back on to mobile network and decided to upload them anyway and then just recharge my credit. The bird was slowly coming back to live. It finally got up. It wouldn’t move. I was considering asking the waiter for a bit of water. Several minutes later the bird was gone.
I went to Erobong restaurant for lunch. It’s a bargain at 1000cfa for a rice and veggies and fish meal. I couldn’t resist another beer. Beer is flowing freely in Ziguinchor. Erobong also have rooms but they are 12000cfa.
After a siesta – temperature reached +38C – I went looking for a barber. I found one, it went pretty well, I paid 1000cfa, we chatted, there was Youssou N’Dour playing from the barber’s stereo. I’m not the biggest fan of Youssou N’Dour but here they play his music a lot. I mean almost everywhere I hear him. And the songs are nice. Much rawer and more drum-based than the ones I know. Could it be the CDs I have are smoothed out for European audience? The barber had a poster with many photos of many hairstyles he does. One of the hairstyle photos featured Joseph Kabila. Fancy a Kabila moustache?
I posted my postcards and decided to try again the coffee at Le Perroquet. There was a concert at Alliance Française at 9pm and I didn’t wanna show up sleepy. A local singer, Mariaa Siga, was performing.
The coffee wasn’t bad, it was espresso with a bit too much water for my taste, I also had jus gingembre, which was nice and properly gingerly.
Before the concert I went to Restaurant Le Kassa to eat something. It’s expensive, most meals in 5000-6000cfa range, I took shawarma poulet sandwich for 1500cfa – it was OK but poorly wrapped and it fell apart in my hands – and left for the concert by taxi.
I got dropped by back entrance. I didn’t know it was back entrance but once inside I saw people coming in and paying tickets (2000cfa) through another gate. There were restaurant round tables under a tree and in front of them a small scene.
After watching a short movie about women’s rights the concert began. The music was chilled and Mariaa was accompanied by drums, a guitar and a keyboard. If I didn’t know who she was I’d say it was South African music. Mariaa even sang one Miriam Makeba song. Occasionally the music became more dynamic, that’s when the drums kicked in and people would come before stage and do the dancing. But now I understand while in Mali there are 8 musicians on stage. It makes such a difference to the richness of music.
The concert lasted until 11:30pm, I took taxi back to the centre (500cfa but I was informed it rises to 1000cfa after midnight), had another shawarma at patisserie Ble d’Or (1400cfa) and La Gazelle in a corner bar on my way to the guesthouse.
The Bissau will have to wait one more day.
Coming back to Maman 